Closed - What's a little hike to the coast?

[tinstar]

Who: Raylan, Big Tim™, Zoey
What: Traveling to Silverpoint
When: Middle of June
Where: On the road to Silverpoint; Silverpoint

Got that itch to see the waves again.

It had started out as a small thing. An idea that Raylan had gotten in his head, fed by locational claustrophobia. He'd been in Milton longer than he'd planned, for good reasons, but Tim was settled and the first wave of explorers had come back without stories of terror and trauma. Milton struck him too much like Harlan, even if the people were different. It was the small coal town of it all, one he'd been able to manage fairly well so far, the fact of which only made it more suffocating to stay. Thankfully, it was barely a discussion at all between him and Tim - the sniper got Raylan's plan with the first question of Raylan's packing and preparing, and was promptly invited along. Raylan would worry otherwise anyway, so he was happy when Tim said he'd come. Raylan was sure that Zoey, who he'd talked to a few days before hand as the idea was brewing and rallied into also coming with him, wouldn't mind.

Though how the pair would deal with their similar colorful circumstances wasn't something he could anticipate. Nor was how he was going to deal with it, considering the feelings of his that keep bubbling up around all the barriers he's ever built up.

The Marshals were prompt sort of men, especially with the never-ending sun fucking up any sense of day or night, and met Zoey at the edges of Milton at the mouth of the relatively new path out of the town. Both packed down with some gear and Goose between them, Raylan grins as Zoey joins them. Between the three of them, he was sure they were going to be just fine. Maybe even better than fine.

"Ready to go see what's over the horizon?" He really did love to get the hell out of wherever he was stuck at, when it came to places. "Wind's a little sharp but I don't think we'll have any trouble." He looks over at Tim, with a "What do you think?"

Comments

[comfortablyerect]

It's not a bad walk, all things considered. Mostly Tim thinks that because he's with the only two people he really trusts here to relax around. But the actual walking is something he's relatively accustomed to as well. At least the gear he's carrying now is lighter than the shit he carried in the army.

He does prefer the heat of the desert of the snowy hellscape they're in. It's frigid, though not as much as it was when he made the very first walk to Milton through the woods. It's a little reminiscent of that, with Zoey at one side of him.

"Haven't made it to Lakeside yet," he answers. "I heard the trip through the dam is a little dicey with all the floodin'. Don't know how that still stands now, though."

The last thing they need is to be wet and cold.

[tinstar]

"Better that we're gettin' there this way than the old way. You woulda hated an eight hour plus crawl through mines, not to mention the walk to Lakeside after. Though the company I had made it a lot better."

He looks over at Zoey and grins. Honestly, he did not want to know how Tim would have taken that, considering how much it rattles Raylan to be that deep in the earth again. Too many feelings about that and ones he isn't looking to investigate. He's pretty sure the only reason he made it all the way through was because of Zoey.

"And I figure it probably stands the same as it was when that person went through. Earthquakes are the only thing around here that changes anything. I heard we oughta expect corpses on the other side of it. Seems like it's a pretty straightforward walk otherwise. Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll be downhill."

[pythianwoman]

Zoey answers Raylan’s grin with one of her own. “I vastly improve most things,” she jokes. But honestly, she’d been happy to have his back on the trek through the mines.

As Raylan says that they should expect bodies, she has a sinking feeling in her stomach. She remembers, back when she first arrived. Seeing the last minutes of those who had died in Milton. Ghosts brought back to a flickering, momentary life by the Aurora. She suspects they’re about to find out what happened to the rest. Without the Aurora, maybe they’ll be spared seeing their last moments play out in front of them. They can only hope.

“Lucky? Here?” She says with a soft almost laugh. “I’d sooner expect attack otters.” Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened since she showed up here. And this place doesn’t seem inclined towards luck. At least not much of the good sort.

cw for war time murder descriptions

[comfortablyerect]

"Little army crawl never hurt no one," he says, but his partner is right. He would've hated it. But not nearly as much as he imagines Raylan did. It's not like Tim has a history of almost getting caved in.

There's no guarantee the new path won't just be a different kind of hell, but they can hope. They do a lot of that around here.

Oh, right. Corpses. It's really not his fault that he's so desensitized to death and destruction that it completely slipped his mind to be worth mentioning. Not everybody has walked through the husks of desert villages after an airstrike. Bodies littering the streets, rarely in one piece, blood soaking into the dirt, everything smelling like explosives and iron. At least these bodies will have all their organs on the inside.

"Y'all can close your eyes and I'll hold your hands through the scary parts." He pauses. "Unless there's attack otters, then someone's gettin' tripped."