recreatable | open post.

It's even better being touched by her with his finger attached. Of course it is; he can feel the warmth of her fingers around his wrist, the brush of her fingertip down the length of his little finger. His heartbeat picks up tempo, and he turns his hand over as she inspects it, suddenly self-conscious of the piano calluses on his own fingertips.

The sensation of having someone's hand so close to his even for purely scientific reasons is so thrilling that he barely catches her callout. It takes a moment for his mind to catch up, but finally he says, "—I've had worse."

As truthful as he can get.

"Don't want to mar my tough reputation."

Jasnah doesn't release his hand. Not yet.

A long, slow exhale through her nose. Not quite laughter — the situation doesn't quite call for laughter — but it's softer than incredulity and harsher than a chuckle. What tough reputation? She's learned enough by now to realize he wouldn't like her suggesting that he hasn't got anything near such a reputation with her. But it's kind of his own fault, really, given how initially he'd convinced her he was some soft city-dwelling musician. Not that same creature turned survivalist.

Besides, she's the daughter of one warlord and the niece of another. Her scale for tough reputations is a bit hard to tilt.

"Tell me there isn't, say, dozens of little left-behind fingers rattling around the Continent."

Free-range. Perhaps abandoned in favour of regrowth.

The not-laugh should be offensive, but it isn't. He's spent a long time with a protective carapace around him, so long that it often felt impossible to chisel down to the soft flesh below. It's almost a relief that she doesn't see him that way. That she thinks of him how he should be, how he would've been. Maybe how he can be, now.

So, he doesn't meet it with a scoff or a frown but with a soft laugh of his own. "It's entirely possible they've started their own society by now."

—A pause, then, as his mind echoes back to what she'd said earlier. "Hey. What did you mean, 'not like this'?"

Oh. What a ludicrous, haunting thought. She'd also laugh, except she's caught ever-so-almost off-guard by his question.

Her first reaction feels a little...circuitous. What does he mean what did she mean? Jasnah had been so caught up in the spectacle (exactly as he'd intended for to be!) that for one rare jot she hadn't been running her usually strict and careful self-audit on every word and implication.

So, her pause is legible. She flexes her gloved fingers against his wrist — a little one, two, three rhythm not unlike when she taps her fingers on a book cover or a tabletop — and combs back through their exchange in an attempt to pinpoint exactly what he's asking after. Her search comes up dry.

Frowning, she confesses her confusion with a soft: "Hmm?" But doesn't look up from his hand.

She hadn't meant to say it, he suddenly realizes, and it begs the question of just how many things she's held back from saying because she wasn't distracted enough. It's hypocritical considering all the words he's let die in his throat before they ever made it out of his mouth, but he can't help feeling dismayed. Surely he's proven himself as someone she can talk to freely. Hell, he's told her things he's never told anyone else, things that felt like he might as well have been stripped down and standing naked in front of her for how exposing they were.

"I said that you were fascinating," he reminds her, "and you said 'not like this'."

If it were him being questioned right now, he knows how he'd respond: deflect, distance, redirect. He'd say something flippant and move on, and the conversational topic would die with him. Reluctant to allow her to do the same before he's gotten to say his piece, he doesn't wait for her to answer. He can take an educated guess at what she'd meant.

"You don't really believe that, do you?" He tilts his head, frowning. "You should know, Jasnah, that what you can do is the least interesting thing about you."

Power is an illusion of perception. And Jasnah believes she's adept at sculpting that perception. Oh, she's no Lightweaver. Her tools are so much more pedestrian than that — confidence, competence, and just enough conventionality to be taken seriously. She is a collection of books. She is a creature made up of philosophies and guiding principles. Remove one, and the rest come crashing down around her head.

What she does — what she can do — is all she is. And in this she is so much like her father, chasing legacy.

Her thumb (right, bare) settles in the crook of Verso's littlest finger. She can't figure out how his regeneration could possibly work. Stormlight, she understands. Jasnah could lay out a whole lecture on why a big breath of stormlight could stitch her wound right up. Good as new. However, she can't explain him. Maybe that's the point.

Something makes her smile, but wry and mirthless and a little bit sad. It always hurts to catch yourself falling prey to the same mistakes you accuse others of making.

"You're right. Defining someone simply by what they can do results in a — a reduction from the infinite variety that is personhood," she answers. Quoting something, clearly.

It's not a bad quote. All the same, he shakes his head. "You do this thing," he notes, softly, trying not to sound accusatory, "where you word things like—"

How does he describe it? She'd done it in the restaurant, too, when she'd discussed the difficulty returning from the Cognitive Realm. She'd phrased it as if... "Like it's an academic discussion." Like she has no personal stake in it, like she's simply an observer.

Very lightly, so gently that it could easily be mistaken for an accident or an involuntary physical reaction, he curls his little finger around her thumb. "I'm not talking about 'someone'. I'm talking about you."

Again: he's right. But the Philosophy of Aspiration is the bedrock of both her life and her work (is there any difference between the two?) and such an ideological mistress demanded that every action, every choice, should be in service of a greater ideal. The greater good, at any cost. The first and easiest cost will always be herself. Remove the heart from the equation at the jump. Approach every fork in the road with a scholar's duty to analyze what went wrong. What could go wrong. And make the best choice accordingly. For the Kholin family, for Alethkar, for Roshar, for the Cosmere.

He's right, but she won't look at that fact for too too long. It's not ready to be confronted. She doesn't want to confront it, anyway. She shies away.

"I'm an academic," she seethes a little in her response. Frustration sliding into place, covering the gaps that might otherwise be left vulnerable by his conclusion. "It's only fitting that I should discuss things like one."

But her hand reacts to his light, gentle movement. She's too smart to think it an accident but too comforted to spurn it. She does do him one better, though, by converting their loose grip on one another into something firmer — ostensibly because she wants help walking back to the divan. And just like she's been doing aloud, she hides her personal stake in something overtly practical.

Her reaction is less than ideal, and whatever confidence he'd had in saying what he did deflates like a sad balloon. Perhaps he'd thought they were closer than they were, and he's just being presumptuous. He helps her back to the divan, sitting her back down, and hesitates for a moment. It feels as if—despite all his best intentions—he can't help but do everything wrong with her. A tough pill to swallow for a perfectionist.

"Sorry," he says, although he's not sure what he's sorry for. "I didn't mean anything by it."

Then, as a quick excuse to abscond, he jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "I'm going to go soak that rag so Jochi doesn't think there's been a murder."

Her head and her heart are a snarl. A wicked dislocation — where he can do everything right, and that very rightness drives her further inward, away from the parts of herself that might, if indulged, want more. That's the true point of friction: every measure of care she invests in herself is care withheld from elsewhere. A calculated, cold altruism she has long mistaken for virtue. Unsustainable.

She bites back a retort. Why say something if you don't mean it? A rhetorical question, and one that neatly underlines how little she believes these milquetoast retractions of his

And yet — storm it — she still feels foul, watching that hunted, darting quality to his reactions. As though he is running a maze she laid out. Guilt pricks at her for hearing his apology. She doesn't know how to return it gently. Or whether she even should.

So she busies herself checking on Ivory instead. Something to occupy her hands now that they are no longer holding his.

"You apologize too much."

Says the woman who apologizes far too little.

Verso returns to the kitchenette, running the sink and watching dark red dilute into pink and swirl down the drain. He doesn't apologize enough. He's been guilty every moment of his life, and every reckless thing he's done has just been a vain attempt to distract himself from the crushing shame of existence. Every impossible reach for perfection an attempt to make up for the sin of being.

I have a lot to apologize for catches somewhere in his throat. It's a big thing to say, and although the past few weeks had slowly chiseled an opening for it to pass through, the embarrassment of—overstepping? Misreading the situation? Making a mistake, by any account—has sewn it back up.

"I think that's subjective," he says, thumb scraping over a stubborn bloodstain.

"...A fair point."

And the point she had been attempting to make — albeit poorly. That simply because he feels guilty about something does not mean the other party needs (or even wants) an apology. Yet, on reflection, she can quite neatly trace how archly informing him that he is doing too much of something fails to convey the reassurance he likely required in that moment.

...Absurdly — and wonderfully — Renarin leaps to the front of her thoughts.

"Would it help," she hedges, uncharacteristically hesitant as she eases into the suggestion, "if we agreed upon a signal? Some sign or indication when one of us — subjectively — expects an apology."

Storms. Such a thing would certainly help her.

She has stretched, turned, twisted on the divan to sit half-leaning against its backboard. Positioned just so she can watch the line of his shoulders as he works.

He wants to stew in his discontent. Wants to make this into some sort of miserable feedback loop where his dissatisfaction with things makes him feel even worse and worse. I think you enjoy moping, Clea had once accused. Then you never have to try.

But the suggestion of a secret signal, as if they're children, makes him laugh a little. Quiet and involuntary and wry—the cousin of a scoff—but a laugh all the same. He doesn't point out that their signal could just be asking for an apology. God knows neither of them would do that.

So: "Like what?"

"Like — like anything. We'd be its architects."

She folds an arm across the back of the divan. One recurring side effect of her injury as it heals is this constant need to support herself. Good posture and a straight spine aren't quite enough. So, uncharacteristically, she curls forward and learns her chin in the crook of her elbow.

But she understands that he'd asked for an example.

So: "My cousin doesn't like to be touched — at least, not without some warning — and there are always exceptions," says the other Kholin who doesn't like to be touched without some warning and also houses many exceptions. "He and I have a signal we share whenever one wants to give the other a hug. We've always done it. Since we were young."

Verso has rightly identified the childishness of the scheme. After all, a pair of very serious and rational and systems-thinking children developed it.

"That's nice," he says, because it is. Hard to imagine Jasnah ever asking for physical affection, but perhaps it's different with family. Or maybe it's different with everyone who isn't him.

"Me and my sister had a signal for when she wanted me to shut up. She'd pinch me."

Not exactly the same thing, though.

"What was your signal?"

A faint, affectionate smile lingers on her face. A little sad, maybe, but still brimming over with a quiet love. Never has she ever refused one of Renarin's signals — not even, not even when every fiber of academic instinct was telling her he'd be their downfall. That boy — like her — only asked for such comfort sparingly, and when every other comfort has failed.

"A pointed nod," she answers. The one word can't quite sum up how obvious it is between the two of them. So, hesitating a little, she clarifies: "A nod if you need one. A hand outstretched, palm up, if you think the other person needs one but they haven't figured it out just yet — and then you wait for their nod."

Verso feels a sharp pang of longing. The people—if you can call Esquie and Monoco 'people'—who would offer him that sort of comfort aren't around anymore. No wonder he's felt so ridiculously lonely. No wonder he latched on so hard to the only person to toss minuscule crumbs of interest his way. He'd give anything for an Esquie hug right about now.

"That's good," he says, trying not to sound like the mention of such closeness and affection has made him feel miserable, "that you had each other for that."

He sets the still slightly bloodstained rag aside. "You can scratch your nose if you want me to apologize." 'If you want me' is intentional—he'll never ask her to apologize. "Or tug on your earlobe. Or do a jaunty little jig, if you want."

There's a vague sense of offness — but there so often is. And in stark contrast to his position on such matters, she makes a point of waiting to be invited into someone else's troubled thoughts.

Instead, she tests each option in turn. A brief scratch on the side of her nose — but it feels at risk of being tripped unintentionally. A more well-received tug on first one earlobe and then the other. Hm. Could work.

She does not do a jaunty jig, sorry.

"Ear. Let's go with ear."

"All right."

Easy acceptance. No skin off his back, really. It'll be good to have confirmation when he's done something wrong, instead of just a creeping sense of dread.

Still, he feels a bit awkward. Uncertain how to segue back into normalcy. He clears his throat. "—And if you want me to shut up, you can feel free to pinch me." Just like Clea. "I have tough skin."

Does she not notice his sense of awkwardness? Or does she simply not consider it issue enough to alleviate? Hard to say. Impossible to know. Except for the part where she's still watching him from her chin-propped position against the back of the divan, attention never straying.

"I noticed," she skips right over the part about pinching him. But just because she skips it doesn't mean it hasn't been committed to memory. Just you wait. "The pads of your fingers. Is that — the piano? The guitar? Both?"

Oh. Odd conversational turn, but all right. He had thought she might notice—hence the self-consciousness—but he hadn't expected her to ask about them. He glances down at his hand for a split-second, then back up.

"Both, I guess," he says with a shrug. "Before you ask— I suppose I could heal them, but they'd just come back again."

She nods into the crook of her arm. Relieved, maybe? As though she was wondering first and foremost if it was hard living on the continent that had caused the callouses. Not that it would have been a knock against him if so — but she does believe they're more like badges of hard work and determination when earned through his playing. And although he's right, she absolutely would have asked, she thinks he's made the right decision in not healing them.

However. That leaves one very obvious and previously undiscussed topic.

"...And your scar?"

She taps one finger high on her own cheekbone.

Verso touches the tips of his fingers to the uneven skin of his scar. It's an understandable question; a marred face doesn't really fit the 'sensitive musician' aesthetic.

"I kept it as a— reminder, I guess. Of"—it's hard to explain without really telling her everything, so—"what I was fighting for, or... against." He drops his hand. "And it's a conversation piece."

How Romantic. Truly, in the big-R sense of the word. Or sentimental, maybe. She can't imagine requiring a physical reminder of her cause — it consumes her daily. Or...it used to. It's been so long since she's devoted any serious, deep-thinking time to the larger problems at hand.

She tears her eyes off Verso at last to take a sneaky, guilty peek at her satchel of maps. Then, smooth enough, she looks back at him.

"What happened?"

And so the conversation piece fulfills its purpose.

—All right. He probably should have expected that. Jasnah has a question about everything, after all.

Part of him wants to blurt everything out, every horrible, self-incriminating detail. It's been so long since he had someone he could really talk to. Open up to. It would feel awful, but it would be a relief, too, like working out a particularly painful knot in his shoulders.

But the rarity of companionship is exactly why he can't tell her everything—Jasnah is the only friend he has, and he regularly feels as if he's on thin ice without her knowing the ugly details of how he's spent the last 67 years. If she really knew him, she wouldn't like him anymore.

"The commander of my Expedition." True. He just fails to mention that he called said commander Papa. "We fought."

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