Will grimaces, though whether at her comment or something else he's picking up, Neph doesn't know. She thinks it must be her, because he doesn't confirm or deny any concrete knowledge of what happened to her. He goes for her attempt to shrug it off instead, a tactic Neph--can't say she appreciates. Her mouth flattens as she jerks her face away and forward.
"It is though," she mutters, shoulders bunching. "You gotta recognize the bullets you dodge. And when people get it wrong or think...think something happened when it didn't, that's not something you get to come back from."
Ben. Ben. Is she ever going to have a chance to make that right? He'd had his whole life uprooted 'cuz of her, and she never even got to apologize. The longer anyone goes without hearing news of him, the more convinced she is that the Inquisitors must've found him first. And now there's nobody but her to say what did or didn't happen between them, just a formal dismissal of charges and assholes like Samson snarling shit like Everyone knows you and Argus--
She shoves that away, buries it back under the rubble with all the other things she's done but can't change, way down deep where Will can't dig it up. He's not wrong, exactly, to say she's still hurting. Neph hates to admit it, but if anyone other than Samson had come at her with ugly accusations she'd've handled it differently. There's something wired wrong in her, now, after what happened between them. She doesn't like it but she can't begin to see how to untangle it, either. How is she no better now than when she was six, twelve, fourteen, lashing out with her abilities and complicating others' lives?
Maybe if people would stop coming at her first, she wouldn't have to.
Something did happen to her - Will's right about that, too. He doesn't exactly ask her how it made her feel, but the statement is open ended enough that it could be taken as a question. Hadn't Lecter asked her the same thing? What do you want to tell others? What would make you feel better? Or something like that. She was too tired and freaked out and painfully sore to remember it clearly, aside from the part where she totaled his kitchen in a childish display of temper. Neph cringes a little bit at the memory, but she's surprised to realize that the questions wrapped up inside it never really went away. She's even more surprised to realize that they've been niggling at the back of her mind ever since, accreting layers of thought like pearls.
What happened matters, because it's still affecting her. And how she feels about it matters, too, because those feelings direct her actions, push her to do things like stake territory and wield her Allomancy in new and startling ways. If she doesn't dig down on that, she won't ever be able to predict herself, she'll just keep reacting blindly and fucking things up.
"We worked together," she says, haltingly. "A couple'a times. Usually everybody else was older, so we were...friendly, kinda? That's what I thought, anyway, I guess he read it differently."
That's it, the part she just can't get her head around. How did she miss it? Was she putting something more out there? Is that a thing she does? When did he decide they ought to be something more than that, and why didn't he just try to talk to her about it first instead of tacking that decision onto her, too? Neph's right hand twitches in Hannibal's with the need to scrub at her mouth, rake at her hair. "There was this work party, and we were leaving, and--I din't see it coming so I didn't say 'no' fast enough and then there was a huge fight. That's all. That's what gets me. I should've seen it."
Neph drops her head back with an inarticulate growl of frustration. It's easier, a lot easier, to be angry and tired about this than to remember how scared and small she'd felt. She's Mistborn. It's almost not even allowed.
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"It is though," she mutters, shoulders bunching. "You gotta recognize the bullets you dodge. And when people get it wrong or think...think something happened when it didn't, that's not something you get to come back from."
Ben. Ben. Is she ever going to have a chance to make that right? He'd had his whole life uprooted 'cuz of her, and she never even got to apologize. The longer anyone goes without hearing news of him, the more convinced she is that the Inquisitors must've found him first. And now there's nobody but her to say what did or didn't happen between them, just a formal dismissal of charges and assholes like Samson snarling shit like Everyone knows you and Argus--
She shoves that away, buries it back under the rubble with all the other things she's done but can't change, way down deep where Will can't dig it up. He's not wrong, exactly, to say she's still hurting. Neph hates to admit it, but if anyone other than Samson had come at her with ugly accusations she'd've handled it differently. There's something wired wrong in her, now, after what happened between them. She doesn't like it but she can't begin to see how to untangle it, either. How is she no better now than when she was six, twelve, fourteen, lashing out with her abilities and complicating others' lives?
Maybe if people would stop coming at her first, she wouldn't have to.
Something did happen to her - Will's right about that, too. He doesn't exactly ask her how it made her feel, but the statement is open ended enough that it could be taken as a question. Hadn't Lecter asked her the same thing? What do you want to tell others? What would make you feel better? Or something like that. She was too tired and freaked out and painfully sore to remember it clearly, aside from the part where she totaled his kitchen in a childish display of temper. Neph cringes a little bit at the memory, but she's surprised to realize that the questions wrapped up inside it never really went away. She's even more surprised to realize that they've been niggling at the back of her mind ever since, accreting layers of thought like pearls.
What happened matters, because it's still affecting her. And how she feels about it matters, too, because those feelings direct her actions, push her to do things like stake territory and wield her Allomancy in new and startling ways. If she doesn't dig down on that, she won't ever be able to predict herself, she'll just keep reacting blindly and fucking things up.
"We worked together," she says, haltingly. "A couple'a times. Usually everybody else was older, so we were...friendly, kinda? That's what I thought, anyway, I guess he read it differently."
That's it, the part she just can't get her head around. How did she miss it? Was she putting something more out there? Is that a thing she does? When did he decide they ought to be something more than that, and why didn't he just try to talk to her about it first instead of tacking that decision onto her, too? Neph's right hand twitches in Hannibal's with the need to scrub at her mouth, rake at her hair. "There was this work party, and we were leaving, and--I din't see it coming so I didn't say 'no' fast enough and then there was a huge fight. That's all. That's what gets me. I should've seen it."
Neph drops her head back with an inarticulate growl of frustration. It's easier, a lot easier, to be angry and tired about this than to remember how scared and small she'd felt. She's Mistborn. It's almost not even allowed.