[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=662d91][i][b]Alexander Polawski[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=662d91]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Graveyard [i][b][color=662d91]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/BBfr494/Mugsy-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] There was a painful ache somewhere in Alexander, a sort of black hole that kept the old veteran's guard up as the group got together outside the bus. He couldn't place its location, rather it seemed to glow from wherever he was feeling after. While his eyes and ears were shifting past each member attending what would be his first funeral gathering in many moons, his stance echoing Atticus' cautionary tale, Alexander tried to isolate the pain inside him. They started moving. While Alexander wasn't actively ignoring the story Daytona told Thalia about the fool named Dimsdale, he continued his attempt at supressing the pain distracting him from being alert. Yes they were a number of armed survivors with enough weapons to defend themselves, but in his opinion, nine out of ten times it was the guy not paying attention that got the first VC bullet, not that he could back it up with any concrete facts. Then again was he paying attention himself? The pain kept being a, well, pain in the bud. Perhaps it was the swan-dive that had roughened up his arse? Alexander was swept of these searching thoughts as they reached their final destination - the graves proper. The sun shined as bright and annoyingly down at them as ever, sweat pouring down Alexander's face when he'd be much happier with a pair of good sunglasses and a Boonie hat, though that didn't cross his mind at that time. With Atticus announcing their arrival and asking the group whether they wanted him to say some words, Alexander looked blankly down at the graves, in particular the one belonging to a certain Kiwi. The pain centered itself in his chest. Sorrow, grief, sadness. Alexander was sad. It was by his sheer force of will that Alexander didn't fall on his knees in front of the graves, though he looked at them with an empty look. The others he didn't know or had only known real briefly relative to Lola, though that didn't make it any easier for a man who'd seen enough death for one life. Did he want Atticus to say anything? What was there to say, they were put to rest in the ground already. Alexander stiffled a quiver and held back most of the tears, simply crossing himself and looking over to Thalia. Lola had been her friend before they met in a TANK, she knew more about that strange Kiwi. [color=662d91]"I don't know. Thanks for the ride, Lola, and for the coffee. Keep the tea-set ready for us, would you?"[/color] Alexander said quietly, emotionally, though audible enough for most people to hear him. Whether he spoke to Thalia, Lola or himself was up for grabs, but somewhere inside him the pain both intensified and released, a brief smile tugging at his face. [color=662d91]"May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace…"[/color] [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=B8860B][i][b]Nigel Cooper[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=B8860B]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Hydroponic Garden (T) [i][b][color=B8860B]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/LrnKm2S/Nigel-Hadrian-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] The mood was certainly lighter still back at the lesser Hanging Gardens of Babylon, at least this section of the grand wonder of the apocalypse world, and in no thanks to the dreadful humidity that weighed heavy on Nigel's shoulders. Thana's revelation had done more than enough to make Nigel forget about it though, the talk of other centers of human civilisation still making a stand outside of Camp Mexico Beach. And following her inside the greenhouse, he was eager to learn more from thought-lost bastions of humanity. Nigel listened eagerly to Thana's tales, nearly forgetting what he was supposed to do though following her lead in the change of clothes. It was almost to good to be true, just like the wind blew through the pipes and made the dephts of Hades less miserable for those mere mortals. Through the exchange Nigel only nodded and gave the occational [color=#B8860B]"Wow…"[/color] and such. For better and for worse, now he knew there existed other settlements outside of these protective walls - papermills and all! He was impressed, and it wasn't difficult to read the astonishment on his sweaty face. [color=#B8860B]"Well I guess shocked is a good of an adjective as I'll ever teach the younglings, if that's were I end up here among you. A working papermill? That would explain how you can afford giving us all these tests and forms you've done, and agreed, toilet paper is a luxury on-par with Chinese silk these days. But…"[/color] Nigel said back to Thana, getting off his wetsuit and re-dressing in his own shorts and t-shirt, glad to feel some air on his skin again. It was Thana's mention of a second group that made Nigel's excitement blow away like the humid air inside. [color=#B8860B]"Who're those guys then, the Bayou? You mean all "dueling-banjoes" and frightening hill billies? Barbarians?"[/color] Nigel asked her, not liking the tone which she'd set for those people. These days you couldn't cherry-pick your friends, Sportucas had learned that thanks to the dynamic hetero-duo early, but still. Thana's words didn't conjure up a pleasent image of them. [color=#B8860B]"Should I…or we be worried?"[/color]