010 x 010 // video/action

[dignity_misery]

[The video opens onto the red-gold desert evening, the device rolling over itself once or twice when it falls from its owner. The bulky frame and spiked headgear of a Tusken Raider and a woman are in conflict above. The raider gives an alien sounding squawk, and the woman hisses in reply, catlike and unrestrained, before jerking to the side and bringing her boot down into the creature's leg. Not human, but bipedal and it collapses with a shout. She grabs it by the collar of its cloak while it is still reeling. Her voice is a low murmur, barely audible. It's an intimate conversation, clearly.]

_{Do you see what I still have to take from you, motherfucker?}

[Her smile is sickle thin, eyes dark and heavy lidded.]

_{I can steal from you too.}

[She shoves the raider to the ground, dropping her knee sharply into its chest as she takes something from her back pocket. A razor she borrowed, and it gets pulled across the alien creature's throat when she rips back its hideous mask. It struggles underneath her, but the resistance grows steadily more feeble and groggy.

She stands then, giving the thing a kick to the head keep it down as she reaches over to take up the raider's dropped gaderffii. She heaves it up quickly, and it whistles in the air as she brings it down on the prone figure.

It continues to whistle for quite some time.]

Hah.

[Not a laugh, but a heavy breath of satisfaction. She touches her new weapon to the ground and leans against it, staring down contently at the glistening wet mess she's made.

The last thing she pauses to attend to is to scoop up the razor again, cleaning it off on a corner of the tusken's jacket. It's returned to her back pocket before she walks away, leaving the device behind. She'll be back for it when she realizes it's gone, but the feed will have cut long before then.]

[[ooc; written with ambiguity about her identity in mind. having met her face to face would be conducive to recognizing her. if you're uncertain, feel free to drop me a line. glass city folk are out of luck due to electrical disturbance. action is perfectly welcome from her travelling companions.]]

Comments

[blonderazorshiv]

[ He had been busy pumping bullets into the skull of the bantha accompanying the raider, not to mention attempting to dodge its horns. He's seen Carla fight and kill before, but he manages to jog (stupid, really, in this heat) up in time to see her cleaning his razor off on its jacket and returning it to her back pocket. Good.

There's a nod toward her new weapon. ] Looks better than a baseball bat.

[dignity_misery]

[She flashes him the most excited smile, like she's a child with a new toy. Now that she has the breathing room to do so, she examines the heavy thing, turning it over to run her fingers over the bladed spikes at one end.]

I think I like it.

[blonderazorshiv]

[ Her excited smile gets a grin back, and he comes up the rest of the way, peering over his sunglasses at her new toy. ]

Not bad at all.

[dignity_misery]

[She looks around him towards the fresh corpse of the bantha, its long tongue lolling out of its mouth, fur becoming matted with blood. The shadows of scavengers dart overhead, but they may be shit out of luck if the humans below decide to make good use of that meat.]

Doing all right?

[Because despite her excitement, there's still blood on her face and monsters in the sand.]

Not getting faint are you?

[And he brought that one upon himself.]

[blonderazorshiv]

[ There's a roll of his eyes beneath his sunglasses, but he claps a hand on her shoulder. ]

You wish.

[ Which is to say, he's fine. ]

Want to find out what that thing tastes like?

[dignity_misery]

I bet it tastes great.

[Which is to say, yes please. That's quite a prize you have there, Blondie.]

[blonderazorshiv]

Hope so, because it smelled fucking awful.

[ They'll have to figure out a way to get past the fur, too -- he's pretty sure is razor isn't going to be able to handle it. ]

[dignity_misery]

[She lifts a hand to shield her eyes briefly.]

So do the rest of us.

[Her sense of smell is almost certainly elevated, lingering remnants of the animal, but she has long since gotten used to it.]

[synanthrope]

[Saya has taken to hiding almost every inch of skin, except her face, from the sun. She doesn't seem to mind the heat, and she stands on the top of a dune, watching.

The truth is that she hasn't fought a thing, hasn't fired a bullet, hasn't been violent at all, but then Saya's instincts run towards trapping, not attacking.]

[dignity_misery]

[She does well in the heat, but every inch would still be too much for her. It leaves her with a few burnt patches where her skin is exposed, but nothing catastrophic.

The blot overhead is hard to miss when she turns and Carla lifts a bloodied hand to shield the side of her face as she looks back.]

You're kind of a creep, Saya.

[synanthrope]

[Saya also has a hat on. No sunburn.]

Says the woman covered in blood.

[dignity_misery]

I was supposed to play nice?

[synanthrope]

I didn't say that.

[dignity_misery]

Then a little mess is inevitable.

[synanthrope]

Maybe.

[dignity_misery]

[She smiles lazily. The mess was the best part, but that was almost certainly obvious enough.]

And you're just watching.

action; forwarded

[intheblanks]

[Sound carries strangely in the desert. Deadened and flat across the widest expanses, and curling in on itself where the city's structure has sunken into dunes, vast, absorbent sound-blocks. It's not only space where no one can hear you scream.

Though, where some of the buildings retain stone and glass, there is just enough echo to push the most high pitched of noises past the dull burn of the horizon. Chase has separated from the vehicle that brought him out here, walking to a pre-arranged point, marked out by a landscape that in little over a week has given way to biblical extremes when he hears it. From where he is it sounds like seagulls, reeling overhead. But there's no water out here.

Glancing up at the sky, which in a such a short time can turn the sand from baked to frozen, he sighs and, leaving an X dragged out with the side of his foot, turns to follow the cry.]

[dignity_misery]

[The noise comes from one of the injured creatures Carla has caught for herself. Rending them apart satisfies something deep and far from forgotten inside of her, and out here in the desert? There is nothing to stop her, no pretense of civilization. She had clung to that, once, insulted the strength of the Reanimate with her need for human dignity, but she's learned better than that now, hasn't she?

The claw viper's tail is nearly severed, it still twitches but the spiked claw at its end has been rendered useless. One of its arms has been broken from the socket and its reptilian face is gashed open, showing exactly how much Carla has been enjoying the tusken gaffi stick as her weapon.

It has been cast aside for the moment, however. Her violence comes with a certain amount of affection, whispers and touches and wetness, and she has cut up the creature's throat to take a better look at what's inside. The viper can no longer see, what movements it makes are spasms as its body shuts down and bleeds out. She is only playing with it until it dies, and it cries and suffers until then.]

[intheblanks]

[He gives himself away early, mistaking the blood on her for her own (and some might be) and her closeness to the creature for being caught. It's a bad assumption, of course. The reptile she's brought to ground is a real hunter, something borne of desperation. It's a luxury allowed to humans and pampered cats to toy with their prey.

With her name still hanging, obscenely loud in the dead air, he crosses the shifting sands towards her, keeping balance like someone walking on constantly breaking waves.]

Carla.

[Close enough to see what she's doing. There's a crack to his voice, but it's rough anyway. The sore throat hasn't got any better.

Of course he's not travelling unarmed. But he steps over her melee weapon, drawing a six-inch blade from his belt.]

Come on. He's past a challenge.

[dignity_misery]

[She goes still and hunched, at first, as if she is coiling to protect her prize from an interloper, but as she peers up at him sideways, her back loosens somewhat. Brown eyes slide back towards the viper, contemplating,]

Is he?

[She lifts it up by its neck and while it makes a miserable sound, it hangs limp. She lets go, letting the creature drop back to the sand.]

[intheblanks]

[He'd been going to say past a threat but the words had felt wrong. Challenge might not be right, either, in that he's not sure the challenge in the creature is all-important, and that she hasn't been torturing the thing for being pathetic enough to fail.

She's right, though, to be protective of her quarry. He does have every intent to take it away. He watches her as warily as he watches its one clawed hand while kneeling, drawing it's head back onto his lap.]

Long since.

[There's a line where the viper's skull knitted once before it pecked its way free of its shell. Chase finds it with his thumb and the hilt of the knife, still looking across at her.]

I'd say from at least midway through the dissection.

[dignity_misery]

[She stares at Chase with a blank sort of curiosity as he drops to the ground. Her hands are resting on the creature's scaled chest in a haphazard and forgotten arrangement. That is something, at least.]

That's too bad...

[Her eyes lower to the gleam of his knife. She exudes a sense of expectancy, bated breath, an eagerness to see if he truly will put the pathetic thing out of its misery.]

[intheblanks]

[Of course, although he battles off the urge to close double-lidded eyes before he brings the point knife down into the guiding V of his splayed fingers, with a wet crunch. The reptilian mouth gapes, but the only sound is the last of it's air whistling through the hole in it's throat.

Chase is wearing gloves. Leather. Given the heat they could be practical, but it's incongruous. Wiping the blood into the sand makes him shudder, a tremor and clench to his throat that he fails to quell.]

[worldofourown]

Well, well...

[This is a rare sight, indeed. A beast who isn't afraid to bare her fangs. Who is, seemingly, reveling in the ugly beauty of the kill.]

[dignity_misery]

[She won't answer, she knows better after a display like that, but she'll take note that he did.]