nat(alie)

“But then what? What occurs after revelation and paralysis? Either death or a slow and certain thawing. A returning to the physical world.”

[margaretwexley]

"oh, well no it's for the bacteria— i really don't have the immune system to be just..." out. but she wasn't going to tell on herself so quickly, as though the only thing that stood between her and the halls of the wexley was the air purifier than hummed in her room. her mind turned towards spiral, saved only by the next question.

"really?" she'd never thought of the penthouse itself as something worth seeing, her entire life within a floor of a building. it had always been the people who made it worth while, fallen silent in disinterest when her siblings were preoccupied with life eternal. even now, it would only be returning to a bit of reading and art hanging on the wall. but, she so rarely had her own guests— no matter who they happened to be. "i don't see why not."

[natstuart]

"Ah." Nat stuck her hands in her pockets as she walked alongside the woman. "I thought those things were for filtering out toxins or pollutants or whatever." It was crazy, really, how far technology had come. "Do you think you'd get fucked up if the building lost power?" She asked. Okay, maybe now she was pushing the limits of Margaret's goodwill. It was her reflex, really, to be an asshole. She shot her a grin just in case.

What was Nat hoping to find in the penthouse? Dirt on the Wexleys, maybe, or some evidence on what Tobias was doing to her. Honestly, at the end of the day, though, she was just fucking bored. "How are you feeling about all the diner stuff?" She asked. "You know, about people zombifying each other and all that."

[valeriixchen]

For the first time since this all began Val began to worry that the horrors of the city had not been stopped soon enough and had instead spread from borough to borough until the entirety of new york was gone. and then the east coast. and then the united states. and then... and then... would it ever stop? could it be stopped? She gnawed uneasily on her lip, the skin already pink and raw from worry as if the taste of her own blood would suddenly pull her out of this spiral and remind her that yes, the city was dead--but god, she was still alive.

She nodded at Nat's suggestion of taking the battery. Someone could make use of it--Zach, maybe? And there would be no point in leaving it by the time they were done taking what they needed from the station. It would be just another empty building filled with nothing but reminders of what was and how quickly they'd lost it. Val dropped her own helmet with a soft thud, too eager to get a move on to place it more quietly. "Nat.." Val called out the other woman's name in concern. There were several empty vehicles in the garage and that in itself was expected, however, the bold lettering on one patrol car in particular caused the hair on Valerii's neck to stand. NYPD. K9 UNIT.

Valerii took her knife out and turned to join Natalie just as the glass began to splinter. Her eyes went wide with excitement as the figure fell on top of the other woman and several more moved towards the hole in the broken glass. She was vaguely aware of something not making sense here--why Natalie had howled in pain before the glass even broke--but now wasn't the moment to hold that thought up to the light and examine it. Val had watched the scene unfold before her as she waited for an opportunity to help. Before she could offer much assistance her shoulder was grabbed by one of the other creatures and Val had no choice but to turn away from Natalie and deal with her own situation.

The smell of rot was thick and wafted from behind the broken glass that the zombie was reaching at her threw. She was able to pull herself forward and out of its grip, turning to quickly stab her knife in the top if its skull without pausing to think. Muscle memory. Instinct. The creature continued to move despite the knife and Val realized it must not have gone deep enough. With horror in her eyes she applied pressure on the knife to force it deeper, feeling a sickening crunch as it slid through the officer's skull and finally hit brain matter. When the monster fell slack she knew it was safe to pull her weapon out and turn to her companion. There was a heavy feeling in her chest, having been forcing herself to ignore the sounds of Natalie's struggle while she dealt with her own. Had she been too late?

Relief fled through her when she saw the monster charge at Natalie only to impale itself on her weapon, sliding down the blade with no life left in its empty body.

She ignored the other zombie that was now stumbling over the corpse of its companion and instead went to Natalie to offer her hand. "Are you okay? Did you get bit?" She did her best to look the woman over for signs of infection. Scratches, bit marks, blood. Her concern was obvious and she made no attempt to hide it. She didn't want this woman to die, not here and not in front of her. Why should she hide that? "C'mon, we're not done yet." She pulled Natalie to her feet and nodded towards the last creature. "I did know him. He was a sexist asshole. And he never went anywhere without his K9 partner." But was it infected? Could that even happen?

[natstuart]

Funny, how this kind of shit rewired her, made her aware of every molecule that coursed through her veins. Pain. Blood. Heat. She could taste the salt on her tongue, felt the wetness of saliva pooled on the side of her lips. Here: the thrum of her own wanting heart, her pulse as hard as Hell’s Angels. Concrete in her lungs. Oil under her cheek. The road of her life outstretched forever and ever, yielding and alive.

The body beside her felt cold against her touch. Once, she’d had a sleepover with a girl from her middle school soccer team and had lay next to her for the first and last time just like this. Perhaps Val could take it apart and understand the undead’s inner circuitry, how it managed to stay alive without breathing, whether or not it needed to drink water to survive. She watched Val’s knife plunge through a zombie’s skull a few meters away from her, couldn’t tell if the action left Val thrilled or horrified. She tracked the other woman’s weapon, ears alert to the crack of bone as her knife pushed through. Had Val done this before? And if she had, how many times? Nat’s lips slid into an easy grin as she took Val’s hand, slipping her jacket from her shoulders as the woman examined her.

“No bites. But my ass is going to bruise tomorrow for sure. You?” She pulled the sword—some sort of bizarrely functional military replica—from the undead next to her and drove it through the mouth of the remaining zombie as it lunged at them. The once sexist asshole made a fucked up gurgling sound. Nat used the momentum of its thrashing to push the tip of the blade through its brainstem, quieting it for good. “Not much of a loss then,” she said. She scanned her surroundings for a zombie dog and shrugged when she didn’t see one. “Maybe his buddy got hungry and ate him.” A jolt of pain shot through her head as she stepped through cracked glass of what was once the station door, but she sucked up her pain as best as she could.

“Alright, this is your workplace so…Lead the way.”

[weltenwellen]

Louise Glück, from “Unpainted Door”, Poems 1962-2012

[ashton-ryder]

Ashton shook his head as he pointed out the parts of the diagram where he circled and confirmed where each line of circuit and component was proven to be running right. "Everything's working is they should be." He gotten a bit further from when he last spoke with Tobias, having created the mockup breadboard circuit, drew out the schematics, and tested every line of wire. He scrunched his brows staring at the problem again, spinning his pen in his hand as he thought for a bit longer, he still doesn't get it. "But it was old, older than what the exterior of a radio would be. It's like transistor radio old, makes it look more complicated than it actually is." As if to throw people off, to confuse, to disguise.

"Here- let me show you," he placed some things back and turned on the radio to show Zach what he meant, "everything is working in the back," carefully pointing out its old circuit as the switch flipped on, crackling of static began and he then turned the knob for a frequency. Nothing. No changes, not even a lick of a skip in its frequency to prove its jumping through channels. "I can't get it to hook onto any frequency. I even took apart the receiver antenna to test it if that was working." Ashton turned his attention back to his paperwork and simply frowned at it, eyes darting between drawings, mind running through the calculations again.

[rioreeve]

He studied the breadboard and Ash's diagram, listening intently as he explained everything. The radio seemed so simple and yet, it proved to be pretty problematic. Far from what Zach thought when he first saw it, that all they'd have to do to make it work was swap some cables that might have been damaged upon its retrieval, that's it. So naive. He watched the man turn the device on and started making mental notes to understand what could be wrong with the radio. "No changes in frequency," he muttered, wondering what this could mean. Was the radio broken, or did it need something they didn't even have? The last thing he'd want right now was a trek back to the ambulance to see if they were missing a whole piece because someone wanted to tweak it a bit, and now the radio was useless.

"So," he tried to sum it up, "no matter what we do, we can't tune the radio... And yet, nothing's wrong with it." Like a useless switch that doesn't do anything, but doesn't fuck up anything either. Complicated as it sounded, it made sense to Zach; the only question was – could they do something to get the coil working, or maybe replace it with something that would do the trick.

[natstuart]

She'd taken a minute to smoke—okay, maybe more like a couple of hours to inhale half a pack—before she'd ashed out to rejoin the populace. It'd been a fucked up morning. The bite of wind against her face from the rooftop left her cheeks red, her skin raw from the cold air. She headed down and leaned her head against Ashton's shoulder as she sidled up behind the two nerds in the common area, her hooded eyes scanning the lattice of machinery scattered in front of them.

"I had one of these things in prison," Nat commented. "Used it every day until it was basically an old toaster." She took the radio in her hands and examined it, unsure of what the fuck part of its interior Zach had been working on. "This one looks a lot more complicated, but mine would always come back on if I hit it in a specific way." She shook the radio vigorously a few times, then gave it a whack with her palm to the corner. The radio fizzled. A few more taps, and a man's voice crackled out. "The situation in-" she could barely make out, before the voice was overwhelmed by static. "See? Like magic."

[natstuart]

The Wexley, Third Floor, Morning

What bothered her most was the scratching, the rattle of nails against the side of her bedroom wall, the way they vibrated against her headboard and kept her up all night long. Noise, she could block out, even the moans that dripped low through her air vents, but not sensation. Two zombies scratching. Maybe three. Nat had lost count, like she had with the days spent curled in the dark trying to stave off her migraine until she couldn't take it anymore and dragged out her crowbar to silence her undead neighbors for good.

"They were really loud," she explained, her shirt soaked with fresh blood as she dragged the pair of corpses behind her in a garden cart. "What're you up to so early in the morning?"

[ashton-ryder]

Ashton was taken aback by her snippy reply at first but his eyes darkened for a second before lifting his hands in defeat, but his words cold and sobering, "fine. Your call. Just don't be stupid. Know your limits. I've paid that price before." And he never wanted to pay that price at the expense of his or his comrades' lives ever again. His words had a certain sting and venom he didn't expect to come out but he stood by them; he trusted her to know her limits but he rather Nat hated him, never wanted to recon with him again, think that he's insulting her abilities and whatever, he was willing to be the bad guy, always. As long as she was alive. That's all that mattered. He couldn't make the same mistakes again. The tension only lasted but a few moments of their exchange until Nat sighed and Ashton let his own exhale escape. His words now soft once again, letting the tension dissipate completely, "..sorry, of course. Take all the time you need."

It was as if once they entered through the window the exchange was put aside, back to the mission on hand, don't let their own emotions get in the way of their objectives. Their sarcastic smiles were back on their faces the moment the box of tampons were lifted in question. "What-? I just thought.. then which is-.." Ashton fell for it for a split second and felt the heat of embarrassment for his naivety. "Very funny, I thought I had the wrong aisle and product..." Ashton grumbled with no hostility in his voice, shoving a whole bunch of them into his bag. How many would they need? How much do they run through? Whatever.. he can just come back out here again when they need more, and probably barter with Mauve again. "I've had serious bleed outs before but I still can't imagine having to through that, every single fucking month." If it felt as shitty as he did during bad blood loss injuries, Ashton did not envy their struggles. "Do you have any specific meds you need for your pain? We can look for them," Ashton threaded lightly back to that topic as he shifted towards the locked pharmacists shelves.

[natstuart]

“What, you let some dumb fuck die and now you feel responsible for it? Does the memory haunt you at night? You wake up crying like a girl?” Nat bared her teeth in a cruel grin, her words masking the pain that shot like needles through her body. She turned away. “Newsflash: we’ve all lost somebody. It doesn’t make you special.” 

She’d yet to process her dad’s death, his…conversion, if she was being accurate, and she knew that. Still. Death, mortality…to live in fear of it was a waste of time. People made choices. Every couple of years, she’d get a letter about someone she knew, an update about a person her age who used to live in the neighborhood she grew up in. Not a nice one. But she wasn’t condescending enough to hold anyone’s hand, and she expected the same courtesy. The possibility of death at any time meant that she had to live fully, to run hard and rage for everyone else who should’ve still been alive. Anger…at least that shit pushed her forward. Better than sitting around crying and hating herself even more than she already did.

Her lips quirked upward at Ashton’s naïveté. “Tampons work well for nosebleeds too. Stab wounds even, if you’re in a pinch.” She didn’t elaborate on exactly how she knew that fact. “You know, when they sent Sally Ride up in the Challenger for a week in 1983, they gave her 100 tampons because they didn’t know how many she might need. So I guess 100.” Nat followed Ashton to the back counter and stuck a bobby pin between her lips. Fuck, they were in a pharmacy, weren’t they? She made quick work of the lock, its metal clicks and moments of give as familiar to her as the lines on her hands. The door opened without a hitch. “Yeah," she replied, "I’ll grab a few pills. Maybe we should grab some other useful stuff like antibiotics and insulin. Could fetch a high price if we leverage it.” 

[natstuart]

NATALIE STUART as...A CRAB RANGOON

it's her favorite food...she hates parties...but she has no money. thankfully, there was some free takeout in the lobby so she ate, got drunk, and went home.

[stlowens]

May Sarton, from Journal of a Solitude [ID in alt text]

[rhianwells]

Her question could wait; it wasn't like she needed to know the answer ASAP, it wasn't a matter of life and death, or anything. If she could do something for Nat and painkillers would help her feel better, then Ria was happy to do that. "Sure, no problem," she said, nodding, and stood back up. "Give me the keys and I'll be back in a second."

Soon she was on her way to Nat's apartment, glad that she didn't have to run all the way up to her own place because much as it would probably count as a mini workout, she didn't find sweating too much fun. Especially now that unlimited baths and showers weren't an option anymore. Finding the pills wasn't difficult since they could be found exactly where Nat told her they would be. Ria grabbed them and ran back to the diner, asking Charlie for a glass of water before she returned to the table.

"Aaand I'm back! Here," she said, handing Nat both the painkillers and the glass. "I hope it will help."

[natstuart]

Letting a stranger into her apartment felt almost as vulnerable as baring her skin, but it wasn’t like Nat could hike up to get her pills in this state. She’d always been territorial about her space, a product of growing up having had next to none, her privacy an aspect of her life that she protected. Still. It wasn’t like there was much in her studio—an armchair, a photo of her and her dad, a stolen Rothko, a boyish comforter with a stuffed monkey from her childhood on top. There was a bookshelf and a folding desk where she kept her bills and tax forms. Otherwise, there really wasn’t much that gave anything of her away.

Ria’s voice was loud enough to make her cringe. “Thanks,” Nat said. "I really mean it." She swallowed a pill with a gulp of water and waited for it to kick in. “You wanted to ask me about something?”

[valeriixchen]

Natalie seemed intent on her idea of leaving the city and no one had managed to pop her bubble about the logistics of her plan just yet--Maybe because she hadn't actually shared much in the way of logistics for her grand scheme. Val had decided to bite her tongue on the issue, knowing that there was nothing she could say that would convince the younger woman to wait. to breathe. to let the adrenaline of their new world settle into her instead of using the rush like a junkie who was riding the best high of their life.

Truth be told Val was kinda pissed.

Every time she overheard Nat asking about which highways to take for best mileage or which roads would be most congested, Val could only picture her body torn apart by monsters or taken out by a sniper. The entire city was looking for a way out and Natalie thought that somehow she would be the one to slip through the cracks? What pissed off Valerii the most was the utter waste it was. How she was running towards her own death.

So maybe when it came time for Val to make her own supply run, as so many others had been doing the past week, Natalie hadn't been the first companion she'd considered. Valerii had ran through a mental list of potential candidates but none settled as neatly into her plan as Natalie. No one else would fight with that ferocity, that anger. That fuck you i'm going down swinging attitude.

"Just make sure those things don't catch us." It was less of a command and more of a plea. Val put on the helmet and threw up the gate, turning her head to watch it close as the duo began pulling away from the building. She wore her parking pass lanyard around her neck and kept it secure under her leather jacket. The plan was for Natalie to get them to the gate and Val would buzz them in before a crowd gathered.

Being this close to Natalie might've been distracting in other circumstances but currently Val's attention was strictly on not getting eaten. She kept a tight hold of Natalie's waist and tried to keep an eye out for potential dangers. Admittedly the rush of the wind against her felt good, grounding. She gave Natalie's left side a squeeze to remind her of an upcoming turn.

So far Natalie had done a good job navigating the obstacles left for them in the street. Abandoned cars, busses. Bodies. Val didn't want to be a pessimist but she knew their luck would run out sooner or later.

[natstuart]

Sometimes, Nat wondered about all the people she’d left behind. Her friends from high school and college, women she'd bunked with in prison, what they were doing now and if everything in their lives was alright. It wasn’t that she regretted her choice to cast them aside. Memory was a scab she picked at when she wanted to slink back into old alleyways, when she wanted to bleed herself a new, imagined past in which she didn’t run away.

“Don’t worry, I’m a fast driver.” Nat pushed the handgrip all the way down and gunned them forward at what must have been 90 miles per hour. The air stank of hot trash as they sped onward, the reek of rot and burning rubber on the wind that buffeted her nose. It was fucked up to see so many bodies, so much utter aloneness and carnage. All these miles and not a single sign of life.

She screeched the bike to a halt by the parking garage, nearly bucking the two of them off as she only just managed to avoid hitting the curb. Val’s parking pass did surprisingly work to pop up the gate—which meant the system had to have an emergency battery installed—and Nat guided the motorcycle into a parking spot inside. “See? I'm good at this," she said. "Also, it might be a good idea to grab that battery on the way out. With that much charge, it could power a few systems in a pinch.” She pulled her motorcycle helmet off and shook her hair out, her ears alert for signs of danger. Robbing a police station had always been an action item on her bucket list and to be doing it now with no repercussions was kind of awesome. Petty as it was, it felt like sweet revenge for how inhumanely they'd treated her.

A dull thud from inside the station door snapped her out of her thoughts, and Nat drew her sword, her gaze registering three zombies in police uniforms behind the glass. “Do you know these guys?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. “Because they seem kind of excited to see you.” No sooner than the words left her mouth did a cracking sound vibrate through the air. The glass spiderwebbed. Then something lower, monstrous, guttural. A wave of pain from her medication withdrawal shot through her head just as a clawed hand broke through the full-body glass window, and suddenly, a deformed creature was on top of her, its flesh translucent and sticking against her with a thin, mucus-thick film. Jeez, what a time to glitch out.

By all intents and purposes, Nat was probably going to die.

A maniacal laugh trickled out of her throat but it sounded more like a wheeze with the zombie’s weight on her. She’d somehow managed to keep her elbow between the creature and her neck, its jaw dislocated beyond that of a normal human’s as it snapped at her. At the last second, she kicked against the zombie's dripping body with both feet and raised her sword, a set of motions that sent the creature up a foot before it threw itself fully at her, its neck falling onto the sword as if a stake. She used the momentum of the fall to slice its head clean off and jumped back to her feet as the other two monsters set their eyes out for Val.

[natstuart]

long hair nat or short haired nat

[ashton-ryder]

"Well-" her simple answer had a point and stumped Ashton for a second as he thought of a rebuttal and came up short, "y'know, I can't even refute that. Good point." There were flaws yes; recognizing a natural element may be easier than recognizing specific humans. But her idea didn't come without merit. Like training a dog with a whistle, or spraying water at a cat... If they can trigger the zombies' instincts to avoid certain things, they could control their flow or movement.

While they sat and waited, Ashton noticed Nat's gaze sometimes lose focus whenever he looked up from writing his notes, taking a second to check in, "hey, you good? We can cut today short if you're not up for it. Don't need to take unnecessary risks." They technically already accomplished what they set out to do, anything hereafter is an added bonus, more medical supplies, food, technology, mechanical parts, but none of those matter if they lose focus and slip up.

She seem to come back for a bit, even making a snarky answer to his rhetorical question, "huh, what happened to client confidentiality?" Not that he'd actually tell someone with a life coach sign anything significant in his life. Sorry Mauve. "Sounds good," Ashton nodded, letting out an amused scoff, "are twinkies really a priority?" He took the initiative to head down first, scoping out the entire shop from the window, making sure not a single soul was in sight. Guess the chompers really did get distracted by their experiments. He paused before heading through the window, looking back to Nat, words weighted in graveness, "I'm dead serious though, say the word and we'll head back." He hopped in and did a sweep through the entire shop for threats, aisle by aisle, closing the front door that they shuffled out of earlier. "We're clear, three exit points if things go sideways, let's grab what we can," Ashton reviewed the mental list of requests from inside the building; antibiotics, water, painkillers, bandages, toiletries, tampons? (Sorry Mauve.) He wallowed with a look of confusion at the shelf before lifting a random tampon box up to Nat, "are these any good?"

[natstuart]

“I’m fine.” The words came out brusque, a snarl, a warning. Don’t patronize me. Don’t you for a second think I’m weak. She sighed, her lips pulled tight from the pain, and lowered her haunches. It wasn’t that she always tried to be a jerk. What was it her parole officer had told her? To close her eyes and count down from ten? With each number, she was supposed to identify a different tension in her body, and by the end, she was supposed to relax. Bullshit, maybe. But bullshit that was supposed to help keep her off the streets and employed. “My head’s a little fucked up,” she managed. “But it’s nothing I'm not used to. Just give me a couple minutes and I’ll recover.”

"Confidentiality's bunk," Nat said as she hopped through the window. "Pretty sure my prison therapist used to snitch on me so I stopped telling her anything. Could be the right move for you too." She stood silently for a moment, only moving down an aisle once she was sure nothing was stirring inside the store. She slung a few tubes of toothpaste into her backpack, three-packs of plastic lighters, silver tins of sardines. Her eyes caught sight of Ashton's product in question and it took all she had not to laugh. "What, you think I use those? Just because I'm a woman?" Her lips curled into a characteristically manic grin. "Kidding. Yeah, we should actually grab more boxes of those. Free bleeding isn't really as liberating as they say."

[natstuart]

🎻💤🎄💘

🎻 VIOLIN — does your oc play any instruments? what is their skill level (beginner/intermediate/advanced/virtuoso/etc)?

TLDR: none, negative skill level. She dabbled in playing the flute in middle school for her music requirement but never practiced. Her band teacher politely requested that she "play silently" during concerts.

💤 SLEEPING SIGN — is your oc a light sleeper or a heavy sleeper? how are their sleeping habits?

Lightly and poorly. She's lucky if she manages to sleep a few hours a night and often spends most of the night struggling with insomnia and staring up at the ceiling.

🎄 CHRISTMAS TREE — what is your oc’s favorite holiday?

Holidays are bittersweet but she's a sucker for New Years. Something about leaving an old year behind and watching everyone celebrate kind of enlivens her. Plus, the prison would give everyone something decent to eat instead of the usual shit on New Year's Eve and Christmas.

💘 HEART WITH ARROW — what and/or who do(es) your oc consider the most important to them?

Freedom, for sure. The ability to spend time doing what she wants to and drive fast and far. People-wise, her dad used to be the only family she had, but with him bitten, she's at a loss. Maybe a couple people from her past too, but Nat isn't good at keeping friendships.

[rhianwells]

Ria rushed in her direction, extending her hand to offer Nat one of the coffees the moment she heard (and saw) she was tired. She'd get her husband another one later.

"Here, take it. I dunno if it's gonna help or not, but it's worth a shot," she said with a smile, sitting down in one of the armchairs and placing her cup on the coffee table in front of her. "Are you okay? Should I go get you some painkillers maybe?"

[natstuart]

"Thanks." She accepted the coffee but didn't have enough energy to pick up the mug. A dark room, an empty space would be nice. All the clatter of dishes and people talking in the background made her feel like her head was being split in two by a cleaver. The first rule she'd learned in life was not to look weak, though, and it took everything she had to mask how fucked up her head was, to not curl up in a ball and cry.

"Painkillers." Yeah, she could use some. She'd nabbed some prescription pills from an absent neighbor upstairs, something the old man took for cancer, and considered the pros and cons of swapping one problematic addiction for another. At least with this one, she knew what she was actually putting inside her. "Yeah, I've got some white ones in the cupboard behind my bathroom sink if you'd be willing to grab them. I'd owe you one. I'm in 307."

[petalsprompts]

𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 ;  𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒃𝒐𝒘 𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 …  ( 𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 )

send any of the following emojis a headcanon about my muse.           please specify a muse if sending to a multimuse blog.              🏳️‍🌈 ᴴᴬᴾᴾʸ ᴾᴿᴵᴰᴱ ᴹᴼᴺᵀᴴ 🏳️‍🌈  …  ᵖᵉᵗᵃˡˢᵖʳᵒᵐᵖᵗˢ ᵖʳⁱᵈᵉ ᵖᵃʳᵃᵈᵉ

🤬  — get loud!      a headcanon about my muse and what will elicit a loud or explosive reaction.

🧶  —  are you tangled up?     a headcanon about a time my muse has felt internally ‘tied up in knots’ with a decision or emotion.

🦊  —  a quick orange fox!      for a headcanon about a time my muse had to be stealthy or sneaky in their life, and why.

🍁  —  foliage changing colours!      for a time in my muses life that brought about a natural season of change for them.

🔥  —  everything’s all aflame!       a headcanon about a time in my muses life that felt incredibly chaotic or out of control around them.

🍑  —  you’re a peach!      a headcanon specifically about a physical aspect of a person they are attracted to.

🏀  —  lets bounce!      a headcanon about my muse and recreation sports.

⛺️  —  are we going camping?       for a headcanon about a time my muse spent a night, or nights, outside in the woods or any applicable outdoors.

🎁  —  a season of giving!       a headcanon about how my muse shows, or has shown, their affection specifically in a gifting way.

📙  —  in the orange book!       for a book, poem or piece of literature that my muse really loves, and why.

☢️  —  hazardous!       a headcanon about my muse and their knowledge or exposure to poison, in any context or relevance.

[rhianwells]

//Rosie's Diner. early afternoon.

Ria was just leaving Rosie's Diner with two freshly brewed coffees in both hands when she spotted Natalie. Perfect! She had been dying to hear her opinion on something and wanted to talk to her since her last conversation with Courtney, and now she ran into her. Pretty lucky! "Nat!" She would wave, but the hot beverages she was holding stopped her from doing so. "Nat, can I talk to you for a second?"

@natstuart

[natstuart]

Lately, it felt like her brain was lagging, like Nat was two steps behind every move. Words...her thoughts felt slow. Lethargic. Without the drugs, she barely managed to peel her cheek off the side of her armchair when she noticed that Ria was there. "A second," Nat acceded. "But Ria, I'm really tired. I don't know if I'll be able to keep any facts straight."

[ashton-ryder]

The anxieties slipped out in minute ways; in the way his fingers tap his arm, the way he rocked back and forth on his heels as he went into deep thought. "Yeah, that'll be a good idea, but we also have to account for the possibility of them getting smarter. A stunt like that will draw a lot of attention, if they're smarter than we think, they might learn and avoid it the next time," perhaps it's a sliver of humanity that Ashton want to believe there is, "we can work in that action plan and save it for a worth while opportunity." Ashton never expected to fall back in the line of action after being out of it for 4 years, like the gears are warming up to go back into full speed, but here we are. It was nostalgic, it was comforting, and it was unnerving.

Ashton flashed a grim half smile at Nat's question, "you'll be surprised what you can find at embassies." Those buildings honestly feel like a double edged sword, in some cases it's meant to be a safe haven for their citizens in another country, in other cases... they're the last line of defense for their citizens in war. A few more tests, experiments, and it felt at least that they now know more than they did when they left the apartment building, it'll make the quarantine day worth it at least with some newfound information on the zombies. They spent a few more moments without any action, Ashton writing down the entire report while Nat munched on a sandwich. "Huh, softball sounds like fun," doing college while in service was a completely different experience and he often wondered what it'd be like, going to campus, taking up a sport.

"Ha, where did you hear that from?" Ashton dryly joked, slinging the rifle back over his shoulder. Before the outbreak he rarely told anyone about his time with the marines. Just a PhD student, that's all they needed to know. But it's not like he can hide the obvious anymore unless he wanted to be completely useless and feign ignorance. And none of that sat well with Ashton. "I used to be a marksman during college too, I guess," he shrugged, playing off her answer, which was while, half true, perhaps half disturbing if one didn't have deduction skills. He peeked over the edge and watched the horde movements, its been quiet for awhile now and he kept his book, getting ready to move on. "Think we can give the CVS a quick raid before the Embassy?" Since they were standing a top a treasure trove of pharma gold, might as well see what they can get now that the zombies were probably out and gone due to the sound.

[natstuart]

"So let's make them avoid us." She cracked her neck, pacing back and forth as she waited. If the virus really was a mutated strand of rabies, a trap could deter the infected like water did rabid dogs. Every organism at its core wanted to live. In an ideal scenario, Nat could capitalize on that. Bury some mines around a farmhouse and ward off everything.

Time slipped from her. She'd noticed the glitch in her head a few days ago after going cold turkey off Tobias's drugs. Sometimes, her head hurt so much that she couldn't stay upright, her brain on fire, a side effect of withdrawal or whatever the fuck else was going on. Other times, she'd stare out into nothing or feel confused about where she was. It'd pass. This was all temporary. Becoming dependent on the drugs would be like a death sentence if she ever wanted to get out of here, so she'd have to make do.

"Hmm." She blinked up at Ashton with cold, flat eyes and curled her lips into a wicked grin. "I heard from some high lady. Black hair, life coach sign? Anyway, I guess college sports are coming in handy these days." Nat took a deep breath and trod off to the ladder, steadying herself as a brief splitting feeling sliced through her head. "Sure. We can climb in through the window from the fire escape. Maybe grab a few boxes of Twinkies for the road."