[ Reporting back on the conditions of the paths they'd seen between the Fracking Fields and the Boneyard Junction none of them had managed to reach quite yet. It had seemed straightforward, and her nebulous concept of rewards for accepting bounties had meant she expected little to nothing. When her expectations had been met, that was fine enough as it was.
Being notified to pick up a package from the Mayor's office, on the other hand, came as a surprise. Late afternoon brought her to their doorstep; she waits amidst the scents of sage and sunwarm tar, sickly sweet in the afternoon's gentle haze.
The haze she steps back out into, hat dangling at her upper back, is not entirely a product of the lazy afternoon sunlight. She walks with a wooden sort of unease, hands locked around the stock and barrel of a pulse rifle she refuses to allow to touch her body. At the same time, she doesn't extend her arms out in front of her, instead keeping them bent at the elbow as she makes her stilted progress back toward the Reverend's house. Why? She helped Shuyi and reported back on the paths that might have lead toward Boneyard Junction, if the rockslides and sinkholes didn't make them treacherous. Why? Guns, even guns that shoot light, aren't multifunctional the way a knife is, or practical the way unarmed combat could be. Guns were made to shoot; guns were violence, even if it was a violence that kept a family fed.
She's not a hunter. She's a fighter, but that has had nothing to do with violence until she was plunged into it here. First the insects in Oska, then the bandits on the train. Running across that man in chains all covered in injuries, all the dead bodies he'd been kneeling down surrounded by... the self immolation of Evan under attack from the sandworm, and the viscera covering him, the walls, herself, but not so much Urahara.
She shivers, and the shiver becomes a shudder, and the shudder brings on the nausea she has to swallow down. On some level she's aware of who she's looking for when she stops outside the Reverend's house. Anakin has become enough of a constant, someone she has to report to and perform for, someone who she doesn't want to let down simply in practice; Anakin, teaching her self defense, and the only person she refers to as Master (by request) while accepting the formality of such bonds.
She holds the pulse rifle in her hands, fingers white as she holds on tight enough that she can't run away. ]
Master Anakin?
[ Calling out from beyond the porch, not sure if he's there, or if it's Kung Jin, or if it's Arima, which of the Several Deadly Former Strangers Cum Teammates she lives with here. Not sure if technically she's talking to empty air. She supposes if she is, she can go hide this under her pillow and find him again later, like some strange denial of an increasingly difficult to understand reality.
She doesn't want this.
She doesn't want any of this.
Because if this goes too far, will she even be able to go home? ]
action;
Being notified to pick up a package from the Mayor's office, on the other hand, came as a surprise. Late afternoon brought her to their doorstep; she waits amidst the scents of sage and sunwarm tar, sickly sweet in the afternoon's gentle haze.
The haze she steps back out into, hat dangling at her upper back, is not entirely a product of the lazy afternoon sunlight. She walks with a wooden sort of unease, hands locked around the stock and barrel of a pulse rifle she refuses to allow to touch her body. At the same time, she doesn't extend her arms out in front of her, instead keeping them bent at the elbow as she makes her stilted progress back toward the Reverend's house. Why? She helped Shuyi and reported back on the paths that might have lead toward Boneyard Junction, if the rockslides and sinkholes didn't make them treacherous. Why? Guns, even guns that shoot light, aren't multifunctional the way a knife is, or practical the way unarmed combat could be. Guns were made to shoot; guns were violence, even if it was a violence that kept a family fed.
She's not a hunter. She's a fighter, but that has had nothing to do with violence until she was plunged into it here. First the insects in Oska, then the bandits on the train. Running across that man in chains all covered in injuries, all the dead bodies he'd been kneeling down surrounded by... the self immolation of Evan under attack from the sandworm, and the viscera covering him, the walls, herself, but not so much Urahara.
She shivers, and the shiver becomes a shudder, and the shudder brings on the nausea she has to swallow down. On some level she's aware of who she's looking for when she stops outside the Reverend's house. Anakin has become enough of a constant, someone she has to report to and perform for, someone who she doesn't want to let down simply in practice; Anakin, teaching her self defense, and the only person she refers to as Master (by request) while accepting the formality of such bonds.
She holds the pulse rifle in her hands, fingers white as she holds on tight enough that she can't run away. ]
Master Anakin?
[ Calling out from beyond the porch, not sure if he's there, or if it's Kung Jin, or if it's Arima, which of the Several Deadly Former Strangers Cum Teammates she lives with here. Not sure if technically she's talking to empty air. She supposes if she is, she can go hide this under her pillow and find him again later, like some strange denial of an increasingly difficult to understand reality.
She doesn't want this.
She doesn't want any of this.
Because if this goes too far, will she even be able to go home? ]