CLIW

Just One Bite II

Mattie felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise at the tone of the man's voice, but she responded with only a quiet nod. There'd be no use arguing; even if it didn't escalate to something dangerous, it might mean the loss of an ally. She didn't know how useful he'd be yet, but she'd just have to weather it. Hardware store, convenience store. Hmm. She doubted that they'd be unlooted, but perhaps the hardware store would have been overlooked for more immediate needs like food and water.

The man's introduction came out of nowhere, and the name Nicholas took Mattie by surprise. Her eyes widened for just a moment but her expression was quickly back to normal. There was just something about the name Nick. Through her whole childhood, every time she'd heard the name or met someone called that, it had given her the strangest, deja-vu feeling. She'd always hated it. But this time, it felt different–– there was still a deja-vu feeling but it wasn't the same. Somehow. Maybe it was that Nicholas looked like he was feeling something similar.

"My name's Mattie," she finally said, reaching out and shaking his hand. "Um...nice to meet you."

The Kingdom of Sayyar

A very familiar voice startled Rosemund out of her ponderings. Oh no, not him, she inwardly groaned once she found the source of that unmistakably arrogant voice. She was not in the mood for this right now. It had been too much of a night, and it was too early right now, to have to deal with the Heir––she'd often considered moving and finding some other job in a different city once he took the throne. But of course, as entitled and downright bratty as the kid was, he was the heir.

Not showing her irritation, she tucked in her shirt with slow calmness and then knelt and bowed to Aire, though she held his gaze all the while. In some parts of the castle, she'd learned, it was contested whether Rosemund was "mentally slow" or just liked to mess with her higher-ups. It was of course the latter, although she, a lowly servant, didn't claim to be the sharpest mind in the kingdom. If she happened to get in hot water for taking a tone with someone, she usually escaped punishment by acting confused and scared, and insisting that it was how she always spoke.

"Ah, forgive me, your Highness. Woe is unto the one who works slowly, even if she be plagued by gout or leprosy or consumption. My Lord, I invite you to watch me, thy loyal servant, clean these windows which soon will be yours––so that you may see the newfound swiftness of my work!"

It was almost hard not to laugh at the idea of Aire watching her clean the windows. Rosemund didn't expect him to agree to waste his time like that, but she'd at least wasted his time with that little speech.

Just One Bite II

She nodded curtly and let out a breath of tentative relief. For now, it seemed like they were set to cooperate, and though she would certainly have to keep an eye on him until more trust developed between them. If it did. Mattie had her doubts that anyone outside of her family would earn such trust, and, well, that meant the whole world.

"Deal. We split what we find evenly, got it?" She hoped that would be advantageous enough for him to settle on it, but she had little hope and zero faith. Why should she? "Fuck me over and that little sword of yours is going straight up your ass," she warned. And then she got moving, exiting the Wal-Mart swiftly in a way that left no room for argument. She made a note to get the knife out of her backpack and have it somewhere she could quickly arm herself with it, just in case he became a threat.

But somehow she had a seed of doubt that he would. He looked weirdly familiar, which was nonsense. He was a complete stranger.

The Kingdom of Sayyar

It had been a fantastic night, but now Rosemund was beginning to regret it. She'd spent several hours in unoccupied forest on the back of a horse, feeling more alive than she ever had with the breeze weaving between trees into her face. It had been dark, a little scary even, but the moonlight had filtered through the leaves and it had been incredible. After that, she'd stopped in Inspirro for a small dose of alcohol (she would have betted that anyone at the castle would faint if they'd heard she drank) and then won a fight. The victory had made her slightly-drunk self bigheaded and overconfident, and so she'd immediately lost the one afterward.

She was feeling the loss right now as she scrubbed the massive windows in the high-ceilinged castle corridor. A sore rib was not helping her get the job done, and the worst part was she had a million other things to do. She gritted her teeth through the pain, finished the window that she was working on, and got a start on the next one. It was times like this that she resented royalty, but of course this time it all came back to her. This was Rosemund's fault, and without this job what would she have?

Ah, but could anyone help envying the royals? She wasn't all that interested in ruling the kingdom of Sayyar, of course. She wasn't into politics. (Politics! Hah!) She was into being rich, doing whatever she wanted, and not having to do any hard physical labor. She caught herself daydreaming, glanced to either side of her for any sign of someone who would shout at her for working too slowly, and hurriedly returned to work. She scrubbed the glass so hard it practically glowed, painstakingly moved through that window, and went on again to the next one.

It was too early in the morning for there to be anyone else moving through the corridor. She lifted her shirt and looked at her side, wincing. It was a very nasty mix of purple and black. No wonder it was so sore.

A mental note: Brawl sober next time.

Just One Bite II

Mattie swallowed. Shit. She was exhausted. Depressed. Just wanted to lay down and–– a vision of the last time she saw her brother flashed through her head. No. She wanted to live, god damn it. This guy seemed worn out too. From how much he was shaking in both his voice and his physicality, he was either too scared to be any good at defending himself, or too malnourished. Or both. Perhaps they'd be more effective at finding useful things if they joined forces.

Trusting the wrong person could be her last mistake, however.

Her voice came out as measured and taut as she felt. "Then perhaps I can join you."

The Kingdom of Sayyar

Name: Rosemund Lunete Lebelle
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Role in Kingdom: Royal servant
Appearance: Stands at 5'4, with curly red hair wrestled into a bun, blue eyes and a freckly face. Her hands have callouses from handling strong cleaning fluids and doing other rough jobs. Scars here and there from various minor work accidents.
Personality: Calm, quiet, and slow to anger, although short and blunt in conversation. Never shows when she is annoyed, scared, angry or sad, instead opting to do her duties as best she can. Has been known occasionally to be a slight smartass or mumble things under her breath. When she can get away with it, if she is dealing with annoying royalty, she has a tendency of being really patronizing. Hard-working.
Bio: Having been raised by her mother, who was a servant and a prostitute (her father could be anyone- she's a bastard child), Rosemund learned the servant side of things. Thankfully, her mother didn't want her to do the otherthing. As a result she has a wide range of domestic skills, including cleaning the soot out of chimneys, scrubbing out chamberpots (yippie), cooking for extended periods of time without passing out of heatstroke, and others. She secretly dabbles in horseback riding and ye olde fight clubs, but no one would think it from looking at her.

Just One Bite II

Mattie jumped violently at the sound of a voice, said "Asscheek sandwich!" and whipped her head around to look at the man. He was shaking. She was shaking. Yes, a well-aimed rock or two might concuss a living human, but it was rotting flesh that it worked best against and even then there was much less than a guarantee it'd do its job right. She looked down at the weapon. It looked like a machete. She was practically at his mercy, even if she managed to get out her hunting knife.

"I just need some supplies," she said, trying to keep her voice firm. "I'll be out before you know it." She knew very well that even most living humans had lost the ability to reason when society collapsed.

Just One Bite II

There was a flicker of movement in the corner of Mattie's eye that made her stop and stand alert. Suddenly she thought of what might be inside the Wal-Mart. What if people had gotten infected in there? What if it was crawling with the living dead? Why hadn't she considered this before? Heart pounding, she reached into her backpack, got out her slingshot, and picked a rock up off the ground. It wasn't by any means a very effective weapon, but a properly-aimed jagged rock could break open the skull and make it much easier for her to toss another stone and obliterate the brain.

But she didn't shoot the sharp-edged rock which she held at the ready. She wanted to know if this person was...a person, before she leaped to conclusions. But the figure had disappeared. It was somewhere in the Wal-Mart, near the entrance, but she couldn't see it anymore. Mattie weighed her risks. She'd been sleeping partly on rooftops, partly in wrecked bedrooms of houses she wasn't sure were infected. She was desperate for shelter, real shelter that protected from the elements and from disease.

She took a single deep breath. In and out. Stay near the entrance. Be quiet. She picked up several more rocks, her chest aching with dread. She didn't want to go in there, she wanted to run far away. But if she could find food in there, food and fresh clothes and supplies, then maybe it'd put off her death for a good while.

She approached on newly-energized feet, with a quickened pace.

In and out, she told herself. In and out. In and out. Mattie stepped foot into the Wal-Mart with the feeling that most people have when entering a Wal-Mart (impending doom), and pulled back her slingshot, scanning the entrance of the store through narrow eyes.

Just One Bite II

It had only taken two days for Mattie's entire family to die. Interestingly enough, none of them had become infected with the virus that turned human beings into reanimated, flesh-hungry corpses. No, while they were all busy worrying about that, they had forgotten that there were other diseases that lurked in the carcass of a collapsed civilization. Even worse, her brother had fallen victim to something much less visible: despair. He'd been the first death. After spending several hours making hardtack and making weapons out of broken glass shards, she'd come up to check on him. He'd hanged himself with a sheet from the balcony of the house they were barricaded in. There wasn't even a note.

As if that hadn't rattled her enough, death decided to tear through the rest of her siblings and her adoptive mother. All of them. The background was this: She'd had several jugs of water sitting on the kitchen counter. Half had just been collected, and Mattie had put the iodine tablets in them not five minutes before. The other half were safe to drink. And she, in her utter stupidity, had neglected to label which were which. Her youngest sister, Isabella, who was nine, had woken up from a long nap and went straight for the water. No one saw her drink from the contaminated jug, but in less than an hour she had a steadily-rising fever, vomiting and diarrhea.

With no running water to dispose of all that biological waste, Mattie and her mother were unable to contain what they both were fairly sure was cholera, no matter how much bleach they depleted from what they had. They were the second ones to fall ill, and from there it spread like wildfire. Within twelve hours, everyone in that damn house was ill, and within six, Isabella had died from dehydration, followed by the rest of her siblings. Mattie didn't quite know how she survived, as she spent at least a day unable to move with a dangerously-high fever, passing in and out of vibrant fever-dreams and wild hallucinations that she was too disoriented to distinguish from reality, and of course, vomiting out more than she thought she had in her.

And then, suddenly, she felt fine, despite the entire house smelling like feces and rotting bodies. Mattie wasted no time grieving––she could do that later–– and rooted around until she found cans of gasoline. She'd doused everything, walked out and thrown a lit match over her shoulder, unsure what to do and laden with heavy jugs of clean water and a hastily-gathered pack.

Now, to the present. She had planned on strictly rationing her hardtack but it turned out she didn't really need to. She hadn't felt like eating for the three days since she'd walked out of that burning hellhole of a house. Now, disoriented with hunger and rattled with the ever-present paranoia of a living corpse coming out of nowhere and gnawing her flesh, Mattie stumbled clumsily in the direction of a Wal-Mart. She hoped there were enough supplies left in there to restock, but she certainly wasn't going to count on it.

Just One Bite II

Name: Mattie Silverman
Age: 21
Gender: Female
Personality: Defensive, cautious, thoughtful, creative, suspicious.
Appearance: Short black girl with wild hair, big hips, honey-brown eyes.
Equipment: One ratty backpack containing: a serrated hunting knife, homemade hardtack, a Nalgene, a can opener, and a cool-looking pair of tweezers she found on the ground. (you never know if you'll need 'em, right?)
Weapons: That hunting knife from earlier and a slingshot- she used to have a handgun, but it was too hard to keep the ammo stocked so she scrapped it.