OPEN | prompt one | RAIN

[wrens]

prompt one | R A I N I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane.

 

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[eyeshined]

[It's better when she drops all the dogma crap. Really, he'd met enough nutjobs out wandering the wasteland that were all too willing to tell him about whatever delusion they'd cooked up in their water-deprived brains. None of them had quite the same following Mother Charlotte had trailing after her, though. And none of them had recognised his distaste for bullshit quite so quickly and adapted to it, rather than keep banging on like he was a tree to be cut down. What sort of zealot compromised like that? An interesting one.]

More than you've got, Charlotte.

[Easy to brush off as a lie, that one, considering how huge her entourage was. But Constant doesn't lie, and he hasn't told anyone what he gave to get his eyes shined like they are.]

But I don't need any eyes to know that if a flood comes, we're all fucked.

[And he's heard enough of her sermons - from the edges - to know that any purge she's talking about would be damn selective.]

[motherlands]

[ Were he another man, one of the more faithful and obedient, she would pose in all of the appropriate ways — modesty, humility, then a rally for more strength. As it's him, however, she does no such thing. Just turns, a hand absently moving to pull the flap further open, letting in some more of that sickly warm breeze. It's not pleasant, the way a breeze ought to be (used to be); no, nowadays when the wind blows it feels like a wheezing breath upon the face — too close and suffocating, even at a distance.

Still, she seems to enjoy it on some level. Mother Charlotte shuts her eyes to it, though she continues to speak. ]

It'll come. By all rights, it's already here. [ She opens her eyes again, turns to look at him. ] Maybe that's what all we really are these days. 'Fucked', like you said.

But if they die. And they will die. It'll be on our terms.

[eyeshined]

[Height and bulk are as much of an advantage as his eyes, and all three often win him fights before they even start. He moves closer, closer than most of her followers would dare, and he knows she won't shy or cower away from him, won't look up to meet his eyes with any glint of fear in her expression. He tilts his head, looking out the open flap, like he wants to feel that breeze the way she's feeling it.]

You got any terms beyond painful and nasty? [His gaze moves back to her, and close enough, the right light, you can see his eyes are blue under that silvery sheen.] Cause there's no peaceful death out here, you know that. Best we get is quick.

[motherlands]

[ She doesn't look away, just as he expected she wouldn't. If anything, Mother Charlotte inclines her face in such a way so as to come that much nearer to him. The light slips across of the mercury surface of his eyes and her own gaze focuses to watch it for a moment before unfocusing again in an attempt to see what lay beyond. The expression on her face makes it clear: Constant knows precisely what her terms are.

Painful, nasty, and as slow as ever. Let them suffer the way we've suffered, she tells the others, her voice rising like a sermon. Let them know true regret.

After a long moment, her mouth bows ever so slightly, the smile so faint as to be inperceptible to one not paying attention. ] When my time comes, Constant, would you make it quick for me? [ she asks. They both know it's just as likely he'll be gone as be the one behind the foul and dirty deed. ]

[eyeshined]

[Let them suffer the way we've suffered, her favourite sermon, but there's nothing but suffering out in these wastelands, nothing but suffering in everyone's futures.

But hunting them down gets them water, food, any other supplies those souls happen to have on them at the time, and that's what Constant's interested in. He's never cared about suffering, never been one to torture or draw out a death. He hunts for Mother Charlotte, kills when it's time for the mess to be cleared up, but he isn't the one that does painful and nasty for her.

He watches that smile on her face, slight as it is, but he sees it. He lifts one hand and traces his fingers down her arm, barely making contact with her skin.]

Sure. [His smile is not as subtle as hers, but it is not the sharp wolf-grin most might expect from a man like him. He keeps his edges for blades and action, the rest of him is touched with warmth, and perhaps that's what makes him all the more unsettling for most.] I'll see what I can do.

[motherlands]

[ Unsettling for most but not Mother Charlotte, who is — in her own way — unsettling as well. There are some people who say that she's mad; and Father Methuselah who labels her the devil incarnate, proof of the fester that Alexandria brought to the city-states and continues to bring, blighting the land. Rumors and hearsay keep a lot of souls at bay, made wary and nervous by the look in Mother Charlotte's eyes, the way she can pitch from tempestuous to serenely calm, and how she is able to insight a fury among her people as easy as she can still them to silence with a raised hand. The trick, she's learned, is to find those so far disenfranchised that they will embrace anything, even unpleasantness, so long as it means some measure of salvation.

Constant, she knows, doesn't need salvation. Maybe once upon a time he did (she doesn't ask; he returns a favor), but a man like him isn't born hard in some places and yielding everywhere else. No, men like Constant are made, Mother Charlotte thinks. Just like women like her (saviors, false prophets) are as much built by their own devising as by the people who follow her.

Her gaze doesn't falter, not when he touches her or not even when he smiles. If he's unsettling, she enjoys that about him; perhaps much more than she enjoys the devotion she gleans from everyone else. ] That's very generous of you, [ Mother Charlotte says. ] Do you like that word: generous? Or do you think it's as meaningless as all the rest?

[eyeshined]

[It's likely Mother Charlotte is mad. Constant isn't going to say it, doesn't need to. Madness in this wasteland is as common as thirst and hunger. Completely human, in the wake of the Event, and Constant never blames anyone for their humanity. Just the ones who like to pretend humanity is something good or beautiful. It's all the flaws that are beautiful, in the way they fall together. Madness, in the way it falls apart.]

Doesn't get used enough. [His fingers run over the back of her hand, contact rather than the ghosting touch he traced over her arm.] Out here, anything you don't do for yourself is generous.

[motherlands]

[ Her gaze lowers to where his hand touches hers. The price of being Mother Charlotte is that of elevation, of being placed on a pedestal, a seat raised above the rest. It means that no one comes near her, no one dare touch her and, to her advantage, no one dare speak their mind to her. Since Constant doesn't prescribe to such notions, he alone is allowed to stand in front of her, face to face; he alone meets her eyes and he alone answers her questions, providing answers formulated by his own mind rather than simply parroting back what's already been said in paraphrase.

Her lashes low, she looks at him again before craning her face upwards, towards his. Her jaw sharpens and her throat lengthens and for a moment it seems very much as if Mother Charlotte intends to offer herself up for his appraisal. ]

And am I generous, Constant?

[ Revenge is always selfish, she thinks. Even when it is righteous. ]

[eyeshined]

[He looks into Mother Charlotte's eyes, and he sees wrath. Driving everything she does, every word she says, all the time she takes to gather people to her and keep them there. It's pure in her, purer than he's seen it in anyone else - and he's seen some wrathful fuckers, closed away in antioch's white-walled hellholes.

She isn't desperate with it, isn't constantly fitful, lashing out at everything and anyone. It's tempered in her, sharpened down to a blade. And Constant has an appreciation for blades.

His fingers press heavier against her hand, following out the slim bones, the lines of tendons, curling around her wrist to touch the throb of the artery there.]

No.

[Selfish to the extreme. Just like him and his desire for survival. They were two turns of the same dial, he and Mother Charlotte. He knew it, and that was why he stood here now, close, meeting her eye, touching her.]