2021-03-20: Another One Has A Three-Course Meal of Dust
- Log: Another One Has A Three-Course Meal of Dust
- Cast: Ruth Pauling, Violet Salazar
- Where: Celesti Wastelands
- Date: March 20, 2021
- Summary: Two Drifters find another Drifter fallen to the horrors that roam about the wastes of Zoara, and keep one another company while ruminating about what to do to give due to the freshly dead. Things take a turn for the ever more tragic once they can deliver the news to their next of kin at Port Rosalia... and unknown to at least one present, those same things are about to floor the pedal after said turn.
============================<* Celesti Wastelands *>============================ Decades ago, the nation of Celesti ripped itself apart in a vicious civil war. Outside of a handful of settlements, its former territories are lifeless. The remains of trenches, bunkers, and barbed wire lines serve as lingering reminders of the conflict--scars that have yet to heal. The earth is dry and barren, and much of the groundwater has been contaminated by biological or chemical weapons. Travel through the Wastelands is treacherous. The roads are pockmarked with shell craters, and Reapers have been known to haunt its blasted plains. A handful of functional rail lines cross the wastes, but these travel directly to their final destinations. The shattered remains of ghost towns dot the landscape. Some may yet hold things of value, but experienced travelers know better than to go treasure-hunting on a whim. The war-dead of Celesti do not rest. Ghosts aren't even the strangest things one can find here. As the war dragged on, both the Congressional Knights and Aquvy Union dug up ancient weapons to aid their efforts--including, it's rumored, ARMs from Zeboim. These rumors draw both the daring and desperate into the wastes, and more often than not, to their end.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
The nation of Celesti - or rather, its rotting corpse - is not a happy place. What with all that had been used during the long Civil War... there's not really much land left that's good enough for sustaining a new settlement to take the place of... anyone, or anything at all. All that's left are the promises of some left-over weapons and riches that go unclaimed... and the countless, roaming dead that continue to suffer. It's a warm day out today, but there is no true warmth to be found here.
There is a fresh corpse - a young man from Port Rosalia who wanted to try his luck on a starting hand of a 2 of Spades and a 9 of Hearts. He should've known to fold before he set out the door, but he didn't. He has been torn to... mostly one large shred, by some of the local undead. The one large shred that was decidedly not shredded enough to be instantly dead, but that time has passed.
There is a kneeling elven woman, well overdressed for this climate (but otherwise mostly in the style popular among female Drifters in the region) fiddling with a Granasian rosary wrapped around her otherwise exposed right forearm in something resembling prayer - for all the good it does, if any.
It's not safe anywhere, but it's as safe as it gets now - and there was some ARMs fire (from a revolver) not long ago, so if there's any attention to be had from other bodies - living or not - that'd be a sound worth tracing. (Someone may have been sent to retrieve this foolish young Drifter, after all.)
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
A kneeling figure in the distance attracts Violet's attention, so she approaches discreetly to check it out. Oh. An elf, clutching a Granasian rosary, and evidently praying over a corpse.
A very young male corpse. What a tragedy. Death was always terrible but even worse when it claimed the young.
She steps not-so-silently to about twenty feet away and waits. She makes enough noise to make her (non-threatening) presence known, but not enough, she hopes, to disrupt the elf woman's concentration.
She does not pray. Prayer is for those who believe.
She does, however, stand silently and respectfully, waiting for the elf to finish her prayers.
Her respect is for the mourner, not the faith. Dealing with Guardianist shamans, Althena's Guard, and Yevonites has done NOTHING to improve her views on religion. She expects to have to bury this young man. It will be easier with two people...
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
The mourner feels something in the air fade away. Something that brought her here... no longer is. It feels empty and as dead as ever, now, the rolling dust of the dirty Celesti air taking its place. The elf sighs, uncertain how to feel - but that's been the case for a lot of things, over the last few years. Uncertain, other than being where she was up until a few moments ago. She couldn't... not be there, for them, in their final moments. Their final, miserable, regret-filled moments... she was all the company she could give him.
She did not know his name.
"...Did you know this man?" Asks a tired voice, her head not lifting up to meet the gaze of the older Beastfolk of smaller stature than herself. "I'm sorry... he is no longer suffering in life."
He just might in death. She's not a Paladienne. There's a young one that's been making the rounds, but they're not here now.
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
"No," Violet replies. "I'm not from around here. Whoever he was, though, he deserves a decent burial. May we work together on that? It's all we can do, now. I wonder what killed him?" Plenty of options around here for that -- Wels, monsters, Hellions, undead... As almost an afterthought, she adds, "I'm Violet. Violet Salazar. Some call me 'Mother Vi.' How did you come to be here?"
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"...That's kind." The elf says. "I... I don't know if he would stay buried." A part of her wonders if there is anything more for her to do here. He's passed. There's... others, out there, suffering. Her right hand goes over her heart, a thumb gently rubbing at the fabric as if she might ask that instead of her brain.
Violet asks what killed him. Outwardly, it is fairly evident he got torn apart by the local undead. Bite marks, claw marks, and... there's just enough damage here that going into detail would be stomach churning. (As said earlier, he is not in one piece but at least one of the pieces is very, very large indeed. It is debatable if it's open casket.)
She doesn't know how to answer her, on multiple levels, despite this. She gets her hand away from her heart as Violet introduces herself and asks her name.
"...Ruth. I'm Ruth." No surname, just 'Ruth.' She finds it in her to look up. Both eyes open half-lidded, a fresh tear out of her right she doesn't wipe away.
"...I know these parts. I lived around here during the Civil War." Which is a truth! But not the whole truth. She starts to rise to her full height... which would be an imposing 5'8" if she stood straight up. She doesn't. She's slouching.
She still casts one heck of a shadow though!
"I'm a Drifter. I... just do my part to see all the sorrow left behind."
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
"I'm a Drifter, too," Violet says soothingly. "And a former midwife. Is there anything you can do to see he stays at rest?" Violet herself can do nothing. That's for priestly-types! "Or should we burn the body?" Assuming, of course, there was fuel enough in the area to burn.... "There's more than enough sorrow to go around, Ruth. Sometimes I think it'll never end...
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"...The Earthbound Dead don't... really need bodies, to haunt those who hurt them," Ruth's voice hangs heavy compared to where Violet's is soothing. Both of them, in their own way, want to help... but Celesti's a place where a problem did not find a good answer even at the Civil War's end, and there are now even more problems without a good answer. Or... any.
It is as well as Violet says. It's never-ending.
There's a bitter laugh that escapes Ruth. Maybe? It could be crying. It sounds similar. "The fighting ended and then it never did... the suffering never stops but I want to... be there. Do something. Even if it's futile, or... if all I ever offer is just more of it." Her words waver back and forth between futility and hope, never quite reaching some sort of logical equilibrium. Back and forth in double-think.
She looks back to the rosary around her forearm, as if somehow it might magically have the answer to everything ever.
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
Violet watches as Ruth glances at her rosary. She is looking for answers, which the Beastwoman cannot provide. "I'd tell you the answer if I knew it," she murmurs. "All I know is that life...is persistent...and death permanent, unless the dead rise. And when they do...it's not a state anybody would want to be in -- or to fight," she finishes, more sharply than she intended. "Can you drive the shades away, if they decide to bother us? If not, it would be best to dispose of the body quickly..." She glances around, looking for more pieces of the corpse. Good thing her medical background has given her a strong stomach! "And we'd best be done before nightfall, just in case."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
There are some small corpse pieces of an origin and composition best left unnamed! To one with a medical background, uh... they're fresh, so probably his? Unless she's missing anything (she doesn't appear to be).
The elf goes quiet at mention about life, death, and the horrors of a restless existence beyond death that seems to benefit no one (but yet exists).
She doesn't let that train of thought bleed into some others running through her.
"...It wouldn't be the first time I shot some of them," she responds cryptically as she re-draws her revolver with her left hand, reloading it with her right. To Violet's medical knowledge, she'll notice that she doesn't lift her left arm all that high when she can help it.
"...We've done all we can for him as it is... Violet. I'm sorry. I don't want to trouble you." The elf works up a smile. "...This land will always be here to remind me of... a lot of things. It will wait patiently for me to come back to it."
"...I can't hear much out my left ear," she adds, "but... I'll cover for you. It's... best we get to one of the few places the trains will stop."
Almost all railroad routes are straight shots on grounds of Undead Everywhere. Sometimes they might stop if there's living people at very specific stops. Sometimes. (...More like scarcely. Train conductors keep tight schedules and know to let Drifters have ALL OF THE EARFULS for disrupting it.)
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
"All right," Violet mutters. "Let's get going." She notices that Ruth favors her left arm but doesn't comment on it. Is it an old injury? A birth defect? And she has difficulty hearing out of her left ear? That's unlike what she's always heard about elves, who were legendarily keen-eared... Maybe she can ask about those things later, but she doesn't know Ruth well enough yet. "I'm glad you know the area!" She pauses, looking at the corpse -- or at least the largest piece -- again. "I assume you searched him for any identification? It's a pity we don't even know his name, or enough to tell the next-of-kin."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth straight-up breaks out into laughter that goes from 'bitter' to 'booming' at mention about being glad she knows the area! Her right hand presses at her chest, but it's not out of... wheezing, or any difficulty breathing. Somehow, in its own bleak way, the idea that there'd be happiness to be found in someone knowing the area is...
It gets some things brewing. She manages to calm herself, or... get herself to something like being calm. Maybe more like 'being receptive to other people talking and hearing what they have to say' rather than calm, as if her psyche were ready to just pull her into her own little world to stew on what she just heard.
"...I don't like touching people with my hands. I... didn't look," she admits, looking away from Violet as she eyes the way ahead for any danger or trouble. (Laughter sure might have brought some!)
"...I just saw he was suffering and... I wanted to be with him. I couldn't do anything but that, but... being there for those who... feel that way. That's what... good people do, right? They're there for them." Her voice goes a little numb, as if uncertain beyond being able to say that's what good people do.
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
"That's definitely what good people do. Often that's **all** they can. Don't fault yourself for not being able to do more. That way lies madness." Violet quickly searches the corpse for identification -- or indeed, any clues to the young man's identity -- but does not take any gella, if he was carrying any -- in spite of her poverty. Graverobbing is simply NOT DECENT!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Don't fault yourself, comes the older Beastfolk's advice. The younger elf's smile fades, their eyes downcast towards the ground and their feet. Once again, hand to their heart. She doesn't know, she thinks to herself. She's being kind - like good people do. They act on kindness, right from the jump, and don't think twice about it - to say and do anything that might bring peace and comfort.
That measuring stick hasn't done her wrong the last few years.
While Ruth stews in silence, Violet will find exactly what she needs - they're carrying an un-bloodied letter naming them (assuming they're the ones being written to - it's signed by someone with a feminine name and the handwriting is neat enough, urging a 'Tyler' to not become a Drifter and to stay at Port Rosalia. Tyler did not heed this. Tyler is dead now).
"...Let, let me know when you're ready," Ruth says, her voice trembling. "Sorry. I'm... I'm fine."
She's fine enough, by her measure.
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
Violet offers the elf a hug. "Come on, let's go...his name was Tyler, and he was staying in Port Rosalia. It might be enough to track down his next-of-kin. Want to see?" She holds the letter out to Ruth. "We can offer them closure, if not hope -- provided we can track 'em down." Violet wonders if Tyler had had an overly-romanticized view of Drifting -- which was, in reality, gritty, dirty dangerous work. She blames Alan Smithee if he did. It was always a shame when a young person died, but to be torn apart was really horrible. No wonder Ruth seemed to be having trouble dealing with it. As for Tyler's remains, no doubt scavenging monsters or carrion-birds would make short work of them soon enough. The old joke went that nothing went to waste in the WASTElands.
She does not share the joke. It wouldn't be appropriate. She'll keep a close metaphorical eye on Ruth as they travel together to make sure she doesn't get too despondent. This might be a crisis of faith -- and for a religious type, there were few things more dangerous.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
When given the hug, Ruth freezes up like she could become a corpse herself. Both her hands are lifted, one with a deeply pained wincing that sees her take her right hand up to her left shoulder. She's wearing a lot of clothing layers - more than anyone should, but that is sort of the Drifter fashion of the region.
"..." She doesn't condemn or praise Violet's given comfort, but she does look away for a bit. It takes the letter being offered to her to look back and to... very gently, take her right hand from her shoulder to get the letter. Her hand is gloved, but she is extraordinarily careful about receiving the letter from Violet. As if the idea of touching were something deeply unpleasant.
Some scars, in whatever form they take, are not just physical.
"...Th-thank you." She thinks to herself. The passing of anyone is... it... things get a bit too complex for her to want to process those thoughts. Violet is kind. Maybe... some things would be all right to share with her, but then by the time they got to Port Rosalia she'd need to...
She exhales. She'll cope with what things are right now.
"...Let's... go give them their closure. Thank you." Heartfelt... but she didn't know Tyler, she doesn't know his next-of-kin, but those words are spoken as if with relief. Her mind's racing. Tyler's purported 'next-of-kin' will doubtless be emotional. Will she (both of them) be subject to sorrow? Will both of them receive furious anger about them and their kind, what they do?
...She's all right with either outcome. A part of her right now would... really like that. Just the opportunity to be around people feeling like that, because... that's what good people do.
"...I'm... I'm going to be fine." She puts forth an almost convincing statement of that. "I just have... a lot on my mind. A lot on my mind... I'd rather have here," she gestures to her heart with her right thumb. She hopes by the time they get to Port Rosalia to share the bad news, there will be plenty enough resting on her heart to keep her going.
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
"I'll listen if you want to talk about...what you have on your mind," Violet volunteers, carefully and definitively leaving Ruth the choice. Sometimes people need to talk: sometimes they need NOT to. She's learned not to push either way. They say getting older brought one wisdom, but Violet has never felt wiser, only tireder. Maybe that's just something people say so the old folks won't gripe so much. "Are you ready to head out?" Then, after waiting for a reply, "Do you know when the next train is due -- and exactly where to catch it?" She also waits to see whether Ruth will keep the letter or hand it back. Not that it matters either way -- it looks like they're going to Port Rosalia together! If the train will be more than an hour, she'll suggest that Ruth take some refreshment.
Even if that's likely to be trail rations.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"Hmmm," Ruth thinks about the offer, "I feel... it's better I just enjoy the company." It is weird, isn't it? Wanting to be there for others but not really letting others be there for her in turn, and... she clearly has no shortage of feelings that could be shared.
She'll offer back the letter if Violet signals such, with the exact same level of care to avoid direct hand-touches as when she took it for herself.
"If we're lucky... someone will notice us on the first stop. If we aren't... it's two hours' walk to the next." Being out this far is always a gamble on one's life. Still, when snack time comes... snack time will come.
Ruth will keep as quiet, if passively morose company with the Beastfolk all the way to Port Rosalia, where awful news will be given and the response will - without fail - be just as loaded with so much awful emotion behind it.
Such is the life of being a Drifter.
<Pose Tracker> Post-scene @mail follow up has posed.
From: Ruth Pauling (Conn) Date: Sun Mar 21 17:00:29 2021 Folder: 0 Message: 1 Status: Read Subject: Return to Port Rosalia
After a bit of an adventure (as being out in the Celesti wastes at all counts as /at least/ three adventures unto itself... maybe three-and-a-fourth), Violet and Ruth make it to Port Rosalia. From there, they give the bad news to the next-of-kin of that fallen Drifter, Tyler. To say 'it is ugly' is an understatement: he left behind a wife and infant child. His mother-in-law held nothing back about 'good for nothing Drifters,' and she was more than keen to take it out on her messengers. An ARM was drawn to chase the two of them out.
Said mother-in-law continued to be vocal, and could be overheard yelling something about how they've been saddled with Tyler's debts to a Guild Galad trading company. Ruth was not so perturbed at the tirade she was subject to, but her mood darkened substantially a short while after overhearing the exchange about Guild Galad. She politely excused herself from Violet's company, and (to Violet's knowledge) did not eat at a local restaurant or stay at the local inn. If Violet asks, she didn't rent a carriage.
No one's seen her since. Drifters can be like that, as Violet well knows. Unless she gets torn to shreds like poor Tyler out there, maybe they'll meet again the next time Violet risks a journey into Celesti's wastes... or maybe even somewhere else.
Incidentally, the wildlife has been acting up something fierce in these parts lately, so Violet could get some good work helping deal with that... (there will be a scene to this effect on Friday, April 2nd, at 7 PM EST!)