~ Tнє Pαяα∂σχ Hσυѕє ~ now back to regularly scheduled chaos

Kelsier and Mare | Switcharoom | strider

At least Nico hadn’t been here very long. She could tell his own world wasn’t that much kinder to him, but this, at least, was a a different flavor of hell, which made it easier to deal with. Part of what was so soul crushing about Hathsin was how endless it felt. It had been there long before she’d been born, and it would be there long after she died. There was no escape, because it had all already been tried before. Everyone else had died down here, and so would she, eventually. No wonder people gave up.
Not that she was going to. But she had to admit that the Lord Ruler was a master in causing despair, even without his Allomancy.
She walked quietly for a long moment, thinking. She had questions, but she didn’t know what they all were. It was just a lot to take in, and she wasn’t exactly operating at full strength. Thinking was harder than it used to be. For her, at least. It didn’t seem to bother Kel much.
That was a lie and she knew it. He may have been making an effort to close himself off from her, but that was as good a hint as any that he was in pain. If he really hated her? He wouldn’t be shy about making it known.
“How are you here?” She managed finally, glancing at Nico. That was the biggest question, probably. She needed to know if he had a way out, for his own sake, as well as hers.

Kelsier didn’t answer right away. Killing the monsters wasn’t as hard as he’d feared, but anything could tire you after long enough. He wished he knew how long this room would be. He wished he knew how to get Nico to safety. Though…he had Mare. That was much better than nothing.
“You’re always a hero for surviving,” he replied when he could catch his breath. At least there wasn’t a lot of blood from killing them, though the dust stuck to him. He was sure he looked awful, but luckily, no one had to know that.
He nibbled the ambrosia again. He hated using it too fast, but he couldn’t risk not. Better to use it up and guarantee his survival for a while than to leave it and risk dying even faster.
“It’s a lot easier to say someone else is a hero, rather than yourself. But you are one, Nico. You don’t have to tell Mare, but you can’t convince me otherwise.”

Kelsier and Mare | strider

Mare listened quietly, letting him explain, though she wasn’t sure she understood completely. She didn’t want to think he was insane. She didn’t want to think she was insane, either. She knew there were options here, bad ones, that might explain this, and the thought that Nico was both telling the truth and was right…it wasn’t as likely as she wanted it to be. She couldn’t imagine a world where that was possible any more than she could imagine a world covered in flowers and green plants, with no ash at all. A world that wasn’t dull and gray and choked nearly to death.
She breathed out, letting him reply to whatever Kelsier had said, too. She’d have liked to be able to hear him, but that wasn’t possible. Probably. Possible was getting a little bit fuzzy around the edges.
“So you’re going to get out of here, then,” she murmured, glancing at him. “Like the other rooms. If this place is just a room for you, then you’re not really trapped, are you?
That was a relief, at least. She still wanted to see if Kel was still here, but if she let herself consider that he was right…
“Is this actually Hathsin, then? Or is it an illusion? Am I…?”
She frowned a little. That didn’t quite make sense. “Are the rooms real? Or are they just in your head?”
She had to be real. She wasn’t going to believe she wasn’t real. Besides, did it matter? She felt real, so on some level she had to be.
Who am I, Hammond? I don’t have the brain for this.

Kelsier closed his eyes for a moment as Nico’s reply came, smaller than he’d expected. Somehow, Nico always sounded younger when he was being seen, not used. When he was treated as a kid. Maybe it was harder to pretend he wasn’t one when someone else said he was. When someone refused to play along, just because he’d been forced to act like an adult too fast.
The thing about Nico was that no matter how much he did, he always seemed to feel he had only done what he had to, so it didn’t count. As though real heroes chose their life, and Nico had simply had it thrust upon him. Did he think there was a soul in all the worlds that had tried harder? Did he think there was anyone at all more deserving of the title of hero?
Of course he did. But Kelsier refused to.
“Listen to me,” he said quietly, eyes still closed, as though he could concentrate better on saying what he needed to say that way. “I wouldn’t let anyone else tell you that, so why would I allow you to say it?l
He breathed out, trying to form the words. They evaded him, somehow. He’d always been good at using them to his advantage, but here, he wanted to skip those entirely and just show Nico his belief in him instead, like a tangible object he could give away.
“You try so hard to be the best you can be, and to do the right thing. You’ve made mistakes, fine. So have I, big ones. But you are trying to make up for them. You are trying to protect your friends and win this war, and you’re willing to die for it, if you have to. Not because you’re in some sort of debt to the universe. Because you care. Because you want to make things right, and keep people safe.”
He could hear more monsters on the way. But he kept his eyes closed. This was more important.
“So if you’re going to stand there and tell me you’re a bad person, I’m going to need some damn good evidence for it, because that is not the Nico I’ve gotten to know, and I’m not that easy to trick.”

Kelsier and Mare | Switcharoom | strider

Mare gave a small nod. She wasn’t included in that, she knew. Nico and Kelsier were in the House. She was actually still in Hathsin. So whether this was real or not, it didn’t matter. She was a part of the room.
What would happen when it ended? Would she die? Would she stop existing? Or would she not even realize it had happened? Maybe she had appeared in the House, and she hadn’t noticed because the room was just Hathsin. Would she remember if she went back?
She glanced at him, noting the scar. She’d seen it before, but she hasn’t really paid attention to it…scars were common enough, especially here. Who didn’t have some sign of what they’d been through?
“He did that?” She asked, raising an eyebrow as she reached into a crevice. She’d gotten lucky before. She was good at this, but that didn’t mean much when the task was almost impossible. “Was that when you pretended to be the Ghost King?”
She shook her head. If it was…she couldn’t imagine Kel being angry with a child for saying something like that. Unease prodded her. She knew Hathsin changed people, but no one had ever seen what happened when someone changed by Hathsin went home again. She didn’t like to think Kelsier had changed that much. But since when did he attack children?
A few weeks? She paused, looking at him for a long moment. She’d assumed from their conversation it had been a year at the very least, probably more. But weeks?

“You’ve only known me a few weeks,” Kelsier corrected, opening his eyes as a monster flew at him. He was getting used to his brutal their attacks were. It wasn’t like they were very creative about them. All they seemed to care about was blood.
He cut it in half, backing off a little. As long as he didn’t get surrounded…he ignored the exhaustion tugging at his mind. Or maybe it was his brain struggling to handle where he was. He wasn’t meant to see this, after all.
It was a good thing he’d never cared about what he was meant to do.
“I’ve known you slightly longer, due to time passing differently. So technically…”
He stabbed a monster, pulled a second dagger, and stabbed another one without turning to look at it. They both exploded into dust and he ducked, letting a couple fly over his head, shooting up at the last minute to stab the last one to try. They were getting angrier…if they had brains, they were using them to memorize his face, no doubt.
“Tell…your…friends…the Survivor says hi,” he hissed, mostly to himself as they attacked again. Not that he planned to leave any alive, but since they regenerated, that wasn’t a problem.
It took a couple, minutes for him to fight them off, but he managed it with only a couple semi severe wounds. He let himself lightly collapse, risking a little more ambrosia. He was bleeding, but he wasn’t dead, so he didn’t care.
“Anyway…as I was saying. That’s all it is, Nico. Heroism…it’s just people trying. Maybe you won’t be written in any history books, or maybe you will, I don’t know. I certainly plan to be. But no one said you had to be perfect to be a hero, and one said you had to do anything spectacular. Which, for the record, what you’re doing right now does count as spectacular, so that doesn’t even apply to you.”
He was getting tired. He’d have killed for some pewter, both to heal his wounds and to make him a little more alert. But he wasn’t going to stop.
“The point I’m making is that you don’t think you’re a hero because you think you still have to make up for choosing how you did. You think you were forced into this, or that it doesn’t count, but Nico…you did choose this. If you’d said no, there isn’t a person in your world who could have forced you. Maybe not even anyone who would have tried. Being a hero is not dependent on some bar of success you have to pass, it’s just…you, trying as hard as you can. Okay? And don’t tell me I’ve only known you a few weeks, because technically I’ve known you longer than you’ve known me.”

Kelsier and Mare | Switcharoom | strider

Mare hadn’t made up her mind what she thought yet. She knew she might be hallucinating. Or that Nico might be some insane kid who somehow knew way too much about her and Kelsier. But she was going to treat this as real for now, because…mostly because the consequences of being wrong were less severe that way. If she was wrong, and she was going insane, she couldn’t do anything about that anyway. If she was right and this was real…maybe she could help one or both of them.
She let Nico explain. Anyone would be angry at that sight, she knew. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, but it was enough to make her blood boil. She didn’t react the same way Kelsier tended to, but she knew they felt the same about it. They all did.
“I see,” she said finally, though she wasn’t sure she did. “Well…I’m glad you figured it out, then.”
It was one more difference. He had managed to become this kid’s dad in a few week’s time, but apparently that wasn’t enough to even be able to speak to her. Had he changed? Or had he just not wanted to try and fix things?
She shook her head. If he’d been there himself, maybe she’d have asked. But she wasn’t going to make Nico relay that message for her. That would just be cruel.
She looked up, startled as he spoke again, in a different tone. “You did?” She replied, stepping closer to him to see for herself. “Okay, don’t let go. Sometimes when you first pull one off, there’s a gap under it and it’ll fall if you let go. You don’t want to lose it.”

Kelsier hesitated, thinking. How long had it been now? Longer than a few weeks, but not by a lot.
“Four or five weeks?” He suggested after a moment. “Longer than you’ve known me, anyway.”
He pushed himself up. He must have sounded off…Nico sounded worried, in that way that meant he was trying not to. The Mistborn forced his tone to lighten, trying to take any edge of strain off it.
“Yeah, I’m looking, don’t worry,” he replied. “Just take care of yourself, okay? I’ll be fine.”
How did regular people go all their lives with no pewter? Maybe, he considered, he overused it a little bit.
He focused on Nico instead. It was easier to try and help someone else, anyway, and there was no one he’d rather help.
“Of course it is,” he replied. “What else would it be? It’s certainly not cowardice.”
He stopped, listening as Nico’s tone changed. “Did you? Perfect. Okay, don’t let go. There might be a hole underneath it. I almost didn’t make it one week because I lost one that way.”

Kelsier and Mare | Switcharoom | strider

Kelsier gave a small nod, though no one could see it. Even if he did wish he could see Mare again…even if he longed to, he had to admit it was probably better for their first meeting to happen without him there. It would be too easy for them to both just talk to him, as one they both knew.
What he really wanted was for it to be one or the other, not this…this in between. He was there, but not really. Mare couldn’t speak to him directly, but Nico could. He guessed he should probably just be quiet and stop distracting them, but selfishly, he didn’t want to. This was going to get a whole lot harder the moment he stopped having someone to talk to. If he let Nico and Mare have their own conversation without him…
At least he was the one who was alone. Nico had been alone, when he’d been in Tartarus for real. Kelsier had always had Mare, even if he hadn’t spoken to her. If he hadn’t let himself be blinded by what he thought had happened, if he had just believed her, believed in her…maybe things wouldn’t have gone the way they had. Maybe he’d have been able to tell when she really did lie to him. Maybe he’d have even beaten her to it and died in her place. Mare, Survivor of Hathsin…only she wouldn’t have been able to escape without the ability to burn more metals. He’d have bought her a week more. And there wouldn’t be any Survivor at all.
Would he still have gone back and done it, knowing that? Knowing there was no one who could be him in his place? The Skaa, his people, they wouldn’t have the hope he was struggling to give them now. There would be no Survivor of Hathsin. All there would be was one more prisoner in an inescapable prison, and a ruler without a challenger.
Could he look Mare in the eye and tell her she had to die for him, so he could be a hero? If that was what it took to save all the people who were going to keep suffering unspeakable horrors and dying far too young?
It was a horrible decision to have to make. And he didn’t, not yet. He thought again of Hange in the museum room, the way they’d said he couldn’t make hard choices, the way he couldn’t be trusted to handle pressure…he supposed they were right, in a way. He hadn’t wanted to hear it, but the truth was that he wasn’t willing to compromise. He couldn’t accept that he had to choose in the first place. And maybe that was what ended in the most deaths.
He breathed out. This being the House…he knew the possibility that he’d be forced to choose was very real. But not yet. For now, he just had to make this as close to okay as he could.

Mare was trying her hardest to keep up, but she doubted she really could without more time and context. They were obviously used to how this worked. At least, Nico was. She couldn’t hear or see Kel, so she didn’t know about him.
She watched quietly as Nico began to pull it out. It was small, of course, they all were. But that didn’t decrease its value. All that meant was that it was easier to lose.
She knew she wasn’t just thinking of the geode with that thought, but she might as well have been. She didn’t know Nico. She’d only ever had this conversation with him…she hadn’t known existed an hour ago, and she still wasn’t completely convinced he really did. She couldn’t think things like that about someone she didn’t know.
That was a poor excuse. She thought that way of every child, not only Nico. They were all geodes, small, easy to lose, more valuable than anyone would admit…the difference was just that one was treated like it was disposable, and it wasn’t the one that wasn’t breathing.
“Good. That’s good,” she breathed. “Okay. You’re going to want or hide it somehow. Do you have good pockets that won’t make it obvious? I can carry it for you if need be, but I understand if you don’t want to trust me with that. It’s your life, now. And you may know Kel, but all you know about me is that he thinks I betrayed him for myself. I can’t prove I didn’t.”
She hesitated. “I’m not trying to convince you not to trust me, of course. But I won’t be hurt if you don’t.”

Nico wasn’t entirely certain he liked the silence coming from Kelsier’s end of the line. Kelsier wasn’t the most reflective person, so he found it difficult to believe that the Mistborn was just lost in thought. There was no sound of fighting, though, and Nico had a feeling Kelsier would have raised hell if he were about to be captured, but… not hearing Kelsier made him feel shockingly alone, even if he had Mare right beside him. Mare was lovely. She was kind and thoughtful and fierce, and everything that Nico thought Kelsier deserved. She just… wasn’t Kelsier. Maybe one day. Maybe in a different universe, maybe… maybe she would be his mother in the same way Kelsier was his father. It would take a lot of getting to know each other. It would take more than this one conversation, though Nico had learned by now to respect her. She deserved that much, even if she really had betrayed Kelsier. Somehow, Nico couldn’t make himself believe that. It didn’t matter what Kelsier thought, it was what Nico thought looking at her. Maybe she was the reason they had been caught, but he highly doubted that she had intentionally betrayed him. It didn’t make sense. If she had betrayed him, why would she insist that she hadn’t when she was thrown into Hathsin with him? Why wouldn’t she have been vocally upset that she had been betrayed, too? In a place like Hathsin, having someone you cared about was a death sentence. They could hurt that person to get to you. If Mare hadn’t cared, if she had betrayed him… there was no point in her staying with Kelsier, especially given that she was so skilled at finding geodes.
“Hide it…” Nico repeated uncertainly, looking at it with no small amount of doubt. It was small. It didn’t look like much of anything. Hazel pulled more interesting things from the ground on a daily basis. It was, however, extraordinarily valuable. When it was processed, it would be even more powerful. Kelsier had never said what atium did, only that it was important. Only that he had stolen a fair bit of it from the nobility over the course of the last several months. Only that Mare had died for it, and it wasn’t fair. This… no matter how valuable it was, no matter how powerful… it wasn’t worth the amount of human lives it cost, even if those lives were criminals. How many of these people were only criminals because they were either trying to stay alive or trying to make the world just a little bit better.
“I don’t trust easily,” Nico said after a moment, geode still clutched in his hand like he was afraid of dropping it into the hole both Kelsier and Mare had mentioned. “But I don’t think you would steal this. If you did… well, then you’d get to live another week, and I probably blink back home. So…” he breathed out, then reached out his hand so he could pass Mare the geode. His own hand was shaking, and he was holding it in such a way that Mare wouldn’t have to touch his hand to take the atium.
He searched her eyes for a long moment before he withdrew his hand.
“What now?” he murmured, searching her for another long second. “Do we keep looking? What do you do with spare geodes? Do you have to turn them in with the one that keeps you alive for a week?”
He wanted to ask Kelsier if he was okay, but he didn’t want to worry Mare in the middle of asking her these important questions. He would have to trust Kelsier for the moment. He had to be okay. He had to be… Nico bit his lip to stop himself from yelling at the House to just… end this right now. He didn’t want to be in Hathsin, but he could deal with it. It wasn’t fair to make Kelsier go through Tartarus alone, especially when he didn’t have any experience fighting these sorts of monsters.

Dipper | Living Room | strider

Dipper nodded at Wylan's shocked reaction. "Its not as bad as some of the other blinkers, it could be probably way worse. Some people straight up forget they were here and have to relearn everything all over again." He concluded it with deeper contemplation, as he himself was trying to make sense of the house. Yet doing so was not the best idea as even the original blinkers still did not know everything themselves regarding the house and blinking. "I can remember lots of people who aren't here anymore. It's a good thing I wrote them down...somewhere." Yes, yes, he could not forget one detail! If he did, then his search for knowledge would be incomplete. Even worse, his adventures would be dismissed as him having a wild "imagination" as a kid. Both his adventures in Gravity Falls and the house would be waved away which is the last thing he wanted.
Plus, he can't reveal much about the journal if he doesn't have proof of it with him! That being said, the boy stood there with great interest in Wylan's experiences. "Fourth time isn't too bad then," Dipper commented noncommittally. "How many other blinkers have you met? I hope they were nice. I'm kinda glad you're not like completely new otherwise you'd be like trying to stab someone or explode the walls."

Kelsier and Mare | Switcharoom | strider

Kelsier didn’t often get lost in thought when there were other things happening. It wasn’t that he couldn’t…he could definitely end up overthinking things. Or maybe not overthinking. He didn’t know if it was possible to think too much about the things that had happened, or the things he planned to do.
But when he was in the middle of other things, he concentrated on them. He couldn’t afford to think about the past when he was dealing with the present. He kept going, and he didn’t let himself get tangled up in his own head.
Which meant he was mostly keeping quiet to try not to distract Nico from Mare. He couldn’t tell whether she was talking, but he could at least hear Nico’s replies, so he assumed she was. One conversation would be distracting enough. Two could mean Nico was caught off guard, if something happened.
Also, he was pretty sure the monsters were tracking him.
He paused by the river to drink a little more, leaning back quickly as he heard something else. More of them, probably.
He straightened up quickly and began to fight again, gritting his teeth to keep quiet, though it was getting harder to keep them at bay. He could tell they were trying to wear him down…capture him, probably. Nico had said they might try to capture him, and he couldn’t allow that to happen.

Mare’s eyes widened a little, watching as he made his decision. She hadn’t really expected him to give it to her…was it trust? Or was it just that he didn’t see what harm she could do with it? Was it because of the way Kelsier had apparently talked about her, after all this was over?
She accepted it without touching him, carefully closing her fingers over it and pulling her hand back. It wouldn’t be too hard for her to hide it. She had some experience with that, and if worse came to worst, she could always call any hostile prisoner’s attention away from Nico with it. Nico, not having one, wouldn’t be in as much danger.
“You have to be careful about going back in the middle of the day,” she told him, tucking the geodes into her pockets, one on each side. “If you don’t have one, you’re desperate, and that means you’ll stay here as long as you can. If you feel confident enough to head back, you’re a target.”
She looked at him for a moment, then turned to look deeper into the Pits. “You’re technically supposed to turn in all the ones you find, but they can’t really reasonably enforce that. They have better things to do than search every prisoner for spare geodes. Besides, they need us. If they lose too many, they’ll lose their atium too, and no one wants that.”
She looked back, a tiny, almost sad smile on her face. “It’s a carefully thought out system. And it only works because we’re all too damn stubborn to die. So, yeah, we should probably keep looking, but we shouldn’t risk going any deeper.”

Nico trusted Kelsier more than he trusted almost anyone else. It had been a quick transition from not trusting him at all to trusting him with his life, but given what the House had thrown at him… he didn’t have the mental bandwidth to consider that at the moment. All he knew was that they were in a bad situation and Kelsier, like he somehow always managed to do, was going to fix it. Or… maybe not fix it, but at the very least make it better. He searched Kelsier’s eyes, trying to figure out what Kelsier was saying. He didn’t want Sam to be crying, but it didn’t seem like there was anything he could do about that other than make himself opaque again, and… he didn’t know how to do that. He lifted his hand up enough that he could see it, then frowned at it as though that might make a difference. It didn’t. He frowned at it harder, then looked up at Kelsier.
“I’ve had too much today already,” he mumbled, reaching into his pouch for the packet of ambrosia anyway. He tilted his head a little bit, stared at the ambrosia, then put the packet back down. He didn’t know where the door was. He didn’t know if there was a door, but… he didn’t want to be worrying Kelsier. He didn’t want to make this worse, though he was the obstacle in this situation. If it weren’t for him, Sam and Kelsier likely would have already left. But Kelsier couldn’t carry him when he might slip right through his grasp.
Slowly, Nico tried to push himself to his feet, but he was unstable enough that he had to give up and admit a few moments later that it wasn’t a good idea.
“You should… go. I’ll follow,” he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. His head was spinning, his heart racing… it was hard to think. All he knew for certain was that he wanted both Kelsier and Sam to be okay, and okay was out of the room.

Dipper tapped his chin, recalling the peculiar anomaloies that would crop on occasion. "Its either that or they just get blinked in when they're younger. Its really weird but everyone tries to be nice. It doesn't last for long, for both situations, I guess." Nice was a light word to be used but it would do for now. He remembered faintly there was creature he'd met once, maybe it had been right before picture day. A faint smile formed on his lips before he refocused himself on what Wylan had just said. Blinking, if he was lucky, would be often for Wylan that hr didn't need to rely on a kid like him. That's what Dipper assumed as far as their current conversation was going. "A lot of the prople I've met aren't here but some of the older ones have stuck around - I hope so." He continued, a hollow pang in his words. "I know a few that you could look out for but one problem is they're not normal. Not like you and me, more like yhey have fur, drink blood, undead, or happen to be a dragon. Some blinkers aren't human but they're friendly!" As he went on his ramble, he lifted his finger for every oddity he could think off. Admittedly, to anyone who wasn't a regular in the house it was odd how one boy could rattle off enthuisatically about the paranormal. To an unhealty degree of interest, Dipper tapered off his response with a modest grin. "Nothing ever exciting happens in my world. Basically, the house and all its mysteries is what I've been studying this whole summer since my first blink."

Sal | Pictionary Room | strider

The name was undoubtedly unusual, but Sal wasn’t sure whether that meant it had been made up, or just that names were going to change in the future, or maybe they just had a strange name. He didn’t have any idea.
Either way, he was trying to get something interesting out of this room, and he wasn’t going to give up unless Zuko got bored and asked him to.
He blinked at the guitar as it made its appearance, surprised that something had actually happened. It had been a very vague request…he hadn’t really thought anything would come of it.
He approached it and picked it up carefully, testing its weight before he played a tentative chord.
“Woah,” he said appreciatively as the waves caught his eye. “I admit, that is cool.”
He played a couple more chords, then glanced at Zuko. “Do you have guitars in your world? I have one. It’s not quite like this one, though.”
He strummed quietly as he thought, trying to come up with something useful to ask for.
Then he looked back at the drawing.
“Is it a full, detailed, and accurate explanation of what this place is and how it works in a format we can both understand?”

Amico shook his head, looking at the hand. He didn't know what the hand meant either and he found himself looking at it from every side. Back, forth, back, forth. There didn't seem to be anything in the hand, however. So he had no idea what he should actually do about this. It seemed a bit up for interpretation, so he just left it where it was.
"No, I don't know what that means," he said. "Does it have something to do with your hand?"
Maybe. That seemed like it could be a possibility.
Though that did mean the small boy was now waiting patiently for an answer.

Kelsier | for Sam Room | strider mintedstar/fur

Kelsier nodded, not surprised that Nico had already had need of it. How many times had he blinked in today already? How many injuries had he sustained outside the House?
That wasn’t important now. He would be okay. He had been here before, and he’d come back. He would recover.
He looked up at Sam, giving a small, reassuring smile.
“He’ll be alright,” he told him, voice steady. “This isn’t the first time. He’s tough, he’ll heal, and he’ll be back to normal.”
It wasn’t a lie. Kelsier poured every bit of willpower he could not the words, which were for both boys, really. He wouldn’t lose Nico here, and Nico wouldn’t get worse as long as he didn’t use his powers, so he was right. He just needed them to believe it too.
He looked back down at Nico, searching his eyes and ignoring the request. It didn’t really need an answer. He hadn’t left Nico when they’d had to fight each other’s monsters, and he wasn’t going to leave him now.
“Promise me you won’t use shadow travel right now,” he told him, holding his gaze. “I mean it. Promise me you won’t try it.”

Sal | Pictionary Room | strider

Sal played a couple of chords, more for something for his hands to do than anything else. It was familiar, even if the guitar itself wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen. Would he be able to take it back with him? He would at least try to.
“What sort of instruments do you have?” Had asked curiously, glancing at Zuko. He wasn’t sure how similar their worlds were…they had to be at least a little bit similar, right? Zuko seemed to be human. Unless his appearance was deceptive, he’d need a similar place to earth to live. He’d have to ask more about it later, assuming they ever saw each other again after this. For now…he didn’t want to miss out on the room. He would probably come back to this place eventually, but he had no idea if rooms ever repeated.
He looked at the ceiling, waiting patiently to see what would happen. He was definitely pushing his luck here…Zuko wasn’t trying to stop him, though, so it was probably not anything to worry about.
He blinked in surprise as the drawing disappeared, then watched the word replace it. He stared for a long moment, then let out a huff of laughter and walked over to it, looking at the letters.
“Blunt. I like it,” he decided after a moment. “That’s it for me, then. Your turn.”
He picked up a black marker and tapped his prosthetic with it, trying to decide what to draw. Nothing dangerous. Nothing that could hurt either of them.
Maybe a flower.
He selected a pink marker and began to draw the petals.