𝙼𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝙶𝚘 𝙰𝚠𝚊𝚢 - H&S

“Damn,” Nico replied good naturedly, casting a brief look at Kelsier. “I was planning on disobeying everything you and Will Solace have told me and transporting you and I all the way to Venice because I have no regard for my own personal safety, even when it comes to frivolous matters.” He made sure to keep his voice carefully deadpan as he spoke, though the hint of a smile was peeking through his lips. He knew he had risked his life enough times that it was a valid concern, but he wasn’t going to risk shadow travel for something as frivolous as a trip to Venice. If Kelsier wanted to go, they would either have to go by plane or spend a few weeks on a boat. He had a feeling that Kelsier would prefer the boat, especially after how he had reacted to the one time he had been on a plane. That was a memory that Nico didn’t want to make Kelsier repeat – the room had been exceedingly unpleasant.
“One day,” Nico managed, his voice more genuine. “One day, when it’s safer for demigods to go to the Old World. Then maybe I can show you Venice. I’ll have to find a sfer way than shadow travel, though… I don’t think you’d like many of the ways that are currently available.” He fell silent after a moment, considering that and the question of Zeus at the same time. He highly doubted that the god was paying them much attention, but… it was better to assume he was under constant scrutiny than to say something that could get the gods to smite him. He wasn’t too worried about that, though. The gods owed him for a lot.
“I’ve seen him fight before,” Nico admitted reluctantly, arms crossing. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to say anything that might give you a tactical advantage.”

“New York is big enough that if anyone says they’ve seen the whole city, they’re lying. Even elderly people who have lived here their entire lives… the city is constantly changing, too. What was here when they were young might not be here anymore, and what’s here now wasn’t here for most of their lives. I guess… the point is that if I don’t see something new, I’ll be very, very surprised. Or I’ll be lying.” Nico glanced at Kelsier, well aware that he was rambling. Around most people he might have been self-conscious about it. He would have mumbled an apology and tried to stop speaking so much, but with Kelsier… it felt safe to just… ramble. It felt like Kelsier was actually interested in listening to him. Nico wasn’t used to people who were truly interested in what he had to say…
“I doubt you can see everything, but I’ll show you as much as I can. And not just the touristy stuff. I’ll show you the sides of the city that the locals would rather keep to themselves. The places tourists don’t think to look, because they’re hidden, or because they haven’t been here long.”
How long did they have here? Nico didn’t know for sure, but he knew he was going to cram as much as possible into whatever time they did have. Kelsier deserved to see as much of the city as possible. Shadow travel may not have been an option, but they could still get around decently quickly if they took the right transportation.
“I don’t want you to lose,” he added after a moment. “It’s a fight I don’t want you to have in the first place. If you don’t challenge Zeus, you’ll never need to know how to beat him. So just… don’t challenge him. Please.”

“New York is one of the most alive cities in the world,” Nico agreed with a small nod. “I mean… it’s called the City that Never Sleeps, by some, and it’s an accurate enough name. But you’re right. It really does learn and grow as more and more people come in and the population shifts. We also have people leaving all the time for various reasons. The people who live in New York today will not be the same people who live in New York tomorrow, and the city will change around them. The city will change because of them. A good city has to work for and be shaped by its people. I doubt Scadrial is like that, but I think New York is, at least culturally.” It was odd to Nico that there was no diversity of cultures in Kelsier’s world. They were all from the same place. They were all supposed to have the same beliefs, because there was only one religion left. The others had all been squashed out. Were there traditions that continued that hadn’t been made by the Lord Ruler?
“I don’t think they’ll be irritated, no,” Nico replied after a moment, shaking his head. It was easier to think about that than the really serious things. “I mean… they might give you a few funny looks as long as where you are isn’t illegal, but they won’t be annoyed. They might actually think it’s good that a tourist is seeing the parts of New York that are actually real rather than just a performance for tourists.” He looked ahead, shoving his hands in his pockets as he continued to walk, ducking around a woman whose clothes were painted on.
“I see what you mean,” Nico said after a moment, turning a little so he could search Kelsier’s expression. “I really don’t want you challenging Zeus, though. Do… do you promise that you just want to know for self-defense?” The concern lacing his voice was more obvious than he had intended it to be. “It’s not… that I don’t think you could beat him. It’s just… I don’t want to worry about you taking that risk. He’s powerful, and there are a lot of people who will fight for him if he asks, or if he’s in danger. And… and I don’t know if you could take an entire pantheon.”

“I didn’t know that, actually,” Nico murmured, eyes wide as he looked up at Kelsier. He had heard a little bit about Marsh, but he hadn’t actually known that he had been part of the rebellion before Kelsier had made it his life goal. It was odd to think of a Kelsier who wasn’t dedicated to taking down the Lord Ruler. It was even stranger to think of a Kelsier who hadn’t been part of a revolutionary effort, no matter how small. It was hard to admit that Hathsin had changed Kelsier, but it definitely had. For the better, in many ways, but… maybe it wasn’t all good. It was likely that the Kelsier from before Hathsin would never have thought of Nico as a son, but… would Kelsier be happier? He would still have Mare, but he may never have come up with his crazy plan to overthrow the Lord Ruler. He may never have become hope.
“Nobody believes he’s mortal, do they?” Nico asked after a moment, and it made sense. If a man had lived for a very long time and had been unable to be brought down by rebellions, eventually people would start to believe that he couldn’t be killed. He was a dictator. He was cruel and he kept them hopeless for a reason. He spread a doctrine that was probably more full of lies than it was truths, and people believed it. Not Kelsier, though. Had he ever believed it? Had his belief that the Lord Ruler could be killed come entirely from his time in Hathsin? It seemed possible that Kelsier would have gone mad without a final goal. Nico could imagine him picking one that seemed impossible to achieve and clinging to it because it was the only thing keeping him alive. Nico had experienced that himself.
“If the tourists go where the locals go, then the locals will eventually leave, because the tourists tend to be obnoxious. Especially in large numbers. So they want some tourists to see the city as it should be, as it is for the locals, but not all of them at once,” Nico replied, distracted. His thoughts were still on the Lord Ruler, though he knew there was nothing he could do to change Kelsier’s world.
There were, however, more important things to focus on. If Kelsier actually had to fight Zeus… Nico didn’t like it, but he would rather Kelsier be prepared than unprepared. Even if he suspected Kelsier would just as soon challenge the god as be hunted down by him and need to defend himself.
“What, exactly, do you want to know about Zeus?”

Nico watched Kelsier, arms crossing at the joking response. That wasn’t what he had been asking, though he knew why Kelsier had tried to make a joke of it. Kelsier may have been the most impressive person Nico had ever met, but he was still just a man. There was only so much he could do, and nobody knew how to kill the Lord Ruler. What was the difference between a man and a god? The gods in this world could be killed. They could be trapped in Tartarus and prevented from respawning. They could be killed and punished just like any human, it would just take a lot of effort and more skill than most mortals had. Was the Lord Ruler any different? Nico knew that Kelsier had a secret weapon, but they didn’t know if that weapon was going to work. He pushed the thought away. Kelsier was going to save his world. Nico had no questions about that. If anyone could, it was going to be Kelsier. Nico had saved his world, so it was Kelsier’s turn now. Kelsier had always been more competent than Nico anyway.
“You’re going to defeat him,” Nico whispered, not looking away from Kelsier. He knew that Kelsier believed he could do it (or at least pretended to believe he could), but Nico had a feeling he was less confident than he sounded. Even if that wasn’t the case, having someone else’s belief could never hurt.
It was, admittedly, easier to think about Zeus. It was uncomfortable to consider that there may not actually be that many differences between the king of the gods and the Lord Ruler. They were both self-appointed deities, it was just that Zeus seemed to try a little bit harder to be fair. He did, after all, have to share the world. Most people didn’t believe in him anymore.
“I have no idea,” Nico said honestly, giving a small shrug. “I don’t have deep conversations with the gods about what they like or fear. I can imagine he doesn’t want to lose his throne, though. His biggest threats are Poseidon and Hades.”

Nico gave one of his rare, genuine smiles (though they weren’t so rare around Kelsier). He didn’t know if his belief helped alleviate any of Kelsier’s doubt, but… Kelsier had believed in him when he was doing the impossible. The least Nico could do was return the favor. He glanced away, moving along the street towards the Empire State Building. They could, of course, get back on the bus, but Times Square was an unfortunate place to pick it up. The line was already starting to wind around the block. He figured it would be best to walk at least to the next stop, if not all the way to the Empire State Building. Kelsier was probably used to walking further in a day than that, depending on how big and spread out Luthadel was. Hopefully the injury wouldn’t stop him.
“We should visit a pawn shop,” Nico said after a moment, glancing over at Kelsier. “I don’t know how pure the metals would be, but at least we could get you some metals for pretty cheap.” The last thing Nico wanted to do was poison Kelsier, but he knew the Mistborn needed metals, especially if he was going to heal the injury he had sustained as fast as possible.
“Anyway… yeah, you aren’t the first person to have that idea.” Nico’s voice was quiet, barely audible above the din of the city. “The first war… there was a demigod who believed that we could rule better than the gods. He believed that the gods were just using us, and he wanted to overthrow them. Their time was over, he believed, and… and he thought it would be best if he could start a war among the gods so they could take each other down. It wasn’t a bad idea. The gods are… old. They aren’t the best at knowing what’s best for us, even though they maintain that they are. He ended up working with an old enemy of the gods, but he was manipulated…” Nico looked away, shuddering at the few memories he had of Luke Castellan. “It didn’t end well for him. But the gods changed their behavior after that.”

It was unfortunate that they couldn’t just buy bottles of metal. It seemed that what was useful in Kelsier’s world wasn’t useful enough in Nico’s world to warrant selling it on every street corner. Which was a shame, because it was exactly what Kelsier needed to be as powerful as he usually was. Nico knew that Kelsier could survive without metals (he had for most of his life, after all), but in a strange place like this, he likely would need them. Besides, pewter was probably going to help his wound heal faster. He didn’t want to make Kelsier walk around with a wound like that which could reopen at any moment if he moved too suddenly.
“We can try to find Hazel,” Nico mused, tilting his head a little bit. “She might be able to tell us if the metals are pure. She’s better with metals than I am. I think that’s because Pluto is more well defined as the god of riches in Roman mythology than Hades is in Greek…” he let that thought hang in the air for a moment before shaking his head. “If we do that, though, I’ll need your permission to shadow travel to San Francisco. It’s… really not that far.” That was a lie, but there was no way for Kelsier to know that. He didn’t have to know that California was on the other side of the country. Even if he found out, he didn’t have to know how large the country was. “Might be our best bet at making sure you don’t get poisoned. I think… the Hephaestus kids might also have some metals, but those are a lot more likely to be impure.”
He fell silent for a few moments, thinking about Luke for just a second too long. It was scary, actually, how similar Kelsier was to Luke. They would have gotten along.
“It wasn’t really his planning,” Nico said after a moment. “He… he was working with a Titan. The Titan got in his head, and he didn’t realize that he was setting the world up to be taken over by Titans. The gods… the gods are better than that.”

Nico made a face as his shadow travel idea was shot down. He knew it was dangerous, but he also knew he wasn’t as fragile as others tended to treat him. So what if he got hurt shadow travelling? He would recover, as long as he didn’t do too much again too soon… he gave a small sigh, irritated that nobody else’s powers seemed to impact them in the same way. Nobody else had to worry about how much they used their powers. Nobody else had something useful that they couldn’t use whenever they needed to. It almost would have been better to have no powers at all. Almost.
“Okay, well halfway around the world was far,” Nico retorted, crossing his arms. “This isn’t that far. It might be the only way to get you safe metals, and I don’t think having you without them here is a good idea.” It wasn’t about the shadow travel. It was about Kelsier being here, and Nico being unable to help him. Kelsier had come here to save Nico’s life. If Nico couldn’t even help him get metals… frustration burned in the pit of his stomach, but he didn’t say anything else. The slight temperature drop in the surrounding air said enough.
“How much pewter do you have left?” Nico asked reluctantly. He didn’t know how much time they had to find metals, but… there had to be a way, even if travelling across the country wasn’t an option.
He wasn’t really interested in talking about taking down the gods, either. It had been an interesting point of discussion for a while, but he knew that Kelsier would be serious about doing it if he were allowed to ruminate on it for too long. The gods weren’t that bad. The gods kept things in balance, and they were working hard to be better. Simple as that.

Nico breathed out, doing his best not to make a snarky comment about not being able to use his powers. He could, in theory, do it anyway. He could go get metals for Kelsier and make sure they were as pure as possible, and there was nothing Kelsier could do about it. It wasn’t as though he would refuse to use metals that Nico had risked his life for, but… that wasn’t the point. The point was that Nico had no reason to risk his life at the moment. He didn’t need to get metals for Kelsier unless they had exhausted all other possibilities.
“We can… we can try to get some of the Hephaestus kids to test the metals for purity,” he said after a moment, gritting his teeth. The last thing he wanted was for Kelsier to be poisoned just because this world wasn’t suited to people who needed metals to fuel their powers.
“I just… I know you can fight without metals. But it’s a dangerous world, and… and if we get mixed up in the wrong kind of thing, if you end up having to face a god, even if you don’t intend to… then you need to be able to fight back against them. It’s not so much about monsters… we can get you better weapons to use against them. It’s… I don’t know. You tend to get yourself mixed up in things that are a lot bigger than you. And you’re still injured.” Nico cast a pointed look at the spot where the wound was. It wasn’t going to get better quickly unless Kelsier could use his pewter, and Nico could tell he wasn’t actively burning it. “We need to try to get you metals. Even if it’s just in the city.”

“Will’s pretty good at med stuff,” Nico allowed after a moment, trying to force himself to relax. Kelsier was fine. Nico may have been used to emergencies, but this wasn’t an emergency. It was odd. Nico had heard of people who were good in a crisis, and he had most certainly heard of people who weren’t good in a crisis. The thing was, most people who were good in a crisis were also good at dealing with day to day life. Emergencies were the kind of thing that you had to be good at normal life to handle well. Some people who could handle normal life perfectly well didn’t handle emergencies well at all. Nico was the opposite, somehow. He could do emergencies. They fit in his mind. They made sense to him. Day to day life? That was where he struggled.
“What… would you like to do now, then?” Nico asked after a moment, trying to get back to the cheerful mood they had been in not too long ago. They were supposed to be having fun. Nico was going to do his best to make that happen. “Did you want to… go straight to the Empire State Building? It’s not too far a walk, if you’d want to…”

Nico found it more comfortable to sink back down into the lighter, more familiar conversation they’d been having. He was as aware as Kelsier was that there was a conversation to be had, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to have it until after he’d shown Kelsier the city. He wasn’t sure that he alone would be enough to convince Kelsier that killing someone in this world was a very, very bad idea. Nico didn’t think that killing every day citizens was going to be an issue (unless Kelsier found out about Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk… then they might have a problem), but he was worried about Kelsier going after gods. He had earned the right to kill the Lord Ruler, because he understand the world the Lord Ruler operated in. He was able to organize a plan of attack that made sense. Killing Zeus was a whole different beast.
“Okay,” Nico said after a moment, looking around briefly. They could go to the Empire State Building, but Nico wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to take that risk now. Maybe they would just… go somewhere else first. There were plenty of other things to see in the city, after all. “You’ve… never been to Central Park,” he said after a moment, thinking through his options, “That’s not too far away. We could explore Times Square a little more and then head in that direction?”

Nico didn’t think that being Mistborn in the middle of New York City was a good idea. Kelsier was good, but if all of NYPD was after him? Nico didn’t want to see that showdown. Actually… he very much did want to see it, which was part of what told him it was a very, very bad idea. Kelsier could probably defeat a bunch of humans no problem, but if even one of them caught him? They might make Kelsier the subject of experiments. What would they do if they found out he was from a different world? What if they hurt him? Nico did his best to push that thought away. He wasn’t being serious here. He wasn’t thinking about every bad thing that could possibly happen. He was just showing his dad around his home, and neither of them were going to end up in a situation where they wanted to murder someone. Probably.
“Do you want to look around Times Square a little more?” Nico asked, glancing around him for a few moments before looking back up at Kelsier. “This is… honestly one of the most crowded places in the city unless you count the subway. There’s a lot to see here. I don’t… want to drag you away if you’re not ready.”

“I guess there’s just a lot to see anywhere,” Nico replied, fighting his way through the crowd. He tried to do what more of the locals did – head up, shoulders back, walk straight ahead like you’re going to trample anyone in your path. The issue was, he was smaller than most people were, and they weren’t exactly going to take a scrawny kid seriously no matter how assertive he tried to look when he walked. It was easier for him to duck and dodge his way through. Sometimes, he thought, he would have made a great pickpocket if he’d been born a few decades earlier. Or… if he’d been allowed to live a few decades earlier. Was pickpocketing still a common thing when he had been a kid?
“Times Square is one of the weirdest parts of New York,” Nico admitted, glancing around and catching sight of some of the weird, off-brand character costumes that surrounded them. “If you ever need to kill a few hours people watching, Times Square is the way to do it. Sometimes it’s fun to look around and see the tourists seeing it for the first time. And… like over there, you can see… that woman thinks she looks like a local, but she’s not hiding it very well. She keeps trying to see the tops of the buildings.”

Kelsier seemed to cut an imposing figure no matter where he went. It was honestly impressive, though Nico had no idea how he managed it. Maybe it was just because he was tall. Maybe it was because he was the kind of person who actually deserved to be stared at wherever he went, because he was the sort of impossible thing you didn’t see every day. Even if nobody on Earth knew who the Survivor of Hathsin was, they could probably tell that Kelsier was important somehow. Maybe they thought he was a celebrity. Enough people seemed to stop and stare that it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility. Nico hid his smile. Kelsier would hate the idea of being a celebrity, especially if people thought he was an actor or something. It was probably a good thing that Kelsier didn’t know what Hollywood was.
“It slows you down if you look up too much,” Nico replied with a shrug. “And it means you bump into people a lot more. Generally, the more attention you pay to the sky, the less you’re paying to your surroundings. Unless you’re Mistborn and capable of paying attention to both at once.”