The road goes on forever in the wasteland, red sands in a race for the horizon, kissing blue sky in a haze of choking dust.
Rule of thumb is, you see someone at the road's edge, you move right on. Don't slow down, don't look back, especially don't stop for a fucking howdy do. Grey-haired old biddies and feral kids alike these days would stab a man in the heart for his ride, for even a taste of rations and a swig of water. Ignore the tug of goodwill if it hasn't already burned black in your heart.
Life is more important: your own life. So says Nico, at any rate. He has a keen eye for would-be deception, suspicious in nature; the man was probably sent by the stars to balance out Ezio's pig-headed optimism.
Ezio's been pretty shitty about following other people's advice.
The sun is high and the dunes are low on this part of the natural highway, his quarterly trek to refresh an outpost with supplies going unhindered thus far, a rare thing. Must be true that their neighbors to the North are in the midst of some sort of calamitous upheaval, ripe pickings for raider teams and lowly dune bandits to go to town on. It also means a flood of refugees, his eagle eyes scanning for both, fingers drumming the hot wheel.
The man's shape is easily picked out, a dark figure against so much bright sand. A trap, his mind immediately goes to, but no, not here. The outposts clean up after them pretty quick, and generally for a trap to work these days, your bait wasn't supposed to move. Screaming kids, a naked woman howling for succor like a dog in heat --never mind that the woman in question probably knows a half-dozen ways to kill any helpful idiota where he stands-- now that's a proper trap.
Ezio slows, like he shouldn't. Takes a good gander at this fellow (stars, they don't make them pretty out here anymore) like he really shouldn't, and pulls to a stop behind the guy a little way back, diagonal to his path, which would have Nico and his sister swearing up a storm at him. Metal of his car between him and the stranger, just in case. His carbine in hand, too, hidden under the wheel, especially in case.
"Where are you headed?"
Edited (typo; lemme know if i need to change anything) 2015-05-25 22:24 (UTC)
The Citadel offered him a place to stay, after everything. So why is he here, many miles away from it and on foot? Because he turned them down.
He's the road warrior, after all, and won't - can't - simply make a home and... settle. Not him. Redemption isn't as easy as that. He might not be running as hard as he has been, but move he must, because to stop moving is to forfeit is to die. Survival is carved too deep into his bones for him to allow himself to rest.
That still doesn't explain why he's walking through the middle of nowhere, though. But, well. He had to find his car - which, to his surprise, he managed to, and again to his surprise, had been neither completely destroyed nor picked clean. But now that he has found his car, he has to fix his car. The tools aren't the problem, but the parts are, because his luck is shit enough that none of the other wrecks around have what he needs right now, and he can't exactly haul the thing to the Citadel with just his hands.
At least he hasn't run into too much trouble so far - he thinks, and hears the engine rolling behind him.
Shit.
Max neither slows down nor speeds up, but he glances back a few times to check if the car's staying on course. A dozen alarm bells go off in his mind when it slows down. Another dozen when the guy in the car puts himself almost in his path. He stops - doesn't approach or retreat. One hand on the shotgun at his hip. Wary, wary, wary. Paranoia keeps you alive.
"The Citadel."
It's impossible to gauge the odds for now, but his instincts haven't let him down much. He doesn't volunteer any further information, but also doesn't think there's any harm in saying that much.
Armed, so he's not entirely stupid, that's fine. You've got to be crazy or stupid or have some swinging, lead nuts to go it alone without a vehicle out here, even with his Brothers and Sisters minding this patch of the wastes. Ezio makes no effort to hide the solid once-over he gives this stranger, pulling his lenses down.
The Citadel? The things he's heard about that place in recent weeks, where there's constant water now and green life, green life like there used to be. God and his two princes were pulled from their thrones, replaced by his own Imperator...Ezio can't say he isn't happy things were shaken up. Despots deserve annihilation for their sins.
This stranger though, he looks a little...too well to be headed that direction. Healthy, tanned, maybe a bit underfed but Welcome to Dystopia, after all. Can't be a dying War Boy, he has his hair. Can't be one of the wretched diseased who might not have heard what Furiosa did to Joe.
Careful, calculated, Ezio throws out,"Going to spit on the Immortan's grave?" to test a reaction. He nods at him. "You're still days out. How much water do you have?"
So he's showing more face. Max doesn't much care, and also still can't entirely get a read on this guy. He keeps steady, keeps neutral. Watches and listens for any movement around as well as behind, because for all that this may be a fairly calm patch of wasteland, anyone who trusts anything out here is merely signing up to be a future victim of something or another.
The suggestion draws forth... nothing, which in itself may be a tell. Max didn't have as much personal beef with the Immortan as many, many others did. The bigger puzzle from where he's standing is why this stranger shows any concern about whether he can make the trip or not. There are no good Samaritans. So while he keeps any hostility from his voice, his answer is simply, "Why do you care?"
The name had been as much of a curse as it was a threat.
The Son of Sparda.
No one ever knew what to expect of the Son of Sparda. Some incredibly tall man, whose shadow bore down far past him across the orange-red sand? Some angel, put on this earth to rid it of the scourge of the damned? Some demon, who could only fight with a feral quality? People only knew of his name and the signature black trench coat with red lining, and a sword that should be far too large for one person to handle with only one hand.
Dante knew the stories that circled him. A terrorist. A savior. A beast. Not a man, but something else entirely. He asked himself that too, sometimes, if he was still a human. He had to believe in himself that he still was human, just one who had to survive. His life is a day-to-day one, only seeing as far as the sunset, and then after that the sunrise. Being alive this long is a surprise to him. He's only half-grateful to get another day, but he's not too concerned if he dies.
He dies. They go with him. No one could bring him down without cutting people up first.
His black trench coat is covered in sand. His face is completely obscured by the deep hood of the coat. The thing is hot and heavy, but it protects him from the sun. Even then, his lips are still dried and chapped. The great blade strapped to his back is crusted with dried blood mixed with sand. The nicks on his face are only in part by the cracking of his skin. No, he has no car, no motorcycle, but it didn't matter to him. Dante only had one mission: to kill the man that killed his mother, and chained his father. His twin is half a world away, tending to his own part of the mission.
He's only here to raise some motherfucking hell.
Not too far, he sees a man, an unknown. Blue-gray eyes follow the figure.
"Get down."
The only words he utters before he starts to pull out the twisting pistols from the back of his pants. He knew he was being followed, it was only a matter of time before the spiked and armored cars found him.
Really all Max wants is to fix his car back up. It's not a complete wreck. Full of sand and one door torn off and battered as they come, sure, but it's his car, and there aren't a lot of things he can still call his own. And that's what brings Max out to the middle of nowhere (again), car door on one shoulder. He'd seen the hooded figure a ways off, and kept an eye on him too. Trouble's something he'd rather avoid, but he knows as well as the next survivor that often enough it can't be helped.
And then there come the cars. Unfamiliar kinds, at a glance, and he can't entirely blame that one on the armor and the spikes. Still, with a voice that carries, and a stranger apparently directing him out of harm's way, Max isn't about to fight him over it. He gets the hell down and out of the trajectory of the cars.
Max does also brings up his shotgun as he goes, but isn't sure how much good it'll do him.
Dante grew up fighting. One could almost say he was born fighting. He and Vergil, they were happy until they weren't, but that's how most things went.
He'd clawed away at the world by ten, he'd killed by twelve. Or was it eleven? Much of his memory is a haze of screams and blood and sand.
Both pistols aim at the cars. In a flurry, bullets fly and hit true to their marks. Men hanging off the edges of their cars fall in a disgusting heap.
Nice and pissed, that's how he likes them. When the cars are close enough, Dante very and incredibly stupidly and almost with a suicidal streak, runs towards them.
[He starts to come to with the taste of the storm--sand, fire, burnished metal--still in his mouth, and as he hangs in the limbo between unconsciousness and waking, Nux thinks for a second that he's done it--
--He's done it, he's lit the desert storm up from within with the light of his death, he's been received--
Except when you pass through the gates, are you supposed to feel like you've been run over?
It doesn't take long before Nux starts to realize the darkness behind his eyelids isn't the hush before a grand entrance to Valhalla, the place where heroes and brothers alike wait to meet him, it's because his eyes are closed, sealed shut with sand. The pounding in his ears isn't Valhalla's drums, it's his pulse, hot and sluggish.]
... Mmph.
[He'd thought--? Hadn't he--? He remembers the flare, yes... the guzzoline, yes... and then the blood bag, hammering on the window, the war rig coming up fast in the mirror...
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nestbox2015-05-25 07:39 pm
no subject
Rule of thumb is, you see someone at the road's edge, you move right on. Don't slow down, don't look back, especially don't stop for a fucking howdy do. Grey-haired old biddies and feral kids alike these days would stab a man in the heart for his ride, for even a taste of rations and a swig of water. Ignore the tug of goodwill if it hasn't already burned black in your heart.
Life is more important: your own life. So says Nico, at any rate. He has a keen eye for would-be deception, suspicious in nature; the man was probably sent by the stars to balance out Ezio's pig-headed optimism.
Ezio's been pretty shitty about following other people's advice.
The sun is high and the dunes are low on this part of the natural highway, his quarterly trek to refresh an outpost with supplies going unhindered thus far, a rare thing. Must be true that their neighbors to the North are in the midst of some sort of calamitous upheaval, ripe pickings for raider teams and lowly dune bandits to go to town on. It also means a flood of refugees, his eagle eyes scanning for both, fingers drumming the hot wheel.
The man's shape is easily picked out, a dark figure against so much bright sand. A trap, his mind immediately goes to, but no, not here. The outposts clean up after them pretty quick, and generally for a trap to work these days, your bait wasn't supposed to move. Screaming kids, a naked woman howling for succor like a dog in heat --never mind that the woman in question probably knows a half-dozen ways to kill any helpful idiota where he stands-- now that's a proper trap.
Ezio slows, like he shouldn't. Takes a good gander at this fellow (stars, they don't make them pretty out here anymore) like he really shouldn't, and pulls to a stop behind the guy a little way back, diagonal to his path, which would have Nico and his sister swearing up a storm at him. Metal of his car between him and the stranger, just in case. His carbine in hand, too, hidden under the wheel, especially in case.
"Where are you headed?"
no subject
He's the road warrior, after all, and won't - can't - simply make a home and... settle. Not him. Redemption isn't as easy as that. He might not be running as hard as he has been, but move he must, because to stop moving is to forfeit is to die. Survival is carved too deep into his bones for him to allow himself to rest.
That still doesn't explain why he's walking through the middle of nowhere, though. But, well. He had to find his car - which, to his surprise, he managed to, and again to his surprise, had been neither completely destroyed nor picked clean. But now that he has found his car, he has to fix his car. The tools aren't the problem, but the parts are, because his luck is shit enough that none of the other wrecks around have what he needs right now, and he can't exactly haul the thing to the Citadel with just his hands.
At least he hasn't run into too much trouble so far - he thinks, and hears the engine rolling behind him.
Shit.
Max neither slows down nor speeds up, but he glances back a few times to check if the car's staying on course. A dozen alarm bells go off in his mind when it slows down. Another dozen when the guy in the car puts himself almost in his path. He stops - doesn't approach or retreat. One hand on the shotgun at his hip. Wary, wary, wary. Paranoia keeps you alive.
"The Citadel."
It's impossible to gauge the odds for now, but his instincts haven't let him down much. He doesn't volunteer any further information, but also doesn't think there's any harm in saying that much.
no subject
The Citadel? The things he's heard about that place in recent weeks, where there's constant water now and green life, green life like there used to be. God and his two princes were pulled from their thrones, replaced by his own Imperator...Ezio can't say he isn't happy things were shaken up. Despots deserve annihilation for their sins.
This stranger though, he looks a little...too well to be headed that direction. Healthy, tanned, maybe a bit underfed but Welcome to Dystopia, after all. Can't be a dying War Boy, he has his hair. Can't be one of the wretched diseased who might not have heard what Furiosa did to Joe.
Careful, calculated, Ezio throws out,"Going to spit on the Immortan's grave?" to test a reaction. He nods at him. "You're still days out. How much water do you have?"
no subject
The suggestion draws forth... nothing, which in itself may be a tell. Max didn't have as much personal beef with the Immortan as many, many others did. The bigger puzzle from where he's standing is why this stranger shows any concern about whether he can make the trip or not. There are no good Samaritans. So while he keeps any hostility from his voice, his answer is simply, "Why do you care?"
no subject
The name had been as much of a curse as it was a threat.
The Son of Sparda.
No one ever knew what to expect of the Son of Sparda. Some incredibly tall man, whose shadow bore down far past him across the orange-red sand? Some angel, put on this earth to rid it of the scourge of the damned? Some demon, who could only fight with a feral quality? People only knew of his name and the signature black trench coat with red lining, and a sword that should be far too large for one person to handle with only one hand.
Dante knew the stories that circled him. A terrorist. A savior. A beast. Not a man, but something else entirely. He asked himself that too, sometimes, if he was still a human. He had to believe in himself that he still was human, just one who had to survive. His life is a day-to-day one, only seeing as far as the sunset, and then after that the sunrise. Being alive this long is a surprise to him. He's only half-grateful to get another day, but he's not too concerned if he dies.
He dies. They go with him. No one could bring him down without cutting people up first.
His black trench coat is covered in sand. His face is completely obscured by the deep hood of the coat. The thing is hot and heavy, but it protects him from the sun. Even then, his lips are still dried and chapped. The great blade strapped to his back is crusted with dried blood mixed with sand. The nicks on his face are only in part by the cracking of his skin. No, he has no car, no motorcycle, but it didn't matter to him. Dante only had one mission: to kill the man that killed his mother, and chained his father. His twin is half a world away, tending to his own part of the mission.
He's only here to raise some motherfucking hell.
Not too far, he sees a man, an unknown. Blue-gray eyes follow the figure.
"Get down."
The only words he utters before he starts to pull out the twisting pistols from the back of his pants. He knew he was being followed, it was only a matter of time before the spiked and armored cars found him.
no subject
And then there come the cars. Unfamiliar kinds, at a glance, and he can't entirely blame that one on the armor and the spikes. Still, with a voice that carries, and a stranger apparently directing him out of harm's way, Max isn't about to fight him over it. He gets the hell down and out of the trajectory of the cars.
Max does also brings up his shotgun as he goes, but isn't sure how much good it'll do him.
no subject
He'd clawed away at the world by ten, he'd killed by twelve. Or was it eleven? Much of his memory is a haze of screams and blood and sand.
Both pistols aim at the cars. In a flurry, bullets fly and hit true to their marks. Men hanging off the edges of their cars fall in a disgusting heap.
Nice and pissed, that's how he likes them. When the cars are close enough, Dante very and incredibly stupidly and almost with a suicidal streak, runs towards them.
no subject
--He's done it, he's lit the desert storm up from within with the light of his death, he's been received--
Except when you pass through the gates, are you supposed to feel like you've been run over?
It doesn't take long before Nux starts to realize the darkness behind his eyelids isn't the hush before a grand entrance to Valhalla, the place where heroes and brothers alike wait to meet him, it's because his eyes are closed, sealed shut with sand. The pounding in his ears isn't Valhalla's drums, it's his pulse, hot and sluggish.]
... Mmph.
[He'd thought--? Hadn't he--? He remembers the flare, yes... the guzzoline, yes... and then the blood bag, hammering on the window, the war rig coming up fast in the mirror...
Oh.
No.]