[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] Jail (AA) [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/6Hdr7Rp/Holloway2.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] The truth was, Ash didn't care if the man was "dealing" or not. He had dealt with a lot in his time, and maintained the same effectiveness of his position throughout the worst of it. Granted, he had a staff of people he trusted to handle their areas of expertise and keep the established rolling, and he did have a lot or personal brooding time when he wasn't directly handling affairs in the settlement. But his work didn't suffer. Not seeing to your responsibilities because you were [i]dealing[/i] was, in Ash's opinion, close to sinful. None of this he voiced. He wasn't the head guy here, and he sure as hell didn't know the full length and breadth of the story. All he had was knowledge of the situation he was in personally and the word of a man he had just met a half hour ago. And all of this was being colored by his annoyance. Ted did mention one thing that got Ash's attention, and raptly so. But not before a moment of confusion on his part. [color=4682b4]"Colonel's Army ..?"[/color] until he explained a little bit more, and the realization of it dawned on him. [color=4682b4]"Hold up, the KFC's Big Chicken? [i]The[/i] Big Chicken on Cobb Parkway an' Roswell Rd?"[/color] He let out a chuckle before continuing, [color=4682b4]"Just before all this, I was stationed out of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office in Marietta. We used to order from there all the damn time. That's a historic landmark, Ted. Hell, I want to shake your hand, sir!"[/color] He was being just a hair sarcastic, but it was genuine mirth nonetheless. It was the little things you missed after a while, and something like a bucket of KFC after dealing with Mess Hall chow was nothing to turn away. Ash pushed off of the wall he was leaning on and extended his hand to the man, a little smile reminiscent of the man he might have been once decorating his visage. [color=4682b4]"You are a national treasure, Ted. They shouldn't have a man like you mopping brains off the floor."[/color] Of course, this meant that they might have even been neighbors, once upon a time. Or might have seen one another at some point, owing to that one restaurant they were in regularly; Ted because it was his job and Ash because he was an occasional patron thereof. But the tiniest amount of suspicion crossed his mind, which he began to address with a question, [color=4682b4]"So, who were you with after everything went belly-up? Before Mexico Beach, I mean. I heard about groups of survivors around metro ATL. Met a couple, too."[/color] [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] Education (M) [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/jJMrDcx/Thalia-Emotional.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Thana was talking like she was to try to cheer her up. It seemed obvious. To her credit, it did elicit a bashful smile from Thalia. Empathizing with the news that she got emotional a few days ago when she saw Ash was a nice touch, but she had to wave it off. [color=dc143c]"Yah, I call bullshit, Navy,"[/color] she replied, scrubbing the last bit of moisture away from her eyes. [color=dc143c]"Girls like us ahren't supposed to cry. Even if you did, no one's gonna believe you. We don't cry. We'ah the bitches that get stuff handled."[/color] They were supposed to be, anyway. Lord knew the world needed strong women, and despite the obvious kicking that life had given them both, the fight hadn't left them yet. It was all tough talk in the first place, about crying. The day they met, Thalia had learned about the death of a handful of people she was close to, friends and family, both. Then her bestie died, whose gravesite she had just left. Thalia had helped storm a goddamn fortress with tears streaking the ash and soot she used to paint her face into a greyscale skull. Thalia sure as hell wept when she lost her arm, too. Before and after. She cried with relief upon seeing Thana alive again. And she damn near got misty-eyed upon seeing clam chowder for the first time in years. She was not made of iron. That thought made her look back down at her prosthetic arm, the beginnings of a wry smirk playing at the corner of her mouth. Okay, [i]most[/i] of her wasn't made of iron. Then Thana had to mention blow-up dolls. Granted, it wouldn't have surprised Thalia in the least if someone had re-invented the inflatable sex toys before tackling only marginally important things like sustainable food sourcing or penicillin. And wouldn't the fetishists just love her? Biracial amputee with a thing for fire. But when it came down to it, she wasn't the one who came up with that particular thought first, nor might she have vocalized it if she did. [color=dc143c]"You'ah a strange one, Navy. I'm glad you're you."[/color] She shook her head. [color=dc143c]"Seriously? Blow-up dolls?"[/color] It was said with in a joking manner with faux incredulity. Still, being referred to along with Thana's callsign was interesting. Sparrow and Angel. She had never really referred to Thana as Sparrow. It seemed like a different lifetime. And this felt like the first time Thana had called her Angel. The origin of her nickname was rooted in Gonzalez and Carmichael family histories, but it was something that only family had called her until very recently. Thalia might have said something about that to her, owing that she was pretty much as close as any of her family, but the sudden cessation of chuckling followed by Thana's insistence that she seize the opportunity on the immediate prodded Thalia into action. She strode purposefully into the room. Able to distinguish one of the people she spent time with in Quarantine from someone she hadn't met yet, she turned to [i]La Profesora Coño[/i], speaking clearly and directly. It was very much like her corpsec voice from years past, [color=dc143c]"Mr. Martin sent me. I'm supposed to be on 'D Rostah', military training. He says you'ah the lady that makes that happen."[/color] Then she remembered that she wanted something and quickly added, [color=dc143c]"Ma'am."[/color] She even gave a quick tilt of her head in Nigel's direction, acknowledging his presence with a minimum of cordiality.