#isabelle.

    Still, she'd rather be stranded here, far away from Madame Genet and her men, than back on the ship that had been taking them on what she was certain was their last voyage.

    "Issa." She turns her head to heed the boy, though no sooner does she do so does she instantly see what he's about to point out. In the near distance looms a large gate of some kind. Though she's wary about the idea of walking headfirst into the crosshairs of unfamiliar people, if they don't leave this forest they'll be deep within it by nightfall. Not ideal. "We should go. There could be people there. We can ask them for help."

    "Laurent…" His insistent belief in the inherent goodness of the human race stuns her, but it's also a source of deep pain. She wants more than anything for her son to be able to trust others— to invite them into his kind open arms, but strangers have proven time and time again that their desire to survive outweighs their shame. "It's—"

    Before she can get another word out, a nearby rustle of the trees steals their collective attention. There in the brush stands an oddly kempt man, hard blue eyes focused on them almost as keenly as his gun. Without even thinking about it, Isabelle throws herself in front of Laurent, shielding him from the open barrel with arms outstretched and fear evident.

    "Don't." It's uttered quietly, but in the quiet of the woods it echoes like a scream. "...we were just leaving. Please don't."

out here, she almost believes it. the forest has a stillness near dusk that isabelle still isn't accustomed to, despite the time spent at beckett's cabin alone; every now and then, the dead had managed to skirt her defenses, navigate their way through the thick foliage (thinning as the days grow shorter, the crispness of coming autumn entering her lungs with every breath) — but never at sunset. gold-red bleeds to purple streaks in the sky above, isabelle pausing to scan absentmindedly for black dots, heralds of death — fearing the day they hear the skull-numbing thwackthwackthwack of the chopper's blades, the reaper's scythe cutting through the air.

there's nothing up there now except brilliant color: the sun round and full and draped lazily by a cloud, drifting into oblivion, but it's all an illusion. the other shoe dropped; the patch of earth she'd managed to claim as her own scorched, devoured by the relentless machine of the civic republic, because that's what happens. what will always happen. what she's made happen; what she ensured they'd have the capability to do, time and time again, for a year, a decade, a century.

(so that there's more than stories left when they die.)

the grim thoughts show themselves in her expression tearing her eyes away from the bright red sign that'd prompted her to stop — PRIVATE PROPERTY bold and prominent, despite time and weather — in the curve of her brow as isabelle flits her gaze towards althea — unable to stop the miniscule smile that catches in the corner of her mouth, gradually growing into something substantial. it's not enough to overpower the fear shadowing her eyes, but — it's something, isn't it? something to warm her, just as pressing closer to al does, slipping back beneath the canopy of leaves with practiced ease.

“not much of a country left.” al's seen it from the sky, just as she has — how empty, how hollow the ground feels below. cratered cities and masses of dead, cracked highways stretching like dried veins in a long-dead corpse. (the civic republic hidden, a dark shadow cast across the land.) her smile twitches into a grimace, and isabelle turns her attention towards the cabin across the clearing, cloaked in darkness, but enough light filters through the trees to reveal the caved-in roof, ruling it out as viable shelter. “—still feels weird, walking onto someone's property. even if it's just passing through. maybe that's stupid.” with everything she's done, trespassing — if you could even call it that, really — should hardly cause her to stumble — but there's the overwhelming thought that someone lived here once: it had been a home. maybe now it's a grave. it seems almost disrespectful to disturb it.

ISABELLE: I feel like I haven't seen you in forever.

ISABELLE: Are you staying out of trouble?

       This is far from her first time in the States, but it's the first time in almost fifteen years that she's gone somewhere without Quinn overseeing her. Her current state is less than desirable, all weepy and weak in the wake of her decision to flee from France for a chance to get away from him, but it still beats waking up beside the man who ruined her.

       She sits up in her spot on the couch, the blanket he'd lent her still tucked over her shoulders. It's a little strange to be face to face with him after so long of seeing him only in her mind's eye, but it's far from bad. Even so, there's some trepidation in her.