under the boot | two mojaves
Jun. 29th, 2023 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidewaysThrowing up some 'sketch page' style noodling in the absence of any completed fics of late - a couple of incomplete drabblets featuring my Fallout: New Vegas characters and their borrowed best beaus. One of FNV's strengths is the complex web of power and politics it builds around the Mojave, and it's always interesting to dip into different characters' takes on the factions and their personal histories with them and the region.
Larkin & Vivian (killyhawk)
"You want to try that again?" The tail end of a laugh still echoed in Vivian's words, but there was enough disbelief coming in hot behind it that Larkin paused, thumbnails dug into the fibrous seam of the mesquite pod, and glanced over at the other woman.
"Didn't say I was looking to live under the Legion."
"'Cause there is no living under the Legion," Vivian shot back. "Not for the likes of you 'n me, at least."
"No living well," Larkin allowed, and shrugged. "But the NCR isn't such a wealth of wellness neither. S'all I meant."
Vivian leaned back slowly, settling on her palms as solidly as the frown now settling on her features. The steel surface of the old roundabout would be pleasantly warm beneath her, compared to the scorching burn it would deliver anyone fool enough to choose it as a rest by midday. It creaked under the shift of her weight, an ugly harmony to the rusty squeaks of Larkin's swing as she idly toed herself back and forth.
"Yeah, well," Vivian said at last. "I can tell you that when you're staring down both of those barrels in any kind of seriousness, one of 'em's a pretty clear winner." Her gaze trailed past Larkin and the buildings surrounding the decrepit playground: all the way to distant wire-topped walls and the double-headed flags hanging limp at their corners, waiting for a wind proud enough to remind everyone in eyeview just who'd staked their claim. "If there was any way of getting rid of Hoover and seeing the back end of them both, though… reckon some folk'd be reaching for the dynamite."
The pod cracked and split under the patient pressure of Larkin's fingers, and she had to cup her hands quickly to capture the legumes bursting out of their shell. They were round and ripe, barely a wrinkle on them; fresh grown by the NCR sharecroppers and poorly guarded by the same.
"Lotta baby to be hauling out with your bathwater," she said, popping a handful into her mouth and swilling, enjoying the feel of them rattling around her teeth before she bit down. Could always tell when good water had gone into a crop.
"There's a chance it goes to Legion?" Vivian said flatly. "Be doing the baby a favour."
Larkin eyed her thoughtfully, chewing. Viv wasn't a bitter woman, by nature. Not much for getting strung about by politics either, which Larkin had always appreciated.
There were other things that had a way of snaring her, though.
She let the silence sit a moment, as Vivian moodily cracked open one of the pods sitting next to her - a portion of Larkin's bounty, generously shared - then tested the best theory she had: "They poking around near Novac again?" Maybe Viv didn't care much for politics, but she loved her little sister like breathing.
Vivian's sigh came from the gut like someone had punched it out of her, and she rocked forward, rubbing a hand down a face turned pinched and fretsome.
"Woman's gone missing from the town."
"Real townie, or squatter?"
"Wife of one of the sentries," Vivian said grimly.
"Hell," Larkin said, and meant it more than a little. That was bold. "For sure, Legion?"
Avery & Wyn (weirderwest)
Some secret in the soil had brought the patch of wildflowers to life out of season: bright paintbrushes and stiff bursage nodding heads in the company of a white daisy-like flower Wyn seemed to have known all her life but couldn't now put a name to. She thumbed the fragile petals, arranged in a tidy starburst around their golden core, and ignored the unwelcome pang at the thought of who might have once shared it with her. A book of pressed cuttings was the least of the things her mother had left unfinished, after all.
Her current companion wasn't likely to be able to fill in the gap. Avery had followed her joyful detour off the road tolerantly enough - "Do you have a business arrangement with molerats I don't know about?" his only half-hearted offering of complaint - but he'd disdained to join her in getting knees-down in the dirt for some hearty nature-grubbing, instead fixing the bursage with the hostile eye of the allergic and opting to hover about at her back. His mild grizzling was further undermined by the pack he'd immediately dumped on the ground with visible relief - an instant disqualification if he truly meant to play at being a courier.
These journeys together were still a new thing - less than a carefree hike taken for its own pleasure, but more than a short walk from one concrete stronghold to another. It wasn't as though he needed more business; in as dense a conflux of human manufacture as Vegas, there was always something in need of repair, and some weeks he was frazzled and sleepless under the weight of his to-do list, unskilled at managing his own time and only learning where each pitfall of entrepreneurship lay by tripping directly into them, one after the other.
But Wyn's work wasn't bound to any one city. She didn't seek him extra business either, just saw opportunity where it lay in Tracey's greasy-handed frustration over a refrigeration unit that simply wouldn't come good, or a Followers camp ambitiously planning expansion. Knowing how Avery generally felt about the wider wasteland, she never promised any friendly face more than that she knew a man of ability, and would ask if he'd consider a trip.
Yet increasingly, it seemed, consider it he would. She was so proud to see his sense of adventure finally fledging, she told him, and laughed at the gutful of indignation he huffed her way.
Business drew him out to the road, not pleasure, but she still found herself wanting to bring pleasure into it. Not their usual kind for the most part - as if fresh air and the occasional thistle was worth greater trepidation than a cramped supply closet and a dozen ways to collect tetanus - but the kind that had never before required company. Impossible to define this strange new impulse that made her curl her fingers around his arm and tug him towards all the untamed Mojave had to offer. Sunsets and cactus stands, waymarkers painted in white on stones for the ones who could read them, and peeling billboards shading a hilltop view over sloping plains glowing golden in the morning sun. Gap-toothed old men in trailers eager to trade a hot meal and eye-watering spirits for a good story, and bronzed young women with gecko skins slung over their shoulders sharing the most reliable advice for miles on which tracks to avoid.
A patch of wildflowers blooming in defiance of morning frosts, bright as they'd bloomed at the front of her childhood home, and soft-edged as the memory of her mother's hands turning stems about for better viewing.
When she looked around, as expected, it wasn't to find Avery's attention on the early spring flowering, or the richly red cliffs lining the horizon. Not even on her ass, which she might have protested as the next most obvious option if he was so determined to ignore the wonders of the world outside Freeside's grimy streets.
Helios One squatted in the distance, though, a dazzling halo of sunlight reflecting unevenly from the garden of useless mirrors planted around the base of the main structure. It wasn't difficult to guess the hold it had on Avery; she knew the look on his face, his lips flattened into an unhappy line, fingers rubbing restlessly at the strap of the rifle he still held slung over his shoulder as he stared out across the rise and fall of the low hills.
He had missed the small and costly war the NCR had launched for their right to squat there along with it, and they could both be grateful for that much. There were always more wars, though, and other frontlines, and she forgot sometimes he had walked the Mojave already, if in the only way he'd been allowed: a straight trail of troopers planting each footfall precisely into the bootprint of the person marching ahead, alert not for the crisp orange of a perfect sunset but for the way it might glint off a gun barrel hidden in the scrub.
His Mojave was coming for them all, threatened the horns at McCarran; civilisation was on its way at last, and they should be grateful for it, lest it take them from an unkinder direction. What was there to fuss about, really? The old men would get easier roads paid for with the taxes on their spirits, and the young women could sign up for a licence, build their business, and hire others to face the hazards for them. A wildflower bloom meant fertile enough ground to be turned over for cropping; the tall red cliffs hid iron inside. A little hostility was small price to pay for a land of such opportunity.
Larkin & Vivian (
killyhawk)"You want to try that again?" The tail end of a laugh still echoed in Vivian's words, but there was enough disbelief coming in hot behind it that Larkin paused, thumbnails dug into the fibrous seam of the mesquite pod, and glanced over at the other woman.
"Didn't say I was looking to live under the Legion."
"'Cause there is no living under the Legion," Vivian shot back. "Not for the likes of you 'n me, at least."
"No living well," Larkin allowed, and shrugged. "But the NCR isn't such a wealth of wellness neither. S'all I meant."
Vivian leaned back slowly, settling on her palms as solidly as the frown now settling on her features. The steel surface of the old roundabout would be pleasantly warm beneath her, compared to the scorching burn it would deliver anyone fool enough to choose it as a rest by midday. It creaked under the shift of her weight, an ugly harmony to the rusty squeaks of Larkin's swing as she idly toed herself back and forth.
"Yeah, well," Vivian said at last. "I can tell you that when you're staring down both of those barrels in any kind of seriousness, one of 'em's a pretty clear winner." Her gaze trailed past Larkin and the buildings surrounding the decrepit playground: all the way to distant wire-topped walls and the double-headed flags hanging limp at their corners, waiting for a wind proud enough to remind everyone in eyeview just who'd staked their claim. "If there was any way of getting rid of Hoover and seeing the back end of them both, though… reckon some folk'd be reaching for the dynamite."
The pod cracked and split under the patient pressure of Larkin's fingers, and she had to cup her hands quickly to capture the legumes bursting out of their shell. They were round and ripe, barely a wrinkle on them; fresh grown by the NCR sharecroppers and poorly guarded by the same.
"Lotta baby to be hauling out with your bathwater," she said, popping a handful into her mouth and swilling, enjoying the feel of them rattling around her teeth before she bit down. Could always tell when good water had gone into a crop.
"There's a chance it goes to Legion?" Vivian said flatly. "Be doing the baby a favour."
Larkin eyed her thoughtfully, chewing. Viv wasn't a bitter woman, by nature. Not much for getting strung about by politics either, which Larkin had always appreciated.
There were other things that had a way of snaring her, though.
She let the silence sit a moment, as Vivian moodily cracked open one of the pods sitting next to her - a portion of Larkin's bounty, generously shared - then tested the best theory she had: "They poking around near Novac again?" Maybe Viv didn't care much for politics, but she loved her little sister like breathing.
Vivian's sigh came from the gut like someone had punched it out of her, and she rocked forward, rubbing a hand down a face turned pinched and fretsome.
"Woman's gone missing from the town."
"Real townie, or squatter?"
"Wife of one of the sentries," Vivian said grimly.
"Hell," Larkin said, and meant it more than a little. That was bold. "For sure, Legion?"
Avery & Wyn (
weirderwest)Some secret in the soil had brought the patch of wildflowers to life out of season: bright paintbrushes and stiff bursage nodding heads in the company of a white daisy-like flower Wyn seemed to have known all her life but couldn't now put a name to. She thumbed the fragile petals, arranged in a tidy starburst around their golden core, and ignored the unwelcome pang at the thought of who might have once shared it with her. A book of pressed cuttings was the least of the things her mother had left unfinished, after all.
Her current companion wasn't likely to be able to fill in the gap. Avery had followed her joyful detour off the road tolerantly enough - "Do you have a business arrangement with molerats I don't know about?" his only half-hearted offering of complaint - but he'd disdained to join her in getting knees-down in the dirt for some hearty nature-grubbing, instead fixing the bursage with the hostile eye of the allergic and opting to hover about at her back. His mild grizzling was further undermined by the pack he'd immediately dumped on the ground with visible relief - an instant disqualification if he truly meant to play at being a courier.
These journeys together were still a new thing - less than a carefree hike taken for its own pleasure, but more than a short walk from one concrete stronghold to another. It wasn't as though he needed more business; in as dense a conflux of human manufacture as Vegas, there was always something in need of repair, and some weeks he was frazzled and sleepless under the weight of his to-do list, unskilled at managing his own time and only learning where each pitfall of entrepreneurship lay by tripping directly into them, one after the other.
But Wyn's work wasn't bound to any one city. She didn't seek him extra business either, just saw opportunity where it lay in Tracey's greasy-handed frustration over a refrigeration unit that simply wouldn't come good, or a Followers camp ambitiously planning expansion. Knowing how Avery generally felt about the wider wasteland, she never promised any friendly face more than that she knew a man of ability, and would ask if he'd consider a trip.
Yet increasingly, it seemed, consider it he would. She was so proud to see his sense of adventure finally fledging, she told him, and laughed at the gutful of indignation he huffed her way.
Business drew him out to the road, not pleasure, but she still found herself wanting to bring pleasure into it. Not their usual kind for the most part - as if fresh air and the occasional thistle was worth greater trepidation than a cramped supply closet and a dozen ways to collect tetanus - but the kind that had never before required company. Impossible to define this strange new impulse that made her curl her fingers around his arm and tug him towards all the untamed Mojave had to offer. Sunsets and cactus stands, waymarkers painted in white on stones for the ones who could read them, and peeling billboards shading a hilltop view over sloping plains glowing golden in the morning sun. Gap-toothed old men in trailers eager to trade a hot meal and eye-watering spirits for a good story, and bronzed young women with gecko skins slung over their shoulders sharing the most reliable advice for miles on which tracks to avoid.
A patch of wildflowers blooming in defiance of morning frosts, bright as they'd bloomed at the front of her childhood home, and soft-edged as the memory of her mother's hands turning stems about for better viewing.
When she looked around, as expected, it wasn't to find Avery's attention on the early spring flowering, or the richly red cliffs lining the horizon. Not even on her ass, which she might have protested as the next most obvious option if he was so determined to ignore the wonders of the world outside Freeside's grimy streets.
Helios One squatted in the distance, though, a dazzling halo of sunlight reflecting unevenly from the garden of useless mirrors planted around the base of the main structure. It wasn't difficult to guess the hold it had on Avery; she knew the look on his face, his lips flattened into an unhappy line, fingers rubbing restlessly at the strap of the rifle he still held slung over his shoulder as he stared out across the rise and fall of the low hills.
He had missed the small and costly war the NCR had launched for their right to squat there along with it, and they could both be grateful for that much. There were always more wars, though, and other frontlines, and she forgot sometimes he had walked the Mojave already, if in the only way he'd been allowed: a straight trail of troopers planting each footfall precisely into the bootprint of the person marching ahead, alert not for the crisp orange of a perfect sunset but for the way it might glint off a gun barrel hidden in the scrub.
His Mojave was coming for them all, threatened the horns at McCarran; civilisation was on its way at last, and they should be grateful for it, lest it take them from an unkinder direction. What was there to fuss about, really? The old men would get easier roads paid for with the taxes on their spirits, and the young women could sign up for a licence, build their business, and hire others to face the hazards for them. A wildflower bloom meant fertile enough ground to be turned over for cropping; the tall red cliffs hid iron inside. A little hostility was small price to pay for a land of such opportunity.
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