[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=4682b4][i][b]Ash Holloway[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=4682b4]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Assembly (P) [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/YDbGSVd/Ash-Outstanding.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] While the head count was being taken by the more official, gun carrying members of Camp Mexico Beach, Ash was giving the assembled group a lookover as well. Not with logistics or any real plan in mind; he was merely curious to see who all was going to be coming along on this field trip. Just a couple more arriving. Thana was not among their number, he noted. She had time to make her way over to the graves a long while ago, as she was the only one in CMB who knew where to find the remains that were recovered. It felt odd, knowing that the earthly vessels of people that looked to him for guidance were moved to be closer to them all, and now sat buried in Florida, of all places. Ash gave his own understanding nod back to the Padre, acknowledging the man's response to him with quiet respect. The tiny snatches of conversation that swirled around Ash caught just enough of his attention for him to understand that none of it gave necessary information and none of it was aimed in his direction. He was, in a sense, alone in a small crowd. It was an interesting feeling after being the one calling shots amid a closely packed group of survivors, and before that basically remaining [i]on duty[/i] 24/7 for the good of a community. What does a commander do once the mission was over? Maybe it wouldn't matter at the end of the day, but for the meantime, it was to honor those who died for the mission. Ash put the thoughts, and the tiny conversations around him, it out of his consideration for the time being. The exchange in Spanish caught his attention, as the one-handed lady sounded very short and to the point whilst her brother answered a two word question with a sonnet. They were very different. It was amazing to Ash they they were related at all, let alone connected paternally. It wasn't until Atticus began speaking in raised, encompassing tones that Ash's keen eyes snapped back in his direction, his demeanor returning to the alert with a notable straightening of posture. It was a brief rundown of expected events for the near future. Get on the bus. Half hour once they got where they were going. More to follow. He almost felt like throwing a salute and quick timing it to board. Instead, he took a cue from Tatiana and Jack, merely entering the bus and taking a spot nearby and across from them. Though they were guarded by people that he assumed he could trust, Ash was, like his friends in the seat nearby, feeling rather vigilant. This was a run outside of the walls, and he was bereft of anything with which he could effectively defend himself; firearm, knife, long blade or bow. It appeared that this was an exercise of trust for all of them, those with the guns and those without, equally. Ever the team player, Ash accepted this as the way things were now and settled in as best he was able. He shot Jack and Tati a quick look, followed by a brief but warm smile, and returned to observing his surroundings. [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=dc143c][i][b]Thalia Carmichael[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=dc143c]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Assembly (P) [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/j6Grb3N/Thalia-Scoffs.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] It was a rare smile that caught Thalia off guard, acquired from Alexander's informing her of his intention to kick her ass if she called him "Gramps" again. Admittedly, it was a throwback to their earlier days, what seemed like a long time ago now. Perhaps thinking about Lola and Gavin, though she knew the former a hell of a lot better than she knew the latter, was shifting her mindset back a year and a half. She hadn't called Alexander that since the first day, just before the attack on Eden. A lot was coming back to her memory, fresher now than it had been for some time. [i]Eden[/i]. For all of her cold, judgemental stares and the expectations of someone with her bloodline, she hadn't really distinguished herself aside from surviving the first few waves of the Apocalypse. Hard decisions made all around, and she nearly died more than once because of stupid mistakes and a lack of practical experience, but Eden clarified something in her. And scared her a little. Not what those cultists had done, though it truly was the stuff of nightmares, but that she took to the act of killing - [i]executing[/i] - so many people with ease and grace. She found out more about herself that day than any day prior, and what scared her was the fact that she felt cool, righteous fury contained within her as her body performed the acts of the day, blade and bullet moving in sync with her active, calculating mind, opportunistic in her methods so long as the people in front of her died quickly and in numbers vastly surpassing her kill count from Thalia's first in self defense to the day in question. Zero moral compunction in doing so. Coldly brutal in the application of her violence, and it felt [i]good[/i]. Maybe there was something wrong with her. Or maybe she was the type that would survive this new world, so long as she didn't turn into a monster. It was in there someplace. A brief chill passed through her, another emerging memory of a dream she had the night after her arm was removed. That one stuck with her. There was most assuredly something dark and consuming inside of her. The daughter of a priest, no less. Thalia decided that she definitely needed to see these graves. She needed to know why she did what she did and keep herself grounded. She needed Lola's memory to stay with her, and her oddly accented words of optimism and fellowship to echo in her brain when it was needed. And she needed to keep her friends and family close now. Close for her, anyway. Thalia gave a quick, benign laugh to Alexander. Sure, he was probably joking. But depending on how the dice fell, he might just be able to, having more experience with a missing extremity than she. [color=dc143c]"Yah, heard ya there, Mugsy. A one-legged guy kicking my ass isn't something I want getting around."[/color] She flashed a smile to him and nudged the guy with her elbow. No, Thalia wasn't a monster yet. She has friends that didn't mind taking tiny jabs at her. That level of comfort wasn't possible with a complete sociopath. Then there was the exchange with her brother. Dear Merciful God, that man could throw a can of alphabet soup at a simple yes/no question. She gave him a slow nod, the look of mild, exasperated confusion mixed with acceptance playing across her features. With a shrug, she continued on to listen to the instructions of the Padre, and when it was her turn to board the bus, she did so the measured, careful steps of a predator walking into unfamiliar territory, her eyes taking in as much detail as possible given the situation. Briefly, Thalia gave Daytona a tiny nod as she passed by, and moved to take a seat near the middle. Glancing back to Ash, Tatiana, and Jack, she had the look of a woman who wanted to say something, but refrained. While she had a LOT of questions that had yet to be answered by anyone, despite insistence that they would get around to it, they were on their way to a memorial. The blunt and crass way that Thalia leapt into most social occasions, especially when she wanted something, would be painfully counterproductive now. But her impatience was brimming.