#retired.start

[ziadewans]

open starter!!!

Zia looks around, doing her best to analyze the behavior of the other guests, determining how best to fit it with her surroundings. When a waiter walks by with a tray of champagne, she swipes two glasses, noting that everyone around them seemed to already be drinking or eating something at the moment. 

“Here, take this...” Zia says handing her teammate one of the flutes, “Hopefully we’ll blend in a little easier, now that we’re not the only ones without a drink in our hands...”

[thecreatvre]

[ open : the breach event ]

Anybody else might have been bored stiff with vague orders that consisted of nothing more than: watch the perimeter. But Tango’s having a marvelous time. He’s rolled around in a few flower bushes, climbed some trees and statues, sniffed everything he could find. He’s never been one for talking over their comms much, but he feels that now is the time.

“WHO WANT. FLOWER,” is broadcast over their radios, accompanied by something that sounds like splashing.

Tango might not be taking this outing particularly seriously.

“TANGO PICK. FOR TEAM. WHO WANT?”

[ziadewans]

closed to @retiredmonarch​

If Zia was being honest, she had been avoiding Beth for most of the morning but now they’re sitting beside one another, waiting for the ceremony to start, she feels as though their interaction has become unavoidable. “How are you doing, Beth?” Zia finally asks, as if biting a metaphorical bullet, “I feel like we’ve been waiting for this ceremony to start for ages...”

[ziadewans]

open starter!

She’s wrapped tightly in a blanket, hair still damp from her earlier dive. Somehow Zia had managed to quietly curl herself into the hospital chair, but it does nothing to ease the unsettling sense of dread that pools in her stomach as they wait for news about Laura’s condition. Needing a momentary distraction, she slips away to the hospital cafeteria, before returning to the waiting room with a cardboard cup carrier in each hand.

“Coffee?” Zia offers, gently, “I thought we could use something warm while we wait...”

[ziadewans]

closed to @thecreatvre​

As the service had come to a close, the team had been faced with a new challenge-- the waiting game. Moira had promised them a meeting and answers but Zia despised the uncertainty of it all. She needed a distraction, she needed to get out of the room. Looking around, Zia’s eyes fall on Tango and an idea forms in her head. 

“Hey, Tango, do you want to go for a walk with me?” she calls out, hoping that if she takes Tango with her, no one will try and oppose her suggestion, “I think we could both use some fresh air.”

[ziadewans]

Location: HQ Entrance  Status: Open to all!

Zia had always been familiar with small towns...but ghost towns? This was new territory. It had been fifteen years since she had last set foot in the HQ, the place she had called home for so long, but between the dust and the plastic sheets, it was a shell of the lively home she had held dear in her memories. Walking through the doors, an aching feeling of nostalgia washed over her as she gazed out the window for a brief moment, taking in the sights of the nation’s capitol. 

Her attention was soon drawn to a peeling poster beside the window. Thumbing the edges of the faded poster, she smiled fondly as she stared into the eyes of her younger self. She had come to truly miss that glamorized version of herself, the one that drew the spotlight with such ease. More than that, she had missed the team and the meaningfulness it had brought to her life. Her life in Connecticut had always been characterized by a desire to fill that emptiness-- something she had never managed to achieve....until now. 

Hearing footsteps approaching, Zia is quickly drawn out of her enchanted state, “Here to help me with my bags?” she asks turning around. “It would actually mean the world to me,” Zia adds, turning on her most charming smile.

[ziadewans]

closed to @addy-venture​

Zia had never been particularly fond of Addy, but now looking at the other woman, she can’t help but wonder why she was here. Yes, Addy was of course a part of the team, but with Eve gone and Moira’s meeting approaching quickly, she can’t help but wonder what a more streamlined, future iteration of the Exemplars might look like. 

”You look nice, Addy,” she says through a tight-lipped smile as she walks by. 

[ziadewans]

closed to @valentiincs​

After spending nearly two hours being primped and primed to camera-ready perfection, Zia had decided she had had enough, slipping out of the Exemplar’s trailer and away from the hairdresser who seemed to insist on attacking her with more hairspray by the second. “Did they send you to fetch me back for another round touch ups?” Zia asks with a heavy sigh, as she sees Damien approach her, “I mean I’m used to the overproduction, but is nothing sacred to them?”