2017-04-08: Leave the Dead Buried

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  • Cutscene: Leave the Dead Buried
  • Cast: Cassidy Cain
  • Where: A Baskar encampment, somewhere between Adlehyde and Lacour
  • Date: April 8, 2017
  • Summary: Takes place directly after Thirty Seconds Left of Life. As Jude Moshe spends an evening under the care of Baskar medicine men, Cassidy Cain quietly confers with Ethan Ethan, an old acquaintance, through the minefield of a shared and difficult history.

With the endless spray of stars filling the darkened skies above her head, the Baskar camp looked all the more isolated, a lone speck of civilization amidst miles and miles of nothing but the silhouettes of distant mountains and the towering heights of cactii. The cold air was crisp, though its chill was inundated by unmistakeable traces of humanity - smoke from cooking meat skewered over ignited cedar logs and dried horse manure, drying blood and leather from which carcasses of four-legged beasts have been hung to be cured, the near-overpowering wash of medicinal herbs. The latter came from the tent just behind her, where Jude Moshe had been taken under the care of the camp's medicine men. The last she saw of the redheaded journalist, he was busy being made to inhale white mist culled from a mixture of several different grades of the local grass, to anesthesize him before the treatment of his present arrray of injuries.

That entire endeavour could have gone better, she thought, leaning against a gnarled stretch of dead tree, its dessicated branches stretching over her head; bony, skeletal fingers reaching for the light of the half-moon overhead, like a bid for clemency or salvation, some manner of respite from her barren surroundings. The end of her cigarette glowed in red-gold embers, outlining her features in sharp relief against pervasive shadows. Long fleet fingers rolled the glass necklace over and over on her fingers, mirroring the way her thoughts tumbled within her skull - lazy, unhurried. Like every other moment in which she had to do complicated cerebral gymnastics, she took her time in assessing her options.

"Is he dead?"

The query came from somewhere behind her, a soft, gentle voice bordering on effeminate, made all the more distinct with an accent common from Adlehyde's southern plantations. Ethan Ethan didn't look much, his poncho made his thin frame look all the more frail, worn boots crunching on the dirt and his goggles pushed into his dark hair. But that made it all the more surprising when he was made to do what he did best and there have been countless of drifters before who had underestimated him to their brutal detriment. Cassidy didn't know a better transporter in Filgaia, nor a better sniper. In spite of the weather, he still refused to wear gloves; the man was gifted in gauging precise measurements by touch.

The blonde tossed her cigarette into the dirt, stubbing it out with her boot. "You got tae have more faith in your fellow man, E," she replied lightly, an easy smile turning up the corners of her mouth. "He'll live."

Ethan moved to the other side of the tree, perching himself on the cradle of roots poking through the dust. He fished for his own pack of smokes.

"You haven't had a partner since Bridge," he remarked, lighting up and taking a deep drag of his cigarette. "Ah'm wonderin' whether you're going do to him what you did to us."

The fiddling of her fingers over the replica necklace slowed to a stop. Her gold-green eyes slipped sideways towards the shadow he splashed on the ground. After a moment, her digits curled and re-curled over the exacting copy, tossing the red glass gem lightly in her palm.

"Leave the dead buried, luv," she replied, and while her voice was languid, warning underscored the words. "It's been years and I may be remembering it wrong, but I dinnae think you counted among that number."

Ethan smirked, though memories render the expression humorless. "You said it yourself," he said, working the words around the smoke pouring out of his lips. "Ah had the best eyes in the crew, so ah saw it coming a mile away." He angled his head towards her direction, though he couldn't see her from round the other side of the tree. "Ah left before you did to me like what you did to the rest, because in spite of everything, ah wanted to keep liking you, Cassidy, for Bridge's sake if not for yours. Ah had to leave before ah watched you burn the rest of them."

"You were being generous."

"Ah'm not as blinded by affection as Crennie and Darren were." He forcibly expelled a cloud of white-gray into the night air. "So now what, now that the train job went sideways?"

Cassidy pushed away from the tree, tucking the reproduction in her pocket. "Deal with Carillo, I s'pose," she said. "Though God only knows how. Would rather go at it alone, but I s'pose it's nae wise playing games with a crime boss that makes it a distinct point tae eat his enemies tae obtain their strength without an extra pair of eyes and hands. And the rest of the world wonders why he's in the shape he's in. Where's all that accumulated strength going if he cannae even walk with all those..." She paused to think of the right word. "Rolls. I'll think of something, though."

The man watched her for a long moment. It looked as if he had more that he could say.

Instead: "Well." Ever gentle, ever agreeable. "You always do."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Cassidy stretched her arms over her head, feeling the quiet pops of idle joints in preparation for additional activity, eyes catching the tent flap move aside to make room of a large, Baskar man with leathery features. "Looks like it's done. Should probably go see tae the poor sod."

"Are you going to hold his hand until he's all better?"

The blonde laughed, turning the resulting smile his way; sharp as a knife, cutting through the night. "He's probably as high as a kite right now, E," she pointed out. "The things I can get away with. If you think I'm gonna miss an opportunity like that, you've nae known me at all."

After taking several steps away from the tree, she stopped. Looking ahead, her hands came up, fingers hooking into the either sides of her hips. Tilting her head back, she heaved a quiet exhale.

"Thanks, E." She turned her head, just enough for a single eye to be visible over the curve of her shoulder. "For coming tae get us."

The man didn't look at her, leaning his head back against the tree. For a long moment, he said nothing, but that wasn't to last.

"Always, Cassidy. But ah'd be lying if ah said ah was doing it for you."

"Ay." The single word was quiet, weighed down by everything else she wasn't willing to say, except: "I know."

With that, her boots moved once more, carrying her back into the outer fringes of the camp, and into the embrace of their waiting shadows.