[color=9e0039]CORRINE DOOLAK[/color] -- The Hull, Far Harbor

A tribe called the Enclave.  Another one called the Brotherhood of Steel.  Giant robots.  If not for his mention of caravans, Corrine would have started to deeply regret acting so impulsively on her infatuation with the younger man, thinking he were describing a completely other planet.

[i]There was a war on the mainland?  Wonder how news of that never got up here.

Eh.  Everywhere's got problems, I suppose.[/i]

She listened politely, even intently, as he described his entire life's story.  It hit her quite solidly, then, that he was [i]quite[/i] a bit younger than she -- but if he wasn't bothered, then she sure as hell was fine with it, too.  She was particularly interested once he began describing his post in the engine room and his mechanical know-how.  Perhaps they had more in common than she had thought.  

"What about you, Corrine?", Steve asked. "What's your story?"

"Mm.  Well," she began, leaning her head against his chest, watching a rabbit scurry out from beneath some rubble, across the road, and disappear into a blanket of fog, "originally, me an' my family had a homestead much farther east of here.  It'd been in the family for a long time, either my mom's dad's grandpa's uncle's, or..."  She blushed, realizing how much of a bumpkin it must have made her sound.  "At any rate, there was me, and then my brother.  Mom and dad set up a great little business, scrapping all sorts of things they'd pull out of ruins, or cars, or what have you.  I've been dismantling tech since I could hold a screwdriver.  I had a real knack for it, for some reason.  I could get all the small, fragile parts out, and when my dad figured out that's what always took me so long, he brought me on to help him full time and my mom worked the business full time."

Corrine paused, lost in thought and nostalgia.  "Things were working out pretty well for us.  Word got out, people started coming to us to certain parts or to make requests.  Commissioned scavengers, can you believe it?  We traded with anyone who had caps and needed parts.  I started even doing my own freelance, though I still helped the business, an' had my own place, too.  But about ten years ago, when the fog was startin' to get bad, dad got torn apart by an angler.  Mom couldn't stand the idea of keeping the business, and my brother went and found himself some work as a fisherman.  A year or so after that, mom tossed herself into the sea."  She shrugged, sadly.  

Waves broke along the shore, far below.  

"But, I missed my manners.  I'm sorry for your loss, of yer dad, and yer ship, both."  In what she would have considered a bold move at other times of her life, she reached her arms around his waist and hugged him.

"A mechanic is more than handy to have around.  I bet you'd find a lot of work in these parts, helpin' to repair boats and generators and the like.  Hell," she winked, in a very rusty attempt to flirt, "if you wanted a challenge, I'd let ya try and put something back together after I've taken it apart.  See how good ya [i]really[/i] are.  I'd even let you borrow my tools."