#gurdle

The Lighthouse is a peaceful (as peaceful as it can get) outpost on the coast that hosts a fairly advanced team of Organics and mostly self-sustainable food and water sources: one from the green things kept inside and one from a deep well. Built inside and around a massive lighthouse, it stands vigil for any lost soul wandering the wasteland alone. A finely organized group of drivers and their lancers keep the establishment protected and help keep the food supply steady with regular foraging trips out into the surrounding area and trading trips to other establishments. All of this is kept in line by Ailani Barlowe, the stewardess of Lighthouse.

One of the finest driver-lancer pairs is Ize and Marlan. Ize is, in two words, strong and beautiful. When she isn’t out on supply runs with Marlan, she’s taking care of injured and orphaned warpups who have found their way to Lighthouse in one way or another. Ize is stubborn as an ox and every bit as kind and caring. Though not all of her charges make it - many of them die young - she continues to throw herself into her work and love all the more for those she’s lost. Ize is the tallest lesbian at Lighthouse, measuring 6ft2.

Marlan is a big, strong, muscular teddy bear. With sharpened white teeth and skin blacker than night, he is frightening to behold. Be not scared by his exterior, for he is gentle and quiet and kindly. He is a pillar of stability among his friends, who often come to him for his sage advice. (He doesn’t give great advice, but he is a relentless optimist.) He is very close friends with Ize and Spitch and Gurdle’s cat, Pothos. Marlan is bi as bi can be and though he looks like he could kill you, he’s a soft squishy sweet cinnamon roll. He loves animals.

The owner of the aforementioned cat Pothos is named Gurdle. The oldest inhabitant of Lighthouse at age 67, Gurdle is known as the ‘crotchety old greenthumb with the ugly cat.’ Gurdle is as good with plants as he is bad with people. His cat is named Pothos and he drapes himself across Gurdle’s shoulders while the man works, content to nap and to purr when someone gave him a pet. Gurdle is a no-nonsense grumpy old coot but he has a soft spot in his hard shell for children and animals.

Born and raised by medics, Spitch is easily the youngest working Organic at Lighthouse at age 15. Though she is mature for her age, her unyielding honesty and childlike spirit are very apparent. She, like Sharp, bottles up her negativity, but Spitch forces it out into positivity. She remembers every time she wasn’t able to save someone and blames herself for all of them. She looks like a short, happy, bouncy ray of sunshine with spastically curly red hair and freckles all over her face and shoulders.

Gurdle had never let anyone into his circle. He was alone and quite preferred it that way. He’d made supply runs between the Citadel and Gas Town until his hair turned grey. When the younger boys stopped letting the grizzled lancer ride with them, he’d stopped functioning. He sat for days, barely drinking and not eating. People whispered that he was Gone - like some of the Wretched got. When their eyes became vacant and hollow and they couldn’t speak or remember, they were Gone. It was like the part of them that was really them just disappeared. It was then that a young girl with white blonde hair had tugged him to his feet and given him a hollow aluminum cylinder, wherein lied a fragile little green thing. Take care of it, she’d said. It will depend on you. Don’t let it die.