So, While I was playing borderlands the pre sequel with @timetogetfunkyrhysie and @living-in-a-fantasy-world I finally got to shoot Claptrap (well, not really. but kinda.) and it was great. (excuse my awful voice lmao)
eme_the_blade went live on Twitch. Catch up on their Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep: A Wonderlands One-shot Adventure VOD now.
Me and the bois gettin’ up to antics! I am unappreciated in my time.
(( Been guest-and-test streaming with my buddy Eme and @amidoesstuff recently and this time, everything actually got recorded! Tina cursed our last two stream attempts to either not record audio, or video, respectively. >__>
Gonna work with Eme on getting captions set up soon, sorry for the lack of them! ))
The next dumbtarded installment of Pandora thieves. Hurray! ... I think.
Not sure how I feel about this one. I wrote the intro first and then everything else later, so the style seems vastly different to me because I decided to change how I approached it overall. Also writing in character at this stage is hard. Definitely feel like I botched that one.
OH WELL NOT LIKE A LOT OF PEOPLE READ THIS SHIT ANYWAY.
fuck it I'm not putting in the previous entries go to daikonjou's page for that shit
—
The air is thick and gritty when he takes his first desperate, shuddering breath. It reaches to the very bottom of his lungs. It is the most wonderful sensation he’s felt in days. Not even the mouthful of sandstorm can ruin it.
The first thing he remembers is that Knoxx—damn that depressed, chain-smoking cynic—decided to go and blab about their little prison chats. In all fairness to the bastard, though, they never agreed it would be confidential. Matthew had just assumed it would be so, seeing as “confidential” in this case meant “death of the confessing party.”
The second thing he remembers is the rescue. The questions, the trinket, the smile that wasn’t a smile at all, really, the fire… Matthew is troubled to find that the next part of his memory is uncomfortably blank. He only remembers the sickeningly sterile smell of the cellblocks, the heat of the alien flames, and the sound of gunshots. Six gunshots.
He is equally troubled to find a small sum of cash and a handful of secondhand guns in his belt, but for different reasons entirely.
“What are you doing?” he says to no one, and there are so many unspoken questions hidden away, so much hope that can only break him again that he wishes he hadn’t even spoken the words at all.
It does not take him long to find the abandoned pink Racer, nor to drive it as far from the New-U station as he possibly can.
—
As soon as he’s shot a Drifter or two and gotten his bearings again, he finds Bloodwing circling the northern reaches of the Deep Fathom dunes. It takes two failed attempts on dry lips before a clean whistle catches Bloodwing’s attention, and he shrieks loudly, swooping down to meet his old master. Matthew tries not to flinch as the desert sun glints off of the vicious, red eyes, staring him down in a way they never did before. “Good boy,” he murmurs instead.
Bloodwing perches on the usual arm, and the new flesh takes the sharp claws rather well, actually. It doesn’t hurt quite as much as it does on a wound that’s been opened over, and over, and over…
—
It’s been two days since the escape. His chest still aches.
—
The bandit encampment is nearly empty now. Mud, guts, and blood cover his face, his clothes, his hair. A small pocket of stubborn bandits hides in a sad-looking shed, coordinating their fire so that there is a never-ending stream of bullets flying just over Matthew’s head. He decides he will wait it out, if he has no other choice.
They jeer at him. Taunt him. Throw insults at him.
“Look at the tough Hunter now!”
“What are you, scared? Or something?”
“I’m gonna hunt me a Hunter!”
“First one to put a hole in his skull gets to feed him to the bird before he dies!”
He probably bites down a little harder than he needs to on the safety pin of the grenade in his hand, tossing it neatly and with practiced aim right into the makeshift stronghold. There is a scream, brutally interrupted by the series of explosions the MIRV creates. Pop, pop, bang. Like firecrackers. The shed collapses spectacularly as a last hurrah, burying the remains.
Bloodwing cries out, as if in victory.
—
In one hand, he counts the bills and spoils that Bloodwing has brought back from the latest hunt. In the other, he adds a few notches to his new rifle.
—
The psycho cackles madly, heedless of the fresh Lance corpses around him and the Jakobs revolver currently pointed between his eyeballs.
“Hunter! Yes, yes… heeheehee! No one can save you, no one, no one… Where’s your Siren now?!”
He pulls the trigger. Gore splatters his goggle lenses as the head explodes into a mess of brains.
“None of your fucking business.”
—
He doesn’t want to know how he remembers the Red Light’s empty hours. Doesn’t want to remember the regular errands. Excessive driving. A lot of sleepless moon cycles waiting on the doorstep for someone who would never come.
The air stinks of the old bandit blood drying on the Racer’s tires. He hasn’t crashed it at all in the last week. Scooter is certainly impressed by that, although he’s less enthusiastic about the increase in road kill. Bloodwing doesn’t seem to mind. Neither does he. Then again, he probably stinks just as much as the car does.
It’s dark. It’s quiet. He doesn’t dare listen any harder than necessary—he still remembers the last warning he received about offending his delicate sensibilities. He remembers a lot of things.
There was the arrival, when they knew nothing and had nothing except each other. The black hole of Pandora ate them up inside, slowly but surely, as they steeled themselves against the wicked wilds. But it was never enough. They learned how to fight, how to survive, but they were dying. Nobody leaves this planet quite as whole as they came, literal and otherwise.
Then there was the fight. A loaded gun. Utter fascination with an obscene display. Then fire, smoke, and a stolen Racer. It was only afterwards that he realized just how empty those holes were. He has felt this once before, an eternity ago back on Elibe, what it's like to be without something so important. They both have. But you can’t have what you’ve already lost.
And there was smeared lipstick. Bite marks. A wedding band.
He thought he had nothing left to lose. Oh, how wrong he was.
“Remember those bets, Blood?” he wants to say. “I owe you a few shiny trinkets.”
He raises a clenched fist and pushes the door open.
—
He remembers the silence—thick, putrid, stifling. He remembers sitting beside the only other figure in the blood-soaked bar. He remembers speaking to the dead man on the counter instead of the living, breathing person next to him.
It’s harder than usual to lie, to talk in circles and go around and around and around. There are no more excuses left, and yet so much to hide. Carelessly, he flings two sparkling spheres across the counter to break the tension, like gambling dice. They glint a little too brightly in the dim bar light.
I don’t like owing favors, he says.
There is more. He does not remember how to say it. But there is one thing he remembers how to do.
I came to say goodbye, he says.
He looks at him then through red lenses, and it is hard, so hard, to keep silent. So hard to keep his distance before he looks away again. But it has all already been said.
If you’re not coming back, he says, then I don’t ever want to see you again.
Something hurts.
He does not remember anything else.
—
Now he feels the wind and sand sticking to his face as he drives across the dunes, leaving the Deep Fathoms far behind.
Above him, Bloodwing screams, the pair of shiny new spheres around his talons catching the dying Pandora sunlight just right.
