Drag [open]

Seren kept one hand on the hilt of her sword as she walked the aisles of boxes. All their food, their water, their supplies were stuffed back here. So were their prisoners. They kept them hidden well out of sight where the others didn't have to look at them. She stopped in her tracks when she finally found her.

The girl was tiny, younger, blonde, and bound in hempen ropes. Supposedly she'd tried to kill someone in their sleep, and the other survivors needed an interrogator. What a drag. Seren stared down at her from a safe distance, as if in silent evaluation. Too bad.

Maisie had been running the scenario of killing Lillian over and over in her head, her aching, bloodied head. She could have done it. Why was she so careless? As she thought this over repeatedly, she toed the box in front of her, tapping at it dully. This is what kept her occupied for the last few hours, until Seren appeared.

The girl looked up peevedly, like a pizza had been delivered to her house an hour late. "Finally. Can someone bring me some food?" Maisie murmured crossly. "Or some bandages. Or my knife so I can slit that bitches throat." She threw these suggestions out with the same nonchalance. After this, she smiled. "Any of the three, baby, surprise me."

Seren didn't smile back. How unpleasant. A patch of hair on her head was stained red, she saw. Was that where they'd hit her? She reached into her cardigan pocket, not taking her hand off her sword, and dug out a small tin can.

She cracked it open with a sharp pull of her fingers and held it out in front of her.


"Hungry?"

Maisie gave Seren a face that suggested she wasn't interested, a loathing face. "Bring someone less retarded, please, darling." she huffed. But through the anger, another thought surfaced.
"You're cute, though." she said quietly.
'I could use you.' she thought deviously, almost saying these words aloud. But she didn't, and rather nodded. "Go. And bring me some real food, you animal."

Her expression didn't change, but something flashed in her eyes. Terrible. Retarded? Cute? An animal? She should've just left her there to starve, but she had an interrogation to do. Hopefully they'd pay her for this.

She reached into her pocket again, pulling out a spoon and bending down in front of her. Seren dipped it into the can and held it out in front of the captive's mouth. Real food? The entire world had been reduced to eating dry ramen and rat stew. What counted as 'real' anymore? And besides, this was delicious. "Ahhhh."

Maisie had been used to getting what she wanted when she wanted it in the Black Market. Food, batteries, sex; they were provided through gullible clients and their blood. She never had to eat catfood. She didn't want to eat catfood.
"Get away from me! I will kill you!" she promised, turning her head from the spoon. Sure, it wasn't the most severe torture, but it was oddly effective. Maisie had never been helpless. At least, not since Weston found her.

For the first time, Seren found. What was wrong with this girl? How long had she been tied up and left to just bleed and starve? Wasn't she hungry?

She set the can down and grabbed her chin, trying to force her mouth open. All the while, the spoon hovered an inch away from her lips, right below her nose. "Open."

The smell was nauseating. Try as she may, Maisie couldn't stand it, and she cut off air to her nose at the expense of opening her mouth. This was terrible. She'd kill this girl, she'd kill this girl. She'd rather starve than eat that filth.

If that girl was truly smart then she'd eat the cat food, Lillian thought, watching from behind in the shadows. Food was food, and it was a bigger kindness offered than anyone else was willing to give, she thought - or at least those who knew what had happened. Her gaze flickered back down to the huntsman knife in her hands, taken from 'Maisie' once she'd been knocked out. Lily had managed to grab it for herself. She only let it glint in the dim light for now, reading the inscription on the blade again.

'Maisie Weston...'

Weston, Weston... Where had she heard that name before? It stumped her, looking back up from the small blade to where Seren stood, still trying to force feed the bitch her fancy feast.

As soon as she saw her opening, Seren made her move, forcing the spoon into her mouth. "Swallow," she said, frowning, practically jamming it to the back of her throat.

When it was all gone gone, she pulled it out and licked whatever remained off the spoon. Sheesh, she was like a little kid. It might look gross to an outsider, but she'd spent too many days on the brink of starvation to be picky about germs or food. Seren dipped the spoon into the can again, but she ate it herself this time, not breaking her unblinking stare from the helpless girl in front of her.

After she chewed and swallowed, Seren wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. "Name." It sounded less like a question and more like a command.

Maisie almost choked the cat food out with her name, a raspy, "Maisie" leaving her mouth with a fit of coughs, a hoarse whisper among tremors of disgust. "Please stop, I'm no longer hungry." She didn't want to throw up the food she did have in her stomach. She'd never been restrained like this, it was fucking shameful. "I told you my name, now go away."

i think pillu missed me sayin' he could skip me but oh well

There was some kind of strange feeling of satisfaction in watching her choke on the old, moist cat food, but it didn't show. Not the smallest hint of a smile showed on her face. Instead, she ducked the knife under her arm, pulling out a small matchbox and a cigarrette instead. She lit it quickly behind her hand and tossed the burnt match away.

She took in a long, deep smoke - relishing in the feeling of her burning lungs. She didn't do it often, but now seemed like a good as time as any. She lulled the blade back and watched, not wanting to interrupt until Seren was done.

OOC: Sorry, forgot Bring Light existed.

IC: Maisie, huh? Seren looked her over, thinking. "Occupation?" she started, struggling and straining on each word as if that was a fight in itself. Her expression remained blank as ever, but just speaking left her almost breathless. "...before... the lights."

She picked up the spoon again. "Maisie" didn't like it much, but the girl had to be starving, right? What was her issue, anyway?

Occupation. She didn't want to talk about her occupation. Though she almost enjoyed it, the feeble position made her shameful. She only gave her surface job in a low voice. "Merchant. In the black market, I worked for Old Man Weston." She longed for Weston. Weston would kill Seren for doing this to his Maisie. She missed him dearly.

Seren narrowed her eyes but said nothing. She was more than familiar with the black market and the people who used to frequent it. That's how she made her living after all, as a looter. If a girl as young and distinctive as this really worked as one, then shouldn't she have recognized her?

...Oh well. That could pass for now. "Syringes," she whispered. "...Which drugs?" A deeper frown etched itself onto her face. "Why did... you attack...?"

"Why do you think, Forrest Gump?" Maisie spat. She was getting annoyed with question after question, the thread of her survival story being slowly unwound by this bitch and her cat food. Dark things were threatening their resurfacing. Maisie leaned back on the wall, uncomfortable with her arms tied. "I don't like people. People haggle, people fight, people kill each other more than those things outside do. That's how we all are, whether you like it or not. I am the only one left for me."
She blew her bangs from her eyes. "Let me go."

Could Seren really argue with that? She was the same way, and she was only interrogating this girl because she had been picked to. She'd robbed, looted, assaulted, and killed more people than she could care to remember, and she'd left dozens to die in the Ash all alone.

But there were laws.

1. Don't murder other people and loot their corpses.
2. Don't get caught breaking Law 1.

Seren frowned and stuffed more cat food in the girl's mouth. "Bad," she muttered.

People haggle, people fight, and people kill. This girl seemed to have dreams of anarchy. It was a hopeless thought, one that was all to eazy for Lillian to give into, or almost give into - for the most part at least. If people were truly so simplistic, then Maisie wouldn't have been alive then. Spared by a coyote of all people - if you could even consider a coyote a person. The lot of them would've been dead long ago.

People were stupid, and selfish, and utterly disgusting - but they weren't as bad as the things outside.

Lillian inhaled another puff of smoke, finally stepping out into the light. "You should've killed me when you had the chance." She muttered nimbly, bringing the huntsman up again to see the thin etchings. "Weston. Hell of a sketchy name. You were one of his girls?" She couldn't bring herself to look at Maisie. Though her eyes were dull and natrowed, she could only stsre at the small blade. "He must be dead if you're here alone robbing sleeping bags of all things."

Maisie spat out the cat food with much bitterness, much impatience, but before she could fling vulgarities her interrogator's way, Lillian walked in. And Maisie froze. And she looked up. And she smiled. It was confident. She was nervous.
"I've missed you." she said, a little dully, a little softly. But Lillian talked about Weston, she spoke about her love, and the smile turned more sour, more sarcastic, like she was not finished spitting, and so she spat: "He is. We all are."

Lillian ignored her cutsey greeting, taking a few steps forward. "Some 'friends' of mine talked about him." She mused softly, tapping a bit of ash off the end of her cigarette. "They said he was a righteous coward, a prick, who hid behind the little girls who did all his work for him." Lily bent down in front of Maisie, resting on her knees, bringing the edge of the blade up her chest in a slow, careless manner. "I'm still alive and so are you. For now."

Maisie watched Lillian walk over to her, watched her insult her love and his honor, and felt the cold blade against her. Her cold blade. She smiled no more, but stayed calm. At least on the outside. Her eyes never left Lillian's face, though the blade tickled a line up her torso. Rather, she frowned. "You're going to kill me?" she asked. "Do it."

She dared Lillian, and spat in her face, as she did with the food earlier. "Do it!" she repeated, a little higher. Maisie didn't know why she was baiting Lillian. Perhaps she was angry, perhaps she would rather go out with dignity rather than cower. The Ash had been around for too long. She'd let go of her fear of death long ago. They were already dead, they were already dead.

Lillian shut her eyes as the girl spit in her face, grippening the tight on the blade and biting her lip, holding back a small, breathless laugh. Hardly bothered in the least, she merelt wiped her face off with her sleeve and lowered the blade. "No, not me... Maybe Miss Katana over there will do it, or some Nightwalker will get you, but..." Even if this crazy bitch tried to kill her, Lily couldn't have it in her to give out her just desserts... As sweet at it probably would've been, that wasn't how she worked.

Instead, Lillan dragged more smoke out of the thin stick between her fingers, blowing the smoke back into Maisie's face. Brushing the cloth and hair away from the girl's shoulder, she took the lit end of the cigarette and pressed it against the girl's soft skin, gently at first - letting the skin sizzle for a few good moments before twisting the burning ash deeper in.

Maisie coughed at the smoke in her face, a small cough with an obvious struggle to keep as silent as possible. When burned, she screamed, writhing to keep her shoulder from the cigarette to no avail, but didn't speak, didn't curse. She just screamed. Reddened skin puffed from under the cigarette.

Lillian didn't flinch from the screams. This was something she always did when a client misused her. A mark of pain, her little revenge. It showed others who to look out for, and who to keep away from the make-shift brothels. This girl had wronged her, not in quite the same way, butt Maisie would remember her anyways.

When she felt the burn was deep enough, Lily pulled the cigarette away, brushing and blowing the ash and burnt skin away, revealing a deep, hot pink crevice. She hadn't felt satisfied yet though, burning her again once more, slightly below the first.

By the time she finished, the cheap cigarette in her hand was a crumpled mess. Lillian gave her a sickly, sweet smile, kissing Maisie delicately  on the cheek before she stood back up, crushing the crumpled tobacco under her heel. "Thank you for the new weapon." she cooed, bringing out her old pocketknife. "My old one was getting rather dull." With the smaller blade, she moved to strike Maisie Weston's name out.

By the second cigarette, Maisie was muttering faint whispers, "Stop sto...stop..." Her arm hurt like hell, and her eyes pierced Lillian's even when her captor was not looking at her. When she did stop, Maisie glared at her knife, and spat once more. "When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain." she said in a breathy sigh. "Fuck you."