After {A Fallout RP}

[Elesariin]

((You know the drill. Read along if you wish, but do not post.))

The pinkish orange light of the setting sun was blinding. After a lifetime of dim, flickering, artificial light, that was not an exaggeration. The young woman reflexively brought her free hand up to shield her eyes, but refused to close them. She was out. She'd finally gotten out. A surprised, almost disbelieving grin flashed across her face as she stared down at the world she'd never gotten a chance to see. The hills were bathed in gold and pink, and the shadows looked deeply purple. The few perpetually loose strands of hair that had escaped from her practical ponytail, normally a silvery white-blonde, had gone neon orange in the sunset, and were almost as blinding; impatient, she hooked them back behind her ears. This was gorgeous, this was perfect, this was---

The sun sank a few more inches, and her smile faded a little. The purple shadows got a little longer, and a little grayer, and suddenly she could see the scraggly bushes that passed for trees, and-- Holy hell, what was THAT?! Was it a Rad Roach? Those were everywhere down in the vault, and she was fairly confidant in her ability to take care of them, but this thing... it was bigger. And quieter. And--

The girl's already wide silvery-blue eyes shot open as far as they could go, and she quickly pulled out a small pistol. It didn't have many rounds left in it, but that was all she had time to do; the next moment, the dog-- a big, slavering, growling thing that had probably been something like a german shepard at one time or another-- jumped at her, its nightmarishly long teeth gleaming the same gorgeous pink as the hills. Forcing herself not to flinch back (not to close her eyes, not to bring her arms up to protect herself, and--most of all-- not to turn tail and scurry back into the vault, begging for forgiveness), she bought the pistol up, following the creature's head, and--

BANG!

Headshot. It fell backward as if it had been hit with a sledgehammer, but it rolled to its feet again almost at once, unsteady on its legs. A bloody hole had been drilled in its muzzle. How can it still...? While most of her brain reeled, a very small, very practical part of it decided to pull the trigger again. The dog yelped, went down, and stayed down.

She stared at it for several moments, breathing hard, her heart hammering away in her chest like she'd just been sprinting. It still didn't move.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she walked past it. In the short time that it had taken to kill the dog, the sun had dropped even further; now only the very tips of the mountains glowed, while the land in front of her simply looked very cold. Very dead. Suddenly, she stopped. Turned. Looked back at the dog, her expression unwillingly considering. Who knew if she'd find a settlement before she had to make camp? She didn't know the landscape at all, and didn't want to walk into some kind of... nest.

Biting her lip, she looked down the hill, then back at the dog again. ... She had to keep her strength up. With a little groan, she walked back, pulling out her knife as she did so. "Suppertime," she muttered to herself, kneeling next to the carcass. It was incredibly difficult to believe that she'd been smiling a few minutes ago, but there wasn't much point in dwelling on that. She wasn't going back. Gritting her teeth, she got to work.  

[bunnira kissu]

He snorted into his issue of Grognak the Barbarian. The old pages felt slightly grimy between his callused fingers, but he didn't mind. Dirt had infiltrated every inch of this forsaken wasteland that he lived in. He loved his comics though. They were the one thing that wasn't murder that still made him laugh. The Painspike armor was beginning to dig into his olive toned skin again, but it was another thing he was just used to now. He was already scarred all over, who would a few more scars hurt? Not him. He was a Raider. He was tough now.

The sun was pink and setting, casting long shadows over his party of fellow wasteland scavengers. One tossed a dust covered Nuka-Cola bottle his way and he barely caught it on time. He smiled a little to himself as he remembered how they had gotten this specific haul of Colas.. that stupid woman in Girdershade.. Who in their right mind would collect so much Nuka-Cola merchandise? So stupid. He had enjoyed putting his trusty Deathclaw gauntlet through her stomach.

The cola felt like a soothing elixir as it travelled down his dry throat. Any non-irradiated water was hard to come by in the Wasteland, especially for Raiders. No civilized communities wanted to share their water with any non-residents. He made due with the Cola instead. Half the time it had less rads than the water. Once the last gulp went down his throat, he threw it to the ground, reveling in the shattering of the glass.

The Raider's ears perked up when he heard a gunshot, a yelp, on the horizon. his dark gray eyes quickly scanned his immediate vicinity. Where was his dog? Panicking, he started strapping on his weapon. His companions looked at him with concerned expressions. Dismissing their looks, he brushed his shaggy black hair out of his face with his un-clawed hand. That yelping had probably been his dog.. Where was it? who would've killed it? He was leaving his campsite and he was betting that the person who committed such a treachery wouldn't be so happy about once he found them.  

[Elesariin]

She looked down at the two pathetic cuts that she'd managed to make in the dead dog's flank, feeling very, very young. No, not just young-- she felt frightened and young. Somehow, the prospect of cutting the animal up into eatable chunks of meat terrified her more than the creature itself had when it had been alive and leaping for her face.

It was a strange feeling; in the vault, she'd sort of been the tough one. The one who could improvise. Fully capable of looking after herself and her friends. One of the few girls who wouldn't scream when confronted with a rad roach-- quite the opposite; she tended to grab the nearest solid object and bash its clicking mandibles back into its head. She'd gotten into fights with boys-- and won most of the time-- could've out-shot most vault grownups by the age of 11, and could currently make guys her age flinch with a look.

This was different, though. Completely different. For the first time in her life, she thought she was actually panicking. Of course, there had been little things, childish things, that she had sort of panicked over. A missing Grognak the Barbarian comic. A misplaced homework assignment. Things that had felt vital at the time, but... This...

For one thing, the formerly ferocious beast now looked startlingly like somebody's pet from the old days. Just a dog. Maybe a friendly one, maybe not, but loyal and protective of somebody. Somebody's pet sprawled in a patch of mud that had turned red-brown with his blood, a hole in the top of his poor muzzle and a patch of dripping red on his chest. And here she was, standing over him with a knife, trying to cut him up into a meal.

It didn't make much logical sense, and she knew that; this particular dog had been trying to kill her, had been trying to rip out her throat with those teeth. He'd probably been completely feral. It had been a solid case of it or her, and she'd picked her without so much as blinking. Which made sense, dammit! She wasn't going to sit here and feel sorry about killing a possibly insane, certainly dangerous animal.

But... Logical or no, she didn't think that she'd be able to cut this thing up into lunch meat. Probably more due to inexperience on her part than anything else. She was used to nice, neat, canned food; it made sense than she would have trouble with cleaning and preparing a freshly dead animal, never mind a freshly dead animal that had been trying to eat her a few minutes before. And he did look pathetic, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

Shooting one last-- half pitying, half deeply annoyed-- look at the dog, she put her knife away and got to her feet, brushing a loose strand of fine hair out of her eyes. The unconscious motion had the unintended effect of leaving a streak of the dog's blood on her forehead, where it stood out in stark contrast against her pale skin. Like war paint.

Except that she'd never felt less like a warrior. Grimacing, she tried to rub the sticky stuff off, but only managed to smudge it.

It was only at this point that she heard the footsteps. Heavy. Booted feet. Shoes meant humans! The girl looked up, her eyes brightening at the realization in the way that only an essential innocent's could-- especially in that day and age. There was a person! People! Maybe there was a settlement close by, and they'd seen her come out, and they were coming to... to...

A slight frown crept into her eyes, and her brow furrowed. She'd looked out on the valley not ten minutes ago; there hadn't been a settlement or any signs of people then.

Suddenly, her heart rate picked up, and a chill ran from her tailbone straight up to the base of her neck; she shivered unconsciously, then swallowed and quickly glanced around, trying to find some sort of hiding place. There wasn't anything to her left or right, but back up toward the vault's entrance there were rocks scattered here and there. At best, she'd be hidden. At worst, she'd have some cover. Biting her lip, she moved up to one of the larger boulders, taking care to move as quickly and quietly as she could; she certainly didn't want whoever it was to hear her the way she'd heard them.

Crouching down, she waited silently in the growing darkness, listening to the footsteps get closer and hoping that the frightened pounding of her heart wouldn't give her away.  

[bunnira kissu]

Dry dirt puffed into small clouds around his heavy boots as he walked. Steady steps, controlling himself. He didn't know what it was that attacked his dog, or even if it -was- his dog. All he knew was that his dog was gone and he heard gunshots. Enough to concern any post-apocalyptic pet owner. So, he tramped slowly through the brush, fingernails digging into the fleshy meat of his palm.

There was a small, rocky out cropping that looked a little deeper than it was, thanks to the setting sun. The Raider ignored all the careful climbing and instead, leapt to the lower ground. His lithe body enabled him to land silent and cat-like. If it weren't for his heavy armor, that is. If he had been sneaking, he would have completely alerted any surrounding parties. His armor was rusty with the blood of murders past and it made horrendous screeching noises from time to time.

The scent of fresh blood was in the air and it was assaulting his sensitive nostrils. It was definitely the smell of animal blood, acrid and tangy. The Raider's pace quickened.

As he trotted, he noticed the door of a Vault. He hadn't realized that he and his Raider pack had been sitting quite literally on top of a Vault. The site of what seemed to be a still-operating Vault tweaked a little bit in his memory, but he chose to ignore it. Not now, not now, not now. He had more important things to do than reminisce about his old life.

And that's when he saw it. His dog, dead and eviscerated on the irradiated soil. Blood was pooling around it's stomach where the organs were spilling to the earth. The crimson stuff was also steadily leaking out of a bullet wound in the dog's muzzle, creating a sickening red halo around it's mangy head. He couldn't cry, but he did feel quite.. angry. He stood in silence next to his old friend, the only real friend he had had through the harsh years.

The man fidgeted with his Deathclaw gauntlet, running a finger along the stained claws. He was contemplating the fate of the perpetrator when he heard human breathing, quick and frightened. His senses were turned extremely acute by the radiation, and he knew the person was close and he knew that they were scared. He also knew that they were hiding in a really obvious spot.

"Come out, little kitty," he said in a sing-song manner, "I'm not going to hurt you."

That was not a promise.  

[Elesariin]

OHCRAPOHCRAPOHCRAPCRAAAAP!!! Her back was pressed tightly against the cold surface of the stone as she clutched her pistol in white-knuckled fingers. She felt like she was going to be sick. Her stomach was twisting into knots. Who was that? Why did they sound-- Oh God... It was a male voice, low and rough, and the way that it was calling to her, almost like it was reciting a nursery rhyme... Ashes, ashes, we all fall down... Without realizing it, she let out a little whimper of fear, sounding like a small child rather than a supposedly tough, competent young woman. Her eyes widened at the sound, and she immediately pressed a trembling hand over her own mouth, not daring to so much as breathe.

The voice was dangerous. And not just in a 'I'm going to kill you, you f**king b***h' kind of way; she was used to that. Generally, when people used that tone of voice, they were too angry to think straight, and the level headed combatant (her) quickly ended up breaking their arm, dislocating their shoulder, or giving them a nasty concussion. This voice, although certainly angry, was very different. This voice was patient. This voice promised lots and lots of pain before death, pain inflicted with nothing short of glee. And, for once, she was the one who couldn't control her emotions.The owner of the voice wasn't frustrated by the fact that he couldn't see her; he was enjoying the idea of making her squirm before he caught her.

And at that thought, she was abruptly and royally pissed. The fear was still there, in the back of her mind, but most of it burned away in the face of her cold rage. Nobody was going to toy with her; if she was going to die, it would be after she'd done her damnedest to put a bullet through this b*****d's skull. You want kitty? she thought grimly, quietly turning the safety on her gun off, You'll get kitty. Kitty's going to make you very sorry that you decided to play around with her. Not just then, though. She was going to wait. She had the higher ground, and she had cover. If this guy tried to come up after her, he was going to suddenly find himself without much of a face.

It wasn't as though she hadn't killed anyone before.

That thought made the fear well up again; with difficulty, she got it back under control. Focus. You can deal with your nightmares if you manage to live through this and can fall asleep afterward.  

[bunnira kissu]

A slight grimace crossed his careworn features. The Raider wasn't sure what to feel. Sad? Sure. Angry? A bit. Murderous? Maybe, but he was leaning towards no. Being out in the wastelands for the past 13 years of his life had been hard on his sanity, especially once he joined up with the Raiders. Sometimes the murderous tendencies clouded his true emotions, but this time he thought that he might feel a little pitiful for this girl. She was only protecting herself, only trying to scavenge food. Isn't that what he had been doing his whole life since leaving the Vault?

He didn't kill anyone's pets thought. Or maybe he did. The vast majority of his memories were completely bloodstained. One killing blended into the next and into the next and into the next. What did it matter to him if a few pets died along the way? But then he thought about how he was feeling right now and it made him angry. He was stuck in a thought circle. Blood from his finger was dripping onto the dirt at his feet. He had stroked his claws too firmly.

The man had heard the girl's breathing quicken immensely. He had enjoyed that. He thought he would relieve some stress by playing with her instead of standing there and creating a full circle of thoughts to mull through. Boots thumped against the earth as he crept towards her hiding place of rocks. He was still unsure of what to do, but wanted to have some fun at least.

"C'mon, I know that you're back there." The statement echoed through the surrounding shadowy stones. "Won't you play with me? I think you owe me one after killing my dog and everything, kitty."  

[Elesariin]

HIS dog? Oh that was IT. Ignoring the small, almost unnoticeable twinge of (his dog...) guilt in the face of her growing fury, she carefully made note of where he was based on his heavy footsteps and metallic... armor? Something metal and rusted that protested every time he took a step. Then, without giving any sort of warning, she popped up, aimed briefly (less than a second) while still mostly maintaining cover, and fired. She was partial to headshots-- what marksman wasn't?-- but calculated that she had a better chance of hitting his chest at that range.

"Kitty," she informed him frostily, "Doesn't owe you a thing. Maybe you should consider training any future pets you might get not to go for random people's throats." The fear that he had so enjoyed was still there in her voice, but it was little more than an undercurrent. That undercurrent was mostly there because she'd sort of gotten a look at him, and he looked terrifying; like some sort of monster. Where those spikes coming out of his shoulder? And... did he have a claw? In the growing darkness, she couldn't tell if it was his appendage or some sort of weapon. As a kid in the vault, she'd once scared the other children with stories of mutants, then laughed at their gullibility. She wasn't laughing now.

A growing part of her was positive that she had gotten in way over her head, and that she really should swallow her pride and head back into the vault. Apologize profusely, let them kick her around for a bit-- and they would kick her around, at the very least-- and go back to smiling big, fake smiles. Sure, it would be awful, but an awful life was better than dying, wasn't it? Maybe she ought to just kill this one guy and head back. Or... Maybe she ought to kill this one guy and then go check out a settlement, just to see? The vault computer had said something about one. But... What if he had friends nearby? Would they show up to check out the gunshots? Biting her lip, she told herself firmly to keep her mind on the task at hand. She would kill him, and then she would figure it out.  

[bunnira kissu]

He grunted with pain as the bullet slammed into his chest. Old and rusted as his armor was, it was still mostly bullet proof. Didn't mean that it didn't feel like a Super Mutant had just slugged him in the chest with a steel rod. With a loud protest from the armor, he was down and down fast. The only thing that had run through his shaggy head as he fell was, "Son of a b***h." He had known that she had had a gun, but he thought she would be too timid to fire. Guess he was wrong.

Stunned. He lay still for a moment, groaning in pain and clutching his chest where the bullet had hit him. Damn. This one was abnormally feisty for a Vault-dweller. Most he had come across had been mentally unstable for any number of reasons, but mostly because all Vault's were meant to fail. Maybe this one's Vault hadn't quite ******** up yet.

He forced his eyelids to raise, squinting to see the girl in the dim light. She seemed well off, but definitely shaken. He wasn't sure what to do. Stand up and get shot again? Pretend he had died and wait until she left? That was most unlike his nature though.

After sliding his free hand under the armor to make sure he was not gravely injured (he would have the worst of bruises the next day), he decided he would talk with her. He could take another bullet to the armor, but he would have to be careful to stay away from headshots. Don't do anything stupid, he thought to himself.

"Impressive, girl." He grunted with the effort of talking. "Didn't think you could do it."  

[Elesariin]

He was still moving? How was he still alive? And talking, no less? It did sound like he'd been winded, which was something, but... Maybe he was bleeding out, and she just couldn't see it in the gloom? She suddenly remembered a useless fact pertaining to grizzly bears; apparently, you could shoot one between the eyes and it would still have time to maul you before its brain realized that it was dead. Not helpful. NOT helpful, she told her brain sternly, peeking over the rock at him, her gun still trained on his prone form. He had gone down, after all-- pretty spectacularly. Maybe it was just his armor. She'd try for a headshot if he got up again. A finger tightened reflexively on the trigger...

And sudden thought occured to her. She hesitated, then allowed her finger to relax. "I'd do it again in a second, and it would be a nice clean headshot," she told him matter of factly after another thoughtful moment of silence, "So much as twitch and you'll find out first hand. Are we clear?" Without waiting for him to respond, she straightened gingerly, grimacing as a few bones in her back popped after crouching for too long, and then began slowly making her way down the hill toward him. The entire time, she kept her gun on him, ready to pull the trigger at the slightest hint of aggression.

Coming to a stop well outside of the range of his claw-- and it still looked like a claw, even that close up-- she looked down at him, her expression cold, detached, and incredibly difficult to read. She could feel her nerves buzzing with adrenaline, and could only hope that she wasn't trembling enough for her tremors to be obvious in the dark. Unconsciously shaking her head to shift a strand of pale hair out of her eyes, she asked, "So. Any friends nearby that I should know about?"

Now that she was thinking a bit more clearly, she realized that if she could get away with just knocking him out and then avoiding any nearby comrades, that would be the preferable option; the one murder that marred her conscience was already more than enough.