[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/1nbezIl.png?1[/img][/center]
[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/191202/0d423c013fe259e8509c28d41cb71bb8.png[/img][/center]
[hr]
[color=lightgray][indent]Thierry-- No, no. It was "Clementine" now. She had to refer to herself as such even in her innermost thoughts for now, lest she get caught unawares and accidentally let it slip who she actually was. Not that anyone in this backwater cared about anything as lofty as "Internationally wanted eco-terrorists," but that was the whole point, her comrades had said. Her comrades had said a lot of things... anyway, Clementine read a month-old newspaper-- this town really was a place out of time--for the umpteenth time. Another member of her sector caught. He didn't make headline news. Not even front page. He was a blip on page seven. Clementine knew why-- the guy was a small fry, barely had been with the org for a month before The Split, as the founders had decided to call it. He had nothing to offer. The pigs were upset they hadn't caught anyone in any real positions of leadership, like her, for months. She didn't know where her comrades were, but if it was in places like this, that seemed to have a bubble of oddities and abandonment protecting it from any real kind of relevancy, then they wouldn't get anyone. That made her happy. Still, she felt for the kid.

Clementine sighed.

What the fuck was she getting done here, anyway? The question was rhetorical, but she gazed at the filthy pool with her eye as if she expected it to answer. She flipped around in the sorry excuse for a pool chair and flopped on her exposed belly, allowing her back to tan. She couldn't get in the pool-- even if she wasn't convinced it was a hepatitis trap-- chlorine fucked with the chemical burns from her injury. All she could do was gaze into the blue abyss, hoping some horror from beyond reached out and gave her bored hands something to do that wasn't twiddle aimlessly and tinker with this motel's broken electronics. She craved Shiva's blessing. Her soul was starved for artistic meaning, she required spiritual and hedonistic indulgence. Or else what? What was the classic 'guy' response? [i]Maybe you just need to get laid? [/i]Good luck when there were like 15 people in this fucking town!

Clementine pulled her wide brimmed straw hat far over her eyes in silent frustration. She remained like this for some time, listening to her own pulse in her ears. She remained like this for so long she didn't notice the two children who had run up to her, practically screaming by the time Clementine tipped her cap up with a thumb to listen to the two, eyebrow raised. 

"Lady! We really need you to resolve something for us!"

"Yeah!"

The distinction between the two really didn't matter. They were both buck-toothed dusty figments of her imagination as far as she was concerned. Clementine didn't really "do" children. In fact, after spending as long as she had here, she wasn't sure there [i]were[/i] children in Coalfell. Despite seeing these two, she still wasn't convinced. Still, this was better than nothing, no? Perhaps these youths had some interesting philosophical insights between the two of them. Clementine bit.

[color=forestgreen]"What."[/color] She responded coolly, resting her head against her arms, still laying on her belly.

"Is water soup?"

What?

[color=forestgreen]"What?"[/color] She responded, almost with a scowl.

"We been arguing, and we think water might be soup!"

"Yeah!"

[color=forestgreen]"What the fuck are you talking about?"[/color]

"I'm saying--"

[color=forestgreen]"No-- don't say it again. I get what you're saying. What I don't get is how you could be so stupid as to think this is an appropriate question to ask other people."[/color]

"But you use water to make soup, don't you?"

"Yeah!"

[color=forestgreen]"Yeah, but you can't just pour a beverage in a bowl with nothing else and call it soup."[/color]

The boy smiled, "Ahh-- so water is a beverage?"

Clementine's eye widened in anger, [color=forestgreen]"Yes, you little bastard!"[/color]

"Who's to say a beverage can't also be a soup?"

"Yeah! Yeah!"

Clementine pressed her hands to her temples, trying not to smash these two little shit's faces together, [color=forestgreen]"You drink a beverage out of a glass, you eat a soup because it's a broth based meal and nutrient rich."[/color]

"Okay, but what about when you drink a soup out of a thermos? And what about nutrient rich beverages, like V8?"

[color=forestgreen]"You get V8 out here?"[/color]

The boy shook his head, "Just imagine for the example."

"Yeah!"

[color=forestgreen]"Okay..."[/color] Clementine pressed a hand to her forehead as she felt a headache coming on, [color=forestgreen]"v8 is advertised as a beverage, it doesn't have food chunks. It's just a drink, that's why you don't eat it out of a bowl. And as for the thermos argument, there's still food chunks-- it's not a beverage, it's a soup you happen to be drinking out of a cup."[/color]

"Okay..." The boy nodded sagely, "So, then what if I put fruit in my water?"

[color=forestgreen]"That would just be La Croix."[/color]

"Okay, okay..." the boy laughed, "But I think you haven't completely dis-proven that water on it's own can be a soup-- there just needs chunks of something in it..."

"So... is ice water soup?" The other boy chimed in.

Clementine shot both boys a look that caused them to run away in abject terror. [color=forestgreen]"I need a drink."[/color]
[hr]
After a quick trip to her room at the Cadillac to slip on some jeans (She figured her bikini top was enough of a top to satisfy the scarcely enforced "shirt" rule). She ended up at Momma May's, a place who's watered down piss water she had become well accustomed to over the past month and a half or so. She found quickly to be served here one had to give off an air of downtrodden-ness, and ignore the stares. Maybe because that's the air the average Coalfell citizen gave off? Simultaneously having given up and not giving a fuck? Either way, Clementine was a quick learner. She was about five beers deep before she heard the bell ring again. She didn't turn right away. instead focusing on the wolf piss they called beer before her, trying to build up some kind of buzz to fight off her oncoming migraine.

[Color=e99666]"Hey hey!"[/color]

Oh?

[Color=e99666]"Does anyone know of a good place to stay around here?"[/color]

The silence that followed hung like a strange fruit. Clementine turned to the stranger. The [i]pretty[/i] stranger. [i]Strange fruit[/i] indeed. Clem smiled as people stared. No one was going to answer, of course. People around here didn't really like talking, unless it was about something either entirely inane or completely insane.

[color=forestgreen]"'Good' is a bit of a high bar around here, I'm afraid."[/color] Clem rolled her eye, [color=forestgreen]"There's definitely [i]a place[/i] to stay, if you're desperate."[/color][/indent][/color]