What do you get the guy who either disdains or already has everything for his eighteenth birthday? Neph’s been asking herself this question for weeks, only to finally crack and ask. Hannibal stares at her for twelve long, silent seconds, his face unreadable, before saying, in the flat tone she’d come to associate with utter shock:
“You know my birth date?”
Neph blinks, says, “Of course I do?”
They stare at each other, the silence an awkward variety they haven’t experienced in a while, Hannibal, blank and Neph, stricken, unsure whether he’s more bowled over that she’d known (he never told her, no, she’d forgotten that was privileged information dug up about his future self during her early google searches) or that she wants to do something nice about it.
“It’s…eighteen’s kinda’a big deal over here,” she tries, “I just thought…”
Given the excuse of abiding by some arbitrary American custom, Hannibal reanimates. Or his eyes do, anyway, thoughts beginning to tick away behind them. Neph waits, hands clasped behind her back, head tipping sideways. At last, he says, “There’s an installation at the Walters I’ve been meaning to look into. They offer a student discount.”
“Done!” Neph beams, “And I got the tickets, that’s how birthdays work.” A thing she’s familiar with in theory, if not practice. Hannibal nods at this and then, uncharacteristically, visibly hesitates.
“Might we invite Will?”
Neph’s smile dims down into something a little more indulgent. “It’s your birthday, man, you can invite whoever you want! I’ll call ‘im.”
She does. Well, she texts, because who calls anybody for real these days? M wants to geek out about art for his birthday ru in? she sends, along with a calendar link for the Saturday slot they’d normally spend at the library. Hannibal’s birthday’s a Friday, which doesn’t work for any of them on account of work and school and other crap. Neph waits, and imagines Will’s distracted oh no face if he realizes, as she did, that he never really asked about things like birthdays. She follows up with a no presents just come.
He does. Which is how they end up at an exhibit titled “Ferocious Beauty: Wrathful Deities From Tibet and Nepal”, which makes Will blink and Neph facepalm. Is this about a thing for asian art, or a thing for rage and stabbing? She doesn’t have long to wonder, not when her habitual sweep of Bronze turns up buttloads of old magic under active shielding.
“Don’t touch anything,” she leans in to breathe in Hannibal’s ear as he takes in a statue of a lady with way more arms than socially acceptable. “Like, seriously, half the pieces in here’re cursed as fuck.”
He shoots her a surprised but appreciative look, eyes gleaming with the same eagerness he always lets slip when she shares something of her worldview. “But surely someone would have set that off by now?” he murmurs back, too soft for anyone to hear over the general susurrus of the crowd.
“It’s all under real tight shields,” Neph says, mouth quirking in a pleased smile of her own. “Somebody on staff here really knows their shit.” She hadn’t known that about the Walters museum, hasn’t been here before, but that’s the kind of thing that’s surely going to come in useful down the line. Hannibal makes a thoughtful noise, but whatever else he might have said gets interrupted by Will, who comes up on Hannibal’s other side to ask what they’re conspiring about.
“Nothing,” Neph jerks her chin towards the statue, “Mari was just explaining how come Kali’s a human octopus.”
Which means he has to actually explain that to Will, who seems to find it interesting. For Neph, who happens to know that one of the six other identified Mistborn uses ‘Kali’ as a moniker, the whole thing is extra funny.
They wander the gallery, room after room chaining out through the historic building, each one packed with snarling faces and bulbous eyes. There are other exhibits, of course, and they’ll get there eventually, but this is what they came to see. Neph hangs back a safe distance from all the art, hands stuffed in her pockets to smother temptation. Her slower pace of reading and lack of familiarity with the history that shaped the work means she wanders ahead of the boys, gaze tripping over all the encoded symbolism with a vague kind of interest. Before she realizes it, she’s in another room all together, this one a little less packed.
A flicker of red near the far door catches her eye. It glows the way only magic can, and unlike all the other ruddy lights she’s seen today, this one isn’t filtered through green shields. Neph’s chin jerks up, the pattern-seeking part of her brain labeling the source as a person before the rest labels that person as Samson.
He’s looking straight at her. Watching her, eyebrows drawn in. Their eyes lock immediately, blowing any possibility of this being a chance encounter right out of the water. A startled breath catches in Neph’s lungs, all the moisture in her mouth seeming to draw away with it; her mouth seals shut, her jaw locks, and not even she can say whether it’s startled nerves or a defensive slamming of doors.
Samson holds her gaze for a moment, then cants his head away, indicating the hall behind him. He turns and is gone, just a smear of red on the doorframe where he’d leaned his hand.
Neph stands, statue still, heart hammering against her ribs. What is this? A trap? No, too public for that. Is someone else casing the place, eyeing one of the pieces? Did she just wander through someone else’s reconnaissance? Or is he following her for some reason? She hasn’t seen Samson since—she’s avoided him, or he’s avoided her, not too difficult when they’d only met once before—anyway, she was happy to just never cross paths again, prepared to say ‘no’ to any prospective crews involving him, but mostly hoping it just…wouldn’t come up.
Now he’s here. Why? It’s got to be a work thing, but she hasn’t detected any other non-shielded abilities, no traces of Allomancy. If…if she’s getting in the way of someone’s play, though, she should find out how and assure them she’s not planning anything of her own.
Creakily, like someone lifting themselves out of a hospital bed, she takes a step after him. Then another, following the comet trail of Pewter embers until it spills into an open-air sculpture court at the center of the building. Marble stairs lead down to a small, carefully tended gardens, bare shrubs and branches pruned back around men and women frozen in flowing stone. Samson leans against one pillars, beside a stone bannister, watching the doorway for her. Neph marches over to the opposing pillar, so the two of them frame the stairs like sphinxes. She folds her arms and sets her shoulders against the stone and says:
“What d’you want?”
As opening gambits go, it’s not her most diplomatic. Neph doesn’t care, has no room for delicacy with every organ in her chest rattling like badly latched shutters. Samson’s eyes narrow, mouth twisting, hands curling into fists. Neph watches Pewter eddy around him, a sandstorm lit red by a figmentary sun, but then it stills.
“I want off the blacklist,” he snaps.
And Neph, who has no fucking clue what that's even supposed to mean, gapes, “What?”
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
AU2: Inherited Fallout
Date: 2017-01-16 03:29 am (UTC)“You know my birth date?”
Neph blinks, says, “Of course I do?”
They stare at each other, the silence an awkward variety they haven’t experienced in a while, Hannibal, blank and Neph, stricken, unsure whether he’s more bowled over that she’d known (he never told her, no, she’d forgotten that was privileged information dug up about his future self during her early google searches) or that she wants to do something nice about it.
“It’s…eighteen’s kinda’a big deal over here,” she tries, “I just thought…”
Given the excuse of abiding by some arbitrary American custom, Hannibal reanimates. Or his eyes do, anyway, thoughts beginning to tick away behind them. Neph waits, hands clasped behind her back, head tipping sideways. At last, he says, “There’s an installation at the Walters I’ve been meaning to look into. They offer a student discount.”
“Done!” Neph beams, “And I got the tickets, that’s how birthdays work.” A thing she’s familiar with in theory, if not practice. Hannibal nods at this and then, uncharacteristically, visibly hesitates.
“Might we invite Will?”
Neph’s smile dims down into something a little more indulgent. “It’s your birthday, man, you can invite whoever you want! I’ll call ‘im.”
She does. Well, she texts, because who calls anybody for real these days? M wants to geek out about art for his birthday ru in? she sends, along with a calendar link for the Saturday slot they’d normally spend at the library. Hannibal’s birthday’s a Friday, which doesn’t work for any of them on account of work and school and other crap. Neph waits, and imagines Will’s distracted oh no face if he realizes, as she did, that he never really asked about things like birthdays. She follows up with a no presents just come.
He does. Which is how they end up at an exhibit titled “Ferocious Beauty: Wrathful Deities From Tibet and Nepal”, which makes Will blink and Neph facepalm. Is this about a thing for asian art, or a thing for rage and stabbing? She doesn’t have long to wonder, not when her habitual sweep of Bronze turns up buttloads of old magic under active shielding.
“Don’t touch anything,” she leans in to breathe in Hannibal’s ear as he takes in a statue of a lady with way more arms than socially acceptable. “Like, seriously, half the pieces in here’re cursed as fuck.”
He shoots her a surprised but appreciative look, eyes gleaming with the same eagerness he always lets slip when she shares something of her worldview. “But surely someone would have set that off by now?” he murmurs back, too soft for anyone to hear over the general susurrus of the crowd.
“It’s all under real tight shields,” Neph says, mouth quirking in a pleased smile of her own. “Somebody on staff here really knows their shit.” She hadn’t known that about the Walters museum, hasn’t been here before, but that’s the kind of thing that’s surely going to come in useful down the line. Hannibal makes a thoughtful noise, but whatever else he might have said gets interrupted by Will, who comes up on Hannibal’s other side to ask what they’re conspiring about.
“Nothing,” Neph jerks her chin towards the statue, “Mari was just explaining how come Kali’s a human octopus.”
Which means he has to actually explain that to Will, who seems to find it interesting. For Neph, who happens to know that one of the six other identified Mistborn uses ‘Kali’ as a moniker, the whole thing is extra funny.
They wander the gallery, room after room chaining out through the historic building, each one packed with snarling faces and bulbous eyes. There are other exhibits, of course, and they’ll get there eventually, but this is what they came to see. Neph hangs back a safe distance from all the art, hands stuffed in her pockets to smother temptation. Her slower pace of reading and lack of familiarity with the history that shaped the work means she wanders ahead of the boys, gaze tripping over all the encoded symbolism with a vague kind of interest. Before she realizes it, she’s in another room all together, this one a little less packed.
A flicker of red near the far door catches her eye. It glows the way only magic can, and unlike all the other ruddy lights she’s seen today, this one isn’t filtered through green shields. Neph’s chin jerks up, the pattern-seeking part of her brain labeling the source as a person before the rest labels that person as Samson.
He’s looking straight at her. Watching her, eyebrows drawn in. Their eyes lock immediately, blowing any possibility of this being a chance encounter right out of the water. A startled breath catches in Neph’s lungs, all the moisture in her mouth seeming to draw away with it; her mouth seals shut, her jaw locks, and not even she can say whether it’s startled nerves or a defensive slamming of doors.
Samson holds her gaze for a moment, then cants his head away, indicating the hall behind him. He turns and is gone, just a smear of red on the doorframe where he’d leaned his hand.
Neph stands, statue still, heart hammering against her ribs. What is this? A trap? No, too public for that. Is someone else casing the place, eyeing one of the pieces? Did she just wander through someone else’s reconnaissance? Or is he following her for some reason? She hasn’t seen Samson since—she’s avoided him, or he’s avoided her, not too difficult when they’d only met once before—anyway, she was happy to just never cross paths again, prepared to say ‘no’ to any prospective crews involving him, but mostly hoping it just…wouldn’t come up.
Now he’s here. Why? It’s got to be a work thing, but she hasn’t detected any other non-shielded abilities, no traces of Allomancy. If…if she’s getting in the way of someone’s play, though, she should find out how and assure them she’s not planning anything of her own.
Creakily, like someone lifting themselves out of a hospital bed, she takes a step after him. Then another, following the comet trail of Pewter embers until it spills into an open-air sculpture court at the center of the building. Marble stairs lead down to a small, carefully tended gardens, bare shrubs and branches pruned back around men and women frozen in flowing stone. Samson leans against one pillars, beside a stone bannister, watching the doorway for her. Neph marches over to the opposing pillar, so the two of them frame the stairs like sphinxes. She folds her arms and sets her shoulders against the stone and says:
“What d’you want?”
As opening gambits go, it’s not her most diplomatic. Neph doesn’t care, has no room for delicacy with every organ in her chest rattling like badly latched shutters. Samson’s eyes narrow, mouth twisting, hands curling into fists. Neph watches Pewter eddy around him, a sandstorm lit red by a figmentary sun, but then it stills.
“I want off the blacklist,” he snaps.
And Neph, who has no fucking clue what that's even supposed to mean, gapes, “What?”