[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] Mess Hall (C) [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/9nVT3Qs/Ash-Happy.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] The pat on the stage and the manner in which it was delivered gave Ash a sort of calm reassurance. Now he had a defined endgame goal for the next few minutes; a Point A to the Point B of the cafeteria line to which he might return. Ash did like having a plan for things, even if it was as simple as getting something to eat. Even in this, he had to note the privilege involved, regular meals being a luxury more than a right, overall. Taking an air of stoic gratitude, Ash hopped in line and moved along with the flow of shuffling foot traffic. It was a piece of familiarity, not unlike his time in the military proper. One wants food, one gets in line. Obligatory commentary about the bootleather quality of the Salisbury Steak that was really leftover hamburger patties from a couple of days ago, rehydrated in canned gravy and served over instant rice. It was a strange form of nostalgia that Ash actually found himself missing that Class C, repurposed, misappropriation of edible calories. It marked simpler times, when one could afford to complain about dinner. Finally to the front of the line, Ash grabbed his tray and pushed it along, giving a [color=4682b4]"Thank you,"[/color] to the persons behind the line who loaded him up. It sounded quite sincere despite the usual granite exterior that formed the neutral rest to Ash's face. Memories of the day's labors; grime and blood, brains and teeth (the most pleasant part being the memorial service, oddly), didn't exactly have him in the mood to eat something particularly warm or heavy, so he opted for the tuna salad. Yes to the broth, yes to a piece of fruit. He just wasn't much of a sushi person if an option was given, and the casserole was the opposite of what he had in mind. Ash remained friendly to those around him, sparing a nod, small wave, or the odd [color=4682b4]"Evenin',"[/color] for people he had already met formally, [color=4682b4]"Sir"[/color] and [color=4682b4]"Ma'am"[/color] aplenty as the situation dictated. Before too long, he had traversed the Mess Hall and, tray in hand, made his way back to Thana. Those who might be paying attention to his general facial features might note that his solid, stoic expression softened somewhat as he came within polite speaking range. Much in the same manner that he observed Thalia set her plate down and hop up onto the stage next to Thana, Ash ascended and settled down on the other side of her. He smiled, looking to the beauty before him with continued adoration. If anyone had asked him right then, he might have easily responded [color=4682b4]"...what scars?"[/color] Instead, he gave the casual greeting of, [color=4682b4]"Hey again,"[/color] leaning forward as to steal another kiss before getting to his meal and hopefully talking about the day with Thana, but paused briefly, as if something struck his mind. He leaned out to the side, getting Thalia in full view before speaking in a sarcastic, faux-concerned voice, [color=4682b4]"So... we're going to be making out here for a while, me and Thana. Don't want you feeling jealous, okay Miss?"[/color] His Virginian drawl was noticable, but lessened from the great [i]Thawna-ing[/i] earlier. [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] Mess Hall (C) [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/D9f1NPS/Thalia-Irritated.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Rumors. Well, her new bestie did seem to take them in stride, and knowing full well that they were floating around about her probably meant that she was in a better position then not knowing. Again, Thalia hadn't much use for the rumormill recently, as her days being a Security Specialist were far behind her. The preferred response to them, as described by Thana, was enough to give her a single amused exhalation of [color=dc143c]"Hnn,"[/color] that might have been a laugh, be it a little dry and cynical in nature. [color=dc143c]"Yah. People ah assholes."[/color] She'd heard enough rumors about herself, back in the day. But a good, old-fashioned Undead Uprising and survival with minimal contact with other people did wonders to remove gossip. For a while, at least. [color=dc143c]"Funny how rebuilding society has to involve people tahlking shit, isn't it?"[/color] Thalia shook her head. Then she laughed. Once, loudly, followed by her left hand clasping over her mouth. As if she hadn't considered this before, she looked to Thana and asked, [color=dc143c]"What do you think they're saying about me?"[/color] She could only wonder, given that she had family here, coupled with the circumstances of her initial appearance in town. The partly feral instincts she'd devolved into out in the world. Or the many and various ways she had demonstrated her discomfort with luxuries like clean sheets and air conditioning. At the core of it, Thalia didn't overly care, feelings weren't hurt, etc., but a sense of morbid curiosity took hold of her. Events passed, as events tend to, and Ash returned, bearing food. After he informed her of his possible intent to get very affectionate with Thana right in front of her, Thalia announced, [color=dc143c]"Okay... I'm the fuck outta here. Talk at yah later, Navy."[/color] As she spoke, she piled what sundries she had onto her plate and slid down, off of the stage. She might be a bitch half the time, but Thalia was going to give those two their space. Having caught sight of Joaquin, she made a measured beeline over and plopped her tray down at the table across from him. Sitting heavily, Thalia took another noisy bite from her unpeeled orange, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, and sighed. [color=dc143c]"Hey, Joaquin. More cling that a roll of plastic wrap, both of 'em."[/color] She motioned with her metal hand over in the general direction of Ash and Thana. [color=dc143c]"Had to escape. What're you guys tahlking about?"[/color]