[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] Bus [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/Wnnd0Wm/Ash-FC-5.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Emotional roller coaster. Not one of the big, showy ones with tunnels, flashing lights, and loops; more like one of the old-fashioned, wooden braced ones that carried you in a jerky but generally safe, predicable direction. Nevertheless, it had a series of ups and downs. It felt good to tell the story about James's arrival to Newnan, especially to relate it to those who knew him well but who came into their fold afterward. Considering the insanely high mortality rate of any and everyone around Ash, he felt much like a man speaking of events across generations, telling the new generation about the exploits of the former. Like a grandfatherly type. At the age of thirty-four, Ash felt old. If he lived to see his hair grey and his skin show the rough passage of time, he would feel just as venerable as he did right then. All the same, Ash was glad to get the words out, or any such monologue over the bones of his fallen friend. Carrying it around for this time was a weight on his shoulders which he eventually had just become accustomed, likely in a way that was unhealthy. Now, he sat in a bus with functional air conditioning near a retirement/vacation city in Florida. Granted, they weren't there to see the sights. If the world had progressed as it might have, his reasons for being in the Sunshine State would be vastly different. He would be a Major by now, bucking to join up with the 20th Engineer Brigade's leadership. They made plenty of noise back in the day. Ash figured that they weren't making very much noise anymore. And thinking of it, if he was with the 20th proper rather than merely a company provisionally attached, he would probably still have been back in Afghanistan when the whole "dead rising" thing happened. As it was, his unit was called back to the Atlanta area before the really bad stuff happened. One of the last things he heard before communication went dark was the utter mess the Middle East was in, or his slice of it. RIP 20th, Ash supposed. Further contemplation on the issue had him empathizing with the other survivors. What plans did they have? Thana the Naval Officer, Jack the Chicago Cop, Tatiana the Prima Ballerina. A bona fide music superstar in the bus with them, too. The ones living workaday lives probably had their own hopes and dreams; putting a down payment on their first home, maybe, or starting a family. Things that they could work toward with the knowledge that their labor and good sense might eventually pay off. Would things ever stabilize? One day years from now, might Ash return to his home town in the Virginia hills to rebuild the family business in ancestral land? Was it even worth it now? He had a home here, he loved someone, and he had an extended family brought about by circumstance and trust of the highest magnitude. If he could go back home and make it work now, would he even want to? Maybe, eventually, and only after several specific and highly unlikely things fell into place. This and many passing thoughts went through Ash's mind as he stared out of the window of the bus. One thing was for certain, as far as Ash was concerned: He was a U.S. Army trained Combat Engineer. Rebuilding out of destruction and maintaining it was his forte. Clearing the way was the credo of his profession. Destroying the opposition of these tasks was his bread and butter. If his path was Florida for the foreseeable, then that's where he'd do his work, and the future would sort itself out. [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] Bus [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/5W5GfBs/Thalia-Dark.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Adjusting to the humidity outside was bad enough. Now that she had a layer of perspiration and ambient Florida on her, coming back into the air conditioned bus was even worse. The sudden shift in temperature was becoming bothersome to Thalia. She clutched herself together, unwilling for the chill air to touch her any more than it needed to. But this was silly. Stroke inducing temperatures hovered out of doors and she was caught up by central air. The raw absurdity of it was enough to elicit a quiet scoff from her as she brought her knees up to her chest and put her arms around them. Not for the first time, Thalia drew comparison between herself and a stray cat; once domesticated yet now a feral product of its surroundings. It had been a long time since Thalia had attended a funeral. She didn't care for them much. In her case, she had been to a good number of them. Her father was a priest, after all. It came with the territory. Mostly the somber sort of affair, though every so often members of her family would insist upon the old ways of honoring the dead which were hopelessly mixed with pre-Catholic Mexican tradition, honoring the dead with a lavish sort of celebratory glee. This was not one of those occasions, obviously. And considering that it was done within a very short time of the guest of honor's passing, it might have been inappropriate. Thalia made a mental note to ask the Padre if they did Dia de los Muertos in CMB. It seemed like honoring the dead might be a worthwhile endeavor, possibly more now than it used to be. Still, Thalia did not care for funerals much. Though she was glad this one, such as it was, happened. And was brief. The bus seemed a very somber place, moreso than the ride out to the cemetery. [color=dc143c]"Thank you,"[/color] she was compelled to say aloud, though to whom she was unsure. Her eyes flicked from one of their chaperones to another. The opportunity to bid friends and allies farewell was appreciated. Now all she was left with was her thoughts - about her good friend Lola, the man James (who she knew for a half hour yet still changed her life dramatically), and about [i]Gavin[/i].