[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] Quarantine (W) [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] Strangely, for the first time in a long time, Ash wasn't putting a lot of his thought to what had come before. It would always mark him, as the rough and blighted past marked everyone who still lived, but this moment was reserved for the Ash's present and his hopes for the future. Perhaps it was healthier that way. What was done was done; he would worry about it another time. They were luckier than most. Ash looked across the table to Guy, giving him an almost studious going-over as the man gave a more personal greeting to him, be it flubbed just a bit by Guy's reflex to refer to him as "Boss". There was history between them that spanned far before Patient Zero started to eat Victim #1. Guy was, once upon a time, an employee of the Holloway & Sons distillery, which explained why they spoke with an accent almost identical to Ash's. Time abroad had softened his a little, but Guy's was straight from the source in the mountains of Virginia. The proximity of the man speaking seemed to bring Ash's own drawl back to its original factory settings. Technically, Guy had worked for Ash's father, Lawson. Ash had returned to their home not very far after Atlanta fell and rallied the survivors into the Distillery complex as a fallback point, which held admirably under siege of the Dead until a couple of their number tried their luck with escaping, inadvertently letting the horde in. Guy survived and stuck with him as they turned from a temporary community into a nomadic caravan, and in time, as they made their way back down to Georgia. He was present when Ash relinquished command of his group to Lt. Colonel Leann McCormick, provided he stay on as Executive Officer as their groups merged. And Guy proved to be a valuable friend and ally while they established Newnan, on up to its fall. He was a hell of a sniper, right behind Alicia and James in skill with a long gun. Throughout all of this time, Guy called Ash "Boss" or "Bossman". Habits die hard. Their history went back farther than even that, growing up in the same, very small town, where everyone knew each other and the school was a three room affair where several grades met simultaneously. Ash had known Guy since they were kids, but they never quite gave each other much attention until after the Outbreak. And here, after all of that, this man was sitting opposite Ash with a deck of cards, just over eight hundred miles from where they started. Some coincidences were truly surreal, making Ash pretty sure that there might be more to it than a random coming together of events. Still, Guy made an observation that he hadn't responded to yet, and he probably should. [color=4682b4]"Thanks. Feeling more personable lately."[/color] Ash shrugged, shaking his head a little. [color=4682b4]"Less of a dark place."[/color] It was true enough. He might even be in an even better place when he found his purpose to this community. But today, he was more than fine enough. Ash did give a glance back to Medic following his quick and dirty appraisal of Guy's poker skills. He furrowed his brows a little as if to jokingly ask if that was necessary, then shrugged and said aloud, [color=4682b4]"Damn good seeing you, Medic."[/color] Be it that he hadn't known the guy as long as some, it was genuinely heartwarming seeing that someone else from Newnan made it out and to the relative safety of CMB. Ash returned his attention to the cards being shuffled, mentally taking note of what was shaping up with Volts and his forming adventuring party of the Rogue, Fighter, and Healer, along with the dialogue between he and their resident Artificer. Ash was about to make commentary to Guy about getting to their hand of cards when he likewise added to the overall exchange of information in the room. His acquisition of his nickname, specifically, which drew a short chuckle from Ash. [color=4682b4]"So I've got to do something memorable or really stupid early on. Gotcha, Guy."[/color] He motioned at the cards, still in mid-shuffle. [color=4682b4]"Someone promised me a crap hand. Let's get to it."[/color] There might be plans to hobble over and see how little Jamie was doing, but plans for the immediate were cards and a little catching up with one of his oldest living friends. [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] Quarantine (W) -> [i]Following Volts[/i] [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/ZfYMsCb/Thalia-HF-Pugilist.png[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] While the scattered conversations going on in Quarantine were certainly quite entertaining, Thalia was done with them the moment they started. Words spoken and who they were spoken by were filed neatly away in her brain, as best she could given the splash of new information coming toward her. Maybe one day soon she would be broken of the habit of constant threat assessment while within the walls of Camp Mexico Beach, but today was not that day. Thalia was not at her best still, and would not be for quite some time. So in the unlikely event of a sudden, impromptu, "weakest link dies" scenario, Thalia mentally mapped out the route she might take to the most logical point of egress, and even began to weigh the pros and cons of using various persons in her immediate vicinity as a human shield. It was a passing thought, as usual. Though it did put her brain to the question of (in a hostage situation), does one take the easiest to physically dominate, or the one who she could most likely frighten into compliance? And then, what might be the exit strategy there? Render said human shield unconscious and make a break for it? Decisions, decisions. And the big guy, Wayne - they had a little history, getting ballet lessons in together. Might he be an ally in this fictional fighting withdrawal from Quarantine? If not, from what Thalia had seen, he'd have to be targeted first. It seemed a shame; she rather liked the guy. Of course, back in reality, Thalia was perfectly aware that the whole of them were harmlessly talking shit to one another and no one was interested in entering into a blood-spattered brouhaha, nor were the Zeds about to explode on the scene and make everyone's life hazardous. It was a mental game that she played to keep herself sharp, to not ease too far into the comforts of what passed for civilized life nowadays. Also back in reality, Volts mentioned that she could not only continue her epic, clue-following quest, but there was space, time, and more than one person available with whom she might exchange fisticuffs. Okay, the day was looking up after all. Crisis averted, whether fake or not, Thalia gave a quick nod and fell in line behind Volts, eager to get on with it.