Sigil

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ash Holloway Location: Mechanics (K) -> M5 Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Having his work checked up on was not a new thing for Ash. It just hadn't happened recently, and was a reminder that he was the new guy, unproven of work ethic as of yet. And though the sign-off sheet (more paper!) contained the names of the people actually doing the job (such as Nikki's signature on the women's bathroom, a thing which raised its own questions), Mizrahi saw fit to handle his. Probationary protocol, he imagined, or some other policy that he wasn't introduced to yet. It didn't matter. The approval of the job he did was enough for now; it meant that that their first impression of his work was going to be favorable, which was something he could build upon.

What came next spawned a little less optimism in Ash. The women's bathroom, which had been handed off to Hunter on the solo as a minor disciplinary action, would now be Ash's task to complete if the younger man did not return soon. Not having a solid idea about how administration ran things, aside from what the basic military protocol was for infractions of the type he was actually around to witness, he couldn't make any sort of solid guess as to whether or not Hunter would be back to finish the job. That being said, Ash exhaled and spoke a reserved yet affirming, "Roger that." If the job needed being done, then he would do it; hopefully it was be understandable that he wasn't going into it with an especial amount of glee. Truth be told, he'd rather be doing whatever it was Thana was doing, even if it involved the same sort of task. It was funny; being apart only since lunch and he was already missing her.

Conversation turning to his question about the paper, Ash was surprised to learn that there was another settlement near enough to trade with, and that relations between them were good enough for regular commerce like that to take place. It made him wonder what other settlements like that were out there still. Around Newnan, Ash was only aware of Franklin, the defunct one in Fairburn, and the hell-on-earth in Peachtree City. Regret still gnawed at him that he wasn't with the group that finally took that place down. But that was a digression. He could ask more questions at a later time. Ash had been allotted an amount of time to clean up for the memorial service and he did not intend to waste it. "Thank you. I'll be back as soon as I can." He hoped that Hunter would be, too. Ash left Mechanics at a jog, glad to be in the more open air outside.

He remained jogging past buildings, giving the occasional wave to people as he saw them. Most everyone in CMB were strangers to him though there was no point in being rude; all the same he didn't want to get into a prolonged conversation right then. Stuff to do, places to go. He did find motivation to stop as he got closer to his destination. He wasn't sure at first, distance being a factor, but as he neared Ash was elated to see Thana walking up the road in his general direction, along with Nigel and a rolling cart full of whatever goodies they were bringing from their workplace, he assumed. "Hey!" he called, coming to a stop nearby. "Damn, it's good to see your face," he continued, looking at Thana with a beaming smile. Ash suddenly held a hand up, explaining, "Don't, um... I'm disgusting right now. Headed in to clean up before the service. You guys?" He nodded to Nigel with the last inquiry. He didn't want to be rude to the man. Hell, even thought he was an interesting guy. Depth conversation would have to wait for another time, constraints being what they were.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Thalia Carmichael Location: Hospital (B) -> Administration (A) Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Thalia was beginning not to like Rolodex. Granted, there weren't a while lot of people that she did like in the first place. Moreover, the idea of a gurney race wasn't a thing that she'd be opposed to. It was the saccharin way she tried to gloss over the whole thing, coupled with the fact that it just delayed a medical issue. On the other hand, felt that she had an understanding with Mary. "Scary Bitch", maybe. Social intimidation wasn't something Thalia really gave a rat's ass about, and the woman had been pretty straight with her anyway. So she gave a slow, understanding, single dip of her head to the woman and moved to lay her hands on the gurney.

For starters, she wasn't going to be walking backwards in an unfamiliar setting, which objectively the entirety of the Mexico Beach community was to her. Her metal hand clanged down on the back end and she swiftly followed step behind it, gripping with her left and providing push with her right. Things she never had to think about, back when she had two fully functional limbs with opposable thumbs, had become miniature planning processes every few minutes or so. Maybe one day this would come naturally. The fresh wound on her cheek reminded her that today was not that day.

They had covered the first third of the overall task, that being Point A to Point B. Next step was, "Point B, Point A," she mumbled, giving the gurney a push to get it moving. A little louder, though without looking over in the direction of Mary, Thalia uttered a simple, "Thanks," before advancing to the doors, proper. Discussion past this revolved around only that which was necessary to maneuver the gurney and board across the way to the Admin building, inside, and toward the basement. "Ahright, stairs..." she said, though it was mostly to remind herself than anything else. She hooked her prosthetic around one of the gurney's supports underhanded and gripped overhand with her other, providing as much support as she could and leaned back a little, easing the gurney down the first couple of stairs. When she felt more comfortable with the procedure, Thalia increased her pace, though with a bit of warning to Rolodex who still had the front end.

"Gurney, boahd," announced Thalia flatly as they entered the basement room containing Medic, Alexander, and their overall unfinished task for the day. Hopefully nothing serious was wrong with him. Her initial reasoning for this was that he'd been through enough hardship so far, hacked off leg during his autumn years, and really didn't need something other nagging, long or even short-term issue that he had to deal with. However, Thalia would be a liar if she didn't also own up to the fact that she didn't especially want to handle the rest of this job by herself. At least the larger part of it was altruism. "What do you need he to do?" she asked bluntly, confident that her own First Aid skills were not on par with a guy whose callsign was "Medic".

Current Mood in One Gif

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ash Holloway Location: Mechanics (K) Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Welcome," responded Ash coolly but politely, anxious to get done with his task for the day. While it might not kill him to miss the memorial outside of the walls for the sake of performing his duties to his new home, he might not forgive himself for some time. So he continued as best he could, the sounds of him scrubbing and rinsing, moving things about ad moving them back seemed to go on incessantly as Ash poured himself into the task set before him. It only occurred to him once or twice that this was not the work he had been trained to do, and it was tempered by the competing thought that no one was too good to clean a toilet or mop a floor. Humility wasn't something that Ash was particularly known for. Lucky for him, neither was pride. Work, especially with his hands, was. Not that most of these people would know that yet. Time would reveal that trait to the people in charge here.

When Maddoc entered the room, Ash was preparing to move a stack of stored goods back into the bathroom. Reflexively, he straightened his posture in the manner he might have when a superior officer entered the room. Ever the soldier apparently, even into the Apocalypse. He said nothing, merely waiting until the man left, and then returned to his duties. Still, something about the exchange struck him as odd. For the meantime he kept his thoughts to himself. It was nonessential to the task at hand.

Time passed, and work was accomplished with little else on the way of interruption. Before too long, Ash found himself staring at a newly cleaned men's room, concentrating for any detail that he might have missed. Light fixtures, dust on the top rim of mirrors, oxidation around plumbing fixtures, etc. He went back to quickly correct a streak of cleaner on a stall hinge, and then returned to where Mizrahi was working. The man was his supervisor, after all. "Men's room is done, sir." Ash wasn't exactly certain if this was a "sir-worthy" circumstance. He was a military man, and this was a settlement run by former military. Better to show respect that might not be necessary, rather than fail to show it when it was.

Being that his task was complete, Ash allowed his thoughts to resurface. Maddoc had come in with a leaf of paper, upon which was presumably written a work order. They had papers which gave them assignments slipped under their doors in the morning. Ash had to fill out a questionnaire in Quarantine. More paper. The had files accumulating on them, as he had witnessed during interviews. He had heard others discussing paperwork. As an engineer and a man accustomed to filing in triplicate, his intellectual curiosity was piqued. Maybe they located a stockpile in a dry, sealed off place. Or raided a newspaper printing factory. Maybe they even made it on site, though he hadn't heard mention of a facility as of yet. "If I may?" he began, broaching the topic politely, "The paper - how does this community keep stocked with paper?"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Thalia Carmichael Location: Outside of Administration (A) -> Hospital (B) Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Desalination. Road that loops. Thanks." The lady probably thought that Thalia was crazy. Not that it mattered to her. Thalia had more questions, or rather, she wished to delve into the one question that she had just asked for further detail. Now was not the time. She had a starting point and a place to check out. Thalia would have to go back to that map, reminiscent of the ones in malls that proudly proclaimed that "You Are Here", and figure out exactly where Desalination was. Wandering around town asking questions when her time might be requested elsewhere would be counterproductive to getting settled into town, even if she wasn't exactly comfortable with getting settled in a town. More than that, this was just a passing exchange while they went to retrieve a gurney. A tidbit of information to process while they tended to more important affairs.

Even Thalia had to admit that the one major advantage to civilization was available medical care. Even someone to bind wounds and a safe place to rest was immeasurable. She was very much changed from her days as a Boston urbanite. Before, she wouldn't have imagined spending months at a time out in the woods, spearing squirrels and collecting crawfish for meals; eating on the occasional feral dog for a few days. Gathering wild onions or polk leaves to stave off scurvy in the spring and summer. Now, air conditioning bothered her. Perhaps one day, she might be allowed to exit the walls, even if it was just on an assignment. Wistful and possibly damaged as she was for wanting to be out there, being able to help Alexander by crossing a road and fetching something was highly advantageous.

That the door was held open for them seemed like an antiquated sort of gesture to Thalia. Polite maybe. But antiquated. If there was a weaker sex, ever, that concept was obliterated in recent human history. If you were still alive and didn't hole up behind walls the entire time with others pulling your weight, you weren't weak, regardless of whether you sported indoor or outdoor plumbing. Still, she was in a hurry and didn't say anything about it. The most regard she gave Roy as she passed by was a glance which turned into an almost predatory gaze. It could have been taken as suppressed aggression or annoyance, but in reality was more like the look she gave the buffet of food on their first day in Quarantine, which for her involved mashed potatoes and clam chowder. She dragged her food away away and attacked with bestial abandon. The tiniest smile came after she turned her head away from him and entered the hotel, proper. Nice looking guy. He might be useful for stress relief if she got too hard up. Fuck Hunters Guild, indeed.

The short discussion between Rolodex (Thalia had to remind herself to ask about that handle) and Mary, however, was definitely enough to provoke aggression or annoyance, both of which she actually had to suppress. Just not fully. And though it was aimed mostly at Scary Bitch, some of it was for Sandra, too, for the lilting explanation of her gurney races, as if this wasn't an actual situation they were dealing with right now. As attention became focused on her, the One Winged Angel looked to Rolodex and spoke the single word question of "Really?" She then looked right back at Mary and spoke in unwavering, direct tones, "Three people in this world I consider friends. One of them needs a gurney. If you don't want to get it, point and I'll get it myself."

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ash Holloway Location: Mechanics (K) Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

As much as Ash wanted to do a good job cleaning the bathroom and move on to the next job, it seemed that fate had other plans for him. Now technically, he could have just ignored the remainder of the conversation as it was going on and continue with his task, but the underlying truth of the situation continued to be that he needed to assimilate into this settlement as best as possible. That meant opening himself up to conversation with people he wouldn't have had a reason to trust two weeks prior. Less than. But even as he wanted to participate in this verbal exchange, he would have to somehow figure out the subtle differences that were applied to language when it shifted from South Georgia English to Arabic to standard American English, back to Arabic and finally spit back out in a slightly more recognizable form.

This was his life now.

Still, it made sense to him a little more, overhearing the suddenly slightly different translation. Hog heating, and turned up, not tuned. Not to mention briar bush was the established noun here. But as the conversation had skipped merrily along without any further notice paid to Ash whatsoever, including a somewhat off-label use of a wrench on Volts in return for taking a little too much pleasure in whatever they were communicating between one another in a language he might recognize but not actually speak a word of, Ash saw the wisdom in continuing with his work. As it was, the only other person in the room with whom he might converse now was under a truck, minus his wrench.

Fine. One detour. With a sigh, Ash exited the bathroom and walked over to the door Volts was leaning on just a moment ago. He bent down and retrieved Mizrahi's wrench, then walked it back over to the truck he was working on. Ash didn't speak a word, he simply set the hand tool down on the floor within reach of the man with a soft click, then returned to the bathroom to clean.

Once more, moving things out into the main room, scrubbing and polishing the areas around where said things used to be, dusting off the selfsame things and wiping them down, then moving them back. It was monotonous, but honest enough labor. Ash's period of relative silence was enough to give him passing thoughts. One of which involved him being able to contribute to the community in a manner more in line with his zones of competence. CMB had to go through their vetting processes and weed out the undesirable elements from joining them on a more permanent basis. It was the wiser call, he supposed. So he pushed more minutes forward with his duties, making the men's room a safer place for humanity. And storage. Safe storage was important.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Thalia Carmichael Location: Administration (A) (Basement) -> Outside of Admnistration Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Well, Thalia did tell them to let her know if she could do anything. As if on cue, the medic named Medic called for a gurney. Granted, he had mentioned something else just beforehand, but she didn't have a clue what the hell a "Rolo" was, let alone where to find one in a pinch. This was unfamiliar ground, after all. It wasn't until someone very nearby actually yelled Fiddlesticks that she understood what Medic had called for, and from whom. Rolodex. Of course, the possible medical emergency aside, Thalia was curious as hell about a lady who would actually use Fiddlesticks an an exclamation. Maybe this more nonchalant measure of thinking was due to the fact that Alexander was mostly ambulatory and speaking, despite his sudden and epic bout of horizontalness. he was probably fine. Out in the world she'd have likely mumbled something about walking it off, as injuries that slowed you down usually meant death. But in here they could take some precautions.

Though she had been made aware that Medic wasn't specifically speaking with her, Thalia nonetheless acted as if he was, moving seamlessly from a kneeling position to standing and making for the door behind the local woman. "Ahright, I'm ahn it," she answered back to Medic, tossing it back over her shoulder as she moved. It surprised her a little that she would make a move to grab a gurney in this place for a guy who she figured was okay enough in the first place. Even though she had no idea where they might be, let alone the route to their medical facilities at all. She must have been bored. "Gaht your six," she explained to Rolodex, following along and walking outside eventually as their little adventure continued.

Then the strangest thing happened. Once she hit the less artificial air of the sunny outdoors, something crystallized in Thalia's thoughts. As if just having some down time from working out the problem was all she needed to figure it out, the answer to that god damn riddle she had stuck in her pocket became evident. Still following along, she reached into her pocket and brought out the written copy, shaking her hand to get it open. "Nnn," she enunciated, in a manner of speaking. Yeah, the answer in mind seemed to fit. She was still following along as urgently as the situation called for, but the question left her lips nonetheless, Hey ah, Miss... Dex?" Rolo Dex, Miss Dex - it fit well enough in her head. "Mexico Beach gaht any 'One Way' street signs in it? Wheah'd I find something like that?"

Current Mood in One Gif

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ash Holloway Location: Mechanics (K) Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was kind of a lucky break for Ash that Hunter showed up late to his job after lunch. Because he was, Ash was moved over to a bathroom that looked far, far less like a cesspit with plumbing fixtures. No gagging, no desire to let fly his delicious tuna casserole across the countryside, no needing to hose off. And more than that, he could attempt to participate in conversation. Not exactly his top priority, getting to know these people and letting them get to know him was the first step into becoming a trusted part of Camp Mexico Beach. That was the goal, assimilate the Newnan people into this established community. Himself included.

The problem was, this conversation he was on the periphery of was sounding more and more like a scene from a sitcom with every passing second. Ash stopped his cleaning for a moment, just a short second or two to give a look in the direction of the Middle Eastern accent that was forcing out a phrase that had to have come from Thana. This sentiment was echoed by Tesla prior to his withdrawal back into the Fabrication section of the building. Responding to his half wave and sentiment of good luck, Ash articulated, "Yeah, thanks," and gave the other half of that wave. Then he got back to cleaning.

It was kind of a shame, Ash wouldn't have minded a conversation with the guy. The work with the prosthetic limbs that he saw on the two people from the Eden Group was enough to warrant a professional discussion of its own merit, and it wouldn't hurt to make contacts with the tool people - people like himself - in this place. Then again, Mizrahi was the resident mechanic, it looked like. It was another thing which kept his interest; working on machines. And he had opted to open a conversation with him, while he worked on the bathroom. So he obliged. It was the neighborly thing to do. And that last charming southern colloquialism that he used was cause for utter confusion. "From the sound of it, it could be briar bush or briar patch. I'm not really familiar with that phrase. My people are from Virginia." He gave a little shrug. "Not sure why you would want to beat a hog, but cutting a switch off of a briar bush seems like a way to do it." He spoke a little slower and more clearly than he did ordinarily. Not to the point of being condescending, but as a polite measure.

Maybe he heard it wrong, anyway. Or maybe he was just thrown off because the phrase coming out of Mizrahi's mouth. The American Southeast spoke its own dialect of English and it was often difficult to understand casual conversation from one region to another. Ash continued to clean, now taking a scrub brush to the places that needed it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Thalia Carmichael Location: Administration (A) (Lobby -> Basement) Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It appeared that the use of strange phrases wasn't limited to Mechanics and Fabrication. Thalia could say with grave certainly that it was the first time that she'd heard the expression "Pickle My Peas". She didn't care beyond the novelty of it, so long as she actually tried to do something about the emergency at hand. Had Thalia's hand on the desk have been made of blood and bone, she would have been drumming her nails upon it. The short back-and-forth between Rolodex and the medic, Medic (which was not the most elaborate of code names, but effective enough) was sufficient to poke the limits of Thalia's patience. Her expression testified to exactly that. At least they were moving.

When it looked like Medic was taking the situation seriously, after enough information was communicated by Rolodex, Thalia was a touch more satisfied to note that the man was moving in a more productive manner. Quickly following behind, she barely recognized when the highly unnecessary "After ya," hit her ears; like hell she was going to slow down for the purposes of some useless piece of etiquette when one of her friends was laying on the floor hurt. Thalia didn't have many friends. She tended to push people away before they got the chance to get comfortable. So when people got through her defenses, she was a loyal, if not always nice, friend to them.

But even that wasn't foremost on Thalia's mind right then. What was centered somewhere around putting one foot in front of the other to get down the stairs, her artificial hand leaving a sliding, metallic sound on the handrail in her wake. She was practically boring holes in the back of his head. Mild irritation kicked up when Medic stuck his head in the wrong room. How dare he not be psychic and know automatically which one was the correct room? Disgraceful. Finally, they got to the right room. Thalia gave note to the man props, he was acting in the manner of a medical professional. Quick introduction, immediately getting to the point with questioning. She kept her gaze on the man for a little bit longer, eyeing him as if he might suddenly change his mind about helping Alexander and needed to be pulled off of him. It was a silly notion, but one of many "what could go wrong" contingency musings of the hour. Not wanting to get in the way but wishing to be vocal about her underlying concern, Thalia squatted down on the other side of Alexander and said to Medic, "Lemme know if I can do anything," in a clear but subdued voice.

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ash Holloway Location: Mechanics (K) Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ash mulled over the words that Mizrahi was stumbling through. He was a bilingual man himself, though it came with its own massive stumbling blocks that hadn't quite gone away. From what he could get out of the man's uncertain verbiage, Ash figured that he had some of the same difficulties that he had, not just in foreign language but in questions of morality on a case by case basis. He ran the sentence that the larger Middle Easterner was trying to say through his head, "Anger quick when protect," searching for the meaning through context of their very short conversation so far. The conversation being that they both tried to be good men, tried, but his anger was quick when ... protecting someone? Ash thought back to the time when, on the road, he swung out of his truck to come to Tatiana's aid. The fact that he was shot nonetheless and couldn't do much in the firefight notwithstanding, he was geared to end people's lives for someone he cared about. Or years ago, when he threatened to sever a man's spinal column with a machete and let him drown in collecting storm waters, with absolute intent to follow through - the man had been part of a group that attacked his people. Or the razor-thin margin by which he did not kill a man he considered his best friend, because he had murdered another who was (by technicality) under his protection as part of his community; it could have gone either way. And those were just a few examples. There was undeniably a darkness in Ash, one that recognized that it was far easier and effective to ensure the safety of others by the direct elimination of the issue in front of them, before it could become a threat. But what kind of a man would that make him, if that was the go-to course of action? And how many lives had he actually taken, with bullet, blade, or motor vehicle, to ensure the survival of his people?

All of those thoughts put a grim set to Ash's face. He nodded slowly, through a momentary faraway look, one a soldier might have who had seen the worst of humanity for too long, and responded "I think I know exactly what you mean." His words were measured and clear, impactful, demonstrating the appearance of true understanding of the nuance of Mizrahi's broken English. "We all had to do things to keep ourselves and our people alive. Sometimes that choice is hard."

The next question, be it the simple utterance of one word, did rather take Ash by surprise. Arabic? Did he speak... ? It finally clicked fully what he meant. "Ah," he responded. "No. English," he continued, then raised his hand a little, holding out his thumb and forefinger some distance apart. "Spanish," he said in explanation of the gesture. He did speak a little Russian, but felt it was not significant enough to give mention.

Attention was diverted as the door to Mechanics opened and Mizrahi engaged in abbreviated but more expeditious conversation with a third party, who he came to find out was Tesla, after he stepped into view. Ash could only assume that they were talking about Hunter, though that was a pretty easy guess given the hints dropped. Ash returned the man's greeting with a quick nod and his own, "Hey," though he pitched it with a little more formality, if such a thing were possible. The exchange continued, and Ash kept out of it, only putting in his two cents when directly addressed, "Will do that, thanks." He was being polite. Ash wasn't quite at the level of being comfortable with friendly banter just yet. He'd get there. Just not today. Today, Ash had a bathroom to finish cleaning, which he got back to presently. Do a good job, maybe next time he gets a better one.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Thalia Carmichael Location: Administration (A) (Basement -> Lobby) Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Were Thalia a more cynical person, she might have believed that this was part of a great, universal conspiracy to keep her from figuring out these series of riddles. The first time that she asks someone for help (which was actually a feat for her, all things considered), said person gets in a horrible workplace accident that makes him lose consciousness. No to say that Thalia wasn't cynical. It just wasn't her defining characteristic. Yes, before she could even make some sarcastic quip, such as a well timed, "Ha, ha. Very funny, asshole, to Alexander's tunnel question, he was dancing the world's worst Lambada without so much as a steel drum to help him keep beat before the smashing grand finale. Thalia could have facepalmed. These days, that was dangerous for her on account of the metal hand, and she had no desire to put a second unconscious body on the floor.

But all of these thoughts came and went in the space of a second, and mostly stuck around as background noise after during the events of the moment. In the fore or her thoughts, Thalia remembered that she did have some training in First Aid. Not that this was a thing that she was going to directly utilize at the moment, but she knew enough not to mess around with something like this herself. Alexander was an older fellow, there were no Zeds around or hostile Breathers that would necessitate an immediate move, and they were in a place with medical facilities which included trained personnel. Logic and tactic dictated that she play this by the book, much as that phrase was not her favorite.

Two paces saw Thalia snatching up the prosthetic leg. Two more and she was down to her knees, sliding the rest of the way on the floor to Alexander's side. She set the leg down next to him and gave him a look over. No pools of blood or obvious signs of limb removal past the metal one, so she stuck around to make sure less obvious signs weren't present. She didn't know how long it took until the older man regained consciousness and mumbled the possibly very true words that he was getting too old for this shit, but that meant he was in good enough shape to be aware of his situation and status, more or less. That piece of relief handled, Thalia wondered for a fraction of a second if something similar might happen to her fake limb when she had to use it in a fight. That was unsettling. But back to it, Alex was breathing. "Gahd damnit Mugs, don't move if you don't gotta. Your leg's right heah, I'm going to go get someone." Thalia didn't know if he was aware that his prosthetic tried to escape, so that might have come across as a little weird. Well, damage done.

Thalia rose to her feet and made for the exit. It wasn't the breakneck pace of someone running for their life, nor was it a leisurely stroll. Call it a moderate jog. Either way, the woman hit the stairs and took them two at a time, making her way back up to the lobby area. When she emerged into the front lobby, she suddenly felt amazingly out of place. The receptionist(?) was sitting at her appointed place, and Hunter, of all people, was there as well. If she didn't know better, this looked like every standard receiving area in any corporate HQ building she'd ever been in, which smacked of contrast to everything she'd experienced over the past few years. It was a little bewildering, to be frank. Thalia eyed Hunter for a moment, wondering why the hell he was here, but said nothing to him. Instead, she moved to Sandra, thunked her heavy metal fist into the desk and leaned in, speaking so that the clarity of her words was only discernible between the two of them. "Mugsy's had a fall in the basement. Lost consciousness, is awake now. Don't know if he's hurt. Might want to send for a Dahc." So far, straightening up a basement had become one hell of a bloodsport. Had Thalia known there was such adrenaline-fueled danger in cleaning and repurposing rooms like this, maybe she would have taken up maidservice instead of boxing in her youth.

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ash Holloway Location: Mechanics (K) Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The erstwhile Army Captain had gritted his teeth and prepared to re-enter the foul-smelling purgatory that was the women's bathroom at Mechanics. Giving thought briefly to Shakespeare, both the long dead English writer and the histrionic Latino in the Mess Hall earlier, Ash quietly quoted Henry V to himself, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends." It was as much actual resignation to his coming duties as it was sarcasm. He took a deep breath, the last lungful of fresher air he figured he'd have for a while. He could do this. But Thana was right; perhaps the casserole wasn't the best idea ever. After Mizrahi confirmed the assignment, Ash began to make his way to the bathroom. It wasn't going to clean itself.

When the tall Arabic fellow bid him to stop, Ash indeed stopped. There was a note of confusion on his face, and just a little concern. Generally when someone told him "change plans", or any variation of it, something inconvenient was underway. In this case, however, it wasn't particularly inconvenient for him. The men's bathroom was in need of service, but it was not the horror show the other one was. Then who was it inconvenient for, if not him? Taking a quick look around, he noticed Volts and Tesla through the windows. Mizrahi was still doing his thing, same as before he changed Ash's task. Rivets was missing, and so was...

Hunter. Ash just realized that the younger man hadn't gotten back in time. And the moment that he realized this, the guy walked in, reporting to Mizrahi. The response was not positive. Be it a short conversation between the two of them, Ash was certain that this was none of his affair, and moreover, whether the kid screwed up or not, standing there to bear witness was unnecessary and could be taken as a sign of epicaricacy. Or, as the Germans put it, schadenfreude. So he stuck to task and entered the men's bathroom, located the the cleaning supplies, and got to work. At least he now knew for whom the change of plans would be inconvenient.

He was sanitizing upright surfaces; sinks, counters, etc., when he heard Mizrahi and Volts enter the Mechanic area again. Speaking Arabic, which was interesting. Not the language itself, nor what they were saying, as Ash couldn't understand a word of it anyway. The interesting part was that the taller Mizrahi was actually a talkative person, just in his native language. He had suspected something along those lines earlier. Good to know he was actually personable.

After Volts and Hunter left, to whatever fate was in store for the young man, Ash simply continued to clean the bathroom. The rest of this wasn't his business until someone asked him to take part or the situation changed in a morally questionable way. So he cleaned. The throat clear that announced Mizrahi's presence was unexpected, though he figured that there was something additional that he had to take care of now, or some change had occurred now that he was working in here by himself. But what he heard from the taller man gave him genuine surprise. Dawri? No, Sparrow. But he didn't really know Thana as Sparrow that well, so it took him a second or two for the pieces to fall into place. Also, it took a second for the application of the word "yer". Oh yeah, he was learning English from Thana. In any case, she had praised him to Mizrahi, who was telling him about it. Apparently, to her eyes, he was a good man. e greatly wished to live up to her expectations. "I try hard to be a good man," he responded. Sometimes it was tough. Decisions that resulted in the best chance for survival for those he looked after sometimes made for grey actions, but he did genuinely do what he could to uphold the oaths he took as a soldier and officer, and remember the ethics in which he was raised. "She says the same thing about you."

Not exactly the Algonquin Round Table of literary and conversational greatness, but it was a productive start.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Thalia Carmichael Location: Administration (A) Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The last pearl of wisdom addressed to Thalia from the General was hopeful, at least. Naturally, she might expect her brother (literally from another mother) to have her back and put in a good word, as she would to for him. But Joaquin's own history would speak volumes about his capabilities and temperament. Thalia, well... she was barely out of college for two years, maybe, before Zeds started eating everyone. Her career was just kicking off and she could only go by the reputation she developed in her younger years. They weren't exactly good, wholesome stories, most of the time. So yeah, it was good that he vouched for her. She nodded her understanding to The General, and even expressed a quiet, "Yah, good day," back to him as he left.

It was also good that she didn't voice half of the thoughts going on in her head about being where she was. The constant need to reassure herself that this was the right decision to make was starting to grate on her nerves. Besides, what else was she going to do? Thalia couldn't abandon Thana, even though they really didn't need each other directly for survival anymore. And she wasn't going to sneak out in the middle of the night and leave Alexander, even now that he was finding his legs in the community (so to speak). And Joaquin. So Thalia resolved herself to try to put any ideas to the contrary out of her mind as best she could. Even if she wanted to leave, it was suicide without preparation and a place to go, as well as the knowledge on how to get there. Any such thoughts would be fleeting. Not to mention that there were a couple of people here that she swore could tell what she was thinking, anyway.

Thalia was lucky that she didn't find herself mumbling those thoughts out loud. She had a proclivity that way. Shaking it off yet again, the one-armed woman set back to her job. Sorting. "Paper, plastic sandwich baggies, batteries, stuffed llama, single harpsichord key - white, ball gag, illustrated Kama Sutra pop-up book..." she said, rattling off things she was putting away or cleaning up and obviously, at least to her, just saying random crap to get her work buddy's attention or make him smile. It was are for her to joke like this, though for the moment it was just the two of them in the room. Still, it sounded like her mind was elsewhere. Thalia was holding an introspective monologue back and needed to say something to keep her inner thoughts inner.

Luckily, or unluckily as the case might be, that damned riddle came back to her as she worked. Something about repetitive action with little intellectual power necessary to accomplish it, plus a lack of need to constantly scan her surroundings led her mind to wander. And invariably, it wandered back to that riddle. Mull it over as much as she might, Thalia just couldn't make heads nor tails of it. At all. Period. If the answer were written across the wall in big, bold letters, she still wouldn't have a clue. "Ey Mugsy," she started, digging in her pocket for the paper bearing the riddle, "Take a look at this for me?"

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ash Holloway Location: Mess Hall (C) -> Mechanics (K) Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Admittedly, as lunches went, this was one of the more memorable ones. Were Ash the diary keeping type, he would have definitely given this one its own page. Maybe even with diagrams in the margin and little stick figure images demonstrating the positions of the key players in the very memorable lunch, each accounting for the change of personnel as work shifts picked back up. Right at that moment, he was looking back to the withdrawing form of Thalia who, despite the difference in accent and skin tone, was beginning to remind him very much of her cousin. Or her uncle. It was a little eerie, actually. Having now met a few members of their family, Ash was both impressed and disturbed. They were all cut from very similar cloth.

At least, that's the impression that he had until Joaquin started to speak again. Nope, here was one who, to outside appearances, had very little in common with his people's overall demeanor. But to hell with it. He seemed happy and wasn't hurting anybody. Far be it for Ash to pass judgement. He was in too good of a mood, himself. Certainly not because of the job he had to get back to (though it was within his philosophy that every job was important and aided in the survival of those within the community), but in the overall way that things worked out for himself and a number of people close to him. With that in mind, he did have a job to get back to.

The military man in him remembered that he could make short work of the food in front of him, like back in basic training, and even in a way that gave the appearance of manners. And while he might have liked to stick around for a bit longer and socialize, Ash's attentions were mostly for Thana at that point, enamored with the idea of getting back a loved one who he thought he had lost. Plus, he wanted to keep a positive impression with the people in charge of the settlement. So after Thana and the comparatively light-skinned Gonzalez left, along with Alexander and the others with the previous lunch shift, Ash made note of it and finished off his Tuna Casserole with haste. To a lesser extent, it seemed a shame to rush such a dish. Maybe he was biased by the vastly lesser quality of food he had to settle for while on the road for all of that time, but Ash figured that were he incarcerated for an extended period of time, memories of said casserole would might be one of the things which sustained him on particularly lonely nights. (TUNA CASSEROLE!)

But next time, he was getting the salad.

In any case, after his plate was clear, Ash rose and addressed the table. "If you all will excuse me," he said, nodding. It was a touch more formal than the occasion probably deserved. His mind was halfway elsewhere and the gaps were filled in with his officer-y default settings. "See you for supper." He turned and moved to bus his tray, then exited the Mess Hall. Were his mind fully in the here and now, he might have overheard a discussion about Thana being asked to make a run outside the walls, but that moment was lost to him for the present. In any case, Ash wanted to get back to Mechanics as quickly as possible. He didn't want the looming trip to the gravesites to affect his productivity any more than it had to. Hence the hurried meal and early return to work.

Stepping into the garage, Ash looked to Mizrahi. The guy seemed to be a man of few words. Whether this was because he was a quiet man generally, or his grasp on English was competent but marginal, not unlike Ash's grasp of Spanish, was up for debate. "Unless you need me on something different, I'll get back to that bathroom," he intoned. Work was work. No sense in putting it off.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Thalia Carmichael Location: Administration (A) Skills: N/A

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Cleaning and organizing, separating recyclables, etc. Then again, just about everything was recyclable these days. Either repurposed, used to build something else, or turned into compost. Still, it wasn't a thing that she was used to doing, except for the occasional bit of scavenging for useful odds and ends. Her job today looked like an extension of exactly that. It was still tedious, and to be frank, prevented her from doing the things she was really wanting to do. It was different in Fairburn, when she was hooked up with the reenactors and survivalists. The tasks she did there helped her learn and develop skills that were essential to her survival in the new world. This? Well, someone had to do it. Maybe she does this well and gets a better job. Or the training she desperately needed. Like life outside the walls, you had to put in to get anything out. This more community based application of it was something she would have to get used to if she wanted to stay here with Thana and Joaquin. Fine, and Alexander too, as well as the rest of this collection of misfits and assholes.

But speaking of Alexander, Thalia's thoughts were interrupted by his voice. Yeah, she should wait up for him. "Yah, okay," she mumbled. Cripples had to stick together, right? It was a cynical thought, but probably very true. She didn't say much at first, just listening to him begin converation, and didn't really say much after, either. Point of fact, when he mentioned an "odd fella", Thalia was pretty convinced that he meant her brother. So when he clarified that he meant Nigel, Thalia was a little surprised. "Roman guy, yah," she responded. "No idea. Trying to get sparring time with him." The man knew how to fight with a weapon and shield, and now that her own abilities in that regard were severely abbreviated by her injury, she needed to train.

The mild surprise that she felt during the conversation was revisited with interest when she returned to the basement in Administration. The old man in charge of CMB was there. The final authority figure, and while he had been nothing but a respectable, soft spoken man, Thalia's first instinct was to tense and give a quick glance around her surroundings, doing what she might have to ascertain threats and determine points of exit. Survival mode, slipped back on like an old leather coat; comfortable and protective. Side note, Thalia missed the hell out of her leather jacket. Another thing useful that was lost, kind of like her right hand. She had no idea what the General was talking about at first, but putting two and the square root of four together, things clicked into place a little. Communications. People who know about such things. Thalia and Alexander.

Thalia went to college to be an Electronics Engineer for her uncle's security company, but that wound up being the set of skills that she had used the least since she had acquired them, and barely at all after the Outbreak. Truth was, she was fair at best with them. Competent for everyday work, but hardly an innovator. The biggest claim to fame she had was an amazing stroke of luck rebuilding a satellite phone that would up leading her to the people from Newnan. As for Alex, to the best of her knowledge, he was trained by the Army as a comm guy. This looked a lot more like his cup of tea than hers. And moreover, did that mean that she'd be staying behind as support, in a basement she wasn't fond of being in to begin with? A trickle of annoyance was balance by resignation, the latter born of the painful truth that she wouldn't be back at her best for a while. She swallowed this truth whole and nodded, trying to keep the expression off of her face. "Just let me know where I can help," she said in an even voice.

After the General left, Thalia looked to Alexander. This probably suited him perfectly, and she was actually happy for the man. It couldn't have been easy, losing a leg. And it might be a blessing to feel useful again, if he had been feeling those kind of doubts. "Ahright Mugsy," she began, returning to the piles to sort, "Let's get back at it." As she started to pick through the items in front of her, Thalia gave a lingering thought to lunch. Sushi was something she could definitely get used to, living behind walls.

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ash Holloway Location: Mess Hall (C) Skills: Perception

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ash wasn't sure why he hadn't seen it at first, but Thana had indeed saved him a seat. Sadly aware of his present, less polished appearance, it still did not prevent him from accepting the place next to her. And it seemed that she could take one look at his damp, smudged form and know exactly how he had been spending his day. If it was offensive, he would understand and take a seat elsewhere. This was part of the reason why he gave a little smile when she nudged his shoulder. "Hey," he responded, leaning into her shoulder a little as well. A tiny piece of contentment was reached in that second, and regardless of the fact that there were many other people around them. He was even a little amused at the way that she not only knew what job he had pulled, but discussed it with him in brief as if they were already in the middle of an unspoken conversation about it, complete with the knowing look of a lady with experience in the matter. "It can always get worse," he declared, otherwise nodding his agreement with Thana's statement. "One of those constants of life. Besides, still not the worst job I've had before." Flashes of his training days, and early assignments as a young Lieutenant doing seemingly unending civil engineering work, some of which involved primitive septic systems, haunted his thoughts. His eyes looked skeptically to the tuna casserole on his plate. Yes, he was still going to eat it. And yes, he was going to need a second or two first.

His attention expanded somewhat as he heard his name mentioned. Not the abbreviated version of his name, Ash, that most people used when referring to him in casual conversation, but his full first name, Ashton. Fork in hand, his eyes darted in the direction of the man he thought might be addressing him. Nigel. The Romanesque individual, to use the term loosely as he was not personally representative of architecture, persay. But it seemed like he was talking about him, not to him. Benign conversation that merely used him as a reference to the military, which made sense. He was a career soldier, once upon a time. But did one ever really stop? Ash gave a nod to Nigel, noting that his name was invoked but not wishing to interrupt his conversation with Alexander. It looked like the older man's respiratory distress was doing a good enough job of that for him. Ash tensed for a second, waiting to see if the moderate amount of emergency medical training he received would need to be applied, though it seemed to work itself out. This allowed him to settle back into enjoying his meal with Thana, for however long they had.

To that end, a table-wide address caught his attention next, this one from his work partner for the week, Hunter. It was an apology for the previous night at the party, apparently. Ash wasn't around to fully see what had transpire. His eyes were elsewhere, naturally. He even looked to Thana during the course of the apology, then back to Hunter. He wanted to say something reassuring to the guy, but at the same time, didn't. The younger man seemed like a mess in progress, some of which was his fault and some of which wasn't. The apocalypse did things to everyone. "We all do stupid things, time to time," he started with lowered voice. Lord knew he had a fair share of poor decisions under his belt, spanning a lifetime. "I can fill a day talking about mine. It's what you do after. Ask me about it sometime." They still had half a day's work ahead of them and they were stuck with each other for the week, at least. If he wanted storytime, he could have it.

Ash couldn't help but get a little defensive about her calling out his food choice. Oh, he understood the reasons, in hindsight. And admittedly he didn't think that far ahead, putting two and two together. Hot tuna casserole and the far less than desirable work he was doing. "Hey, comfort food," was the only explanation that he might provide, though the conciliatory expression demonstrated a clear understanding of her intent. It was too late now, anyway. If it was his destiny to see his meal again, in a much less attractive form, then it would be. Feeling very Zen-like, Ash continued with his meal.

The continuation of lunch was a more hurried affair than breakfast, it looked like. That made sense. Breakfast was getting the day going, then he assumed that supper might be wrapping the day up, but the midday meal (and he considered himself very lucky that there was enough food to go around that they had three decent meals a day) was in the middle of work. More than ever, people needed to do their jobs to keep the world, or their piece of it, running well enough to allow for those three squares. And their safety. Not to mention their health and sanitation needs. So it didn't surprise him that Thana had somewhere to be not too long after he showed up. He was grateful for the time they had, and he knew that they would have more later. He got a tiny smile at the kiss on his cheek prior to Thana leaving. This was something that he could get used to. He reached his arm up to give her a little squeeze around her waist, but hesitated for a couple of reasons. First, he recognized that pulling her in close while he was in a state of aromatic disrepair might not be the nest idea. Additionally, his position would have him placing an arm near to where one of her injuries lay. Accidentally putting pressure there would be, in a word, bad. "Dinner, then. It's a date." They'd have better room for conversation then, too. It was nice having those few moments with her in the middle of the day nonetheless. Ash risked a look behind him, watching her bus her dishes and leave. The limp notwithstanding, he did appreciate the view.

Looking back forward, he was intrigued to see Thalia sliding underneath the table, apparently in an effort to escape her brother while he was in rapt conversation with Nigel. They were in some sort of discussion when he initially approached the table, but he didn't ask into it. Whatever went on with that family was probably not something he needed to get in the middle of anyway. An eyebrow raised on Ash's face though, wondering exactly what the hell she was trying to accomplish even as her eyes locked with his, slowly disappearing from sight.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Thalia Carmichael Location: Mess Hall (C) -> Administration (A) Skills: Stealth, Intelligence

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Mention of that bowling trophy seemed to dominate the table's conversation for a while. More than she was really comfortable with, as being the center of attention was generally not one of her life goals. Thalia had to admit that it was unusual enough of an occurrence to warrant a few words, so she bore the weight of the discourse and kept filling her mouth with sushi. Damn, but that was a good idea. Soy or not, wasabi or not, this was a good idea. The thought that this place might make her weak crept into her thoughts; an internal piece of worry that outwardly paused her, a bite half-chewed still waiting to be swallowed. No, it couldn't. She had been through far too much and survived things that would have killed others outright, to be defeated by air conditioning and regular meals. But the thought did concern her a little.

What got her mind back into the present was Alexander's unexpected use of the name, "Mr. Caesar". Though pronounced with an American accent, that was how some people in (what used to be) the corporate headquarters for MSS, the company she used to work for, referred to her uncle. It was an interesting custom of the southeastern U.S., referring to people in positions of respect by a title and then their first name, depending on circumstance. And her uncle Caesar was the boss. But Thalia knew that the old man was dead. Amid a list of others in La Familia Gonzalez, she searched for him for a long while, and was too late. Maybe if she found him sooner, he might have made it. Her cousin Alicia, too. They were the survivors. How Thalia made it this log and they didn't was fully beyond her realm of imagining.

And yet, the damn bowling trophy was still on the lips of her friends and acquaintances, or bowling in general. She glanced over to Thana, now finding out that the trophy might belong to the guy who told them to sort out that basement room in the first place. Her addition to the conversation based upon this revelation was a simple, "Hnn,", mostly just to acknowledge without sharing her feelings on whomever owned the damn thing in the first place. The gash on her face seemed to throb once, as if it knew it was being talked about. Though bowling lane in the church? That was dedication, and use of resources. It said a lot. In any case, Thalia silently agreed with Alexander about the nature of older trophies, giving him a small gesture with her metal hand though not pausing her meal to do so. In fact, it wasn't until Nigel spoke his question that she made any meaningful contribution to the discussion at all, and around a bite of raw fish, at that. "It didn't find its way onto a military camp. The military camp found its way around it." Thalia recalled that Thana had mentioned Mexico Beach used to be a vacation/retirement spot, specifically Gunny's. Still chewing, she continued, "This was someone's home, once." Tactically, it had to have perfect initial conditions, supported by skilled individuals and people who could recognize it and pull together fast enough. She shrugged, and kept eating. "Whatever. To hell with that trophy."

The entrance of Navy's boyfriend led to the extreme likelihood that any heart-to-heart with her would have to be put off for again. Fine. Thalia wasn't the most patient person in the world but she could be in certain instances, important ones, mostly involving waiting for a tactical advantage or in the pursuit of her continued survival. This was, admittedly, neither. But the theory was sound. And naturally, the way that her brother was acting was another nail in the coffin of social discourse with Thana, even to the point of seeing her friend set her head down on the table. The Middle English vomit from her dear half-sibling aside, Thalia nonetheless sat, staring at Joaquin and hanging on his words, trying to make heads or tails of it. Finally, there was a piece of paper handed over to her. She accepted it with a measured, cautious, "Thank you," though it was a little cold in its application. She took in a breath and let it out. This was the reason that she stayed in CMB? It was a guilty thought. Of course he was. He was family. A very different kind of family, but beneath the flashy attire and flowery Anglophile speech, he was no one to mess with. Thalia read the paper before jamming it in a pocket, finally understanding what it said but completely without any grasp as to what it could possibly mean. Her expression showed as much.

I always point in the right direction. My instructions are written in black and white. Disobey me and pay the consequences. I will never say more than two words at a time. When you know what I am, find me and you will be one step closer.

Army Guy Ash and Other Army Guy Hunter found their way over. The two of them had their moment, which gave Thalia the extreme impression of high school sweetheart lunchroom antics. She declined to comment. Far be it for her to rain on anyone's parade. Her friend was happy. In fact, his entrance along with the back and forth between Joaquin and Nigel meant that attention was off of her for the moment. Hunter's apology did likewise. When Thana mentioned that she needed to get back on the clock, she knew that it was her time as well. As soon as the Thana stood up and left, Thalia began to slide down in her seat, making her way underneath the table with the hope that no one would notice while lots of other stuff was going on around them. Sadly, she could tell that it was not exactly successful. But she kept doing what she was doing; to cease at this point would draw more eyes to her. When her head was completely under the table, she reached her hand up and snatched the last piece of sushi off of her plate and crammed it in her mouth.

With as much grace as she could muster, Thalia emerged from under the table on the other side, where Thana had just been. She stared directly at Ash as she sat there next to him, reminding him with a whisper, "You still owe me that talk." before recovering her plate and rising to put it away. It was not the stealthy exit she had hoped for, and she very likely looked like half a dumbass in the process. But what was done was done.

Over the course of the next few minutes, Thalia found herself back out of the AC and in the open heat of Florida. A more polite individual might have waited for her work partner. She was interested in putting some distance between herself and the Mess Hall, hopefully to get her task for the day accomplished and see what came next. Administration, sorting... This was not the life she might have chosen. Objectively, she knew that she would have to deal with a lot of crap work before she'd be allowed to train or take on a job more suited to her abilities. Life wasn't exactly bad though. Sushi counted for a lot. And that chowder, first day? Stellar. And a big fire the night before. Family, too. Push through the bullshit first, prove she wasn't just here to use the community, and she'd have her time.