✧ - rule the world

[zara3447]

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𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚘𝚠
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Her Second was too mouthy by half. Just figured. It was the bloody apocalypse, and she got stuck with an dull-witted thug and a snarky brat in her chain of command. Well, she wasn't stuck with the thug anymore, and it was yet to be seen if nature, or a bullet, would take care of the brat. Harlow pushed the notion away, mouth twisting unpleasantly at her own momentary softness. Those two were tools, nothing more, and she would not dwell on the losing--or potential losing--of them.

"Yes, he did. And he paid the price for his failure. Have you?" She reached up to pull out the vial around her neck, studying it in the dim light of the store. Tilted the liquid back and forth in front of her face, before lifting her gaze to Nyx. "No. So why the bloody hell are you just sitting there? I gave you an order, Nyx." And they could call her a companion, call her a friend, but she was still their superior in the end.

They got to their feet. She tracked them with flat, unimpressed eyes as they strolled about perusing the shelves like they were in no particular hurry. They really did awaken all her most murderous urges, but they'd always made up for it by being a damn good Second, despite their mouthiness. Silently, she hoped to God they wouldn't fail now, because then there would be nothing she could convince herself with to not shoot them for their insolence. She couldn't accept them undermining her authority without justification. She'd never been built that way, and her military experience only cemented it. If her Second proved a waste of space, she'd have to remove them, her own attachments be damned.

Nyx listed his demands in an irritatingly cheerful tone, and Harlow let them. She really couldn't give a damn about some pups. Even if canines were immune to the infection, she doubted these would be inclined to obey strangers. Especially strangers that had murdered their previous owners. But if Nyx wanted to delude themselves, they were free to do so.

Watching them exit, she absentmindedly gunned down another creeper through the gap left open through the door. Pausing a moment, she determined there was nothing worth salvaging in the abandoned shop, and left as well. She had her own business to finish, strings to pull to put a price on some fool heads, and send out a call for their blood.

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𝚔𝚊𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚎
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Paris streets flew by their pounding feet, and every exhale felt a little bit like dying. Kaisie had never felt at home above ground. On these open streets, one couldn't help but be exposed. There were no hard-packed tunnel walls to turn her back to, and her pistols would only save her for so long where there was no dirt to muffle the gunshots that would draw every zombie for miles. There was a stranger instead of her father beside her, and they were running for their lives, running for safety, running for a place they may never find and certainly would never reach.

She hadn't known where they were going, but arriving at their apparent destination stopped her short. Outwardly, it was tattered, and she had some concerns about whether the whole thing was a moment away from collapsing down around them. Hesitating inside the doorway, she let her gaze wander down the aisles of massive crates. Most everything was covered in a fine layer of dust.

"Excuse me, I don't wish to sound ungrateful, but are you sure this place is safe to stay? I'm not really getting a welcoming vibe here..." Kaisie turned around to find her guide gone, disappeared somewhere behind the mazes of shelves. Wrapping her arms around herself, she shivered lightly, eyes darting around the warehouse interior. She didn't really want to stay, was itching to leave actually, but it didn't feel quite right to make her escape without so much as a 'thank you' or a 'goodbye'. The girl had gotten them both out of that mess, after all.

After debating the merits of getting herself lost in this foreign building wandering after the girl, Kaisie decided to stay put. Sooner or later, she would come back. This whole situation struck her as incredibly strange, even with the limited social interactions she'd had in her eighteen years of life. Well, when one was stuck in the end of the world, one must make excuses for some odd situations, she supposed.

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𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚊
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Tali heard footsteps approaching, turned instinctively to see her little sister, wild-eyed and out of breath at the top of the stairs. For a frozen moment, nobody moved. And then Asher, or the creature that might no longer be their brother, made another inhuman groan. Suddenly, the door seemed a flimsy barricade. Not between her and a zombie. She could fight off a zombie. But between her and a truth that would shatter the remains of her and her sister's hearts.

"Ames, I-" She tried to force the words out, give an explanation or an apology for not being faster in getting the antidote, found that she couldn't. "Do you want to stay up there? You don't have to come down." Even as she made the offer, she knew Amalia would never take it. They were in this together, always had been, always would be. From the very start. A trio, the three of them. Till death do us part indeed. She opened the cellar door.

The thing that greeted them was not Asher. It was, once. But one glance, and she could tell that this emaciated form was beyond saving. They had left plenty of food in the cellar when Ash had finally convinced them to lock him in, just in case. None of it had been touched. They were too late, too late, and the part of her that had held on to hope right up until the door to the Schrodinger's box opened was tearing her chest to shreds.

This creature that looked upon them with rolling, mad eyes and froth on its lips was not their brother. It would be a mercy to kill him. She pulled out her gun, leveled it right in the middle of the forehead. Her hands were not shaking, they were not. It would be just like shooting any other creeper, putting the cursed undead out of its misery. She rolled the lie of it on her tongue, and fed herself some more. "Don't look."

[sataraxias]

──( NYX )──
Away from dearest Harley, their smug smile slipped into a frown. Her seething words, the deliberate motion-- they weren’t so thick-headed that they’d missed the implications in there, and frankly they were almost offended. As if they would ever be as big a failure as Corey. They'd always been stuck fixing his mistakes, and apparently even after he was gone that was still to be the case. Nyx wondered why Harlow had ever even appreciated his company. They had a few theories.

At the end of the day, unlike a lot of the other spiders, their place in Harlow’s web didn’t revolve around their quiet submissiveness - mainly because they simply refused to shut up. They’d let Harlow rage. They’d play the loyal bloodhound and hunt all those who opposed her. It was Second nature at this point, and it wasn’t their place to particularly care about the morals of it, not when things could be worse. They just hoped she’d remember that tidbit about the dogs, because they’d be really pissed if not.

Nyx killed the bike’s engine as the girls they followed ducked into an alleyway. They waited, settled by the curb, for a minute or two, the hell of their scuffed boots tracing the dirt on the road before they got up to follow. One hand on the holster on their hip that held their knife - not their favoured weapon, but it’d work in a pinch. It wasn’t difficult to tell where the girls had entered: the door was open. It was a terribly ugly place. They wrinkled their nose as they pressed back against the wall, climbing the stairs as quietly as they could.

If the girl just through the threshold was meant to be a lookout, she was doing a terrible job of it, considering she faced the other way. They crept forward, the knife pulling out of its sheath. “Boo,” they whispered, quite unable to help themselves.


──( AMALIA )──
She was already walking forward even as her sister was giving her the choice to stay up there. Every step an executioner’s drumbeat against the floor. This was her brother. The brother who’d leaned against her door, covered in mud and weary from his day out rounding the cattle, to fondly watch her practise the lines she’d been in such a hurry to memorise, watch her play the roles she’d been so desperate to fill. The end of times had come, and she found herself wishing for the one role she’d always been so eager to leave, the small town farm girl she’d grown up as, with her straw hat and her butt in the saddle of their brown mare helping to herd rowdy cows back into their pens. She missed those simpler times, ached for them with the whole entirety of her being.

She knew the plan. They’d gone over it a thousand and one times. She could repeat it in her sleep. That Tali was here meant she succeeded- just like Amalia herself had managed her part. Sort of- Harlow spotting her definitely hadn’t been part of the plan. It was the cruellest twist of karma that Ames had ever experienced: topple one of the enemy’s Triangle, lose the apex of their own. They’d played their cards right, but it was a nasty, irredeemable deck they’d been dealt. No matter how many things they did right, time was the cruellest kind of cruel - objectively apathetic to everything and everyone.

She stood by Tali, her face set and resolute. She didn’t know where the girl she’d led into their sanctuary was. Ames forced a shuddering breath in. She wouldn’t cry - not now, not yet. If there were anything those acting lessons of the bygone past had taught her, it was how to control her emotions. She clenched down on her jaw and held tears back by sheer force of will. She couldn’t look away. She wouldn’t.

I love you. She wanted to scream the words out until the sky rang with their syllables. Until the desolate city echoed with it, unable to silence the tolling of the words. To force all her rage, adoration and pain into those three words as if she could make the world listen, make the world take mercy. She wanted her screams to raise, a banshee’s wail, and topple these cruel walls that had become just a reminder of her dearest brother’s fall from grace.

Instead, Amalia Belrose kept herself deadly silent as she stood by her sister and waited to watch her brother die.

[zara3447]

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𝚔𝚊𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚎
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Kaisie screamed reflexively at the soft voice suddenly in her ear, choking off the cry as a lightning quick glance found the glint of an unsheathed blade. Steel touched her throat almost instantaneously. She froze like stone.

Coming here was a mistake. Falling behind her guide was a mistake. Was this person in league with the blond girl? They had been too quick, too quiet, and she'd been distracted by the knife. She hadn't caught a good look at their face. She cursed herself for a fool, heartbeat drumming loud in her ears. This is what kills you in the end. Your soft, starving heart. Your father always knew it would. He kept you locked up for good reason.

Waiting was the worst of it. Uncertainty made every passing second feel like hours, fear clawing up her throat, teeth gritted as she refused to let it take hold. Willpower alone forced it down, stilled the tremors in her fingers where they hung useless by her sides. She couldn't even go for her gun. However fast she was at the draw, the knife at her throat would be faster. Well, she wasn't dead yet. Gritting her teeth, she swallowed carefully, and managed an even tone. "May I help you?"

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𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚊
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The heat of her sister's shoulder pressed against her own. Standing with her, side by side, as Belroses did. They did not abandon each other, did not let each other face things alone. Tali steadied her grip on the gun. This felt like abandonment, felt like admitting defeat. But it was a cruel, rigged game, because either way, they were going to lose.

A clean shot through the head would be the lesser of a great many evils.

Still, still, her heart would not stop its aching. In a moment of weakness, her mind turned to the before. Who she'd been, still a blood-splattered girl, but one with a scalpel in her hand instead of a smoking gun. A puzzle piece to complete an unbroken whole. When family meant everything and the world (it still did, but none of their fierce devotion could stop it all from falling apart).

They hadn't lost Asher yet, hadn't put the final nail in his coffin, but she was already grieving. She missed that before with a visceral sort of agony. Back then, life was more than long nights and empty roads, no destination and heart in the throat every waking moment. Falling asleep to the bite of pistol smoke, fear an ever-present companion. Loneliness just a scratch or a bite away, the promise of a bitter tomorrow that might leave your dearest ones behind.

She'd hesitated too long. Just as her finger tightened on the trigger, a shriek cleaved the air. The bullet flew wild as she twitched, head whipping back. They were at the bottom of the stairs, cornered, vulnerable. Grabbing Amalia's wrist, she pulled them through the open hatch at a dead sprint, hounds on their heels. Her only thought was removing her sister from danger.

There were two strangers standing in the middle of their warehouse. She recognized one of them. The intruder that held a knife to the other girl's throat turned their face towards her, and Tali slammed to a dead stop. She positioned herself subtly between them and Amalia, drawing their attention to herself and away from her sister.

Daredevil grin met expression of stone. She'd already leveled the gun at their face. "I didn't fancy seeing your ugly mug again today, Alexander. The first time was unpleasant enough. I believe you owe me an explanation." Her voice was calm, threaded with an underlying edge of iron. Cocking her head, she tapped her forefinger deliberately on the trigger. "Better make it snappy. And drop the attitude, if you please. I don't have Harlow's patience."

[sataraxias]

──( NYX )──
They swore, quietly, under their breath as they placed her identity - more so by the unfailing politeness than the actual voice. Nyx wondered now if they should’ve silenced her before she got the chance to scream. This was potentially more complicated than they’d anticipated on now. Their voice was sardonic and dry, lilted slightly by irritation not directed so much at her as at the whole problematic situation. “Aw, Kaisie, sweetheart, I’m sure you’ll do your best, eh?”

They moved the two of them forward, grip on their knife firm and threatening, though not applying enough pressure to cut skin. Yet. Down the aisle, into the wider open space of the old building. That echoing scream had done the trick in drawing their prey. They noted, eyebrows raising and grin plastering their face, the absence of Alan Graves - though they didn’t let themselves relax.

It would’ve been hard to anyway, considering the gun pointed at their face. Irritation spiked. They didn’t even bother to try to keep the venom from their voice, “Clearly I was just walking down the street, you know, as one does after a comrade’s assassination- and thought, what the hell, weather’s absolutely terrible and it really might rain, I should probably follow the Belroses into this here warehouse and take a girl hostage for the hell of it. Do you want to see her dance-” the blade pressed ever so slightly harder, a clear warning, “-or will it perhaps remind you too much of your transitioning brother?”

The horror and disgust on her sister’s face behind her confirmed the guess they’d made. The step back, the flash of pain on Amalia’s features. Nyx's brown gaze diverted back to Tali, recalling that echoing gunshot of earlier. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust? You better not have wasted my antidote.”


──( AMALIA )──
She bit down on her tongue, an attempt to stop any tears that might be readying themselves to unleash as her emotions built and built. She’d always hated anticipation and suspense. Then, as a bullet prepared to rocket, a scream rocketed through their breached sanctuary, cutting off abruptly midway. Her head snapped up. The girl who’d accompanied her.

That bullet snapped, leaving her ears ringing and a drop in her heart.

Almost before she knew it, she was getting pulled. Up the stairs and away from their brother. Emerging out into a showdown. She snapped her fingers at the dogs to sit, because if they attacked… that girl would be dead. And it’d be her fault, she supposed, for not being careful enough.

They’d known the Triangle would seek vengeance. But she hadn’t expected so soon. If only Harlow hadn’t glimpsed her face… She forced herself to breathe in. Tali had put herself between that formidable foe and her. Barrier and shield, always - slotting easily into the role that their dead had vacated.

For all her actor training, she couldn’t keep her face neutral as they threw out jibes. She forced a breath in, took a step back. Her gaze fixated on the girl that Nyx held, holding that green gaze. A silent apology-- because she wasn’t a good enough liar for anything else, and eyes were windows to the soul. She couldn’t make a promise of solidarity, couldn’t make that silent claim that they’d get that stranger out of that death grip, because she certainly hadn’t succeeded in saving anyone today.

[zara3447]

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𝚔𝚊𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚎
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Kaisie tried not to stiffen her captor's casual usage of her name. Compartmentalize. She was good at this. She gave herself the span of three breaths to push every last trace of terror down. Empty, cool calm welled up to take its place. She was infinitely more comfortable with the latter sensation.

Humming a noncommittal agreement, she let herself be maneuvered through the space. Slowly, carefully, she slid her hands up, letting them hover at her hips. The reappearance of the girl from before was a welcome distraction, even if it brought another stranger into the mix. From her similar features and protective stance, she deemed the two sisters. From the complete lack of attention allocated to her, Kaisie deemed the second stranger a greater threat to her captor than herself. At least for now.

Threats were exchanged, and she got her first clue. Two names. Harlow. Alexander. This one was a Spider, then. Not a promising development. Keeping her eye on both the individuals as best she could, she paid sharp attention to every word leaving her captor's mouth. The name was foreign, but the voice was half-way familiar. She struggled to place it as she sifted through the barbed tirade for clues. The knife pressed harder for a moment, pointed threats issuing from behind her, and she watched the reactions unfold.

That she hadn't been stabbed or shot yet was a stroke of good fortune, but she knew better than to rely on her luck holding out. The older Belrose had swept her with a flinty look, summed up and temporarily dismissed, but the younger sister's eyes caught hers. Held it. Worlds of apology in her blue gaze, even though she owed her nothing. It had been her own choice to follow the girl here. Which earned her this knife to the throat. She really needed to start making better life decisions.

Jade on moonstone, Kaisie met her stare for stare. Read between the fine-drawn lines. Past the shuttered hurt, there was a stark honesty. No false reassurances or pretty promises to soften the blow. Help would not be forthcoming. Kaisie had put herself into this situation, and she could rely on none but herself to get out of it.

It was the mention of an antidote that finally gave her the key to unlocking the whole puzzle. Harlow. Alexander. Antidote. She should have connected the dots earlier. The name had thrown her off, as the Spider's infamous Second usually went by 'Nyx'. For a moment, another scene overlaid her current surroundings. Blood and terror and pain. A wide-brimmed hat and fiery curls, aflame even in the dim lighting of the catacombs. A hand pressed to a weeping gash, almost as wide as that bloodthirsty grin. And when she'd thought all was lost: mercy, from the most unexpected of quarters.

She wondered what had happened to that compassionate part of them. Wondered if Harlow had cut it out of her Second like she'd tried to cut the life out of an sixteen year old Kaisie.

Jarring herself out of that headspace, she blinked to clear her vision. There was no use waiting around for aid that wouldn't come. The next time someone spoke, she moved. Throwing a shoulder up, she put all her weight on grabbing the hand wielding the knife and forcing it away from her throat. Ducking under the grip in a move her father would be right proud of, she took advantage of their momentary surprise to get as far away from all three individuals as possible. You'll be excusing me.

As it turned out, that wasn't very far. She'd fled not a dozen steps out of the aisle when a pair of clouded eyes caught her attention, gleaming in the gloom. Abandoning her beeline for the warehouse exit, Kaisie threw herself into a climb up the metal shelf supports.

The screamer blurred into motion beneath her.

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𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚊
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Nyx was despicable, and her heart was a weak, weak thing right now. But somewhere in the back of her head, she'd been expecting retribution from the moment the plot had been hatched. One did not tangle with the Triangle unless they were prepared to see it through, with all of its ugly consequences. Their last comments had aimed to draw blood; she would not let them see her bleeding.

"You're a little late." She smirked grimly, refusing to let him see how deep his comment had cut. "Are you making a habit of doing so? I wouldn't recommend it." In truth, the antidote was secure in her pocket, but it would be better for them to believe it gone. "I'm sure Corey didn't appreciate it much. If I know her, Harlow sure as hell won't appreciate it either."

"Also, it was your friend's antidote, if I recall. I'm sure I would have remembered if I'd ventilated your lungs instead. That's twice you've let your poor buddy down. At least he isn't alive for the second time round, hm?" She mused, belladonna sweet. Letting some of the poison eating away at her insides seep into her tone. It was unkind of her, should have been beneath her, but Nyx had a way of breaking down her carefully constructed discipline. A talent, really. She was much too furious to appreciate it.

Not furious enough to be completely distracted, though. Thalia had marked the exchange of looks between the captive girl and Amalia, and deemed it a situation to be shelved and sorted out later. So when the girl suddenly broke free, she wasn't startled enough to shoot. Fortunately for the stranger, and Nyx too, she supposed. Though she wouldn't have minded putting a bullet or two into them, she wouldn't do it without a better reason than they'd provided thus far.

Her eyes on the fleeing girl, it took her much too long to notice the second threat at Nyx's back.

[sataraxias]

──( NYX )──
“Corey and I were not buddies and good riddance may he rot in-” they’d let themselves become so impassioned that they hadn’t expected it, the sudden fiery outburst that had their little advantage escaping. She was quick, and they weren’t inclined to follow. For whatever reason, Harlow had decided she had a claim on that young soul, and loathe were they to get in the way of that when it wasn't convenient for them.

It was luck and their instincts telling them that they needed to move to avoid the possibility being shot by Tali that let them dodge the predator at their back. Asher launched at them from behind, tumbling on to the dusty ground in his attempt to get at them. “Hell!” Nyx was quick, but a newly turned screamer was faster, launching upwards with vengeance and a screech.

They cried out their frustration as they hit the ground, their knife just out of their reach. Nyx grappled for a few, long seconds- more of an aimless struggle to protect themselves than any defined effort to come up on top. Then that familiar training in lethality kicked in, the focused calm of a survivor that had kept their determined heart beating for so long. Me or him. With a drawn-out grunt, they pushed that rotting form off of them and rolled to the side, a quick hand flashing out to grab the silver blade.

Asher’s wasn’t a graceful demise, and it came far later for him than Nyx would’ve preferred. Their sleeve tore beneath teeth that dug into the tattooed skin of their arm as their other hand came up to send the previous farm boy to his final resting. They pushed him off with another groan, attempting to pull themselves to their feet.

They couldn’t quite manage. Instead, they kneeled, arm resting limply on their knee as their face turned downward and they took in that bite-mark, panting. The only comfort that could flash through their mind right now wasn’t exactly reassuring-- they couldn’t turn, but this was going to hurt.

Already they felt that painful, familiar fire igniting behind their skin, a spreading poison. They forced their head to raise, connecting their gaze with Tali’s as they took in that barrel still pointed their way. They forced out a rasping, pained laugh, blinking rapidly as they tried to clear the fog spreading their mind to find words.

“Oh, bloody hell, you’re welcome.” Nyx managed to rasp out -- and then they faded, the second giant to topple today.



──( AMALIA )──
Guttural grunts and snarls of two struggling monsters as they rolled. Her hand covered her mouth, and now her eyes were watering, because one of those monsters had been her brother. She wiped the tears away with her free hand.

“Spartan,” She didn’t know why she did it, maybe she just couldn’t watch them kill her brother, but Amalia left, ducking into one of the shelves and weaving through the aisles in search of the runaway girl with her brother’s obedient but reluctant dog at her heels, leaving Snug and Captain with her sister.

Ames chest felt painfully tight and the shelves painfully tall around her - like she was a blade of grass among tall rising mountains, desperately struggling in the wind to not bend. Thankfully, Spartan got the hint of what she wanted without even a word needed. She’d always been a smart dog -- or perhaps, the pup needed something to distract herself too. Ames followed her through their warehouse, wide eyed gaze searching. Maybe she just needed someone who didn’t know her, didn’t know the extent of tragedy that had struck.”

The little bark that the dog gave proved unnecessary, because she’d already spotted her. The girl was up in the tall shelves, carefully fitted in the small space between one high level and the next, half illuminated by the dim light coming in from the still open entrance a few metres to the side. “I’m coming up,” she warned, voice so quiet she didn’t even know if the girl could hear her. “Spartan, sit.”

Amalia began to climb.

[zara3447]

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𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚊
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There were moments in life when time stretched into infinity and a memory permanently burned its existence into the hard drive of one's head. This would be one of them. Thalia could feel the awful truth of it in her bones. She watched the colossi struggle, this concrete floor their battlefield. Twisting, writhing, a two-headed monster made of all wild ferocity and bared teeth. Could not bring herself to shoot. She didn't even know who she would be aiming at.

Amalia slipped away, and she dimly registered the absence of Spartan too. Maybe she should have left as well, but she did not turn. Better her than Ames; someone had to bear witness. As she watched the creature that was once her brother, she realized that this would be the scene featuring in her nightmares tonight. And night and night after. A curse, and perhaps a twisted blessing, because it would be that last time she'd ever see her brother's face.

There was mist clouding her vision. She blinked it away. Just in time to see Asher well and truly fall, at the hands of an enemy, nonetheless an act of grace. Thalia pressed a hand to her mouth, fought to keep the gun steady against the titanic cleaving in her chest. She did not have a name for that emotion, so vast and hollow she could not even call it grief. It went deeper, a severing. It was not done with her. But there was no time for it now. Because a moment later, too late, she noticed the death sentence on Nyx's forearm.

They were laughing in the face of it, and Thalia was utterly, utterly lost. She was certain her expression was some pain-twisted, ugly thing, but she could not bring herself to care. Their last words reached her as though from far away, the whole world queerly muffled. Silently, they closed their eyes. Soundlessly, they fell.

The gun dropped from nerveless fingers. It was her fault, her weakness, her hesitation that cost an innocent person their life. Because for all their fights and disagreements, Nyx was still an innocent. She was responsible. Murder had never bothered her much, and she was too exhausted to wonder why this shook her so. Head bowed, she knelt at their side.

She should be securing Nyx's while they were unconscious. Or better yet, putting a bullet in their brain and calling it done with. Instead, she stared into Asher's blind blue eyes, everything inside of her wanting to look away. A minute without you, Asher, and I'm already making mistakes. You never should have trusted me to keep anybody safe. You never should have left.

How could you?

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𝚔𝚊𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚎
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A kelpie rounded the corner between rows of massive shelves, followed closely by a blonde head. Kaisie watched quietly from her perch, nodded once at the near-inaudible cautioning. "Okay." She replied, equally subdued. She made room on the platform, but couldn't help giving the girl a wary glance. Faintly, echoes of a scuffle resonated throughout the cavernous space. She fought not to shiver, thinking of bite marks and gaping maws.

The sturdy metal supports barely shifted under the added weight, old as they must have been. She waited until the girl was settled in, studying her from the corner of her eye. About her age, light tan, full lips pursed in the shadow of a frown. Striking eyes the border between grey and blue, swimming with shadows. Lovely, despite the tired weight settled in every line of her face. A softer water to her sister's ice. Kaisie made herself look away.

Her gaze found the dog, obediently sitting beneath them. She spared a glance around from her high vantage point, worrying for its safety. It was unprotected on the ground, even given the canine blessing of immunity. As if to punctuate her point, a cry rang out in the distance.

Grimacing a little, she leaned back against an iron bar. Nothing she could do but to make light of the situation. Facing the stranger properly, she offered a tentative smile. "I don't mean to offend, but you and I clearly have very different definitions of safe. Hi, we were never properly introduced, with the fleeing for our lives and all. I'm Kaisie Graves, but you can call me Kay."

[sataraxias]

──( NYX )──
It felt like falling, like they were losing their balance again and again and repeatedly being dunked into an ice-cold sea for a brief instant before they were swept into an ocean of fire and pain. Two repeating extremes, over and over. Nyx groaned and writhed, rolling in on themselves as they mumbled beneath their breath. either they were a drama queen, or infinity was spreading out around them, dark and agonising.

Then sensation was fading back in. Hard ground around them as their eyes tugged open and they groaned, the shapes of shelves around them blurring into focus. Another sight met them. Tali didn’t like them, but apparently she wasn’t cruel. She was obviously gearing up for a mercy shot.

Somewhere in their delirious mind, the thought occurred they wouldn’t appreciate that.

“You look so worried,” they panted, a weak breathless laugh as their arm struggled to pull down the neckline of their shirt, showing the faded bitemark scar embedded on their collar. They gave a toothy, pained grin, trying for that casual smugness that carried them through life as they focused on mustering up tired strength as they winked, “Swear this ain’t the end of us yet, baby-girl.”

Big words were hard to say. Big actions were harder to do. They brought their leg up, kicking with all the force they could manage, which admittedly wasn’t as much as they’d hoped for, but at least it connected. It hurt, though. So, so much.

Nyx rolled, and then unsteadily forced themselves to their feet as that damn fire beneath their skin flared back up. They rounded the nearest aisle, but that was as far as they could go before they once again found themselves unable to walk, collapsing back on to the knees with a scream of frustration that fell somewhere on the scale between angry creeper and Harlow.

──( AMALIA )──
Here she was. The forbidden dream of young kids, sitting on the tall shelves of some big warehouse, high above the world… She settled on the platform across from the other girl, hugging her legs as she rested her chin on her knees. “Sorry. The city has a bit of a spider infestation and we’re caught in a bit of a complicated web,” she said slowly, trying for humour but not quite reaching it. It just hit too close to home. Asher was down there, dead. She wrinkled her nose, then pushed up her hand across her eyes to wipe water. Damn it. Be strong. “We just didn’t expect a visit so soon.”

She was oversharing. It was probably better she didn’t say anything. She had no idea who this stranger was. She wasn’t a spider, for sure, though. Amalia didn’t know so much about the Second - when they’d stayed with the Spiders she’d been under Corey’s command - but surely they wouldn’t hold their own people hostage. It didn’t make sense. Then the name clicked. Kaisie Graves. A morbid surname to host during the apocalypse, made worse by an infamous reputation.

Amalia was sitting across from the daughter of Alan Graves, leader of one of the warring factions that tore the city apart. She wondered if that spider down there had realised. She pulled a breath in, considering whether or not to offer her name before finally, she just did it. “Amalia. Ames, if you prefer, but I don't care.”

[zara3447]

┏━━━━━━━━━┓
𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚊
┖━━━━━━━━━┚

Navy eyes tracked their movements, unblinking. Thalia was a fair sight familiar with agony in all its forms, and this was definitively what she was witnessing. A stray thought struck, that Nyx would not appreciate an audience to their suffering, had they been lucid enough to process it. She watched them ride out the first wave of pain, gun back in hand, crouched beside them on the concrete. Slowly, their eyes opened and focused, snagging on the handgun. Her brow creased as Nyx reached up to tug at their shirt collar, pulling the loose material low. Exposing the scar on their collarbone, the unmistakable imprint of a bite.

Oh. She stared at the faded bite mark. Putting the pieces together. Delusional laughter reached her ears, and she glanced down.

Apparently Nyx was lucid enough to quip at her still, as well as launch a kick (if not very well) in her general direction. She made no move to dodge it, letting it connect so she could gauge the reserves of strength left in their failing body. Regrettably little. Still, they somehow made it back onto their feet, staggering a few steps down the aisle. She almost admired the sheer stubbornness, but it could only carry one so far. Thalia would know.

The second time they fell, it was with a bellow loud enough to echo to the rafters. She pursed her lips in grim resolve, striding towards Nyx as the infection dragged them back under. She caught their shoulders as they collapsed, supporting the head to prevent a concussion against the ground. She lowered herself to a kneel by their prone form and surveyed the damage.

Sweat beaded on feverish skin. Eyes rolled into the back of their head, whites flashing as the lids twitched open and closed. Even unconscious, the body convulsed in tortured spasms. She hissed out an involuntary breath, before schooling her features into neutrality. He was much too far gone to care, but it was habit to wipe her expression blank in front of a patient. Her fingers dug into the concrete, pressing so hard her fingertips went white. Only for a moment.

There was certainly no kindness to this virus. She wondered if Asher had suffered so in his last moments, decided that it didn't matter. Her brother was gone, Nyx was not; one of these was the immediate problem to worry about, and it wasn't Asher. Her training took over. Deft motions, steady hands, as gentle as she could make them. Checking them methodically for hidden wounds, securing them into a position where they could be carried into the cellar. Inside her head was still a mess, but as always, her hands knew their work.

She wondered if it would be enough to save them.

┏━━━━━━━━━┓
𝚔𝚊𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚎
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"I see. It's alright." Kaisie shrugged in faux lightness, one wary eye on the girl even as she turned away to give her what bit of privacy she could to grieve. Expectation hummed in her blood, ever since she'd dropped her name, waiting to see how she'd take it.

It took seconds to click, longer probably for the haze of grief she'd had to push away. She saw it in her eyes, a new sort of wariness, weighing the bloodshed behind her surname with the danger her presence would bring. Kaisie met her gaze steadily, not an ounce of irritation for her judgement. Finally, she gave her name, and the redhead could relax a touch. "Lovely to meet you, Amalia." She offered, smiling earnestly. In no way would she mistake this olive branch for welcome, but it was acceptance for now.

A scream rent the air, and Kaisie came instantly alert. The warehouse door was still open slightly, she noticed with a wince. "I'd hardly wish to overstep, but might we embark upon a perimeter patrol? We haven't exactly been the quietest bunch in here." Partially her fault. Not that she'd chosen to have a knife thrust under her chin, exactly, but she had been responsible for the first scream nonetheless. Noise in general was a terrible, terrible idea in a city overrun by zombies.

Sliding off the ledge, she braced a foot against a crossbeam and paused. "I'll watch your back if you'll watch mine. You have nothing to fear from me." She added, throwing a glance over her shoulder. And cringed. Nothing screamed untrustworthy like a person loudly proclaiming the opposite. Apology in her gaze, she maneuvered her way back to the ground.

It was long past time for her to be gone, but she found that she didn't want to. Not quite yet, she bargained with herself. Give all the Ravens a chance to get back to base, after the fighting had settled. Give her dad a chance to make it back. She'd never liked being around the cannibals, hated it a hundred times worse without Alan by her side. To be quite honest, they freaked her the hell out. It was a matter of survival, yes, but nobody else was eating zombies, and they were all alive just fine.

Shuddering a touch, she wrapped her arms around herself. A warm, wet nose prodded at her leggings, and she looked down automatically. Round eyes found hers as the kelpie sniffed. Pushing away the storm cloud of thoughts, Kaisie bent down to scratch the pup behind the ears. "Hey you, pretty little darling. Are you gonna come patrol with us?"

[sataraxias]

<3

──( NYX )──
They hurt. A lot. An exhausted ache in the entirety of their being.
Someone had died in here. That was their first thought as hazy eyes forced themselves to open, pulling in the dim surroundings of the cellar around them. Piled cans and bags of non-perishables to the side, untouched and undisturbed long enough to gather a very faint collection of dust on silver rims. Not that that was difficult. The end of the world inspired a lot of dust. They rolled their eyes.

Nyx huffed out a breath, head pushing back against the wall as they looked to the door. Faint scratch marks of desperate curled hands, visible even through the faintness of the room. So that was who’d died. It was a shame, really. They'd actually liked Asher well enough. Until he'd tried to eat them. That was just bad manners.

Their sheathes were there, but the familiar weight of their weapons was missing. Even the ones typically hidden, like the knife in their boot. They reached up, searching for that precious cord that wasn’t there, instead finding the bandage wrapped around their arm. They wrinkled their nose. “What an absolutely terrible trade. Thalia, you dog.”

Nyx leaned their hand back against the wall, using it as a support to shift their weight on to unsteady feet as they again looked around the room. Emprt except for they, themselves and them, and also the dog sat guarding in the shadows. They waved at her weakly. If money had still been worth anything, they'd be willing to wager a bet the owners would not be far away.

“By a lonely prison wall,” they started softly, the choice of their little hymn deliberate as they steadily rose in volume, “Heard a young girl calling… ‘Michael, they have taken you away. For you stole Trevelyan’s corn, so the young would see the morn, and now a prison ship lies waitin’ in the baaaay.’”

The footsteps were quiet, but so was the rest of the place. They heard Tali coming a hallway away, smug grin tugging at their lips even as they turned their face downwards, bracing a wave of sudden dizziness.

──( AMALIA )──
Two dogs by her side, she crept through the street and forced her way into the small convenience store on the corner. She clicked her tongue to signal Spartan to wait by the door. Cover the entrance. She’d get Captain to cover the back while she scavenged. It was methodical. It was familiar. Once, there’d been two of them on these kind of trips but… Tali was preoccupied, and the need for resources didn’t disappear when love did.

A quiet groan and the shuffle of feet from the aisle just out of view. She pressed her back against the shelf end, hand going to the knife at her side. “Aye-aye,” she ordered the dog out of the corner of her mouth. A wagging tail. A bark. Then, that once-human creature back there was stumbling through the row towards them. She waited.

It stumbled past her oblivious. She attacked from behind, an easy dispatch. Two days ago, she’d done the same kind of strategy with the daughter of Alan Graves in her warehouse when they’d gone on perimeter patrol. That’d felt weirder than doing it alone. “Bye,” she whispered, wrenching the gory knife out. She wiped it on the rotting fabric of the creeper’s shirt, then she was stepping forward to scavenge, whistling to Captain.

Keep moving. Keep busy. It was the only way to keep thoughts from drifting, to keep a broken heart from focusing on a bygone brother. Already her throat was choking up, her eyes threatening to blur- she pushed cans of pringles into her bag. Stale chocolate bars. Kit-kats. Snickers. Whatever worked.

It wasn’t particularly nutritious. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. She clicked her tongue, zipping the bag up. Now all that remained was getting back home. Dogs once again by her side, she left the store to step back into the bright merciless streets beyond.