Love in a Sun-Scorched Land (Exorcist93 & ONL)

[Vanilla Fire]

The wind had never picked up this hard in Vegas, swirling through the dead land like a ghost. The lifeless sands whirled around the cracked rubble of the remainders of civilisation, the blinding sun almost creating glass with it's heat.
Never had someone survived half the things she had. In her hand she held two collars, one for her trusted and loyal canine friend, Ghost, and the other from a coyote protector named Spectre. Both died protecting her, and all she could do was cry as the life left them. How could anyone be with her?

Sonyda looked up, emotional green orbs behind curtains of unwashed black hair, melding with the yellowish skin of her face. Her nose was pointed and small, and made her seem almost naive to the wrong people.
Sonyda was anything but. She had survived a raider army, a nuclear explosion, a war between men and a super mutant rampage, all while being i the thick of the fight. Who would dare oppose her? No one. Who would dare question her? No one. No one except him...

'You'd better be getting ready, Tom,' Sonyda called behind her, looking at the sun-scorched land with a small smile. Never had this undead plain made her so happy.

'Hurry the fuck up, dammit!'

[ONL]

The Mojave Desert, one of the most dry places in post-apocolyptic world. The sun was unfriendly and deadly, but it was far from the most dangerous thing that could get you killed out in the hostile wasteland. Fiends, feral ghouls, super mutants, oversized insects and bugs, but maybe the most dangerous creature of them all, the Deathclaw. And Tom had seen more than a few himself, and he had by some miracle survived all of his encounters.
Yet there was one person he knew had been through a lot more than he had ever been, and most likely would ever have to. She was almost a legend, yet to him she was very real to him, and his heart.

"I'm working as fast as I can! Do you know how difficult programming this Pip-Boy actually is? Thist might be the most reliable model, but it's hard to programm it after it's been shut down." He said to her, tweeking with the inside of his Pip-boy. It had been shot at by a Laser Rifle, and deactiveted the internal electronics of it in the process. But Tom was very handy with machines like these.
Then finally the Pip-Boy came back to life, the green screen lightening back up and working properly again.
"There, I'm done! Calm down Sonyda, we're not in a hurry!" He shouted at her as he was grabbing his own Laser Rifle and the ammo, then walking up to Sonyda.
"Okay, after you my'lady." He said with a smile on his face, glad to be with her, no matter how angry she was. He knew that there was good in her, deep down inside of her somewhere, and he was one of the few who had managed to awoken that good inside of her.

[Vanilla Fire]

Sonyda slid the collars into her coat, and smiled at Tom. Why could this man make her forget anything in the world?
She was a former Regulator, a lawbringer from the land of Washington DC, only daughter of Clay and Sonora, only woman in a group of men. When she first met Tom, he was asking around the makeshift town of Megaton, until she had killed Butch DeLoria, her last contract. Then they made a deal.

Then she lost Ghost, her canine companion, and broke down, unable to continue. It was Tom who had helped her through that difficult time, a complete stranger from Vault 101. Sonyda smiled wider, and winked at her boyfriend.

'Of course,' she said, bowing her head, then leaping from the window, grabbing the old metal flagpole with a rough gloved hand, and sliding down, swinging like a pre-war fireman. once her feet hit the ground, she looked up.

'You coming, Tom?'

[ONL]

Tom watched as Sonyda leaped out of the window and gracefully slid down to the ground in a way only Sonyda could pull off. Tom had to smile, Sonyda had always taken risks and most times come out unharmed...but not always. She had been burned and severely injured many times, sometimes being a miracle that she was still alive. Under her skin was almost just machinery and technology, but she was far from a cyborg, she was a real human being with a heart, and Tom knew this.
Taking a less stylish way down, Tom carefully climbed out of the window and held onto the bricks, pipes, planks, anything that was sticking out of the wall, and soon he too was on the ground. As he finally got down, he walked to Sonyda and chuckled.
"Guess I took the easy way down, hope you didn't mind that, Sonyda." He said, holding up his Laser Rifle. "Alright then, where were we heading for again?"

[Vanilla Fire]

Sonyda smiled at Tom, then started walking towards the horizon.
'Are you coming, weetheart?' Sonyda called out, staring over the dead land. The Mojave was slowly becoming free since the war, no NCR and no Legion. There was hardly any use for mercs like her anymore. So where to go? Why, the next area, of course.
'How do you feel about Mexico, darling?'

[ONL]

Tom always knew that Sonyda would never be able to really settle down somewhere, if it weren't going to be some sort of head quarter of a mercenary company or anything like that, she had always been like that. However, when he heard she talking about them going to Mexico, he was actually a little surprised.
"Wait, Mexico? From what I've read, and actually been told, Mexico is no more than a irradiated, gang-filled and corrupt hole, why would you want to go down there. If the gangs, sickness or the alcohol won't kill us, the radiation will. Well, it would kill me, you would be fine after...you know..."

[Vanilla Fire]

Sonyda stopped. She hadn't thought about that. Mexico was quite uninhabitable for Tom, and she hadn't taken it into consideration. A radiation suit wouldn't work, and Tom was happy being alive in a body made of flesh and bone. Sonyda, however, didn't have that option, thanks to the Brotherhood in Washington. She had managed to kill Elder Lyons, and left it a smoking ruin. She still hadn't told Tom she was the one who killed his friends.
'Well, how about Shady Sands? There has to be someone we can help'

[ONL]

Tom looked at Sonyda for a moment without saying a word, just thinking about her place of suggestion, Shady Sands. When he thought about it, he found it unlikely, since it was the capitol of the New Californian Republic, or NCR for short, and it was well guarded and secured. But then he got an idea, and had to smile for himself.
"I'm thinking The Hub? Large merchant city, large caravan companies are located there, they must need some people like us, don't you think?"

[Vanilla Fire]

Sonyda cracked her famous smile, the one that implied she loved the way he wass thinking, and checked to see she had everything.
Strapped to her back was her sniper rifle, the only thing that she had managed to keep over all this time. It had been snapped, destroyed and had fallen apart, but Sonyda always managed to keep it in working condition.
On her thigh was a laser pistol, taken from the eye-bot friend of a young man she had once adventured with. She had been unable to save Angus, but she kept his memory alive with her trusty sidearm.
And finally, the blade sheathed at her hip, a reward for rescuing the last Great Khan in the Wasteland. Elliot had left to seek her own destiny, and Sonyda lost a good friend that day.
'It sounds like a good idea, maybe there's a bar there as well' Sonyda suggested

[ONL]

Tom smiled at Sonyda, she had always been a heavy drinker, and always the strong stuff. Tom himself had never been much of a drinker like her, he liked to keep his head clear and his feet on the ground, but Sonyda seemed to be clearer when she was drunk, so he wouldn't object with that.
"A bar, trust me Sonyda, there's plenty of bars that will be open for you." He told her, clapping her on her shoulder and starting to walk with her, heading down a railroad track that would take them a few days towards the Hub, but they had a much longer journey in front of them both. "Just be careful with what you do and who you talk to, remember that the NCR still has you on their List." He continued, remembering what she had done months ago when the NCR still were present in the Mojave Desert, excluding the Hoover Dam.

After having walked for what felt like hours, Tom looked at Sonyda with a small smile on his face, and squeezing her hand. "Sonyda, it's been a while since I said this, but I still love you..."