HIATUS

       “From what I’ve seen and heard. They’re all over, but there’s only word of… maybe 3 known surviving vaults. Could be more that just haven’t opened yet, though…” Laura’s tone reflected her scepticism at the idea. Scavengers were fairly thorough in their searches, so unless it had extra defenses and had killed any who came across it, she doubted any would go unnoticed. After a moment of silence, she glanced back with a mild frown. “I’m sorry. That must’ve been terrible.” Prodding any further seemed rude, so instead, she faced ahead once more. “Goodneighbor isn’t far off. Might run into a few gunners, but nothing else tends to hang around. Maybe some mongrels…” 

Ritz was late.

Although Aiden didn’t really worry, mostly incapable of such emotions, he was certainly almost agitated by that fact. Maybe he shouldn’t have allowed his… companion… to go off like that. There was little that was safe within the wasteland and this place, the Commonwealth, still stood as mostly unfamiliar to them as a whole. While the courier could take care of himself to some limited degree it didn’t change the fact he was still more of a healer than a fighter.

The former Legionary halted almost mid-pace, swinging around towards the unfamiliar voice. A woman, although that meant little, and he resisted gritting his teeth to the point his jaw ached because of it.

It was almost dark. Heading out to track Ritz in such limited light would be difficult under the best of circumstances and a fool’s errand under the worse. “Not much shelter around here.” Blunt words, unfriendly but not immediately hostile. “What little there is has been claimed.”

                                        His personality certainly matched the aura he gave off. The edges of Lucille’s lips tugged down in displeasure at his answer. Though his words hadn’t been inherently aggressive, she got the feeling that her intrusion was far from appreciated. Her gaze downcast, she ran a hand through her hair, holding back a grimace when her fingers caught in the tangles. “ Oh. I suppose I’m out of luck, then. ” She could turn back, but she probably wouldn’t find a settlement to rest in before dark. Squinting her eyes against what was left of the sun on the horizon, she attempted to gauge how long it’d be until night had fallen. She had thirty minutes of sunlight left, at best. Maybe if she was an Olympic sprinter she could make the next town, but as a woman who’d had a child a little over a year prior who hadn’t been fit in the first place. . . she just didn’t see that happening.

          “Last I checked, nobody goes to museums. Most people can’t even read unless they grow up in the Diamond or somewhere else with that kinda education. Bunker Hill, maybe, but I think that’s it.” Laura glanced over to see the fond smile before glancing back ahead, holding her gun warily just in case. She’d already figured the vault part, so if the dweller expected surprise, she’d be disappointed. “Only vault I knew survived was 81. Dunno if you’ve been there; they’re good people. Only let in traders, but I toured around with a caravan for about a month a little while ago. Pretty big place.”

so, it was some weird fallout-esque world ( but, based on the scenery, far sooner after the bombs than normal fo4 ), and my point of views switched from eliana, lucy, and max. unfortunately i don’t remember any of eliana’s parts as they were earlier on in the dream. :-(

but, basically, instead of going to the institute to find shaun, max, lucy, some random guy who ? seemed like he was lucy’s love interest idk, and i think maybe laura ( i remember lauren co!hen being in the dream, and i have no other explanation than that. ) tracked down a raider group that had been linked to shaun’s disappearance.

they find the raider group and, following some dialogue, the raiders turn hostile. basically, the little heroic group gets their asses Kicked. ( and i think a bunch of ‘em died tbh. i don’t remember, but i think that’s why ellie and chris weren’t in the dream later on. rest in piss ) the raiders take them all in, and my pov switches to max. she gets really pissed at the leader of this group, trying to explain that lucy’s kid is gone, and all signs have pointed back to him. he offers some false sympathy when she mentions that shaun is only a year old. for some reason, after that, max passed out, and this raider leader tried to do some sort of hypnosis on her to get her to kill the rest of her group. ( idk why this was a thing either. i can’t control my brain. ) but she ends up shooting him in the head, instead. max gets really distraught after this, and the remaining raiders, ( two women who i think ‘loved’ the leader? i have very vague memories of him being the weird harem type. yuck. good going on the shooty thing, max. )

so between the gunshot, max’s yelling and screaming, and the other two women’s yelling and screaming, it awakens some giant ass deathclaw that breaks through the front door. then my pov switched to lucy, who was in a back room at this point with some guy i think she called jason. she sees the deathclaw and gets ready to run for the backdoor, but realizes that she left shaun’s toy that she carries around on the floor. she yells at ‘jason’ to grab it. he does and manages to trip over chords in the process - i don’t fucking know - but the next thing i know the two of them + max, i believe, are outside running from this deathclaw. 

they manage to escape, and then it’s suddenly daylight, and they’re leaving a quarantined area. ( this is the part laura was in randomly. i don’t remember anything she did. ) this is also the part where i realized that it wasn’t really 200+ years past the bombings, because there were blood and bodies around. ( nothing exceedingly gory, thank god. shoutout to my brain for that one. ) and also because there were newscasters trying to film and broadcast in this new area. as they travel through the new space - a huge concrete slab that leads up to a building - there’s a lot of military personnel dead around them. for some reason, they’d turned into concrete? which i guess is my brain’s way of interpreting the whole ‘burning people’s shadows into buildings’ when it comes to nuclear bombs. when lucy sees them ( i’m still her pov ) she gets really emotional, like to the point where i felt tears well in my eyes since i basically was her. max gently pats her back, tells her she’s “doing good,” and she forces herself to look away.

                  Lucille is very skilled at repressing her emotions. This comes from many long years of sitting pretty and being manipulated by her mother. She doesn’t repress things like happiness or joy, but she does quite frequently fake those feelings. This is why she isn’t very emotional about Nate and Shaun. She knows if she allows herself to fully feel everything, she’ll completely fall apart. Gradually, she allows herself to feel her grief, though never in front of her companions.

              Lucille never gets much of a chance to help out the Railroad. The only interaction she has with them is having the courser chip analyzed, but she uses Sturges’s help to build the relay to the Institute. From there, she is unable to accept her son as the cold, heartless man he’s become, and opts to help the illusive faction as much as she can. ( This is partially out of loyalty to Shaun, but a good deal of it comes from her wanting to live a ‘normal’ life, again. The Institute is as close to the Old World as it gets. ) Despite not having any issue with the Railroad or it’s operatives, her close work with the Institute gets her vilified by the faction. 

                                             @tendrcsse

❛  uh… sure, i can help you. i’ll travel with you. free of charge, of course.  ❜ 

      “I’ll have to do that someday.” Needing something to do with her hands as she walked, Laura checked her gun’s ammo, popping the cartridge out to count the bullets before sliding it back in with a satisfying click. “Up by Concord, you said? That the area you came from, too?” She needed to change the topic away from the Minutemen; it still only reminded her of the fact that she was, in essence, alone. Even the survivors she had barely any connection to.       “I’ve been up to that museum once or twice, it’s pretty interesting. I mean, it’s destroyed, but trying to get through it is fun enough.” ‘Sanctuary’ sounded familiar as well, but after traveling through so many places, Laura wasn’t really sure she could remember it properly anyways.

                “ Hm, people still visit the museum without the intent to murder one another? ” Bitterness laced her jesting tone. Lucille was never going to be accustomed to the violence and mayhem that reigned in the Commonwealth. “ You’re right. It is a neat place to visit; it was even better when it was still intact. ” Though Boston had always been her home, Lucille enjoyed taking part in activities that were generally tourist driven. Nate, on the other hand, had loathed it, but, after a little coaxing, he had always humored her. A fond smile crossed her face at the memory. Even if losing him had hurt, she’d found that thinking of him only made her more determined to survive, to find Shaun. Someone had to.

      “Well, it’s gone… Interestingly.” That seemed to be the best word to describe her journey thus far; from chasing after Valentine into a post-apocalyptic mob house to finding Kellogg and… Well, she wouldn’t get into those details. “He’s not a baby. Anymore- and I swear that if you gossip about this, you won’t be gossipping again- but it seems like I missed ten years… Or around that.” If Laura really tried, she could see her son’s face the moment before he’d disappeared in the ‘vision’- the only word she could think of that fit- with the tall, threatening courser. “I have to go find someone else now. In the Glowing Sea.”

                “ Woah, my lips are sealed on that one, Laura. I wouldn’t spread rumors about you, anyway. ” You’re not an asshole, she added silently. “ I’m sorry to hear that. Really. How does. . .how does that work? He got taken ten years ago? Before all of us were released? But I thought you remembered it happening right before you woke up? ” She faintly remembered Laura, her husband, and the little bundle of joy they’d carried down into the vault. 

    "Oh.“ The hopeful look in her eyes was immediately dampened, the dull pain of losing her family returning only for a moment before she nodded. "I understand… Sturges and Mama Murphy? – oh, Marcy and Jun? They had a son…” How disappointing. Fond as she was of the old woman, the strange visions hey chem use brought had bothered Laura. If it took such an addictive habit to bring those gifts, then it wasn’t worth it in her opinion.    “I don’t know any Prestons, though… He part of the Minutemen? One of the good ones, I mean…” She frowned for a moment, realizing that with how clueless Lucille seemed, she may not even know about Quincy. “When they had to face the Gunners with the other– I don’t suppose they told you that story of ‘death and destruction’?”

                       In turn, Lucille’s face fell. So much for giving Laura good news. “ I heard a bit about it, but everything was happening so fast. ” One moment she’d been watching her husband die, the next she’d awoken, alone, to a vast, decrepit wasteland. Listening to some downtrodden man talk about his lost family and friends wasn’t exactly a tale she felt inclined to pay much attention to.  “ The Minutemen were nearly wiped out. That’s about all I gleaned from it, I’m afraid. But -- yes. Preston’s acting as leader, for now. He was very kind to me, so. . . I’d safely assume he’s a “good” one. ” Whatever that means.