handleyourshit | TLV Inbox

"I think it means you've risked a lot and you haven't been rewarded for it often," he says, kicking shards of glass away. "I think it means you're still willing to risk a lot but god fucking help the person who bets wrong on you."

She doesn't answer right away. In fact seconds keep ticking past and it might seem like she isn't going to answer at all.

She doesn't know he can smell exactly how deep his assessment digs. How hearing it aloud reaches right down inside her and both digs in a still raw, gaping wound but hits steel as well.

She shakes her head.

"You seem to be doing alright."

"I tend to do," Lark agrees quietly, but he's watching her, watching those reactions. "You haven't given up," is his assessment. "And we should all be glad you haven't."

She doesn't know about that part anyway. Jesus has said she helps the communities be successful, keeps people alive, and she knows she has. She knows she's an asset wherever she is, if people let her be.

Instead of saying any of that what she says is, "If my group found anyone on the road, anyone we were considering letting join us. We had three questions we'd ask them."

Three questions. Those are survivor questions, no doubt. Boiled down to the essentials.

"Ask me," he prompts. See where he lands with them.

"How many walkers have you killed?"

She almost waves it off since he's not from her world but then remembers they're here, where she's talking to a werewolf and friendly with a vampire, so why not.

"None, so far," he says, although he thinks a moment. "Maybe a handful in Hell. But not many."

"Hell?" She blinks.

"Vacation spot from the Barge?"

"No, it was a literal Hell we had to fight our way out of. We crash land sometimes, or the ship malfunctions, and we end up stranded." Occupational hazards around here vary.

Oh okay, well that's. Something.

She leaves it for now with a shake of her head.

"How many people have you killed?"

He doesn't answer right away. He has to count, for one thing. For another it's not something he's ever been asked before.

"Seventy-two."

Rosita has a count in her head. She did before they ever agreed on how to induct new members into the group.

She considers him a moment, dark eyes narrowed.

"Why?" Not a frivolous question, but the final one.

"To protect my people. Because he was a child trafficker who had seen my face. And then I was fighting a war." So many reasons, but all rooted more or less in self-defense or defense of others.

"Do I get to ask these questions back at you?"

She's watching him, not that she's entirely unconcerned with the answer itself, but the truth of the matter is that no one trying to hide something is going to just admit to it outright. The tells are still there.

Her arms stay folded. She shrugs.

"You can. Normally it would be people we found out on the road though, who would want to join us instead of the other way around."

He nods. He wants to know, but one thing at a time. "Yes but I have a hunch you don't want to join me. Did I pass?"

"If you just walked up to me on a beach like this and started talking? No."

But in their world he'd know that, would know how suspicious this is. Only the dishonest, the desperate, or the naive would try and it would be fairly obvious which he was at the outset.

"If I could see who your people were? If I'd just seen you do something I need? Maybe. But I'm not sure how honest you're being with me, and I'm not desperate enough to risk it."

He considers that. Yeah that's about how he expects it would go, if zombies took over his world: the wolves would really be on their own. No human would ever trust them.

"Well the nice thing about being on the Barge is I have no reason to lie to you. Do you still feel like you need to be desperate to forge connections here?"

"Oh, that's not true at all. Even if it is, people don't always need a reason, sometimes it's just who they are."

Her voice twists bitter, sends wisps and faint curls of smoke dissipating into the air around her. She breathes out and forces her tone smooth again.

"I feel like I'm not desperate, so I don't have to form connections here."

He makes a thoughtful sound. "That sounds like a relief."

"That's one word for it."

She's been too desperate for too long to disparage it altogether, but her problems - as Alexandria had proven - are not solved by safe haven alone.

"Who was the first person you killed?"

"Her name was Violet. And she was my pack's girl." And it's a long story. "She had the ability to control me--my instincts. It was like being under a spell. I killed her to free myself."

It's a long story, and not one she necessarily feels entitled to right out of the gates; she just nods.

"That's what I've learned: people who kill easily, who accept it as a solution, their first one was still out of fear or desperation. Anyone that just... did it is a psychopath."

"That makes sense." A pause. "People have accused me of sociopathy. Just so you know. But I don't know if I agree with them. I think I feel things just fine, when I choose to."

"Oh, I see it," she doesn't mind admitting.

She's had her eye on him from day one. He feels familiar, and she suspects she knows why.

"Would you choose to when it's not a comfortable feeling?"

He's quiet. That's a tough question, even now, so he has to think about it.

"Yes," he says, hesitantly. "Because I think I could learn from it. Learn to be better, so I don't have taht feeling again."

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handleyourshit - 2024-04-25 15:07 (UTC) - Expand

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ukan - 2024-04-26 23:38 (UTC) - Expand