open post: averageness

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally's first clue that it hadn't been a dream was that she'd woken up alone in her room.

Nowadays, she and Gideon have been sharing a room, so that Tally can protect her from ever finding a body alone again--and maybe conspicuously leave out some clothes that fit Gideon but aren't, like, ratty black pants. That day, though, she'd woken in an empty room, gasping from something that felt like a nightmare, but somehow more vivid than real life.

Without even getting dressed, she'd run for the woods to confirm what had happened. Horror had flooded her when she found the knife-mark, exactly where she remembered throwing it yesterday. It was true. She'd been Special. She'd been awful. She'd seen and felt the world with more harsh clarity than she'd ever thought possible. She'd hit Gideon.

Tally had collapsed onto the stump, gripping her own arms to make sure her familiar, average body was still there.

Over the next few days, Tally doesn't sleep well, and people getting swapped out for a second time doesn't help. People might find her wandering the mansion like a zombie, or in one of the kitchens, contemplating getting drunk. She's not as put together as usual, either, but of course on her even bedhead and sweats look beautiful.

Comments

[tallyyoungblood]

"I thought I would be able to fix everything if I went back," Tally says. "But Special-me, she's only from a few months in the future. If that's what's waiting for me... I don't know. I miss David, my ex, but he's probably going to be angry with me forever. I miss my friend Shay, but..." she shakes her head. "She's the one who made me Special. Makes me?"

[sagramore]

"You know, I've thought that one of the things we all have in common, being brought here, is that we're at a turning point in our life stories -- that if we hadn't come here when we did, things would have become much worse for us. By coming here, we have the chance to change."

[tallyyoungblood]

"You think whoever runs this place knows everyone's futures? That's totally head-spinning." Tally guesses it makes sense for someone like Gideon, who would be dead otherwise, but was Tally really about to take an irreversible turn for the worse at age seventeen? Something else occurs to her, too. "What about whoever killed Shen Yuan? I feel like doing murder isn't 'getting better.'"

[sagramore]

"Perhaps not all of us, then. But--" He sighs. "Shen Yuan wasn't happy in his body. I'm not happy that this is the way it happened, but at the end of all of this he's going to have a body that was made for him, one that looks the way he wants it to look. There is something good in that."

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally has to laugh. "Okay, where were you when I was trying to explain that the pretty operation was good?"

[sagramore]

"The pretty operation?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"In my world, everyone gets an operation to look this beautiful when they turn sixteen." Tally gestures at her face. "I grew up thinking the pretty operation was good, and they told us it was the reason we never had wars any more. If everyone's equally beautiful, everyone gets along." She sighs. "But it turns out they were damaging our brains at the same time. You remember how I was when I was drunk. The brain damage makes it like everyone's drunk all the time--pretty-minded, my friend Zane calls it. There are no wars because no one thinks for themselves. Special-Tally had another operation, to be strong and cruelly beautiful, and to be basically the opposite of pretty-minded. The Specials run the cities and keep all the pretties in line."

[sagramore]

"That-- sounds quite bad," he says slowly, as he digests all this. "And it sounds as if you've had rather more than your fair share of revelations since you got here."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Utterly enough revelations," she agrees. "I had forgotten the brain damage, um, because of the brain damage. But I remember now. I guess Shen Yuan getting a new body is like the operation without any of the bad parts. Or with different bad parts. But I'm still not sure I trust people, or spirits or whoever, who think they know what's best for us."

[sagramore]

"I think that's fair. I'm not sure it's wise to be as trusting as I am, honestly," with a rueful laugh. "And it sounds as if you're overdue to think for yourself at any rate, so you should get as much as you can."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Do you think they were trying to teach us a lesson, by swapping us out?" The coffee smell is starting to fill the room, and Tally breathes it in gratefully.

[sagramore]

"About how much better our lives are here?" He stirs the coffee. "I don't know. Some of our alternate selves were perfectly nice and perfectly suited to their worlds. I think sometimes the spirits are just amusing themselves."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Bogus kind of fun, if you ask me." Tally winces again, thinking about how Gideon's flesh had given way so easily under her nails. "Gideon's been through a lot. I hate to put her through more."

[sagramore]

"Oh, no, I do certainly agree with that. I already hate that there are so many children here. You shouldn't be away from your families like this." And then, thinking about his own lack of a family at her age, "Or just generally alone here. I wish you were living easier lives."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Children?" Tally's momentarily confused. "I'm seventeen. I haven't lived with my parents for like five years. This place isn't that much different than New Pretty Town." Georgia's complaints about living with her parents come back to her, though. "I guess it's hard for the younger people who are used to living with their families."

[sagramore]

"You've been on your own since you were twelve?"

[tallyyoungblood]

Belatedly, Tally remembers about homelessness. "Not on my own. Living in a dorm in Uglyville. It's totally normal in my world. It's not like I was out on the streets."

[sagramore]

"It sounds like a difficult life all the same," frowning slightly.<sup>1

1</sup>Sagramore has already mentally slotted Magnus and Nina into a specific category of the worry zone: he's acutely aware that they're very young and yet have had non-stop bad things happen to them, and have a tendency to feel like everything rests of their shoulders alone. Tally is now being added to this same category. Shen Yuan, please come back and explain YA literature to him so he can describe this phenomenon.

[tallyyoungblood]

"From what Georgia's told me, it seems much worse to live with your parents. Curfews and having to explain to your crumblies what you've been doing all day seems like a total hassle. Much easier to learn how to trick the minders."

[sagramore]

That gets a laugh. "Georgia's time with her parents must have been very different from mine."

[tallyyoungblood]

"What were yours like?"

[sagramore]

"Mine didn't like me very much. I'm not well, and that was very disappointing to them."

[tallyyoungblood]

"That's so bogus, Sagramore-la. In my world, we--" Tally stops herself, thinking. She wants to say that the pretty operation fixed all that, but she remembers all too well the horrible days after she'd been denied her pretty operation, when her parents had refused to let her come home with them. She's never thought all that hard about the tiny percentage of people who can't get the pretty operation for medical reasons, but her heart hammers when she thinks of it now. "Well, I guess my world isn't perfect about that stuff, either. I'm really sorry."

[sagramore]

"It's all right. One of the things that's been better about this place is finding people who look past it or don't care, and love me anyway." He gives her a gentle look.

[tallyyoungblood]

"I don't care about it," Tally says hastily. "I mean, I like you the way you are."