[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] Asking Ash if he was happy gave the man a touch of introspection, as if he didn't do that enough anyway. When it came down to it, he did have an answer to the question. [color=4682b4]"Yeah. Actually, I am."[/color] The tone and demeanor of his words gave considerable suspicion as to whether he was addressing the overt query, concerning Thalia leaving after his little burst of sarcasm. In truth, he was really answering another question. Was he happy? Looking to Thana, just being able to gaze into her eyes, share a meal, and be with her after such a long time out in the world; the answer could only be a resounding affirmation. Of course he was happy. More than that, and probably the most profound realization of this part of his life - Ash was allowing himself to be happy, without putting up his usual guard, without looking forward to possible tragedy. It was liberating. And a little scary. As she scooted up closer to him, Ash put an arm around Thana's waist. He could maneuver a fork with one hand and it meant being a little nearer to her. That seemed to be a priority thing at the moment. After the day he had with the horrorstory bathroom, the emotional moments at the gravesite, then scrubbing up human remains from a jail floor that he got himself locked in was admittedly not the best day in the world. It wasn't the worst by a long sight, though. And it was coming to a close with the best company he could ask for. But she hadn't asked him what he did. Thana asked him how his first day [i]was[/i]. [color=4682b4]"First day..."[/color] He considered giving a blow-by-blow account for maybe a half second, and then quickly discarded the idea. He was assigned work, he did it, and that was that. [color=4682b4]"It was okay. Getting a lot better now."[/color] Ash smiled a little and leaned into Thana briefly, then returned to his plate. It was a line that had so much cheese it could have been spread on a cracker. Honest, but it was apparent that Ash hadn't really had a lot of practice "putting the moves" on anyone in a very long time. After a moment, he was struck by an idea. [color=4682b4]"Hey, I don't know how I feel about sharing you with everyone in the Mess Hall. What do you say that after dinner, we take a walk someplace quieter?"[/color] He was nearing the end of his tuna salad and didn't want to just cut the evening at that point. [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/j6Grb3N/Thalia-Scoffs.gif[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Not a soul alive had heard Thalia laugh except for Joaquin. Ever. There was good reason for this. Raised among the people she was from the age of ten, being biracial but looking like a dark haired [i]Blanca[/i] gave her an interesting start to life. She had to be more serious than those around her, more threatening when necessary, more like her uncle or her father than anyone in the periphery of their Familia, to get the same respect as anyone else initially. Until they got used to her, at any rate. It was a lesson she learned early. So her nature became quieter, more insular, less prone to showing ease or frivolity. Not lacking of emotional displays, as that was encouraged openly, but it might have even been assumed that she lacked a sense of humor. So the rare occasions that she laughed in a way that wasn't sardonic or wry, it sounded ...off. In this particular instance, Thalia had to force herself to swallow the bite in her mouth before she exploded. It was hard. Then she began, a rolling guffaw followed by a series of mirthful lurches that spilled out in such a manner that sounded almost exactly like a Disney villainess. Raw but strangely [i]melodic[/i]. Deeper than her speaking voice by a notable margin, like a dark force was borrowing her body to express rage and joy simultaneously. It was frightening in a way that might inspire those around her to wonder if she was taking profound delight in some medieval torture; sadistic in its rolling, gleeful dance through the available scales of tone. It was punctuated by the rhythmic [b]thump[/b] of her steel hand upon the table next to her. For a person who did not like attention being drawn to her, she was doing a fine job of it now. Thalia was living purely in the moment with her mask torn away and her feelings laid bare, and it was scary. There was a reason she remained outwardly guarded constantly. This was part of it. But the fact that Joaquin was gay and/or bisexual didn't make her laugh. Though it was never formally revealed, it was suspected. No, the part that got to her with such intensity was a little more visceral. More personal. An interesting fact about both Thalia and Joaquin was that, despite the differences between them, they both had the same father. And as it turned out, their father was a Catholic priest. The history behind the timing of his vows being taken and him siring offspring was legitimate, even if all of his kids weren't, so the church was grudgingly okay with it. And they had no choice. Damage done, so to speak. But for Thalia to look upon her brother, finally knowing for solid fact that not only did he date men but was dating a [i]Catholic Priest[/i], and one who was trained by their father; not to mention that there was a passing resemblance between Atticus and and Dear Old Dad, gave her pause and limited her outward emotional control. This was rich. [color=dc143c]"That's some really Freudian shit right there, [i]hermano[/i],"[/color] she finally said as the laughter subsided. [color=dc143c]"You gaht some Daddy issues."[/color] Thalia gathered up her plate again and stood. [color=dc143c]"I love ya, but I'm the fuck ottah here."[/color] Gracefully, she made her way away from the table, shaking her head. Then she spotted her next social acquisition, such as it was. The Major, sitting by herself. [i]By herself.[/i] This could be it. Quietly, she approached the older woman. When she was at a respectful distance, she spoke directly and firmly, [color=dc143c]"Major? Maddog told me to come to you about a psych evaluation. Going on D rostah. Also, do you mind if I sit? Everyone else is fucking nuts."[/color]