legionworld | (no subject)

It was late, hours after she'd texted Marjara, but eventually Amélie entered the forest that proliferated through the elf's biome. It was quiet, calm and rather... nice. For a forest. Amélie was a city girl, always had been and always would be. Widowmaker, on the other hand, didn't care where she was or what the terrain was like. She could and would survive anywhere. And as she'd said before, it was better than sleeping in an air duct.

She'd come to the biome via a convoluted path that only someone with as intimate knowledge of Legion World's layout like herself would be able to follow. It was one of the best things about her Environmental Awareness power - those mental maps that let her instinctively know what path lead where so she could create varying routes to any place. The fire was a nice beacon, though the bright red of Marjara's heat signature through her infra-sight was even better. It also showed Amélie that there wasn't anyone else there.

Good.

It wasn't until she was descending from a tree nearby that her presence would be picked up unless those big ears of Marjara's came with heightened hearing. The sniper was in full gear, visor down and Widow's Kiss upon her back. Her right thigh had a green colored cloth - a flag snagged from the rafters someplace - wrapped about it and stained with a very dark, unnatural looking reddish color. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but fresh blood would seep into it and her pants the more she moved. Like traveling through branches of large trees would do. She had a field pouch on her belt and a first aid kit hooked next to it. Amélie would never carry one so openly on her in the field, but she'd swiped one from a supply closet near medical on her way over once she's determined Sombra was going to be staying put for the night.

She stood there for a moment, the red glow from her visor illuminating her immediate area, and cast a slow deliberate look around. One last check for followers or others before she turned away to the table, raising her visor as she went. Not a word was spoken, not even one of greeting, as she carefully took her rifle from her back to set upon the table where it would fit, shifting her weight off of her injured leg. Then came her omnicomm, where she brought up the program that monitored the tracking device she'd planted on Sombra earlier, a little dot blipping on the screen.

This was her terrain. Of course she would hear her coming. But Amélie was no threat, but an expected guest, and Marjara felt relief seeing the other woman approach looking only slightly worse for wear.

"Are you going to tell me who attacked you, or do I get to guess?" Wryly, she pulled herself to her feet from where she'd been settled in front of the fire, moving towards the row of potions she had to hand. It looked like the sniper hadn't come unprepared, but still.

Let her do what she could.

There was a long pause, as if Amélie was honestly considering making Marjara place Guess the Gunman, before she let out a little puff of breath, hand moving to draw the visor off her head.

"Sombra." Not that the name would mean anything to her friend unless she's seen all that graffiti about the corridor.

Carefully, she set the visor down next to Widow's Kiss and the pouch and kit were soon to join it. Finally, she looked over at the elf, her eyes as blank as Marjara had ever seen them. "Is there a stream in here?"

"A little further on. There's a waterfall and a pond, and the water is clear. You really don't want any help with that?" Her brow wrinkled as her dark eyes lowered to the wound, darting back up again. "It's a precarious spot."

She really only had the extra hand to offer, but where her friends were concerned? She couldn't not offer it. Not being able to turn away from someone who needed help was what brought her to where she was in the first place, for better or worse.

And the blankest of stares wasn't going to dissuade her.

"The waterfall or my wound?" Amélie spoke as she started in the direction indicated, assuming Marjara would come along, with only a slight limp as the adrenaline was starting to leave her body and the pain making itself known again.

"If you have a thick strip of leather, I would appreciate it." She would rather not break her teeth.

"Ha." Without mirth, Marjara shook her head and reached for a few vials on the table, before taking stock of her supplies and pulling a leather strip from the tent. It could do without it, or she could find a replacement. Either way.

"You're all so stubborn. Bull's the same way about dressing his wounds. He likes the idea of scarring, though."

Whereas Amélie...who knows. Maybe she's just not used to someone wanting to help. Or she just really is that level of stubborn.

"Men tend to be that way," Amélie commented as she navigated her way through the woods, following the sound of water now that she could hear it. "I usually do not have to worry about them. No sniper of any skill takes injury often, and I am the best in my world. Also Talon has many ways to repair their agents."

When she found the waterfall and pond, she came to a stop and looked the place over. Searching for a relatively level place with a tree or large rock she could lean again, Amélie ventured further, her footing sure despite being injured. The joys of that enhanced agility.

"But they are not here." So she had to handle it on her own.

"And you don't trust me to help. Is that it?" It wasn't an accusatory tone. A little exasperated, maybe, but not necessarily judging.

It could very well be the case. Putting your body in someone else's hands was a frightening thought.

There was a complete cessation of movement from Amélie. In fact, it seemed like she might not even be breathing for far too long as she looked into Marjara's eyes. There were so many facets of her mind that made it neigh impossible to trust anyone. She certainly didn't trust anyone completely... other than Talon. That was never questioned in her mind.

But she was there. When her safe house was compromised, her teammates - the closest thing she had to family anymore - were either enemies or threats. She hadn't been kidding when she'd said Marjara was all she had left right then. She couldn't even begin to fathom showing the vulnerability she was about to with anyone else right then. It was impossible.

Turning away, Amélie pulled her top off, leaving her in her bra and displaying those back tattoos. "It is not a matter of trust, but one of physiology." A pause. "My own." Not the elf's lack of an arm.

She hung her top on a branch and then worked the green flag crusted with her own blood off her leg, the muscle in her jaw twitching as she reopened the wound. This was just going to get more and more painful as she went along, but it needed cleaned. She worked on her boots and greaves next, quickly removing them with practiced hands.

"I do not bleed the same way others do. My blood is more akin to that of a corpse than the living and breathing. I do not want it on your hand." She then closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip a moment - a brief show of something. "I also do not like to be touched in any kind of medical way."

It's that something that sinks in. So it was putting herself in someone else's hands. Anyone's. It wasn't personal. Her lips twitched slightly as she settled on the rocky edge of the pond to watch her, unable to help but unwilling to abandon her.

"That makes sense. You've been through a lot, and after all that it's easy to imagine how uncomfortable that would be." Amélie had mentioned undergoing...something to become as she was. Whatever it was had left her like this, blue-skinned and cold-blooded.

And yet for all that, she'd chosen to come here.

That said a great deal.

"You have no idea." Words barely audible. It was necessary, what they did to her, so her thoughts reminded her. It made her into the effective killing machine she was, the weapon Talon needed. She didn't regret it, incapable of that emotion any longer, but that didn't mean she had enjoyed the experience.

Undoing her pants, Amélie leaned against a tree for leverage as she worked them down. "A bullet wound is similar to an arrow wound. Only that as a bullet is not attached to a shaft, once it enters the body it can travel to all sorts of places." She was talking to keep herself focused beyond the growing pain as the fabric was pulled from her injury. "So a clean through and through is best for the body. Mine is like tha- ahhh ahhh..."

Her words cut off to an honest expression of pain as she essentially ripped the pant leg down in one motion to just get it over with. Fresh blood welled up from the torn tissue that looked more like a mangled laceration than a clean bullet hole. That blood was dark and thick, more oozing than bubbling up as it should have done.

Every muscle in Amélie's body was tense as she drew in slow steady breaths with her eyes closed, working herself through the pain. It was only a moment, but one that made it clear why she hadn't tended to this earlier.

And then the moment passed, Amélie working her pants completely off to hang with her shirt. "Most bullets mushroom upon impact, making exit wounds larger than entry wounds. Humans improved upon the concept of the arrowhead making it cause more damage to pull out than to continue pushing it through the body to the other side."

She didn't argue that fact. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn't, but it wasn't worth balking at when the woman was already in pain. There was no need to add it to by tearing open older wounds.

Especially once she got a look at what had been done.

Her eyes widened as she reached for her instinctively with that cry, though stopping herself and drawing back at the last moment. She has this, she can take care of herself, she forced herself to remember, though the damage was ghastly. Was that a result of her slowed heart-rate and corpse-like blood?

"You mentioned the one who shot you. A name. Are they a danger to us?" Marjara swallowed, lifting her gaze to the sniper's. Better to just keep her with a steady line of questions to answer, things to distract her while she worked. Better than doing nothing at all.

Amélie didn't see the reaction from Marjara, but once she opened her eyes she saw the distress upon her face. With her down to her undergarments, she gingerly touched the wound, carefully picking the few remaining piece of fabric off it.

"Sombra," she repeated. "We are safe here; she does not know this location, nor does she have a reason to follow me tonight." At least not until she found the tracker Amélie had planted on her. "My omnicomm is running a program that is currently tracking her. If she comes near, I will know. And then I will deal with her."

She held a hand out for the leather she'd asked Marjara to bring.

"And is she likely to attack anyone else?"

Her words trailed away as Amélie extended her hand. She could guess what came next, had seen it before out in the field. Surely there was a better way of handling this, a less painful way.

But she also must be doing it this way for a reason.

Grimly, she extended her hand, the leather strap held there tightly. It was all she could do for her, something that gnawed at her.

The less painful way would require injections. Amélie did not like needles, nor was she willing to go to Medical. Sure, they could handle this wound a lot better than her, but it would mean letting doctors poke and prod at her along with having to explain how she'd gotten shot and by who. No, this was the best solution at hand.

"Not unless she's provoked or defending herself," Amélie replied as she took the leather from Marjara. "I provoked her by tailing her. I dodged the majority of the gunfire, but SMGs have quite a spray at mid-range." She moved to the edge of the pond, finding a good place where she could enter the water with relative ease. "She's smart and resourceful. The longer this time effect remains, the less trouble she will get into. The less paranoid she will be. You would know her as the Legionnaire named Azucar."

Her eyes moved from the water to Marjara. "I am going to be incapacitated for... a bit. Please stay, make sure I do not accidentally drown myself." And then, without hesitation, she put the leather between her teeth and slipped into the pond.

As soon as the water hit her wound, submerging it, Amélie bit down hard on the leather as she half-swallowed the wail of pain the sprung from within her whether she liked it or not. Eyes squeezed shut and head tilted back, she whimpered in pain as one hand shakily grabbed for a rock near the bank to anchor herself to and the other went to the torn flesh of her thigh. Growls and groans mixed with her whimpers, the muscles of her shoulders and torso flexing frequently as spikes of red hot pain coursed up her leg and through her body as she scrubbed at the dried blood and mangled skin, freeing it from the clotting and letting the water cleanse the sweat and grime from the wound. With it came fresh blood to flush as much of the impurities as she could from it.

Amélie would apply an antiseptic back at camp when she dressed the wound, but for now this was best, if incredibly painful. The water around her leg turned a dark color as both flakes of dried blood and the thick ruddy fresh blood rose to the surface, tears from the physical pain streaking from the corner of her eyes as she worked that wound. Just a bit longer...

It was a difficult thing to watch. Not for the last time, she wished she'd had any talent at all for healing magic, and what little she knew wouldn't be of much help to her now. Thought she might be able to offer her some relief when it was all over.

She'd stay, despite that. Amélie would need the hand up and out, perhaps a shoulder to lean on, on the way back to camp. At the very least, she'd need help traversing the forest with her leg likely to be paining her something very terrible.

One went almost out of impulse to her left side, as if to grasp something no longer there, before falling away again.

Finally letting her hand drift to the side, arm floating on the water, Amélie drew in measured breaths and quelled her expression of pain to muffled whimpers. She stayed like that until the blinding whiteness in her vision dissipated and she could begin to think beyond the pain. Muscles began to relax a little as cognizant thought and logic took over once again, allowing her to open her eyes.

It took her a moment to remember where she was, head lolling to one side to take in the elf nearby. She went to speak but paused to take the leather from her mouth and work her still jaw a moment before she could manage words, voice a bit hoarse.

"My apologies for that. I do not know how long I was out. Will you toss my clothing into the water? They need washed." And Amélie needed a few more moments before she put any weight on her leg.

"You're not seriously apologizing for this, are you?"

Marjara's eyes narrowed briefly, before she reached for the other woman's clothing and tossed them in her direction, slipping closer to the water's edge in the process. "I have something that will help the pain, when you're ready to come out."

"Oui. I demanded that you essentially do nothing. I am not blind to your compassion, Marjara." Shifting stiffly, Amélie snagged the clothing and dunked them in the water. "You have a good heart."

The top didn't need much, but the pants had soaked up a fair amount of blood. Methodically, she dirtied the water even more with the remnants of her blood. "Is it potent? Otherwise, it may be wasted on me and better saved for someone normal."

"Potent enough. It's what I used to keep the pain at bay when I still had the Anchor attached to it," she replies grimly, fishing for the vial before holding it up between two fingers.

"The taste isn't the greatest, but it makes things a little more tolerable. And it's not a waste if it's even a little useful."

"I am sure I have had worse," Amélie replied, looking over her shoulder at the elf. That was when she realized there were tears on her face. Making a disgusted sound in the back of her throat, she paused in cleaning her clothes to splash water onto her face, rubbing the tear tracks away. Such weakness she had displayed...

"I will gladly accept it."

Of all the ways to relate to someone, Tucker never once thought it would be over a mutual understanding of what the Chosen One status really entails. People thought it was all glamour and riches and power, which cool, whatever, you're wrong. Tucker knew it for what it was: let's talk it up so some poor sucker does what we need when we don't want to do it ourselves. And sure, he had gotten in on it, too, and touted the phrase because if he was going to have it, he sure as shit was going to use it to his advantage.

Ladies kind of dug it.

But for all the pain in the ass quests, for all the drama and the stuff with the key and the diplomatic expectations that he only sort of fulfilled, Tucker liked what he had gotten out of it: his son and his sword. How much complaining could he really do when that's what he walked away with?

She, however, sounded like it might be a different story. At least his didn't involve gods.

Finding the beer wasn't tough, finding her habitat took slightly longer, but once inside, it was just as she said. He walked along slowly, looking at everything, eyeing the path and ruins and shit, this was pretty much like one of those nerdy fantasy novels Simmons read. Weird.

He wouldn't realize until later that his free hand had been on his sword. What? Habit.

But like she said, he followed the light to the campfire, and once he was around it, he dropped the beer on the ground with enough care not to shake them up and create a potential disaster. He sat down a minute later, still wrapped up in his armor; also habit.

"So, I hear there's a Chosen One convention in town."

"So they say."

She doesn't make nearly the noise he does, tromping around in full armor -- armor she's seen around before, on other Legionnaires, possibly belonging to an order? She isn't sure -- and a second later she slips out of the nearby foliage with barely a rustled leaf.

She's wearing what appears to be a mix of modern clothes and what she arrived in. Leather leggings with lacings up the sides, open at the bottom to allow her bare feet to touch the grass, and a loose-fitting tunic of paisley design that she'd squired out shopping with Amélie. Most notably, of course, are the visible face tattoos and the missing arm at her left.

Her lips curve up into a faint smile. "Hello, Tucker."

“We should have made flyers, charged a cover, made some money, and appointed ourselves as the key speakers. Think of the groupies.”

There’s something about the mix of old and new clothes that makes him snicker as he thought of 60’s hippies, but he didn’t explain that; she probably wasn’t going to understand the reference. The heavy aqua gloves reached up, working the helmet off and setting it to the side, while warm brown eyes watched her come over. Damn, she was quiet.

….granted, most people were when they weren’t in heavy ass armor.

Taking one of the beers out, he tossed it across to her, hoping she could catch it …considering. He looked around the surrounding area, humming.

“Is this what your home looked like?”

Luckily, she caught with her right hand anyway. As the beer lobbed through the air, she reached out to snatch it, before examining the top for some hint as to how to get it open to drink.

Hm. That tab looked promising.

"Home?" Her lips quirked a little higher, and she shook her head. "I don't really have one of those. My clan was nomadic. The longest I ever stayed anywhere was Skyhold, and that was more or less because it was the most defensible bit of mountain range in the world. This?"

She tipped her head to look overhead as a colorful bird sudden darted through the thick canopy. "This place is my morbid idea of a joke. And the only way I get to sleep at night."

Hence, the tent.

That tab was promising, though after that toss, she might want to give it a second. Maybe he should have warned her...

Then again, wet shirt contest?

"Your sense of humor needs some work." A joke? A tent? "You could have anywhere in the world and you're staying in a tent? Really?" And he laughed a little under his breath because it sounded like something Sarge would do: make it rougher than it needed to be because character and mettle and blah blah whatever. Caboose probably would have loved it, as long as they could get marshmallows.

He missed the idiots.

"So, if your people are nomadic, do you try to change this place up to make it seem like you're traveling?" What? Valid question?

"Maybe I could. But honestly? Of the places I've visited, this was probably one of the easier times we had camping. No snow, no sand, no swamps filled with undead..."

She chuckles, setting the drink down for a moment before settling at the campfire's edge, leaning back against her bedroll.

"And my sense of humor is fine. If, as I said, a little morbid. I could explain the joke, if you're that interested."

"Fuck swamps!" And that had him opening his beer, remembering waking up in the middle night with Crunchbite over him, that sweat-sock-locked-in-a-car-on-a-hundred-degree-day breath. Ugh. The weird dreams that...weren't dreams, really floated back while he drank deep.

Sure, he got Junior out of it, but the how had some mixed feelings attached.

He shrugged, smirking a little. "Come on, it's me. Of course I'm interested." There was a small bump of his eyebrow, a pointed leaving that open-ended. "Shoot. Let me be the judge of how morbid this is."

Her own brows arched in a 'okay, you asked for it' fashion, before finally fitting a nail under the tab and pushing, the foam rushing to the lip of the can almost immediately. Well. She'd let it die down before attempting a sip then.

"This forest was once called the Emerald March, and it belonged then to my people. A tree was planted for every knight who swore an oath to guard and protect, and the Emerald Knights stood watch here for many years. But over time, as they always did, the humans pressed in at our borders."

"They fought valiantly, I'm told. These stories are always romanticized to an extent, but it must have made a sight. The Emerald Knights, charging in on their halla steeds, their wolf companions at their heels, defending the land we were promised. The clan storytellers tell it better than I do, I promise you. But the story always ends the same way. The Knights were slaughtered to a one, overwhelmed by the human forces by sheer numbers. And the trees that stand here now serve as a reminder to the people of all the lives lost in that fight."

Finally, she lifts the drink to her lips, pausing to take a sip. "They call it the Emerald Graves, now. A living memorial to those who didn't know when to stop fighting."

Tucker listened, brow furrowed until she was done and then--

"You know that jokes are supposed to make you laugh, right?"

Come on, lots of death, an epic battle with wars and --it was totally missing a bar for a Rabbi and Priest to walk into. But maybe her folks had a different definition of what a sense of humor was...? It sounded more--

"Sounds like something I saw in a movie once. Like one about a ring or something." He took another drink, sinking down a little bit. He wished he had worn something different, a little more comfortable, but whatever. Too late now, unless he stripped down and sat in his undersuit, but she'd probably kill him. He needed to wait for another three beers before trying that.

"So, what is it? Don't you know, or do you just not care and keep doing it anyway?"

"Didn't you know? The life of a Chosen One isn't done until they've got nothing left to give."

She takes another sip. A little watery, nothing on the ales or meads of the tavern, but tolerable. Bull certainly had her drinking worse, at points.

"I have no clan, no home, nothing besides this...thing that I've become. Once you know what's out there, what can happen if you don't do anything? You can't not do something."

Tucker thought on it for a minute; it wasn't wrong, even for him. The sword never worked for anyone else, wouldn't until he died, until this life was over with him, until he had nothing left to give. It had happened with Doyle. One day, it would happen with him.

He just hoped he was around someone good when it did.

"It was different for me." Loads of bullshit, reasons to get pregnant and fancy ships that were destroyed five minutes later. But then Chorus came, and survival was a little different when people depended on you. "How'd it happen with you? Glowing light? Prophecy? Birthmarks like lightning bolt? What exactly were you a Chosen One for?"

He took another drink, slow, before smiling. "Show me your Chosen One status, and I'll show you mine."

At that, she lowered her drinking, smiling a little oddly at him. Why, it wasn't clear.

Not until she lifted what remained of her left arm, her sleeve shifting away to show the vein-like scars that radiated upwards from where the limb ended abruptly.

"Mine...took a toll, after a while."

Oh. Oh, shit. He stared, then rolled his eyes up to hers, before back down to the stump. That looked painful as hell, and he wanted to ask more, but instead—

“I know a guy who would be able to build you a new arm. It might be painted red and he would probably tell old man war stories about how Blue Team sucks, but it’d be an arm.”

It’s just that Sarge wasn’t here, and they were all probably better for it. Especially Grif.

“I can’t show you my scar without taking half this stuff off.” He shrugged his shoulders, waving at his own armor. “It’s nowhere near as epic as yours, though, but if you want me to be naked, I can’ blame you.”

God, his accounts seemed so minor in comparison. He got off lucky with the entirety of all of his limbs still in tact. “What happened?”

"The long version?"

She settles back again, lifting the can to her lips and taking another sip. "You remember those gods I mentioned? One had arisen after many years of slumber, but the world he awoke to was very, very different than the one he'd left behind. So different and so flawed in his eyes that it needed to be destroyed and remade. Perfectly reasonable reaction, don't you think?"

Her eyebrow flicked upwards. Obviously, she'd had time to swallow all this, and develop something of a wry sense of humor about the whole thing. What else could you do?

"To this end, he used an ancient artifact of my people. If it worked, it would have torn down the barriers between our world and the Fade. A land that exists parallel to our own, a land of abstracts, dreams, magic, and creatures of spirit both benevolent and malicious. A vast improvement in his eyes, I'm certain."

Bitter, her? No. Never.

Okay, global level of dickishness there. Tucker listened quietly, carefully not interjecting because sometimes he could bite his tongue. Sometimes. Rarely. This was one of them.

“And this is why I call bullshit on religion.” His mother was religious and by proxy, he had been as well until he was old enough to learn that sex was super frowned upon without a ring. His reaction had been a predictable fuuuuck that. God, she’d been pissed.

He sat back, frowned a little. “So, he was willing to kill a ton of people just because he wasn’t happy? What a temper tantrum; my son is more mature than that.” Granted, his kid was a little special in his own right… “So, it was up to you to get the artifact back? Cue cliché instrumental quest music here?”

"Not quite."

"There was a gathering across Thedas. Political dealings and religious heads, the most important members of the Templar Order, the Circle of Mages, and the Chantry all meeting to prevent a catastrophic war. It was there he chose to unleash the artifact. And..."

She smiles here, shaking her head.

"I stumbled in on the plot by accident. I took the artifact before the ritual could be completed, and instead of tearing the veil between our worlds down entirely? Tears appeared across the land, pouring out corrupted spirits that attacked anything in sight. And the Temple of Sacred Ashes? Gone. Destroyed. Everyone dead...except me. Left behind alive, somehow, with a magical mark the artifact left behind where I'd touched it. I found out later it could close those tears, when nothing else could. You can probably guess what happened after that."

“Now cue cliché quest music?”

Because that sounded like hell, waking up and everyone dead while you’re left alive, trying to figure out things, figure out what to do. Then finding out that only you could fix the whole damn thing, could save everyone at the cost of…well, pieces of yourself.

This was why being the Chosen One sucked sometimes: the level of responsibility was stifling, the pressure enough to break almost anyone, and here she was having a beer with him and able to talk about this. She was tough. Like, real tough. Most people would have broken or failed. Most people wouldn’t be able to say a word about it?

“Did you do it? Save everyone, kiss the princess, get the treasure? Or did you get yanked out before it finished?”

"Two years ago. And in that time the people we've saved have turned on us, and it turns out someone else was behind the initial incident all along. Only dealing with him is going to be difficult with everyone around us claiming we should be disbanded and forgotten about. And?"

She nods towards her arm.

"That finally caught up with me. Magic that strong comes at a price. At first it just twinged. Felt like my arm was asleep all the time. Then it started to burn. Then it started to spread. By the end it was exploding power at random moments, and starting to consume the rest of me. But we managed to remove it in time, so."

Finally, she took another sip of her beer, settling back against her bedroll once more. Something heavy hung around her eyes, but she smiled regardless.

"Not dead. I don't know about you, Tucker, but I'll give an arm for 'not dead'."

"Yeah, don't even have to think about that." He took another drink before digging his feet into the dirt. "Makes masturbating a little boring because you can't ever use that Stranger's Arm trick, but I think it's different for ladies anyway."

His own eyes looked down at his sword arm and he imagined giving it up. Shit, what would he do, other than have Sarge build him a new one? Or maybe Caboose. But it wouldn't be the same, no matter how hard he tried. Could say he lost it in the war, and people dug war heroes with scars, but...give him his natural born arm any day.

Besides, it'd ruin the aesthetic.

"You lost something, and I gained something. Guess it's different for each of us." Of course, he wasn't exactly done with his yet, Wash's warning about Temple - whoever the fuck that was - still stuck in his head.

"So, did you win? After all that?" Was it worth it?

"I thought we did."

Her head shook slowly as she let her incomplete arm fall back to her side, falling under her sleeve once more. "The problem is that 'winning' only lasts so long. Things have a tendency to not stay fixed forever. It is...deeply frustrating."

An understatement, from what it looked like she was working to swallow back. Anger, bitterness, fury and sorrow, all quickly doused with another swift drink from the can Tucker had brought with him.

"Fucking tell me about it." Yeah, that took chugging the rest of his beer and dropping the empty before going to another one. The bitterness was obvious, edged with something almost tired; all he wanted was to find fucking Church and just...retire. Again. Probably with his kid this time. And hang out with his friends and do their normal stupid crap. Was that too much to ask for?

"I mean, every time we defeat whatever, then something else comes and it's more of a pain in the ass than the last thing. Reds versus Blues, Wyoming, time travel, the desert and C.T. and his assholes, the Meta, getting Church back, the Director and a million Texes, fucking Chorus and Felix and Charon and now this. It's always something."

And that's why his habitat looked like a tropical resort. If he wasn't getting peace in the real world, he sure as shit would there.

"But hey, at least we do what we can, right? I mean, sure, it sucks, but...we do it so other people don't have to."

That was quite the litany. There's a glimmer of empathy in her eyes as she reaches out, a hand resting gently against his arm as he spoke. She might not have faced the same problems, but she could roll out a laundry list of her own readily enough.

It's always something.

Isn't that the truth?

"That's the idea, at least," she murmured, her hand sliding away quietly. "It just winds up being that you're the only one who can solve a lot of problems. It gets hard to see a problem and not think you're meant to be the one to fix it."