beingdifferent | Fourth little lie ♰ 'Cause I'm half-sick of shadows, I want to see the sky

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Fourth little lie ♰ 'Cause I'm half-sick of shadows, I want to see the sky

[Once again it's a video today, and Esther is fresh-faced and bright-eyed, obviously not too disturbed by recent events. Her communicator is set up on her bedside table, catching the gauzy canopy of her bed behind her and allowing her to use her hands to sign.]

Excuse me. I would like to ask a favor.

Some of you are teachers for the older kids. I don't want to go to school, but is there anyone who could teach me something fun? How to make something or play something. This place can be so boring sometimes. [She quickly amends, so as not to offend anyone:] But I like the library and the art room and the kitchen. During the port I learned how to fish, and I liked that too. Sometime, I'd like to do it again.

Do any of you know how to do things like that?

[OOC: Esther is affected for the flood and has memory dates with Lua, the Emperor, Dent, and Ned, though everyone is welcome. CW: The memory threads may involve themes of violence, death, and sexual abuse, and are marked.]

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[Mothers and mother-like figures are not a happy subject for the Piemaker, who still feels the ache of his own mother's absence. He remembers being in Esther's exact place where she is in the present moment, standing in a kitchen at ten watching his mother bake pies. He remembers the sudden way she'd collapsed on the kitchen floor, the color leaving her face as the brain aneurysm killer her before she'd even had time to think something was wrong.

He remembers the color coming back to her face as he reached out and touched...

It was still new to him at the time. He hadn't known the rules, hadn't thought to question why he'd been given that gift. It wasn't within the Piemaker to question the rules, in case he might be told he'd broken them and be punished for him.

Either way, the facts were these; his mother was dead. He had reached out and touched her. And suddenly she was alive again. Just like that.

The Piemaker in the present time remains fixated on the past...just not his past. An equally fixed expression stares distantly at Esther as he attempts to pull his thoughts together to make a coherent response]

...

Suddenly...not as well as I was.

[She looks troubled, her brow furrowed, her lips a thin tight line. The memory of the other kitchen, of her mother but not her mother, of the panic and the grief, is suddenly fresh and real in her mind.

And then reaching out and touching her -- and seeing her again --

So strange, so... wrong. But how could she say what was impossible?

Esther's expression doesn't change, but she blinks and focuses on Ned again, trying to return to the present moment.]

If you're feeling sick, you should lie down.

[He's sitting in the kitchen watching his mother sit up like nothing's happened. He's seeing her broken at the bottom of the stairs and feeling..happy? But he can't be happy if someone's dead, it's not. Death is not supposed to work like this.

Still barely keeping to the present and shutting his eyes as if to shut out the blood and the misery, the Piemaker's arm stretches out for a kitchen chair. He pulls it over, drops into it, and huddles there]

I think I just need to, um. To.

[To watch, as the timer in the kitchen goes off and across the street, his neighbor collapses in much the same way as his mother did. He's dead now; it's easy to tell even from that distance. Life for life; his mother, for Chuck's dad.]

[There's her father lying dead in a pool of blood, lying dead in an otherwise pristine scene. There's guilt now, a weight bearing down on her and a knowledge as constant and fresh as her own heartbeat -- bad, bad, bad --

Esther watches Ned collapse into the chair, watches the neighbor's body fall to the ground one more time. She sees a woman sit up, healthy and whole after her death, and she's unaware her entire body is tense. Her fingernails are digging into her palms, and her breathing is labored.]

Yes.

[She takes a few steps closer then settles to the floor, legs crisscrossed in front of her, and looks solemnly up at Ned, doing her best to focus on him here and now.] Is there something wrong with your head?

[Death and dead bodies are not an unfamiliar sight to the Piemaker. His mother's was only the first in a long, long line of people dying around or near or because of him. So when the Piemaker begins receiving visions of another murder, another death, the subject matter itself doesn't phase him as much as the idea that he's picking up memories of other people.

He grimaces and leans forward on his knees as the familiar feeling of acid reflux bubbles up to meet him]

Head, and stomach, and heart. Yes.

Are you..?

[Are you seeing what I'm seeing?

Are you seeing that same night, still ten years old, when your mother bends down to kiss you goodnight and falls dead to the floor as soon as her lips touch your forehead?

And no matter how many times you touch her, she won't be coming back to life?]

[For a moment Esther goes soft around the edges as she feels the absence keenly, mother slipping away for something as simple as a gesture of affection. Maybe the last one. "I love you" just before the end, just before her body crumples one more time, just before the blood begins choking him.

And she's sharing it, it's half hers and half Ned's and blending together in a disgusting mix of helplessness and exiliration and sorrow. It's wrong. It's not his and she doesn't want his memories mixed in with hers.

She isn't aware that in the kitchen, in the present, she's biting her lip hard.]

Stop it.

[The Piemaker sits back in his chair, arms crossed tight across his chest. He breathes in and out, slow and steady to slow his racing heart. Dead mothers, dead fathers, children responsible for the loss and the grief and he can't put into words how the shared misery is making him want to crawl into a trunk again and never come out..

Digby, the dog, takes charge. He barks once, a great big woof to break the spell cast over the Piemaker, who opens his eyes again.

He's here. He's in a kitchen on the Barge. These aren't his memories.]

That's better.

[Esther is curled up herself, her fingers clasped tightly over her folded knees. They had shared something she didn't want to share and in this moment she feels a sense of violation, of anger and defeat and humiliation (he knows, someone knows) and suddenly the thought fills her mind: Kill him.

But she wonders if touching him to kill him would mean she'd die too.

So she waits, staring at the man until she regains enough composure to ask a question. To push the attention away from her, to use what she'd been saddled with.]

How did you do that?

[There had to be a reason that Esther, young as she is, would be an inmate. The Piemaker believes he's seen it for the first time, as he slides out of his chair to sit on the floor in front of Esther. He too hugs his knees, which tends to look a little ridiculous with how tall of a man he is.

He hadn't wanted anyone to know his secret when he came to the Barge. Now, whole groups knew. He wondered why he bothered keeping it a secret at all.

Digby trots over to put his head in Esther's lap. He wasn't bothered by memories. He only wanted to be petted]

I didn't...d-do anything.

I didn't do anything.

[Unconsciously, Esther slings an arm over the dog's neck and scratches his ears. Digby doesn't judge, he's allowed the affection. But she's unsure she can say the same as Ned, whose face she never looks away from.]

But something happened. [Her voice is softer now, the strictness gone from it, and she sounds scared and sad as she looks.]

[Digby did not in fact judge, unless it was to judge the value of the scratches. In the case of Esther Coleman, he judged them above average, and continued to occupy her lap.

More than anything, the Piemaker looks distantly sad. He's met plenty of dead bodies and plenty of people who made those bodies dead, but it's rare he sees it in someone this young. And it isn't within him to pass judgment on a near-stranger when she saw for herself how young he was when he committed his own first accidental homicide]

It's a flood. I didn't realize it was a flood.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to see.

Please don't be scared.

[Esther hugs Digby's head to her lap, treating the large dog like a small teddy bear and looking down at him thoughtfully.

Her first instinct is to strike out and run, of course, to take care of Ned and bury the mistake, but she doubts that will work. There have to be other options, she thinks as she grinds her teeth together. There has to be something she can to do to keep from being an object of pity.]

...Did you see it all?

[Luckily, Digby is old and pretty complacent. He lets himself be manhandled by Esther, his ears only just slightly perking up as he looks from Ned to Esther without moving his head.

The Piemaker, in turn, looks miserable. He likes secrets when they're kept; not so much when they're revealed. So he can sympathize with Esther's unwillingness to share her unfortunate past, and stares down at his hands solemnly]

I saw them die. Yes.

You can't talk about it! [She all but hisses, voice going quiet from urgency. Nothing in nature could make her regret the actions, and there's nothing that can convince her they didn't deserve to die. But her lack of remorse doesn't mean she wants the knowledge public, the hate or pity she got at the Saarne Institute revisited.]

You can't tell anyone about it. [A determined frown.] You can't. I won't let you.

[Contrary to Esther's frantic pleas, the Piemaker only looks at her with quiet resolve. He's sympathetic to that desperation, to keep secrets hidden]

Esther.

I grew up with secrets I kept for twenty years.

You don't have to 'not let me' for me not to tell. I'm not a secret-teller.

[There were several responses she anticipated, and that was precisely none of them. Esther blinks, her eyes wide and disbelieving. Of course he's going to tell, everyone who found out always did. But she frowns thoughtfully again, shrinking around Digby a bit.]

You won't tell the other wardens?

It's not their business.

...Technically speaking, it's not my business either, so I'd be...even worse if I told without your permission.

You're not hurting anyone here. It's not a threat. So they don't need to know.

It isn't their job to know.

[For a long moment, Esther studies Ned's face. She continues stroking Digby's ears, looking for all the world like a movie villain before she nods.]

Thank you.

I don't like to talk about it.

And I don't like to talk about whatever it is you saw.

So how about we both...not talk about...any of it.

[It's not that he's afraid of Esther; it's difficult to tell what the Piemaker would have done to his own father. Not kill him, certainly, but he wouldn't have been inclined to act kindly towards the man, and it's not within him to judge Esther for the things she's been put through]

That's fair.

[Once again she melts back into a little girl, focusing her attention on properly petting the elderly dog's ears. When she looks up, there's a fragile little frown on her face, as if she's going to crumple into tears soon.]

We can still be friends, can't we?

[He's not a man known for touch. On the contrary, the Piemaker is very much against touching other people, for fear of making lasting connections, or worse.

But the sight of Esther near tears is enough to crumple his resolve. His shoulders slump, and he awkwardly extends his arms out in an offer of an embrace]

[Esther gently pushes Digby's head off of her lap and scoots across the floor to Ned, reaching small arms around his waist to squeeze him tight. She rests her head against his chest, careful to avoid his hands, and sniffles.]

Thank you.

[Setting his hands against Esther's back, the Piemaker hugs the girl tight, shutting his eyes and wishing he could pull the memories out of his head. But he can't. So he deals with it]

It's all right.

Or it's. Going to be.

It's going to be all right.

[Esther holds onto him, her grip tightening as she inhales sharply.]

Is it still scary, for you?

Yes.

But I have a, um. A high tolerance for death.

It's not the same when you're little.

[spam] [cw: nonviolent death]

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