Sigil

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

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

Ash Holloway Location: Education Center (M) -> Mess Hall (C) Skills: N/A

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

The testimony seemed to crowd around Ash getting a misleading statement about Thana's ability to pull in breath from back in Quarantine. It was not his best moment, granted. In any case, the memory of how he felt had stuck with him, even if he had already silently forgiven the deception by omission. Thana was alive, all was good. Now if they could just get done what had to be done with this trial for the day, he could get back to doing a mixture of nothing and everything with her while the rest of the world just kept spinning around them. The fact that there was a trial was a great sign for the civility of this settlement. The fact that it seemed more or less fair was a boon, too, when one thought about how things could go down outside of the walls like that. Ash was okay with these things. He was even more okay when they called for a break. True, he could go for a meal, stretch his legs, do whatever came naturally, but the fact that he had someone to do these things with could not be overstated.

So it was with a heavy heart that he did not see Thana as he glanced up at the balcony. He was hoping they might have their evening meal together. The trudge up the aisle, still walking with respectful precision as he had for the Court Martial so far, seemed to take longer than it might otherwise until he was almost out of the building. His heart lightened considerably at the sight of Thana waiting by the front door. It was a little touching. She waited for him. It seemed in this day and age that few people did that, and he counted himself as blessed for having someone willing to stick around for his company. Ash offered her his arm and, whether taken or not (as he understood that she might be considered On Duty at the time), went with her the distance to the Mess Hall with a smile that, not too long ago, was a lot rarer. "Hey, missed you down there," he said, a little playfully.

Feeling the need for greenery, Ash selected the rather spicy vegetable soup. He wasn't sure why, exactly. Spicy food wasn't the easiest to get hold of for him for a while, and despite not being someone who overly ran for the capsicum, it was something a little different. Different was good sometimes.

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

Thalia Carmichael Location: Education Center (M) -> Mess Hall (C) Skills: N/A

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

Testimony was an ongoing thing, and while learning as much as possible about Camp Mexico Beach and the way they did things here was a priority, she was pretty sure at this time that she had learned all that she could at this point in the trial. Maybe more would be revealed at sentencing. Or verdict, whichever came first, though Thalia was pretty sure she knew which way this was going to go. It reminded her of Alice in Wonderland, when the Queen found out that someone was painting her roses red and so put on a trial to make sure "justice" was met. The sentence was already established, as was the verdict, and they had difficulties figuring out which was supposed to come first. Except with this, it was fairly obvious that Hunter was guilty, whatever that meant, of offenses which ranged from the insubordinate to the merely foolish. Until everything had gone through its proper course, Thalia would just hang out and wait, maybe get called on and pretend to be content to be there.

Except that the last part was obviously a lie. It was hard for her to pretend to be anything but what she was, which mostly involved being mildly irritated on the day-to-day.

Oh, but Thalia did notice Shears with growing interest. He was the next stop on her ongoing hunt for whatever the hell she was supposed to be hunting for. That, and she could do with a shorter haircut, so long as she was thinking about it. So she waited until it seemed like a good point to approach, and then moved to do so with quiet, grace, and surreptitiousness.

Except that she had all the quiet, grace, and surreptitiousness of a yodeling chainsaw giving birth to triplets. Coming up behind Shears as he filed away and toward the door was more of an exercise in Thalia misjudging the distance to him and getting caught up in a push of people, prompting her to band her metal hand on the back of a nearby chair and having to get out, "excuse, um, yeah, pardon, damnit, need to, grr, ...fuck." When she finally prodded her way up to the man, Thalia blew out a breath and said very bluntly, "You know you'ah the next on my list, Shears." She cracked the barest of smiles. "What'cha got for me? She continued on her way to the Mess Hall, glancing over with a pause to provide conversational incentive, "Oh, and tell me on the way. If I don't eat something soon I'm gonna really bitch out." More to reality, Thalia was more likely to grow quieter and even less sociable until that need was sated, probably with the action of foraging or the application of a pointed stick. In any case, wherever Thana had gotten of to, she must be having the time of her life with this.

In the Mess Hall, Thalia selected the seafood chowder. It was meat, which was always a plus, and it was chowder. What self-respecting New Englander, even one who was raised during some pretty formative years in Mexico, was going to pass up the niftiness of chowder? Thalia found a mostly relatively quietish place to sit, held up her spoon with her one fully working hand and poised to attack the bowled up fishiness, whispering the single-word battle cry of every hungry Bostonian: "...nnnchowdah..."

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

Hank Wright Location: Education Center (M) -> Mess Hall (C) Skills: N/A

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

There was a general lack of regard on Hank's behalf as to what everyone else was doing, beginning the very moment that the Professor called for a recess. It was not really a hard and fast matter of the erstwhile Sheriff's overriding interest in whatever was for supper, nor his massive, gnawing hunger. Not to say that Hank couldn't go for a burger, or whatever, just then. He was frightfully bored with the whole trial; the repetition, the mind-numbing sameness or every piece of testimony that kept pointing in the same direction over and over, was rubbing his nerves roughly. If he had the benefit of a six-pack to numb things up, that would have made it more tolerable. But this? Nah, not his scene. Hank had been in several courtrooms in his pre-apocalypse career. Civilian courtrooms. Events where, for the sake of expediency, one side concedes certain things as fact based on overwhelming certainty and they move on to attack or argue their point in a different fashion. This had none of that. Of course, this mindset came from a man who also had no problem drinking lots of beer and watching the same WWII documentary three times in a row. The things which bored him were fickle sometimes.

Mostly, Hank really wanted a change of scenery. So, this lack of regard for what everyone else was doing translated in him springing up right along with Wayne and heading along with his hetero lifemate in a determined and direct pace to the Mess Hall. His lack of desire to engage in unnecessary conversation was a bit of a boon for him in this instance, as he made good time arriving and scuttled into line readily. He settled on vegetable soup and rolls for his repast. Being a steak guy, and having no shortage of fish as of late, he was comparatively in the mood for something that might have been pulled out of a garden. And bread. Fresh bread made the tragic loss of 99.7% of humanity more bearable. "Hey there, Maldonado. How's about we pick a good spot to quietly make fun of people like those two old guys from The Muppet Show, huh? Need something to break the bland we've just been dragged through."

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

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

Ash Holloway Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A

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

There wasn't much for Ashton to relate in this portion of the questioning. If they were establishing some sort of timeline, great, but as he remembered things, Hunter didn't do anything particularly hellworthy in the locker rooms, nor the shower. Words were exchanged, granted. Short, beginner conversation, led by an innocuous icebreaker. All the same, he was called to the front and it was his responsibility to answer said call. So again, Ash rose, posture and demeanor fully to the efficient and professional, and directed himself to the stage.

All the same, he was asked about the events of the locker room and mens' shower. Rather than bore all parties with a full rundown of describing himself and others participating in their various elements of personal hygiene (as grateful as he was for the availability of hot water and fresh linens), Ash kept his commentary to discussion to which he was direct party, following a general overlay of circumstances which were already outlined by those who had come to the stand before him. "I had asked if anyone else had a military background, ma'am. I got a simple response to the affirmative from Mr. Polawski, Father Pearson, and Mr. Monroe. Miscellaneous responses from others." The memory of Atticus mentioning his place and times of deployment stuck out to Ash. They might have shared a patch of ground at the same time. It was something he meant to talk to the preacher about. It had been an attempt to initiate conversation between the groups that was largely unsuccessful. In hindsight (no pun intended), it was probably not the best time to attempt opening unifying conversation; not until they were fully clothed.

With no further prodding to elaborate, Ash rose, turned sharply in practiced military protocol, and returned to his seat in the greater auditorium.

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

Thalia Carmichael Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A

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

Thalia had half a mind to ditch the proceedings and climb up to the balcony with Thana and make impolite commentary about people with her. Or maybe sneak over to where Tatiana and Jack were seated and whisper about anything else. Or hell, try and see what was up with that Checkbook girl, seeing as they had certain similarities in sarcasm and disdain for humanity in general. It was funny that Thalia had patience to stand in a freezing stream with a four-pronged stick, waiting for a fish to pass by so she might stab some protein for breakfast. She could remain in darkness, letting it wrap around her like a familiar blanket, for hours until the right moment lined up for her unnoticed egress or to press something sharp into the back of someone caught unawares. But this Court Martial? It was beginning to chafe.

Already in her mind, Thalia had devised her hypothetical escape plan, just in case Rube Goldberg Machine of events here spiraled into something grotesque and painful enough to warrant her hasty absence. A couple of them had come to mind actually, but the problem that this open room with little in the way of hard cover presented was that, in the event of such an unlikely occurrence, Thalia would require the benefit of a distraction. Or a hostage. It was strange how her mind kept working like that, imagining the most improbable worst case scenario and taking steps to remain two chess moves ahead of it. Maybe she did need to attend those group therapy sessions. Hell, maybe they should hand her a group of younger, up-and-coming survivors so she could make them more like her. That was a smirk-provoking thought. She could only imagine what her father might think, seeing her teaching the youth how to commit acts of stealth and knifepoint murder while evading people. Like they did to her.

That last thought lanced through her with emotion. She still didn't know whether he was alive or dead, or in Monterrey still, or looking for his family the way she had been. Eventually, she needed to know. Thalia reminded herself that this place would make her strong again, and only from a position of strength would she have options. She would bide her time, years if necessary. In the immediate, Thalia was going to sit idly and listen to people discuss an inconsequential conversation occurring in a shower.

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

Hank Wright Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A

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

Again Hank took the stand, and again, without showing actual disrespect for the proceedings, he did feel a little bit of annoyance at being called up for something like this. He had half a mind to ask the court directly if him giving his opinion on a snatch of conversation was really worth the effort it took for him to get up from a chair and sit down in another one, especially if this line of questioning was already verified under oath by others as a non-issue. But, the wheels of justice were fuzzy and prone to acts of monotony, and so here he was, being fuzzy and monotonous. Then he ran a hand over his head, which held only a week's worth of stubble, and realized that it would be some time before he was fuzzy. Fine. Monotonous it was.

"So there I was," he started, as if to paint a lavish description of an epic moment, "surrounded by tile, getting nude in front of a whole bunch of strangers." Hank shrugged, continuing, "And Wayne. But he's a strange guy anyway, so... I stand by my statement. Anyhoo, after a few well-chosen remarks alluding to prison shower scenes on cable TV, we all got ourselves squeaky and then, um..." Hank began motioning vaguely in Ash's direction, "That guy from the Terminator movie (the first one, not the sequels) tried to make some small talk while humble-bragging about being Army." To give the devil his due, Ash did look remarkably like the actor who played Kyle Reese from the original movie. "And he asked if anyone else was. Dunno, maybe he wanted to make friends. Couple said yes, couple said no, then we all toweled off and had chowder." A satisfied smile, followed by a wink in the Professor's direction followed this expert testimony.

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

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

Ash Holloway Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A

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

Taking the stand again, Ashton maintained the same sort of militant composure that he demonstrated with his first walk up to the stage. The questions asked seemed a little toward the vague for his tastes, considering the nature of the Court Martial, so he confined his answers more or less to the defendant in question as not to muddy the waters with details unrelated. Also considering he was asked questions requiring more than a yes-or-no answer, Ash responded with greater situational detail.

"Team Newnan, my group for the initial evacuation of our settlement and relocation, approached from the north. The Colonel had me pegged as Army immediately and demanded my credentials. Name, rank, number, etc. I complied, informing that our arrival was at the request of Lt. Commander Thana Martin, to report to Master Gunny Macsen Martin. He verified Zone of Action and we immediately deferred to his authority. Monroe was already present at this time on the other side of the Huey. Couldn't hear what he was saying clearly enough to give reliable testimony. Can confirm the conversation on Maddoc's end as accurate to his testimony, ma'am. Two other groups approached from the south and the west, respectively. Long lost cat, too, if you'll believe it. I identified the group from the west as the other half of our people from Newnan (Team Eden), and notified the Colonel that we had no connection to the group from the south, nor Monroe himself, ma'am."

When asked about his take on the whole situation, Ash responded, "Overwhelming set of coincidences that got all parties to that place at one time, and we still might have missed each other were it not for the Huey landing. Everyone was in a position where they had to show remarkable trust. Being out in the world for too long makes it hard to do that. Year, four months, and some change is a couple lifetimes out there. Everyone had something they cared about on the line. My take, ma'am, it that the situation could have gone FUBAR very fast and it was a miracle that it didn't. It was a good day."

And finally, the question of how he was feeling at the time. This one required that Ash delve into a part of him that he wished to remain buried for official matters. Talking about his feelings wasn't a strong point. So, he kept it mostly to the subject of the Court Martial unless asked otherwise specifically. "Cautious. Suspicious at first. The fact that there were a number of people I did not know around heightened this. Some relief when Zone was verified, but too many unknown factors. I had people there for which I was responsible; the presence of a potential troublemaker did not sit well with me. After we were all disarmed - all of us, and in transit, I felt better, ma'am." The Newnan folk were strong and had numbers. Were all on equal footing, Ash would have put his money on them if it came to an altercation. Now that they were all one tribe, so to speak, this last piece of tribalism was moot. In any case, Ash didn't want to throw Hunter under the bus, but he did strive to be honest to them and to himself.

When the questioning was over, Ash continued to show the expected discipline and mannerisms of an officer, deferred to Court Martial protocol, rose, and retook his seat. Another glance up to Thana before he made it back down was comforting. Though he was a person obliged to his personal code and the concepts of jurisprudence where such things were preferred and practical, he did hope in some small amount that this would be done expediently.

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

Thalia Carmichael Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A

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

Thalia took her seat at the witness chair when called upon, this time with significantly less in the way of extraneous noise. Of course there was less. Now that fate had deemed that every eye in the place would be on her, she was able to move fluidly and quietly. This had to be some kind of sick joke, expectorated down from the heavens above to teach her humility. And here, of all the sins she was genuinely guilty of, Thalia did not believe that Pride was one in which she required a lesson. Wrath, maybe. Gluttony? The ability to not gain weight and an overappreciation of canned pasta (among other things) made it a contender. But this had nothing to do with what was going on one way or another.

Briefly, she wondered if she had to swear on a bible, or some such similarity. If she did, and she used her fake hand, did it still count?

Thalia's more blunt nature was in bloom as the questions were asked. She tried her best to be as open and honest as possible. After all, she had nothing to hide. The people of CMB already knew what kind of a person she was and whose family she came from, so false innocence was stupid and ultimately counterproductive. "Yah, so, we wah cutting through Wewahitchka, making for Mexico Beach. Friggin' choppa lands. Navy - sorry, Thana was gone then and Beatrice wahs in chahge." She paused for a moment, look of both sadness and rough anger flashing across her face in even amounts. Continuing, though notably more terse in word and demeanor of speech, "Coming down highway 22, um - from the west." She was almost mocking Ash's testimony from earlier. Thinking about where the sun was in the sky that hour, yeah, he was right. "I was scouting ahead. Usually do. I was..." She didn't want to use the term "expendable", but it was kind of appropriate. "Nevermind. Gahd damn duck... Time I gaht theah, Huntah was saying something about making sure we were who we said we were. Talking about us, the othehs, whatevah. I know he was smiling. I didn't trust it. Until I saw Navy's guy and his group, I was planning on getting us out."

She did not say it aloud, but in case the situation turned into a firefight, she was planning on targeting Hunter first. Of all parties present, he seemed like the greatest potential source of conflict, and that included the guy manning the 50-cal, so long as he was armed. If he was the origin of a fight, the tactic was to eliminate him and either utilize cover or drop her own weapons. It might have given her plausible reason to expect mercy, seeing as she was dispatching the aggressor, and/or focus attention on her so her team could escape. Thalia was more satisfied that it was not necessary. "When Bea and them caught up to me, it was almost immediate disarming, so... heah we are. We weren't on the scene long enough to see a whole laht of whatevah go down. Tension was big. I noticed that." Were it not for the fact that Thalia was genuinely trying to make this place work, she wouldn't have been as honest as she was, nor remotely as talkative.

So far as how she felt, her answer was a little colder than most. "There's no feeling. Out theah, I avoid new people. If I can't avoid, it's risk and reward, fight or flight." Thalia looked to the judges assembled with piercing eyes, summarizing from her keen instinct for survival, "If more people at that crossroad were like Huntah, you never would have seen us." The statement was open to interpretation. Never would have seen them at all? Never would have seen them until it was too late? Or more accurately perhaps, they never would have seen them until they knocked on CMB's front gate.

Either way it was a sober reminder for Thalia. She might have become something similar to what Hunter was now, and probably much, much worse, were it not for people who helped her and became her friends. As it was, her antisocial and potentially violent tendencies didn't need any more encouragement. Just a direction.

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

Hank Wright Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A

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

Hank sat in the witness chair looking a little bored and a little testy, like a burned-out mathematics teacher who just couldn't seem to get the little bastards in his classroom to grasp the basic points of long division. Granted, this was his civic duty, and all of that. Cost of doing business in one of the last benign pieces of civilization left, yadda yadda, but he really just wished that he could sit in a balcony someplace and make colorful commentary alongside his hetero lifemate, Wayne, like slightly less grumpy and significantly drunker versions of Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show.

"Yeah, I was out there. You wanna know what happened? Fine. Me, Maldonado, Apocalypse Barbie and Sportacus..." Hank paused, giving a little wave out to the rows of chairs in the greater auditorium, "...came up on the kid there talking some shit, like he wasn't about to be whisked away to a land of mashed potatoes and clean sheets. Hell, the helicopter ride should have been worth some quiet time, at least. I mean, it's no Tilt-A-Whirl, but what is, right?" Hank sighed. This stuff had been related a few times already by different witnesses, and while parliamentary procedure was often repetitive and boring, his years with the Cheshire County Sheriff's Department made him familiar with the hassle enough to just go with it for now.

Hank gave a brief outline of what details he could clearly remember, which fell in line with the established testimony so far. Apparent to him, this was overkill designed to establish some baselines for future testimony, considering that they were jumping around the timeline of total events. His follow-up about how he felt at that time was hijacked a little by personal observations about Hunter's demonstrated psychology, or one interpretation of it. "The kid was letting his Bulldog mouth overload his Chihuahua ass in front of new people. The new people didn't strip him for spare parts and that's how I knew you guys were alright. All in all, I might have thanked Hunter for that tidbit of information. A lot of other people out in the world would have used him as target practice for being so irritating, and I'd have to flip a coin to see whose side I'd be on, then." He looked over to Hunter directly, quickly addressing him like a stern patriarch, "Do you want to get shot? Because that's how you get shot. I hope this self-destructive thing is a phase and you get over it before you take others down with you."

Looking back to the Court representatives, "If you ask me, the kid needs something that'll give him a sense of accomplishment. Far, far away from scissors he can run with. As for how I felt?" Hank leaned back in his chair and smiled a little, as if he was thinking of some faraway point of happiness, "That chopper was the prettiest damn thing I'd seen in a long, long time, and I wasn't going to let one disgruntled guy and his dog ruin it for me. There was nothing I could have done about it one way or the other anyway, so I just stuck around to see the show. Does that answer work?"

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

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

Ash Holloway Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A

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

Ash had to admit a twinge of something akin to loss when his name was called. It was a Court Martial; an official military tribunal, such as it was. He had been to a few of them. Every time, when addressed by court officials, it was done so with his rank leading the sentence. Admittedly, it was Lieutenant back then. He hadn't the occasion to be involved in a trial since making Captain. His promotion came with the start of the outbreak which led the shambling, hungry dead to vastly outnumber the living. The continuation of his military organization and discipline was what kept him moving in the direction of survival, even when that direction had him deferring to other, more experienced persons. It was part of who he was and the removal of it felt a little hollow. Nevertheless, it was just a title. One he worked hard to earn over the course of years, but a title nonetheless. The lessons of it, and the code he swore to uphold, could not be stripped away as readily.

So Ash rose, his demeanor bearing the respect and dignity that the event warranted, and took his place as witness. He risked a subtle glance in Thana's direction and felt better for her presence. With this reassurance cemented in his brain, Ash put full attention to the proceedings. The questions seemed easy and evident enough, though sometimes it felt like the events in question happened a year ago. There were a lot of changes which took place in their lives recently which tended to drive memories to the side. Ash had been thinking about the day in question recently, reviewing them mentally like he was studying printed words, and so felt confident that he might be able to provide an accurate accounting. Sitting with rapt and attentive posture, Ash listened to the Professor and responded appropriately.

"Where you working in Mechanics that day?"

"Yes ma'am," he responded succinctly.

"Did you see the defendant return from lunch?"

"Yes ma'am." Again, a yes or no question without circumstance surrounding required a short answer.

"Was he late?"

"Yes, he was late, ma'am." Not by much, but late nonetheless. Maybe if it wasn't stacked with other things, this wouldn't have been as big an issue. This was not his decision to make; Ash's duty was to answer and let supporting questioning to and from others color the implications of the truth.

"You were working with him before lunch correct?"

"Yes. All morning, ma'am."

"Was anything said or done that would be considered dangerous or confrontational?"

Here is where the tiniest amount of grey trickled into the situation. "No ma'am." Referring to him as "Private" wasn't the best impression to make, but it was hardly something worth getting too upset over. Nor would he consider the game plan of cleaning the bathroom confrontational either, even if the presentation did seem to make the assumption that he'd never had perform manual labor in his life. "Enthusiastic at first. A little condescending. Nothing dangerous and nothing confrontational, ma'am."

When given the go ahead to step down, Ash rose, posture erect and attentive. Turn, walk, turn, resume as he made his way back to his seat from earlier. He locked eyes with Thana, up on the balcony still, and permitted a little smile to come across his features. Provided the public portion of the court martial that day was handled relatively early, he wouldn't mind seeing what the two of them might do together.

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

Thalia Carmichael Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A

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

For starters, fuck that chair. That chair could smoke a donkey turd in hell for all Thalia cared, and if there weren't people around she might have bashed the thing to kindling, just for the purpose of using it as such and setting it on fire right in the middle of the room. Thalia was willing to bet that the fire suppression system in the building was a thing of the past, and even if it wasn't, this was a risk she was willing to take just to teach the rest of the sitting apparatuses around her a lesson in not giving away her position, especially if it meant murdering said chair and defiling its corpse with fire. That chair could kiss her ass and die. The moment she got back to the apartment and she had a moment in her room (that she still didn't feel altogether comfortable in), Thalia was going to blame that gahd damn duck for everything and give it a stern talking to. To recap: Fuck that chair, and fuck that duck, too.

Thalia selected another chair nearby. Thankfully, this one didn't have the same issue as her first selection. But of course that made sense; she wasn't trying to remain unnoticed, and so the environment was working with her. Or rather, not working against her. So much for brushing up on an old skills that particular hour. She would have her time. She would rise to prominent greatness, making the badlands of North and Central America fear and respect the very whisper of her name. Oh yes, the One Winged Angel would no longer be associated with some video game populated by emo-goth Japanese child heroes, but the running and stabbing and shadowy force of Thalia Angelica Carmichael, daughter of Father Benicio Gonzalez of the Catholic Church, and Seguidora de la Dama de la Muerte Inmaculada. But first.... a Court Martial stood in the way of her completing her next objective.

So there she sat. Thalia might have even thought it interesting seeing Navy's boyfriend take the stand, except that he was predictably straightforward in his answers and practically screamed former military with every action he took, including breathing. Yeah, those two were a match. But until she was personally called upon, Thalia was just going to sit here and mind her own business. For now.

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

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

Ash & Thalia Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A, Stealth

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

The tiny elements of a trial were where the only parts that made it interesting, in Ash's opinion. The rest were solid and established protocols for the establishment of jurisprudence, necessary to ensure the closest possible thing to a fair and impartial outcome. Was it perfect? No. Ash noted some details about which he might have gone a different direction, were he in charge. Though giving it some thought, the now-dead settlement of Newnan was run in the fashion of a benevolent military dictatorship with him at the helm following the death of Lt. Colonel McCormick. He alone passed judgement over those living within Newnan's walls. Considering some of Ash's personal issues during this time, perhaps this trial system was better than the summary judgement of a Commanding Officer in the field, as he had done, even if he did not fully agree with every aspect of it. Established order was likely fairer than the whim of a single man, regardless of the apparent decency of that man. With this in mind, Ash remained seated and relatively stone-faced as Hunter rose to his feet, confident that the people of CMB had this under control. It did not stop him from placing a hand on the arm of his chair and tensing, as if to leap to action if necessary, though this was suppressed like many other things about him, his observations of the court officials assuaging his feelings of urgency.

Continued testimony went with far less in the way of drama (except for a cough from the back of the room). This was more ideal. Drama in courtrooms was for primetime television. When they called for a short recess, Ash remained as he was. He had no immediate need to visit the facilities, and was had to admit a sense of curiosity in how things were handled in the room between sessions. Added security? Lax? Sealed room? Or merely people twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the trial to resume?

Thalia, on the other hand, had her own, evolving agenda. Aside from the fact that she had to be there due to the post-apocalyptic equivalent of a court summons, she had her own reasons for wanting to be there. A desire to see what passed for a trial here was one. Now, seeing how the security team worked was another. Hunter's sudden movement, and the reactions of everyone around him, were fairly entertaining. Moreso was her brother's reaction. The cold, unyielding stare of a man who she knew from personal experience was calmly contemplating killing the guy in front of him if this developed much farther. She couldn't help but smile a little. One observing her might even feel a little unnerved at the expression, considering the simple, direct, possibly bloody course of events which might follow. She did not smile because of the potential for looming death, as many might think of her. Her views on the application of violence were cold and utilitarian in its application. Dispassionate about the actual stabbing and shooting, if not the reasons behind it. Joaquin's reaction reminded her very much of their uncle. Less growling, but like the old man himself. It was strangely nostalgic. The flamboyant man was definitely Familia.

Another portion of her agenda was rooted in the idea that she needed to be out and active to better regain her sense of personal spatial perception, what with the loss of her hand. It had affected her more than she wanted to admit out loud. Using and relearning the subtleties of her more dexterity and athletic based skillset was paramount. And what better way to practice than out and around people? For starters, she made her attempt to move unnoticed with the crowd of people departing the room. Unfortunately, her chair had other ideas. The drawn out rrrnsqueeeeeeaky that came of her removing her weight from the seat completely obliterated her chances of doing that. As did the unintended clack of her steel hand against the chair back as she rose. Keeping her shit together as best she might despite the rising irritation threatening to color her face, Thalia immediately vowed to change her plans for being here in Camp Mexico Beach. To hell with learning new skills. She was surviving fine without them. She needed to bolster and relearn the ones she already had, starting with hitting, stabbing, and stealth. She was a goddamned shadow, once upon a time. This was embarrassing.

In the back of the room, a breathy, quiet chuckle sounded immediately following the very innocent and hardly noticeable fit of coughing coming from the venerable gentleman with the imaginary friend. The chuckle did not come from the man himself, rather, but the man sitting next to him. Hank was a man who took matters of civil court proceedings seriously, and was a little annoyed that Wayne did that, but he wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to get a little mirth in. And he was a touch upset that he didn't think to do it first. In any case, he wasn't the grudge holding type today, so he simply rose from his seat when they called for a recess, citing, "Taking a piss there, Maldonado." and exited, to return shortly thereafter with a more relieved look on his face.

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

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

Ash Holloway & Thalia Carmichael Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A

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

Ash looked with curiosity as he realized that Hunter did not dispute the charges laid in front of him in any way. First he was given the option to leave if he wished, no harm, no foul, and rejected it. Now he did not even plead one way or another before witnesses were called. Or, the first witness, anyway. He was unclear as to the stage of a Court Martial they were in, though to be fair, a small, autonomous unit like Camp Mexico Beach couldn't exactly go by strict interpretation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The setup seemed like a more compassionate form of a drumhead trial; that being a court martial put together in the field, usually in a warzone or during a state of emergency. Ash had read about these during his time at the Virginia Military Institute. They were covered in Military History and Theory classes, albeit briefly. Performed by most nations' military in one form or another, mostly in the nineteenth century, they were notorious for already having a verdict and sentencing ready before the actual trial was called to order. This one held a different feel, though. Certain allowances had to be made for the reality of the world they lived in, and being objective, everyone was constantly in a state of emergency. It was compelling to Ashton to view and process the protocol he saw unfold before him. With genuine interest, he continued to take in the CMB trial process, and what it meant for Hunter's future.

Meanwhile, Thalia was feeling a little exposed as she sitting in her seat off to the side. It was bad enough that she drew every piece of attention to herself when she sat down, even after doing her utmost to remain as unnoticed as a wisp of fog in a shadow. That part bothered her more than it really should have, giving it some reflection. She used to be a much quieter, stealthy person, and now... it was a blow to her reputation, now that she was in a place that was vaguely familiar with her background. Or her family's background, at least. It was irritating. On the plus side, it would serve as decent psychological fuel to get herself back to her sneaky, fighting best over the course of however long they would allow her to train in this place. This trial wasn't even a blip on her radar past the information is provided on how things worked here and the nature of those who were in charge. If called upon, Thalia would be a good girl and do as asked - truth, whole truth, nothing but - though for her this was an information gathering opportunity.

From somewhere in the back, Hank was also looking over the proceedings in earnest, though his interest was in getting a good, long look at the people as they spoke. He had a talent for reading the nuances and actions of others, and this was like an edgy, psychological smorgasbord to feast upon. In between people talking, he would play a random game of rock-paper-scissors with his hetero lifemate, Wayne. He did speak once, very quietly, to his friend during a transitional period in the proceedings as to not give even the appearance of interruption. It was a question unrelated to anything going on with the trial. "Hey buddy, you um, you remember that cat that came in with us?" he whispered, almost to soft to hear up close. "Have you seen it at all since quarantine? You think it's even still alive? You don't suppose..." His thoughts went back to a meal with a protein source he couldn't quite identify from a couple days ago. "Nah, couldn't be." He shook it off and returned to viewing the fun up front.

*Nothing to see here*

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

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

Ash Holloway Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A

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

It finally looked like the Court Martial was about to begin in earnest. There was a contrast to this trial and other military tribunals of its ilk, that being a decided presence of calmness, even compassion on the part of the General when dealing with Hunter. To Ash's experience, these matters were typically handled with a level of stoic detachment, an amount of dispassion necessary for all concerned to focus on what could be stated and proven conclusively during the proceedings, no more and no less. Not even witnesses of character spoke with much in the way of inflection designed to sway opinion. But sure enough, this guy was being handled in a way that reminded Ash of an interview, not a Court Martial.

It was a hell of a list of charges nonetheless. Drunk and Disorderly Conduct, in a setting more than five years ago, might be a career ender depending upon what transpired during. Six months in a stockade and pay forfeiture as a maximum didn't seem so bad at first but having this on your record destroyed any chance at promotion unless you could somehow mitigate it with a Bronze Star or better immediately following, which was perhaps why so many soldiers who weren't already in a forward position would request this after time spent in lockup. But the other charges stacked together like this? Yes, Hunter screwed up big. Of this there was no doubt. Had he not military experience himself and knowledge that he was entering an area controlled by military remnants, Ash might have called for some sort of leniency, even clemency based on the idea that Hunter didn't know what was expected of him. Not that his words bore the same kind of authority they once did. In a proceeding such as this, many voices might be heard nonetheless. It was a moot point overall; Hunter did have military experience, he did know what he was walking into, and he was given an opportunity to leave as soon as Quarantine was over. This was a path that he set himself upon.

Ash was curious, then, to see that Hunter had opted to remain when given the chance to leave without further incident, with supplies enough to give him a head start. Was he going to take his lumps and see this through, or was there a factor that Ash has not considered? He refused to allow himself to pass a judgement right at this moment, having keen interest in how this proceeding would go now that it was decided that all parties were intent on staying put. With the demeanor of a professional soldier, Ash sat straight in his chair and cast his eyes forward, awaiting the next phase of the tribunal.

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

Thalia Carmichael Location: Education Center (M) Skills:

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

It was hard to remove the woman that Thalia used to be from her completely. The last few years had changed her irrevocably, this was for certain. Yet despite this change, the moment that Hunter and those guarding him entered the room she felt her legs tensing, feet sliding beneath her to carry her weight upward. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that that Joaquin was with the group, taking the rear guard position with what was most certainly his "work face" activated. Her senses quickly tuned to the surroundings, this time regarding other details about the room than those specifically for personal survival. She swiftly scanned the exits again, this time to determine which would be the most likely means of egress if Hunter tried to make a break for it. Likewise, the readiness of the guards for response if called upon, which she figured was adequate. But more than that, Thalia gave fast acumen to what she might do in Hunter's position, if she was certain that it was going to go badly for her.

For starters, she sure as hell wouldn't have allowed herself to be led into a building. Enclosed walls limited survival options in this circumstance. But if it couldn't be helped, and she was unarmed, the first thing she might do would be to look for an improvised weapon. Something sharp would do if she couldn't get her hands (hand) on a pistol. In her state a revolver would have been preferable so that she might take a hostage with her blunt arm and quickly operate the weapon, but seeing as the accused had two working hands at his disposal a semiautomatic would suffice well enough. And from the look of the distance to the nearest exits, a hostage would be necessary. Not someone who was in a good position to defend themselves. Sadly, Aeron was the best target for this, if only he could be gotten to before others pounced. He would be able to recognize his situation, not freak out, and attempt to deescalate rather than directly attack. Well, she thought, anyway. Calculated risk.

Her thoughts might have gone farther, hypothetically delving into full escape plans from the community altogether, but actually attempting this was not her goal. Like a break-in artist hired to penetrate a secure facility to troubleshoot their defenses, this entire, four-second assessment was to establish what options that Hunter had were he to try an escape and subvert them before he could accomplish anything. It was her initial career training reasserting itself, coupled by the fact that another member of La Familia was in the mix here. A kneejerk reaction made her want to be involved. In fact, Thalia only came to her senses and stopped herself when she realized that she had raised slightly out of her seat. Between that and the scrutiny she had just given to key points of the environment, she hoped no one was paying too close of attention to her. Moving to join the security detail would have been extremely foolish.

The list of charges, protocol involved, and everything following seemed simple enough. Streamlined from what she was accustomed, again, and with a more personal touch from the man in charge. Thalia calmed herself and as before, merely tried to absorb the proceedings as they continued. She was sure that the detail here had everything under control and the kid seemed to be responding with calm enough deference. She took in a breath, let it out slowly, and settled back fully into her chair that thankfully did not give away their position again.

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

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

Ash Holloway Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A

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

Ashton's goal was to try and put the oddity that was Hank out of his mind for the present. Compared to many a goal that he had set for himself over the years, this seemed very minor. But the annoyance factor was high. Not just because the man was blunt, forcing a mostly one-sided conversation where he wasn't asked for one, but because part of his rant was right. It was true, Thana was, as the older man had put it, a "warrior woman". Not like his last romantic involvement, who was more of a clannish rogue type; but a woman who had sworn an oath not unlike his own, and seemed to strive to keep it even though the entity to whom that oath was given no longer existed. Honor in the wasteland, as it were.

And to be quite frank, getting in some time with a fishing didn't sound bad. If only the man who suggested it wasn't an asshole.

In any other given circumstance, Ash might have responded immediately to Nigel's nonverbal question Circumstances had him reeling from the sudden assault upon his sense of hearing coming from one side of the rows of chairs, followed by swearing in two languages, however. Ash looked back, noting who was responsible and giving an odd thought that this particular apple might have fallen far from the family tree. Shaking it off, he turned back to Nigel and responded, like the initial query, nonverbally. It looked a lot like a cross between a shrug and a had shake, indicating both "I don't know," and "I'm not sure I want to know." He made no objection to the man taking a seat, and why would he? This was an open proceeding for all to attend, and Ash wasn't really the antisocial type, if he did have a tendency toward stoicism.

Almost a a relief, the Court Martial geared up to begin. It all sounded very much like what Ash remembered of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Orderly, simple, subject to the judgement of a council of assembled officers. Maybe it wasn't the Military that he remembered from years past; this looked adapted in a few details to account for the circumstances of their reality. His memory glossed over a few incidents where he had to attend a Court Martial; as an officer he was occasionally called upon as witness or to help arbitrate (usually in the form of having the minimum numbers of bodies present to make things official). This was all pretty basic.

Then Wayne had to toss his two cents in. Fair enough question, he supposed, for someone not familiar with military protocol on such matters. And being truthful with himself, one advantage to surviving out in the world was a nigh endless amount of places to urinate at a moment's notice. Like a long-term hunting trip, except you were rarely the top guy on the food chain. In any case, when all of those present were asked for words or concerns, Ash remained quiet, giving but a single shake of his head to signify that no, he indeed had nothing to add. Not until called upon.

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

Thalia Carmichael Location: Education Center (M) Skills: Stealth

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

Thalia didn't like being looked at. Attention was really not her thing, even if all of the people in the room were her close friends and family, which they were not. Okay, one family member. And a few friends. None of which were near her, as it was her intention originally to keep out of the way of people and sit unnoticed. That plan flopped in a massive, previously unforeseen way, thanks to her making a questionable seating choice. Oh, she had lost a lot of who she was when she was maimed, but sometimes, somehow, it felt like an angry god was staring down upon her, doling out perfectly random pieces of failure in response to things she could do flawlessly a year prior. Was this supposed to be some kind of all-purpose trial? If so, game on.

The more survivalist nature of Thalia kicked in as she scanned the room. Maybe it was the occasion of having so many eyes on her at once that was making her a little paranoid. No one was within striking distance of her and there were clear paths to exits; lighting was regular and adequate to her needs. Also, she could spot Thana up on the balcony. Whether she had the ability to cover or not, it was a comfort having someone in an elevated position that she could trust. It was the same drill she would put herself through, among other little rituals, over the course of her time out from behind the relative safety of community. Silly, perhaps. But the habit kept her alive so far. And it was a comfort during a time that made her feel a touch insecure. Once eyes averted from her and the important people started talking, she felt better.

She bore a little genuine interest in what was being said. She was part of the community now and wanted to know how things were run here. Also, despite her history with the Company, she was not military. Things were different. Any legalities she was involved in, and admittedly there were a few, ran through civilian courts. And of those instances, the vast majority took place in Boston. A Court Martial was a different sort of tribunal than to which she was accustomed. Fine. New stuff. It even looked like a much simpler process than civilian law. Thalia stayed quiet and hoped, for this reason more than anything, it would at least be short in duration. Thalia slumped in her chair in an effort to get more comfortable and a little less noticeable, then waited to see what was happening next.

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

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

Ash Holloway Location: Education Center (M) Skills: N/A

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

It was possible that Ash enjoyed the quick hug from Thana a little more than the situation had called for. Then again, he had to make up for lost time. The remainder of the situation, in contrast to many of the faces he saw around him, was actually somewhat comforting. This was a situation that struck with familiarity with him, being a career officer in the United States Army. A Court Martial, if it went more of less by the standards of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, meant that he could observe and predict proceedings to one degree or another. In truth, Ash was more than a little curious as to how this was going to deviate from the standard.

Ash took a seat toward the front and, almost reflexively, looked back over his shoulder to see of he could locate Thana on the balcony above. He was happy to have spotted her immediately, sharing a look with her and a little wave before trying to settle into his seat to await the start of the proceedings. It was a satisfying feeling, knowing that she was looking down on him from on high. If Ash were in a forward position on hostile ground, he'd feel the same sort of reassurance knowing that she held the high ground someplace quiet with a sniper system, covering his ass. Even if it was all metaphorical at the moment.

The moment that he focused his attention back around to the front, Ash was startled to see that there was a face hovering close to his, attached to an older guy sitting right next to him. Ash's muscles tensed before he could tell his body to stand down, that this was not a threat. Hank Wright. He hadn't been a threat yet but Ash was convinced that if he was assigned him as a survival buddy, he might have to scratch an itch in the back of his head with a bullet before too long. Or until some kind of personality-based homeostasis could be achieved.

"A little jumpy there, Debra Do-Right?" Hank whispered, not wanting to draw much in the way of attention but still wondering exactly why he didn't want to draw any attention. Maybe it was courtesy. Maybe he liked Ash, just a little. Hell, maybe he respected the guy a lot. The more he'd heard of what Captain Holloway did over the past several months, the more he sounded like some kind of folk hero. Seriously, who the hell goes on a epic quest to reunite with a woman they'd almost immediately fallen in love with, stayed true to quest for a year and a half, and helped survivors along the way? Then pulled it off? Not to mention the rumors about him. This was shit from bad television or good literature, depending on how much he'd had to drink. No, that last part might just be it: Ash had his name on a bottle of clear mountain whiskey and that was very much alright by Hank. Must be it.

But getting to business, Hank was really looking for Wayne and just happened to come by Ash. So as long as he was here... "Hey. Look um, man to man here; what's it like being with a warrior woman, huh? That lady looks fierce in all the right ways, am I right?" The flash of anger in Ash's face came and went in a fraction of a heartbeat, but Hank caught it. The man was apparently good at practicing the manly art of observable stoicism. Hank heaved out a mildly sarcastic sigh, followed by, "Fine. Be a gentleman about it, jackass." He then immediately switched gears with, "Hey, you and me need to get some fishing time in, what do you say? Maybe get the other quiet man, um, man who interviewed me. Mac! Yeah. He's a good guy. What do you think? Put some poles in the water? In a totally hetero way, I promise."

Ash looked at him coldly, his face carved of cold granite but seething with annoyance underneath. He did give Hank a nod, though whether it was in earnest or just to get rid of him was debatable. Hank seemed to take it positively, telling him "Great! I'll try to set something up," and slapped him on his shoulder as he rose from the seat. The moment that he placed strain to move to a standing position, he involuntarily allowed a low, honking amount of methane based vapor to escape his posterior. He had a half-second of embarrassment on his face, then shrugged it away and announced to Ash, "You enjoy that." Looking up to Thana on the balcony, Hank raised his fingers in an OKAY gesture for no other reason than to sow confusion, a mischievous smile upon his face. He finally spotted Wayne and wandered off in his direction.

His mood thoroughly thrown, and now having no idea what he really, truly just nodded an acceptance toward, Ash sat dumbfounded. The man (Hank) hadn't bothered to speak to anyone in his presence in a week, and now busts out with this nonsense. His lead-in to the conversation gave Ash a serious piece of consideration to hitting him as hard as he could - just once - as a preventative measure in case he got any more foolish ideas for conversation. Still, what came to mind mostly in this instance was the same thing that he wondered aloud, annoyance clearly marking his voice. "What the hell just happened?" Then, of course, came the call for quiet. That was fine. Ash didn't have a lot to say anyway.

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

Thalia Carmichael Location: Education Center (M) Skills: Stealth

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

While idling in the front of the Education Center, Thalia was surprised to get a "Yo" from Volts as he passed by on the street. The thought was something of a hindsight realization that she was in a community, putting down permanency with cumulative actions, this last one being that she involved herself in a fight in the gym. In enough time, people might consider themselves friends of hers, a circumstance which Thalia did not give due consideration. A thing which she hadn't really thought of until just then also was Thana's advice on her hair. Were they actually getting domesticated enough to start trading grooming tips? Thalia hadn't considered braids before. Her pixie cut was easy to maintain out in the world and kept the hair from her face. Now, shaving the sides? Thalia had meant it as a joke to begin with, just some excuse to say to follow up on the lead. Now that she was really thinking about it... she had a maybe going on. If she didn't like it, there wouldn't be much of a wait (so far as hair growth went) before it grew back to an acceptable length for her usual, shorter style.

But even this turned into a thing she would have to put on the back burner. There were things to do, questions to answer, and from the look of Nigel who had just entered, more people with whom socialization would have to be attempted. To give him credit, he was right about the day being interesting. In the coming near future, probably. For Thalia, it was already pretty odd. This was just heaping more onto the pile. She didn't address potential interest in the coming hours except to nod, and even her response to his camaraderie was stunted. Though she did acknowledge him. "Yah, thanks. I'm sure you will." Not merely pleasantries, she was pretty sure that if it didn't involve hand fighting or a short blade, he would probably kick her ass in a fair fight. And what was training other than a series of controlled, fair exchanges? Thalia was going to re-learn humility, she could just tell. Maybe she needed to.

Okay, introspective bullshit done. Thalia had somewhere to be and moved to get there. The sooner this got started, the sooner it would be over. She caught Joaquin's eye and nodded, for some reason surprised to see him here. It was not a very bright assessment on her part, seeing as the guy was working security for the settlement and this, while not walking a patrol or bodyguard duty, was nonetheless part of it. She should know. That was her profession, once upon a time. Perhaps she was out of practice. Things had been a little weird with Joaquin since she had confessed to him the deal with Gavin. It could be her imagination. She knew this was not simply a forget-and-move-on scenario. Still, a little confirmation from him might be nice. Admittedly, now was not the time. He was on duty and she needed to be inside.

Wishing to proceed unnoticed, Thalia broke away from the group entering with her and became as nondescript as possible, hiding her form behind whatever barriers or visual breaks she could without arousing suspicion to the fact that she was trying to make herself scarce. This was a thing she was good at. Or used to be. The past few attempts to remain out of sight and thought did not come to as excellent fruition as she once might have been able to accomplish. But this time felt different. She was moving with grace and nonchalance, nary an eye moving near her direction. This was what she was built for, by birth and training. She was a mist in the shadows, flowing effortlessly and unnoticed. Thalia located a seat that was in the approved area, off to the side yet not so far away as to draw attention, with good access to exits and room to slump down in the chair, and even a respectable view of the first row of the balcony above. Thalia was good at picking stealthy places that afforded good visibility for her own endeavors.

Thalia made her way down, over, and through, laying claim on her chosen place of rest until she could answer questions and book it for anything else that day. She quietly glided her lithe, toned form into place, and started to fold down the seat for use.

This was her big mistake.

The horrified young woman slipped her body into the chair as it was folding out, putting additional strain on a piece of furniture that desperately required oil, or graphite, or an axe to reduce the damned thing into firewood for the awful noise that it made. It was a loud, sustained grating of metal upon wood that didn't quite fit upon each other but was being forced to anyway; carpenters' materials that screamed their disapproval at being awakened to function in the manner of their construction. It was a protest of many decibels, cutting through the otherwise mostly quiet auditorium and drawing eyes of every sort present. Any hope of not being noticed evaporated with this piece of woodstained horror announcing to the world that THALIA WAS HERE. She might as well have gone around posting fliers and wearing a crown of lit candles.

But that wasn't the worst part of it. As the chair came to the last of its descent to becoming fully open, it seemed to hit a snag, which the weight of its user caused it to overcome by force. And she'd be damned if it didn't make a sound that was forever etched into Thalia's brain, until the day she gived up her mortal coil and leaves this earth: Mmkwack-squeakee! Seething with quiet rage, Thalia was able to hiss out, "Fucking chingado goddamn PATOS!" before restraining herself and praying that the chair was done blowing her position.

🧚🏻‍♀️ The Walking Dead - Year 6 Part 1

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

Thalia Carmichael Location: Mess Hall (C) -> Education Center (M) Skills: Stealth

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

Oh, Thana was a sarcastic little bitch, wasn't she? First thing out of her mouth was some comment about her eating habits, the entirety of which she'd witnessed while they were on the road. True, the situation was different out there, where you had to eat what you could, when you could, with as little ceremony as possible. Even when things were more secure, such as when they were in a cleared, locked-down dwelling with chairs and tables, forks and such, Thalia had retained fewer fucks to give than average on the subject of table manners. She had them, granted; it wasn't like she was raised by wolves out in the deepest of woodlands, even if she spent a huge chunk of the ongoing apocalypse out there. She was raised at first by a more or less decent mother in an upscale part of Boston until she was ten, then by her father (and his people), a Catholic priest operating near Monterrey in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. She knew manners. And makeup. She had a formal education, diction, and many would argue breeding. She was simply indifferent to it all. It gave her no advantage in this new world whatsoever, or at least it hadn't so far. In fact, it started out as a hindrance as she clung to her more urban ways, forcing her to adapt away from them for survival.

To wit, Thalia's response to being compared to a feral dog, when Thana knew full well that said comparison wasn't really that far away from the reality of her situation, was a simple, "Nnn." It was the same noncommittal, monosyllabic sort of noise she made to acknowledge someone speaking to her, or for any other number of reasons where actual words were pointless. Fitting to Thana's observation, it was very close to a growl. Thalia tended to do that. She didn't even bother to slow, let alone stop, her meal in progress.

The bit about pinkies out left impression enough, which did cause her to stop eating, if only for a moment. Slowly, her head tilted up from her plate so what she could lock eyes with Thana, mouth still working through what was already in there. Still staring at her, Thalia moved her hands, flesh and steel both, in front of her so that Thana could openly see her manually actuate the pinky on her prosthetic. She extended the artificial digit and locked it into place, then tried to return to her meal. Even this effort was in vain, seeing as Thana continued to press her for conversation. But this time, she got a response out of Thalia. She knew something. or suspected something. Thana was the one who put her on this dumbass quest that she would have been a lot happier not being a part of, but for the sake of sheer, morbid curiosity (and to better learn the layout of CMB) could not just abandon. So, how was her day? Did anything happen? Thalia's response was not within the context of the questions, though she felt it was in the spirit of the inquiry. "I'm thinking ahn getting a haircut, Navy," she started, swallowing hard. "Shave the sides of my head. Maybe tahlk to Shears some while I'm theah. He knows things, right?" Despite herself, Thalia started to crack a smile. The woman in front of her was like a sister to her, making the bullshit Dora The Explorer Scavenger Hunt she inflicted upon Thalia more of an act of love than anything else. An annoying, rage-inducing, I-want-to-strangle-this-woman act of love. Like a sister. Thalia shook her head, the smile still there. It did a poor job of hiding the anger that seemed permanently etched upon her face. She didn't mention the fight in the gym. If others wanted to share, that was on them.

After a little while, Thalia saw Ashton in the line for a tray. This looked like the perfect time to slip away unnoticed, hopefully to avoid whatever initial, half sickening declarations of squishiness the two of them would have for each other. That, and she had to be at the Education Center shortly for the Court Martial. Thalia hated to be the last person someplace unless she could get in unnoticed. Too much attention paid to her when she already stood out. So she gestured to the line of lunchgoers, observing, "Hey, isn't that your man, over there?" The moment she was sure line of sight with her was broken, Thalia rose and gathered up her tray, intent on blending into the crowd by the time Thana looked back. Unfortunately, her fork slipped off and clattered to the table. It was not enough noise to raise a general alarm, but certainly sufficient to disrupt her attempt. Playing it off, Thalia offered up, "I'm going to get a good seat for the trial. Hope we can hang out lateh on," before going about her way.

Soon enough, Thalia was entering the Education Center, looking around for indications of where she was going to have to go for whatever role she was to play in the proceedings.

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

Ash Holloway Location: Quarantine (W) -> Mess Hall (C) Skills: N/A

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

"Um... no, Guy." It was really the only thing that Ash could say to the fact that Guy somehow took him seriously when he said that Officers' Quarters had miraculously acquired cable television. If anything, the fact that Guy couldn't tell that he was being sarcastic spoke more to how long Ash hadn't quite been himself. Guy knew him before anyone probably anyone else who was still alive, and was fully aware of his once-proclivity for sarcastic comment in the face of any situation that wasn't professional in nature. "Sorry, haven't flexed my snark in a while." Or not enough, at any rate.

Just as much as Guy passed over the slip, calling him "Boss", Ash passed over it, too. It was a little comforting, like a reminder of things from years back. Working at the family's distillery long ago, when both Ash and Guy were much younger, much different men. "You should, you know. Sign up, I mean. You're a hell of a shot and never let me down. You'd make a stellar officer, Guy." It was a thing he wouldn't have said back in the day. But now, he meant it wholeheartedly, with one exception. The day that Maria Smith entered into the protection of Newnan and decided to assume duties in the watchtower without orders or even telling anybody in advance. Guy must have thought it was a legit shift change but didn't bother to confirm one way or the other, and allowed a first-day newbie to take over the primary watch/sniping position over the whole of the settlement. Oh, Ash had words for him. And he assigned Guy stable duty, shoveling shit on everyone's shift for the next thirty days, if memory served. But Ash also remembered how he took the punishment with humility and grace, accepting it, offering apology, and committing to his work without complaint. Guy would have made an excellent soldier, a superior officer, and he was an asset to any community he called home. "Let me know if you need a letter of recommendation," he said with a tiny smile. It was only half a joke, seeing as a LoR was one of those odd formalities that really didn't have bearing in the world today. But if it was to be done, Ash was the best person to give one for him. After all, Guy had worked for him three times - once for his family as Ash managed the floor of the distillery, and again when he took control of the Esmont community (prior to handing the reins over to Lt. Colonel Leann McCormick when their groups merged), and finally when he inherited command of Newnan following Leann's death.

All of that would be for another time, as things of this nature tended to be. Following along with Guy, Ash responded to his question about Thana being in the Mess Hall today. "Believe so, yes." It hadn't quite solidified in his mind, upon making the decision to get a quick lunch before attending the Court Martial, that he might get the chance to see Thana beforehand. The mild surprise reflected in his voice.

It looked like luck was with Ash. Entering the Mess Hall with Guy, the first thing he did was scan the room for Thana. At first, he expected to see her with the staff, even so far as getting ready to ask if she was in the kitchen someplace. That was unnecessary as Ash caught sight of her at one of the tables. Her hair got his sense of familiarity at first, out of the corner of his eye, and further recognition followed from there. But she was sitting with that mildly caustic Gonzalez woman. This might make for an awkward meal, like the last one they all had together. Ash bolstered himself with a more optimistic outlook, reasoning that just because something offputting happened once, it didn't mean it would again. They were all allies here, and some were as close as family. Plus, he wasn't about to be deterred from sitting with Thana based upon something that might happen, with little in the way of actual consequence even if it did. "C'mon, Guy," said Ash, moving to get in line for a tray and then walking to join Thana at her table. By the time that he got over to her, Ash was almost relieved to see that Thalia had already vacated the table, off to wherever she was going next.

"Hey. Missed you today," greeted Ash, taking a seat next to Thana. They didn't have a whole lot of time left before the Court Martial was slated to begin, but any amount of time to be with Thana, even just a few minutes to toss back a quick meal, was worth it to Ash. He said as much to her with, "Got to be at the Education Center soon. Glad I got a chance to see you before. How's your day going?" He might have gone for a more physical display of affection for greeting, but Ash wasn't sure if Thana was off duty or just on a meal break. Perhaps he'd get a better feel for the place with a little more time immersed in CMB. For now, he was playing it safe as to not damage Thana's credibility among her peers and/or subordinates. Though the look in his eyes held nothing but affection for her.