You're all my friends

[totallytrustworthy]

Date & Time: Before groundhogging it or after depending on preference
Location: Exsilium proper/ wilderness/ various
Characters: Chloe Frazer and you as a fond farewell
Summary: a year and a half of thievery and trouble hits its last few notes
Warnings: VIOLENCE some of it

A: E x s i l i u m 

She's back to normal now. Residual lacquer stuck to her nails, hair still neatly trimmed at the edges and her trousers aren't the dirt-stained mess left behind of a little over a year's worth of close calls and fire fights, but she is herself again, and whatever magic that Facilier had carefully stuck in under her skin with a few nice words and a friendly gesture have-- for the most part-- been shaken off. Which is to say it's almost dysphoric having to readjust after being recalibrated so completely that even her old routines and habits feel unfamiliar: walking to the market to trade off another batch of heavy (only slightly roughed-up) furs is something more akin to watching video of the ground shifting forward, of footsteps in the snow and crowds filtering off out of focus.

Doesn't feel like there's weight in her arms or the sting of bitter cold on her cheeks.

Doesn't even feel like she's capable of recognizing any of the familiar faces she passes-- and she does pass them: without a second thought or even the uncertain shift of her attention that comes from purposefully dodging someone close.

How bloody rude. Particularly when she's not careful enough to keep from clipping the occasional passerby.


B: E x s i l i u m   w i l d s

This, though. This is where she flourishes. These days, anyway. After too much time spent snagged on emotions and vital decisions, solitude and silent snowfall are more comforting than things like central heating or idle banter. Simple tasks are easy to fixate on (pull wire, wrap twig, bend branch, insert bait and wait), numbing pinpricks running just under layers of insulated clothing precede pain from too many hours of it spent out in the cold. Veins going tight in an effort to cling to any remaining heat. Unappealing, unattractive, inhospitable work.

And Chloe's smiling to herself through the chilled cracks of her frost-split lip as she goes about it.

Not that most people would feel right at home in a yeti-infested wilderness.

C: Wildcard

OOC: pick a different scenario or location, whichever suits you best, and we'll make it happen!



 

Comments

[cyphered]

"Cut me some slack, will you?" he scoffs, turning around and walking backward. Its a struggle not to trip and he bumps into someone more than once with a muttered apology every now and then. But that doesn't stop him from doing it anyway. "I don't go looking for all that trouble, you know. At least eighty percent of the time, it jumps on my back."

And the other twenty percent...well yeah, maybe he was a little suicidal, but he's not going to admit that. He's still on a mission, after all.

[totallytrustworthy]

It's bait she doesn't bite into: lips pursed, eyebrows raised. Really, Nate? Eighty percent of the time?

[cyphered]

"..what? What! Eighty's a good number," he answers defensively.

[totallytrustworthy]

"Too good a number, actually." One hard tug fighting the corner of her mouth-- definitely trying not to smile as she ducks around one of Nate's tagged pedestrians.

[cyphered]

"I think its a fair number," he comments with a pouting curl to his lip. He spins around and nearly loses balance as she ducks out of sight.

[totallytrustworthy]

"Well that's because you think anything in your favor is fair." He wins that smile in the end-- once his back is turned, at least.

[cyphered]

"Oh I'd just love to hear your angle on this," he comments dramatically, turning back to follow her. "This oughta be good."

[totallytrustworthy]

"Uh-uh. I don't think so." Sharply angled brows peek out at him from beneath one heap of heavy fur. "You never wanted to hear it before."

[cyphered]

"For a good reason, too," he adds, stopping his journey long enough to give her a look. "And if you're looking to give me an angle at all, maybe you should do it before I change my mind again."

His tone is a bit brusque, but one eyebrow raises very slowly and expectantly in its oh-so-charming fashion.

"You've obviously got something you want to say. So let's hear it."

[totallytrustworthy]

That stops her dead in her tracks, briefly, before she dips her chin and tosses out a nod. One cast towards the merchant beside her, rather than at him. "We're here."

And to prove that point the furs are dropped unceremoniously down on the heap of fur just outside the worn wood and metal of the stall.

[cyphered]

Nate just stands in the middle of the road with the furs and stares for a long moment, like he's about to snap at her for dodging the point, before he just follows like a lost dog and mimics her motion. There's a brief, studious study of his wares before he turns back to Chloe.

"Nice angle," he offers to concede defeat. Its slightly sarcastic, but not enough to start a fight. He's really tired of that.

[totallytrustworthy]

"Come on." Tired as he is-- as they both are-- she's not fighting him, either. Tosses out a gentle pat to the dead center of his lower back as a sign he ought to follow when she presses through thinning crowds to a quieter snowbank not that far out. Settles down where it's dense enough to support her weight without caving. More ice than snow, really. It's a long beat before she bothers picking up where they'd last let off. Before she carefully studies the angles of his features as if searching for familiar landmarks.

"You've changed."

[cyphered]

Whether or not she means it that way, the contact is a comfort. Its nice to be reminded that they're not fighting anymore, even if it feels like they are sometimes at odds. Nate suspects that's mostly his imagination talking -- after all, its been said a million and one times that there are years between them. Years he doesn't have.

He's almost fine with it. The unpredictability of it is both exciting and daunting, especially with others having knowledge of his future before he does.

"You think?"

He says it without thinking much. There is only that brief pause and wrinkle of doubt before he considers what she has said. Its not sarcastic, but curious. He can't possibly imagine changing much -- not here, where everything relied on playing catch up as fast as possible.

Chloe has sat down, so he decides to do the same. This is obviously going to be a potentially long conversation, so he crosses his legs and leans back on both hands to talk to her.

"I don't know about that -- hasn't been that long."

Not compared to the time they spent apart, long before all this nonsense.

[totallytrustworthy]

"Doesn't always take that long." Learned that much for herself over the past year and a half: it's the catalyst, not the timestamp. He was the one giving her lectures on her problems recently, after all. Far cry from where they last left off in his book or hers.

"You know if either of us were this smart back home we'd have--" Chloe stops herself, lips thinned for all of half a beat that it takes to serve as a reminder some subjects are off limits these days. Not for him (no ring on his finger, though the idea of one in the future certainly does its job) but for herself. Goes without saying there was a great deal that she did for him few else would've earned. Goes without saying there was reason for it. "Well, one hell of a lot less trouble on our hands, for one."

[cyphered]

That makes Nate scoff a little. To distract himself from the weight he can feel in her words, he scratches at the ice with one of his hands and taps his foot to an invisible beat.

"Maybe," he admits with a small shake of his head. "But living cramped on the moon and then in a snowy wasteland teaches you some stuff, doesn't it?"

Its a halfhearted excuse. He knows the real reason they've stopped bickering -- or at least he thinks he does. And that wasn't it.

[totallytrustworthy]

"Solitary teaches you a lot of stuff." She corrects with a sober sort of grin. Not the proudest moment of her life, after all. Having him there, though--for all the reasons he'd been there, for all the reasons he'd stayed--

[cyphered]

Oh. Awkward. Solitary was an awkward time for both of them for different reasons. He hasn't really expected her to round back to that, and it gets him to sit up and lean over his knees for a quiet moment.

"Listen, Chloe--about all that," he starts, rubbing the back of his neck. "I was an ass." There's a brief pause for comedic timing's sake before he continues "And I know that's not different than usual, but I'm sorry."

[totallytrustworthy]

"It's all right: so was I. Funny how that works." How it'd taken a year and a half, a few deaths and a number of resets to mend what they'd burned in a matter of minutes. Chloe leans over, scuffs the edge of her elbow across the top of his arm.

More contact than he'd earned from her in years, actually.

[cyphered]

He knows it, and blinks when its given to him, but is careful not to make a fuss over it. The effort is a little obvious, since he can't hold down the pleased little grin that sneaks onto his face. But if he fusses, she'll either retreat or never let him live it down -- neither of which he is gunning for.

"We'll call it even, then," he offers. "Which is good, because we still got some work to do here, if memory serves."

That running away plan was still in the back of his mind, but for now, Sully has a plan. They could make it work until an opportunity for Exsilium itself came along.

[totallytrustworthy]

"Oh, so you're on board now, are you?" She'd spoken with Sully about that already in regards to herself-- briefly-- but as far as Nate was concerned, well...not so much. And it's true enough (gloved fingers settling back into snowdrift) that there's more time ahead of them than behind now, given the UE's distant attention span these days.

[cyphered]

"Well, sort of," Nate admits, rubbing the back of his head again with a sobered grin. He's glad that Sully seems to finally be warming up to him, instead of regarding him like some foreign imposter. If he was honest with himself, it had been eating at him for months. "Not allowed to touch anything important, but I'm in."

Which was a half baked joke, of course. He wouldn't oversee a fight club -- just not his thing. Conning people to throw their money in on it? Definitely doable.

[totallytrustworthy]

"And you won't spend your hours on the clock worrying about whether or not I'll pull a gun on you?" Teasing. Genuinely teasing, but she likes to have something of a marker to know where they stand on his end.

[cyphered]

"An hour, max, five minutes at minimum. Scout's honor," he gives her, scooping up some of the snow that's melted beneath his palm and lobbing it in her direction.

[totallytrustworthy]

Stupid how easy it is to give in to his childish nonsense. As if the years just aren't there between them. She laughs. And it's genuine, though-- kicking up a good dose of snow for the sake of coating his legs-- she certainly doesn't acknowledge that thought.

"Right, sure. I'll believe that when I see proof of it."

[cyphered]

He hasn't heard that laughter in months, and he's willing to go to great lengths to get her to do it again.

And so, when the snow connects with him, Nate makes a dramatic noise and falls backward into the bank behind him. "Argh, no! Already, she turns on me! Curse you Chloe!" he cries, clutching his chest with one hand and reaching for the sky with the other. "Curse....you!"