#nora ''i can just shoot people now'' navarre

[new-eyes-extra-colors]

VIII, X, XXIV, & XXVIII for Nora?👀

Under a cut for mentions of graphic violence, suicidal ideation, and also because there are parts of fic in here making this post monstrously long.

VIII. The Lionsmith What is the cruelest thing they’ve done that they do not regret?

Nora beats Kellogg to death with the butt of a rifle, and Nick has to pull her off him. After, she recognizes in the moment that she lost control, but absolutely does not care. She mentions a few times after that she thinks he deserved it and she'd do it again. This kick starts a particular struggle for her--finding the line between where violence is and isn't the right answer.

X. The Beachcomber Describe a grudge, intrusive desire, anxiety, or other similar negative emotion they nurture. Are they willing to give it up? If not, what could force them?

Have a bit from the fic, during Nora's visit to the Memory Den after killing Kellogg:

Somewhere far away, Amari said her name, but she could barely hear it over her own ragged breathing. Her throat burned. Her hands trembled. Tears stung her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Grief cracked open her chest and pulled out every part of her that mattered, leaving her gutted, as dead and cold as her Dana the moments after Kellogg had pulled the trigger. The only thing left was for Kellogg to turn his gun on her, but he hadn’t gotten the memo, had just smiled at her through the glass and walked away.

And her body hadn’t gotten the memo, either. Somehow, she was breathing, shaking, crying, but shouldn’t have been, because she wasn’t even a person anymore. How could someone be stripped of so much and still alive? Her family was dead, so she wasn’t a daughter, or a granddaughter, or a sister, and the world had ended, so she wasn’t a lawyer, and her husband was murdered, so she wasn’t a wife, and her baby was taken, so she wasn’t a mother.

After all of that, of being scraped down to her core, what else was even left?

There was grief, but grief burned, and then festered into hatred, hot and vicious like a chemical fire. She hated Kellogg, for murdering her husband, and hated the Institute, for ordering him to take her baby, and most of all, worst of all, she hated herself, for letting it happen, for not stopping it.

She should have been the one carrying Shaun. It was that simple. Every decision before had been like a line of dominos, stacked up so perfectly that whether she or her husband lived or died depended on the flip of a coin: someone deciding today wasn’t the day they wanted to end the world as she knew it, turning away the Vault-Tec salesman just once more, how quickly they left for the park that morning, the particular night Shaun was conceived, even something as inane and out of her control as the genetics that left her susceptible to a dangerous condition during pregnancy that necessitated her c-section.

If she had carried Shaun that morning, then it would have been her on the wrong side of Kellogg’s revolver, and she would have failed to protect her family then, too, but at least then she’d have gotten what she deserved for it. Dana would have grieved, but he’d have found Shaun by now. He wouldn’t have needed her, and he wouldn’t have needed Preston, or Danse, or Piper, or Nick, or Deacon. He would have caught up to Kellogg faster, or found the Institute already, and made them all pay for what they did to his family, and then it would be over.

If she had done just one thing differently.

If she had just carried Shaun…

Guilt and self-hatred eat at her a lot. She is forced to consider letting this go, eventually, after Shaun tells her that because of a particular quirk--fetal microchimerism--the Institute was never going to have her killed. She was always a pawn in his game.

XXIV. The Flint What is their most destructive tendency?

As mentioned in this post, Nora lets certain things fester. If she thinks something will drive a wedge between herself and a friend, she'll let guilt consume her without bringing it up and therefore opening herself to the possibility that her friend will cut ties with her. This makes her jumpy, wary around her loved ones, and then she lets more things fester, etc. It's a vicious cycle.

XXVIII. The Mare-in-the-Tree Describe them at their most dangerous.

Nora is most dangerous with her back against the wall. If she can't find another solution to a problem, she picks violence. If she's anxious, she may jump to violence before properly assessing all her options.

One of the things she struggles with in my fic is shooting X4-18 in the back during the battle at Bunker Hill. Up until that point--and as much as she can after, especially after growing close with X6-88--she advocates that the Railroad do what work they can not killing coursers. Still, she winds up killing several of them because the choice was between their lives or the lives of Railroad agents.