[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] Beach (L11) [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 moment was quiet. Serene, even. It was a tranquil span of time that brought out a long dormant sense of peace in Ash. That idea was almost foreign to him; peace. He'd been waging a prolonged war against forces that sought to kill him, those he cared about, and in a broader sense, those for whom he felt responsibility. Responsibility was a motivating factor in who he was and what he did, with his personal needs taking second place or lower in most things. It had been a long, long time since he had genuinely considered wanting anything for himself. In that hour on the beach with Thana, watching the water beat on the sand in the dying light of the day, he found that whatever buried want or need for himself was being fulfilled anyway. This was a perfect moment, which he committed to memory. Every detail, from the sand between his toes to the gradual and minor shift in temperature; the wind carrying the scent of the sea and the feel of Thana against him. The rhythm of the water sounded like a great intake of breath and sigh, reflecting the peaceful nature of his heart, again and again. This was an hour that had the potential to sustain him through whatever darkness lay ahead. Was he content? Was this what that word meant? Ash was a learned man, having taken education from one of the premier military universities in the world (or the world-that-was, anyway), and so had ample knowledge in the textbook definition of "content", as it applied in this instance. But had he ever truly felt it? The worries of the future were not in his thoughts, likewise the problems of the past remained there, in the past. They didn't touch him, past or future both. Ash was fully in the moment, cognizant only of the evening unfolding before him. This made the last two years worth it. Newnan's collapse and what lay before it, the many months afterwards, the uncertainty, fear, longing, regret. These things of negativity had not deserted him, granted. They just did not have hold on his psyche at the present. Yes - content. This is what it meant. With a grin growing on his face, Ash began to gently pull himself away from the embrace he had with Thana. It was not with any intent to put an end to their rendezvous, as one might be able to pick out from the warm expression for his beachside Aphrodite. He quickly discarded his shirt and held a hand out to Thana, inquiring with a bright, smiling eyes, [color=4682b4]"How about you and I get better acquainted with the water tonight?"[/color] It seemed like a fine time for a dip. [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) -> E7 (In front of Desalinization) [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] Everyone seemed to get that expression only halfway. Curiosity did indeed kill the cat, but the other half assured one that satisfaction brought it back. But giving that some thought, Thalia had no fucking clue what that was supposed to mean, either. This was just one random synapse firing in her brain that she shoved to the wayside, being that it held zero bearing on the moment nor what she was trying to accomplish. And the Russian lady was forthcoming that she didn't exactly agree with the saying, anyway. So it was pointless. As the Major seemed to eye-grope her, Thalia narrowed her own eyes slightly and tilt her head to one side, as if puzzling something of her own out. Oh, she had been stared through before, by people far scarier than Russian Major Lady. Admittedly, she has the privilege of being related to them (for the most part), which helped a lot. She could tell that this was not a woman to be taken lightly. But then, she already knew that. So the icy eyes of the Major did what they had to while Thalia awaited judgement. When the axe finally descended, Thalia was pleased to hear that she was being put on D roster. This was what she needed. And it was easily the weirdest psych evaluation she'd ever been party to. But hey, she wasn't about to complain. Thalia gave the Major a raspy but well intended, [color=dc143c]"Thanks. I'll be theah."[/color] 2000 hours. What was that again? Yeah, 8:00 pm. She could do this. Like a workout, but at the end of the day instead of the beginning. Foot in the door. Thalia suddenly remembered, sitting at that table, that she still had unfinished business from earlier. Oh, potentially ass-beating worthy business, too. So, with the grace of a walrus with advanced palsy, Thalia hurled what remained of her supper into her facehole at speeds that defied human description short of theoretical physics research documentation. She swept up everything that needed to be returned to the people working the Mess Hall and bused her tray. She marveled over the fact that she damn near chipped a tooth on that metal arm of hers, such was the ferocity of her chomping instincts, but shook it off and made for the door. Step One was locating that map. It was an easy thing to do, seeing as she had referenced it earlier in the day. She had a specific target in mind for this, while there was still time. Another passing thought hit her on her way to the sign - she was moving out and about alone, with true night fast approaching, and she had nothing with which to defend herself. Not even a decent knife, or barring that, a pointed stick. So maybe her arm counted, it being a decent blunt object in place of her fist. But it still felt strange not to be armed. And she wasn't back at her best, either. Okay, moving on. Thalia read the map and located her object of search: Desalination. Where the road loops. The next clue, the final prize, whatever. This was happening tonight. With what remained of her sense of propriety, that which hadn't been washed away her years of living like a feral wolf-dog, Thalia made it outside of the building before she took off at a run. It was a thing at which she excelled. Running of course, not propriety. She didn't continue at a dead sprint for any appreciable time, merely until she broke away from the crowds and put a little distance. Then she slowed to an observant jog, speeding or slowing as necessary, until she finally found the building she was looking for. Or more accurately, the street near to it. [color=dc143c]"One Way Sign... One Way Sign... One Fucking Way Si... HA!"[/color] She didn't know what might be there, but damnit, Thalia was going to find out.