[color=00aeef]FRIEDA RICHTER[/color] -- town square

“Old man said Rook could be here! Rook is here to trade! Why lady shoot at Rook? What Rook do now?” He yelled, waving the white flag once. “Flag mean no shoot! Why lady shoot anyways? Does lady not know what flag means? Flag... White... No shoot at Rook.”

Frieda grit her teeth, narrowing her brow.  "My mistake," she replied cooly, "where I come from, we're not familiar with the notion of [i]surrender[/i]."  She kept the gun trained on the mutant, unconvinced of the truthfulness of his words.  "I don't see any old man."

The mutant didn't move.  Suddenly, figure from before came tearing out from behind the church, a rifle in his hands and aiming at the mutant...then he paused. The man turned to address Frieda, directly.

“Woah! Ma'am! Relax. Rook here just got here. We here at Salem are all about giving people a chance. He has been living near by for about a week. While I don't trust Super Mutants usually, Rook here isn't looking to cause any trouble. I saw him in his armor on his way here, was worried for a while. Then he killed a Mirelurk king and claimed it's home for his own. Damned sight that was. Can we lower the guns and talk this out?”

“Yeah! Rook not do anything bad. Rook has caps to trade. And muscle to move things!” He said.  Frieda thought the mutant had puffed up as he spoke.

"This is insane," she muttered to herself.  "You're telling me you're just letting this...[i]mutant[/i]...integrate into society?  As if he's harmless?"

The man chuckled.  "Way I sees it, you shot first, did you not?"

Frieda balked.  "Well -- sure -- what else would any other, reasonable person have done?"

"Reasonable folk use their [i]words.[/i]"

[i]Was he smirking at me?  He most definitely is smirking at me.[/i] Frieda felt an angry flush rise within her cheeks.  She put her pistol back into her belt.  "I'm not going to apologize."

The man shrugged.  "S'fine.  Just don't do it again, or next time, someone's gonna shoot back."

She mumbled something rude sounding but unclear.

"Now, welcome to Salem.  I'm Barney Rook of the volunteer militia, and that there is...er, Rook.  No relation."  He looked over at the super mutant.  "No offense."

"Motherfucking insane," she breathed.  She readjusted her bag once more.  "I'm Frieda.  Been travelling for a spell looking for work, if you think you could use another member of your...militia, was it?"  She glanced between the mutant and Barney as she awaited the response.

"Depends.  We don't let just anyone join up."

"Did you not just say you were a [i]volunteer[/i] militia --"

"We still have a screenin' process.  Gotta have some standards.  Folk are gonna depend on you to defend life and limb, you gotta be competent."  

"Fine, fine," Frieda waved him off.  "I'll do the screening.  Then I can watch our [i]friend[/i] here more closely," she finished, glaring at Rook.