found yourself in a new direction ` arrows falling from the sun

“Well I figured I’d start with that and if you didn’t put an arrow in my skull on sight, maybe we could hang out.” Hunter was hard to read and Elliot didn’t think of herself as any kind of expert on the human emotional spectrum. Those two things meant that rolling into her territory was nothing short of taking her life into her hands. Visiting her was a rush and the artist couldn’t have said that about most that were still surviving in Cheyenne. They’d all made neat little lives for themselves and it bored Elliot no end. Hunter’s idea of living was intriguing to her, the off-grid experience and fending entirely for herself. Naturally, the fact that she was the most attractive hermit to be found hiding in Cheyenne was another reason for Elliot stopping by. Elliot could have found Vegas on her own, taking a little time to map with a compass but she was in need of company and she figured it was the best place for her. “I’m thinkin’ of heading there sometime soon, see what it’s like now.” 

hunter smirked silently at the woman’s humor. elliot was a strange sort of person and, she imagined, that was true in any circle. they were kindred in such a way. there were not many who knew where hunter spent her nights, but elliot had learned long ago and she was impressed that the other woman had retained the information, but grateful that visits were rare. despite her occasional desire for human contact, she would much prefer the solitude that came with her cabin, which was ferreted away on the outskirts of cheyenne. 

at the mention of las vegas’s change in atmosphere, hunter snickered, tossing her bow over her shoulder. “never really saw what it was like before.” truly, she hadn’t been particularly interested in learning before, but she could see how the place would appeal to elliot. “i reckon it’s just like everywhere else.” dead and living vying for every possible resource.

FIVE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN MUSE & MUN,

01. we’re both from eastern oregon ! 02. both our mothers have chronic illnesses 03. brunettes !! 04. we both have complicated relationships with father figures 05. hunter worked at hal’s hamburgers in pendleton and my mom worked there before i was born ( not strictly a similarity between she and I, but y’know )

FIVE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MUSE & MUN,

Think before you act, Marnie. It was something had been said to her enough times that the sentence had become meaningless. But it wasn’t that her mind fell deaf to its definition, it was that the instruction had been so ineffectual it became instinct to disobey. Think before you act, they said, as if action and thought were mutually exclusive. Marnie disagreed. In fact, she found that her mind moved fastest when her body moved with it, ideas surging with the steps of her feet. Her head had been humming a song from the old days, some remnant of a pre-bullshit world. They said all teenagers scare the living shit out of me. Marnie glanced at the woman at her side. They could care less as long as someone’ll bleed. Six, her fingers said. So darken your clothes. Six people. Four raiders. One rando. One ardent teenager with two hands gripped tightly around a heavy wooden nail bat, feet poised for the lunge. Or strike a violent pose. Maybe they’ll leave you alone— A low grunt escaping through grit teeth, Marnie charged at the nearest raider — Steve? — swinging her bat HARD into his kneecaps, grabbing the pistol from his belt as he crumpled in pain. Had she ever held a gun before? No, but Marnie supposed she played enough Call of Duty to know how to use one. With two swift pulls of the trigger, the pistol fired twice onto Steve’s thigh, until Marnie leveled the barrel of of the gun to the red-haired woman attempting to pull a rifle from her back. — but not me.

For a split second, eyes glanced at the fallen raider groaning in pain. Blood leaked out of the bullet holes, an ugly, vibrant shade of red. Marnie’s face contorted in disgust. “Yikes. Sorry, dude,” she said, though she only half meant it. Kinda served him right for cheating on his boyfriend ( no, Marnie WASN’T eavesdropping ! ). Eyes fell back on the woman with the rifle, and without tearing her gaze away, she called at the survivor behind her. ❝ Yo, lady? ❞   she cried. ❝  You gonna do something or what?  ❞  

the world was full of unpredictable people and it was a doomed art to attempt to master their behavior. the little boxes they’d built their lives around lay in ruins and their own kin hunted them with hungry teeth and empty hearts. now those little boxes on hillsides were their tombs, quilts of mundane lives their shrouds. if hunter had not understood the unpredictable actions of people BEFORE the outbreak, she certainly had surpassed her old knowledge now. a survivor since birth and now a woman alone--a hermit of her own making--she survived by predicting the unpredictable when she could, and having patience when she didn’t.

the other survivor was a brash girl, anger flowing through her veins and rippling off her in waves. anger could be productive--it had kept hunter and her mother going for a time when they’d first been expelled from the compound. but anger burned hot and bright before it burned up and left nothing but ashes in its wake. it was the sin of her father, her brother and this girl before her. bow drawn, hunter watched quietly as the blonde led the charge--arrow trained on the angry girl’s victim in the event of a turn of tides. even just a girl, she was VIOLENCE and hunter saw the raw potential of someone who might teeter on the edge between enjoying the fray and indulging in death. a quiet smile 

the smile faded underneath the groaning man who lay broken at a blonde girl’s feet. footsteps rang behind the woman under the aim of the gun and hunter made quick work of loosing arrows into the skulls of the men who had both chosen to follow her into the woods and to follow her again to the source of the scuffle. she felt a tinge of sorrow in having snuffed such primal loyalty from the world, but it faded easily against the memory of their wrongdoings. the smirk returned though at the heckling. no one could rival jesse andersen when it came to talking shit, but she appreciated the effort nonetheless.

doing the man a kindness, hunter answered the girl with a silent arrow between his eyes. a man of many sins, the archer did not believe in letting strangers suffer for long. never one to refrain from her own modest showmanship, hunter let loose the arrow for the rifle woman’s hand as she made for the gun yet again. blood arched across the side of the woman’s head, but hunter had not made to pierce the hand. instead, a hefty gash cut its way through the back of her hand. hunter threw the bow over her shoulder, unsheathing her kukri and made her way closer, eliminating the jilted lover with an artful slive of the throat.

With a hand raised she walked towards the vaguely familiar cabin, her other placed between the handlebars of her bike, right hip taking the brunt of its weight. Elliot was clever she knew better than to leave her engine humming. It would have been foolish and she would have deserved the arrow or blade that flew her way for arriving unannounced. She was still imposing but there was only so much thought Elliot could offer when thinking about other people. “I’m looking to get to Vegas and I thought who better to ask than just about the only person around this place who looks like they’ve actually used a compass before.” Her voice echoed around the clearing, waiting for that pretty and usually stolid face to emerge. Elliot had used a compass before, a map too and even the pair in conjunction to get around, but where was the fun in marking out the potential trail by herself? Hunter was a strange little thing, the epitome of solitude and self-sufficiency, so naturally, with that in mind, she found herself compelled to drop in and disturb the serenity the other had found.  

( @coolhcnds )

the motorcycle had purred its way into hunter’s perception before the its rider had killed the motor. long a hermit, any out of the ordinary sound could rouse her from a light sleep. today, however, she’d been up for hours looking for pineapple weed in the area surrounding her cabin. at the vehicle’s silent approach, the archer slipped off into the foliage in order to obscure herself from view only to discover--as she drew her bow at the target--that the rider was known to her. grateful for the prospect of company, hunter tossed the bow back over her shoulder and placed the arrow in her thigh quiver before greeting elliot with a genuine--if not apprehensive--smile. “straight and to the point; it’s certainly refreshin’.” she chuckled, appreciative of the request, but dubious about its veracity. she knew full well that elliot had made her way around the united states since the outbreak and figured she could find vegas if the destination was her goal. “vegas is east of here. you bring your own compass with or need to borrow one’a mine?”

“i’ve never really thought about it.” the words come slowly; hunter can’t tell if it’s a joke or some attempt to throw her off balance–an intimidation tactic. “seems pretty unimportant now, don’t it?”

“pretty much the same as beef or venison.” hunter speaks plainly, gaze hard. she’s a simple girl in many ways, but she’s not so dumb she doesn’t get the double meaning. “taste’s a lot worse when you love it.”

“No, I’m not … lost.” Rose answers, holding her hands in front of her. She fiddled with her forefinger, expending nervous energy. Everyone thought she was lost, but never in the proper sense.

Rose bit her lip into a sardonic smile, and was a bit angry with herself. She didn’t have patience for sour, sappy thoughts today.

“Oh. I’m fine. Thanks. I was just checking to see if I had caught something.” She gestured with a small movement of her head, and the direction of her gaze. From this angle, you could see a rock propped up at a strange angle. Underneath were sticks precariously set up in a triangle shape. The idea was that a squirrel, or rabbit, would knock the sticks and be killed by the rock when it fell. It was the only trap Rose knew how to make.

hunter nods thoughtfully, folks’d sometimes surprise her. it was hard not to feel more concerned for those who seemed less suited for the world than she was, but hunter knew better than to underestimate her fellow survivors. if they had survived at all, it was because they had grit. “my mistake.” she tells her, eyes following the tension in the girl’s shoulders to where it manifested itself into nervous gestures--a ring worried into flesh. her voice has a lilt to it that hunter’s never heard in person before. it reminds her of the kinds of movies her mother watched when she was a kid, before television was deemed excessive. it makes her smile soft with nostalgia. it’s amazing, she thinks, that so many people from all over the world ended up in some town nobody’d even deigned worthy of filming a western in.

Rose stepped back as they stepped forward, chin falling. She hadn’t seen them until she turned her head. While she managed not to jump and run like a frightened hare, her reaction spoke of discomfort. “Mon dieu–… I … I didn’t see you.”

it had been at LEAST an hour since the fighting began and hunter was growing as tired of the bickering as she was perplexed. the small group of raiders had set up their camp too close to her cabin for comfort and, upon discovery of them, she had doubled back--setting misleading tracks from her true destination in case any one of them were worth a damn at hunting ( be it game or prey ). after reaching the cabin, she’d stowed away her pack and set back out, fully intending on picking the members of the group off one by one. 

lying in the brush, waiting for the right opportunity to strike, hunter was surprised at how quickly the situation had DETERIORATED. while divvying up their spoils, the group seemed amiable. they were calm and collected in a way that--if they hadn’t mentioned the deadly source of their supplies when she’d first come across them--hunter might’ve mistaken them for regular folk. regular folk just trying to get by. 

the conversation didn’t SOUR until two of the men were caught in a lie regarding their whereabouts during the raid. an older woman with deep red curls kicked over her pack and said ‘i’m sorry steve, i’m sick of covering for this shit.’ and stormed off--rifle on her back and hands shoved deep into her coat pockets. the two other raiders, obscured from hunter’s vantage point followed, with varied tones of mumbling. 

kinsi shook his head, dutifully. “of course not, m’lady. i could even help accompany you out, if you would like.” he said, honestly. night time was getting increasingly UNSAFE around here, after all. kinsi glanced around, “i was after a new soldering iron. i heard you have a few.” he couldn’t help add, eyes raising to her expectantly. an e x p e n  s i v e  item, but something necessary.

“of course, good sir. i would be grateful for the company and the protection.” she lied through half-clenched teeth. so chivalrous, helena thought darkly--concerned that now she would be forced to keep his company when the store closed in order to keep up the CHARADE. where were the men who would toss aside a woman’s dignity for a cask of ale when she needed them? WHEN DUSK FELL the seedy hidden dealings of the ‘THE SLAUGHTERED LAMB’ sprung to life like tales of the walking DEAD. “aye, we do.” but they were not legitimately earned. “I will ... half to fetch them from the cellar as they have not been processed for sale as of yet. would you care to wait or prefer to return another time?”