status : closed starter. location : the westside, new vegas. with : clementine berry-witter | @veinrxt
away from the neon glow of the strip, this stretch of the city looked like a postcard of decay. nothing but tumbleweeds, dust and rust to draw the eye from the human detritus that called it home. the street smelled of horse sweat and old gunpowder when paz rode back in, her dustcycle grumbling as it had for the last hundred or so miles. three towns over, the click of her rifle had buried a crooked sheriff's son, the syndicate's message painted across the walls loudly visceral red. an east job that belied the difficult ride back. too many bandits and broken folk afield these days. it seemed the harder the alliance pressed down their supposed return of civilisation, the less civilised the waste became. a figure caught her eye on what passed as a sidewalk in these parts. it wasn't hard to recognise her. veins as black as a moonless night tended to make a woman stand out amongst a crowd even at a distance. as did the fact said crowd always gave her a wide birth as if afraid of catching whatever ailment afflicted her. veinrot wasn't contagious, as far as paz knew, but that didn't make it tender or kind. as if anything in the waste ever was. it wasn't sympathy that slowed her dustcycle. rads knew she had little to spare for herself, let alone anyone else. a twisted sense of connection, perhaps. the same hollow feeling she'd gotten when a bullet lodged in her ribs and the world turned numb. having your body betray you was something maría de la paz navarro cruz knew a little about. "well now, aren't you a tall glass of water on an otherwise parched day." she called out, flashing a crooked smile ( was it genuine? even she didn't know ) as she pulled the cycle over, letting the engine finally sputter to a grateful halt. her tone light and teasing, as if talking about the weather and she hadn't just returned from putting someone six foot under. "if i knew i'd be finding you at the end of my trip, i would've ridden a little faster."