#he's no echo. he's a stained shard of glass that no longer displays a reflection

[neverpathia]

Is the long quiet still British and is shifty still American in sactm?

Here's a thing I like to think about these two. The Long Quiet represents stagnation. Which means she also encapsulates inertia, and by extension, momentum.

I'll just share these quick doodles while I'm at it.

So the Shifting Mound undergoes numerous small but constant changes that make little difference as a whole, yet they perpetually occur nonetheless. Meanwhile, the Long Quiet experiences long stretches where she's essentially the very same thing, but when she does get changed, she changes hard.

Where was I going with that? Absolutely nowhere.

Quiet is British. All her incarnations. The Victim spits "blimey" and "bloody hell" at you. The Dame generously offers you tea and scones. Generally, the Maiden at least acts and sounds like a nice British girl.

The Mound is where things get interesting. He is the entire world map.

Yeah, the Voice of the Huntsman sounds American enough, but the other voices are more...diverse. Superior (Tower) talks like an Asian parent after you bring home a B in math. Revelation (Nightmare) has several different accents layered atop each other in some strange, clinking cacophony. Let's not mention Stranger.

As for the Narrator, he's still British. But not for the reasons you may think.

[its-sixxers]

Pietà

Whumptober Day 7 Prompt: I’ve Got You. (Carrying)

Lone Wanderer x Charon, Fallout 3

It felt as if they’d been fighting for days - the worst he’d seen in decades. Shotgun shells fell at his feet, his gun warm in his hands - the air stank of blood and gunpowder and piss and the hints of ozone that were the trademark of energy fire. All around him Jefferson Memorial was crumbling, the air clouded with plaster dust and smoke. It stung his nostrils.

Charon had never felt more alive - but in the way a rabbit felt alive, mid-chase.

Zaychik. The little rabbit that was his employer - Elizabeth - a slip of a girl with frightened eyes and fast reflexes. She was across the room from him, well guarded by the Lyons girl. Occasionally she’d peek out from her hiding spot and peel off a few shots from her laser pistol, always tucking her head back in before the volleys of return fire. Always the little rabbit was visible in his periphery, always he watched her - even after he’d trained her, even after she’d escaped the Enclave on her own. It was written in his conditioning, no matter how well he knew she could take care of herself.

Still, her shots went wide - Charon couldn’t improve her aim any further in his attempts - and the Enclave kept coming. The barrel of his shotgun steamed, pellets ripping through rubber joints of figures in power armor. Centuries had taught him well, firing solutions and hostile counts running in his head alongside the position of his zaychik.

“They keep coming!” Lyons shouted over the din, her voice distorted by her helmet. Lizzy looked panicked, darting her eyes between him and the Paladin. Charon could hear the crackle of her radio even as she spoke, communications from other knights filtering into the Paladin’s ear. “Shit. They’ve blown the outer wall, they’re making their own entrance.”

“How long until your people intercept them?” His employer yelled back, her voice powerful in spite of her stature.

“I don’t have any more people.” Lyons’ words were punctuated by sprays of fire from her laser rifle. “I’ve got a squad moving to reinforce our position, sending them back around to the breach will take too much time. We have to pull back.”

“I won’t-”

“I will hold them.” Charon interrupted, knowing precisely what Lizzy was about to say. They couldn’t leave the main door undefended, and she would refuse to leave him behind - but to his displeasure, Lyons had power armor and advanced medical supplies at her disposal. He had leather armor and bandages. The better protector in the situation was clear - and Lyons could take out a small squad with ease. 

“Charon-” Lizzy started to say, but he shook his head firmly. 

“I won’t be alone long.” he interrupted again. Lyons nodded her agreement before nailing an Enclave soldier in the visor, his body turning to ash within his power armor. It clattered to the ground, another stumbling block for the incoming onslaught. The bodies were piling up, and he could see each one chip at his employer’s frayed nerves. 

She swallowed, caught between a rock and a hard place. Plasma flew past her by only a few inches - Charon lobbed a grenade into the fray, noting it was his last. He’d have to scavenge more from the dead. There wasn’t enough time - she knew as well as he did, and with a reluctance he’d come to recognize she turned and said something to Lyons, drowned out to his ears in the gunfire.

Lyons shifted her position to provide cover to his employer, who scurried to the door to the purifier room. The Paladin stood stalwart as he never could - the knight in shining armor he could never be - the reflective plating of her armor deflecting fire. Lizzy looked over her shoulder at him as she opened the door, plasma fire peppering the wall around her. Her eyes shone, lip quivering with words left unsaid.

Charon tore his eyes from her and took advantage of Lyons’ distraction to wreck hell on the invading Enclave soldiers. He killed enough to grant himself a moment to snatch the grenade belt off of a downed grunt. When he turned to slip back into cover, Lizzy and Lyons were gone - the door shut.

A year before, when she’d first hired him, the idea of her out of his sightline was unthinkable. Together they’d bent and stretched the boundaries of his conditioning to make it possible, but still he heard the high pitched whine in his ears and felt goosebumps sprawling across his ruined skin - ingrained reminders of his duty.

Time was a slippery thing in the heat of combat - bloodshed made it hard to grasp. Charon didn’t know how long he fought, but in what felt like only a few minutes he could see laser fire spraying into the hallway beyond the chamber that led to the purifier. Lyons’ reinforcements had come.

Cleanup was swift, the Enclave pincered between two forces. The leader of the squad, designated such by the paint on his armor, hastily directed his men to take cover once the last hostile fell. “We’ll have more incoming.” The leader - a man - called over to Charon. “They’ve flooded the place. I don’t know how much longer we can hold them.”

Charon’s priorities were single minded. “Have you heard from Lyons?”

“They’re holding the purifier.” The squad leader replied, sending tingles of relief down Charon’s spine.

They hunkered down in preparation for the next wave. He was running low on ammo, he noted - but his concerns were overridden when a great rumbling noise sounded from the purifier room. Charon and the other combatants stumbled as the ground beneath their feet shuddered. Metal pipes beneath the floor groaned, followed by the sound of rushing water. 

It all happened in the span of a breath. In the next breath Charon turned to face the door to the purifier chamber - it was thrown open, Lyons marching through and placing her helmet back on her shoulders. “EVACUATE!” she cried - and Charon realized that Lizzy wasn’t behind her.

The goosebumps on his skin raised further as air from the purifier chamber rushed out into the lobby he’d fought in, shivers of sensation rippling through his body. Charon’s fingertips tingled, the air he breathed felt clearer, and he didn’t need to hear the screeching of Lyons’ geiger counter to know what lay beyond.

In the next heartbeat he was sprinting into the purifier chamber, the radiation pouring out of it as invigorating as the most concentrated Psycho. It was dark, the intense radiation frying the circuits in the lighting - the only illumination came from the purifier itself. Charon’s eyes scanned the floor. A body in a trenchcoat lay on the ground - the same man that was responsible for the death of Lizzy’s father - and as he lifted his eyes to the purifier itself he saw something that made his blood run cold.

A small figure silhouetted by intense green light, staring up at the statue within the main tank. 

His employer. 

His little rabbit.

Lizzy.

At once the screeching in his head began, as wicked and intense as Lyons’ Geiger counter. Charon bolted to the outer airlock door and punched in the entry code - as it slid open he was buffeted by another wave of radiation. He could hear his heart rate increase, the blood and adrenaline pumping through his veins in a great rush. The pain inflicted by his conditioning was made all the more severe by the awareness and sensitivity the radiation granted him.

Lizzy’s back was to him as he slammed his fist against the inner airlock panel, the digital display continually flashing LOCKDOWN with every press. He watched her stumble forward and slump to the ground.

It felt like he was being set on fire, every nerve of his alighting in agony, screaming at him to aid the holder of his contract. Worse was the horror that arose from his own mind - she had fallen, and he watched her the way she’d watched her own father slump to the ground.

No.

Charon drew his fist back and bashed it into the glass of the inner airlock door. It cracked, and he continued to rain blows upon it even as his knuckles bled with embedded shards. On the fifth blow in half as many seconds the glass shattered, his arm punching through. The glass shredded his ruined skin, but the pain of it paled to the pain ripping through his mind. With the glass paneling gone he was able to wrap his hands around the middle rail of the airlock door. With strength granted to him by the radiation and his own sheer panic he began to lift it.

The metal groaned and buckled, as did his legs - muscles straining to grant him enough purchase to grab her. Radiation rushed around him, made him light headed - even the blood pouring from his hands and arm couldn’t weaken him. Sweat flowed down his skin, the salt stinging his wounds - it was hot and humid, the purifier generating steam. At last, he hoisted the door high enough to cause a failure in the hydraulics. It crumpled upward, and he rushed in.

It had been less than a minute since he’d first entered the room, but each second was precious. Charon lifted his employer’s body into his arms - she was limp, light as a feather. The noise in his head was still screaming, the ache severe - it echoed the screaming of her pip-boy, the needle of the rad gauge vibrating at the edge of the scale, beyond the red zone. 

He cradled her against him as he did when he carried her to her bed in Megaton after she inevitably fell asleep at her desk, but this time it was all wrong - Charon was running through corridors of the Memorial, passing by Enclave and Brotherhood of Steel soldiers alike trying in vain to crawl to the exit or collapsing on their feet, broken and faulty seals of centuries-old suits letting the poison air overcome them.

Lizzy had no metal to cage her, she’d stood in the radiant glow and looked as if it could wipe her off the face of the earth. The sight was still burned into the back of his eyelids. Everything stank of blood - the air tasted of it, the metal tang of radiation so similar to the coppery flavor of blood. Charon’s own blood poured forth from his arms and hands, stained his employer’s armored blue jumpsuit, and he found the edges of his vision beginning to fog.

Charon stumbled, but kept running - at last he saw the fire door that led to the outdoors, the red exit sign above it glowing bright as a beacon. He used his shoulder like a battering ram and nearly knocked it from its hinges.

In stark contrast to the muggy heat of the purifier the air of the Capital Wasteland was ice cold - it was early January, and a thin layer of snow coated the ground. Around the purifier it had begun to melt. Vertibirds soared away in the distance, he could see the shining armor of Brotherhood soldiers evacuating across the nearby bridge. Charon’s blood splattered against the ground, and yet he stumbled forth looking all the zombie bigots had thought him to be. He made it to the line of snow and collapsed to his knees, crimson staining the white powder. Charon fell back, letting his employer fall against his lap.

Lizzy looked dirty and beaten in contrast to the pure snow - like the discarded and moldering teddy bears she was so fond of collecting. He cupped the back of her head and tilted her to face him - a steady stream of blood was trickling out of her nostrils, a sliver of her eyes visible beneath hooded lids, every vessel within them burst. Her sockets were bruised and purple, the skin of her face bright red as if she’d fallen asleep in the sun. Charon wished with all his being that it was all it was, that she’d scratch at it and whine and come through with her freckles all the clearer like she had so many summer days.

She was like a ragdoll, arms falling limply to her sides. He didn’t know what else he could do but hold her, his lifeblood spilling down her back. Lizzy had always held the medical supplies and they’d run out in the lead up to breaching the Memorial. There was nothing that could be done.

Even though his palm spanned half her ribcage, he felt more fragile than she - the young human in his arms had been his anchor even beyond the contract, a fixed point he could rely on. Charon allowed himself the scarcest dreams in her company, he’d felt like a living being rather than a tool. Lizzy had shown him strength beyond the physical, had carried him through countless storms.

Now what was once so full of life lay motionless in his arms. Charon crouched over her and pressed his forehead against hers, as if by will alone he could transfer the life left in him to her. What had given him life had drained hers in an instant - and why should it have ended any other way? They were always worlds apart, he had been taught this lesson before - and yet he had allowed himself to hope, he had believed that they could find a way to set him free. 

Charon placed a hand at the side of her face, leaving smudges of bloody fingerprints in his wake. He babbled breathlessly in his mother tongue, prayers and hymns and curses from a culture long dead. Snowflakes began to fall, landing in her hair. 

The screaming in his brain quieted as his conditioning caught up with reality. His employer was deceased. It didn’t cut the pain in his chest or stop the tears that were freezing on his face - that was his own, the one thing the men that created him could not possess.

He held her and broke apart inside like glass, hunched over her body in silent vigil. His blood steamed in the cold air, and soon the edges of his vision began to blacken.

Perhaps this would be the last mercy she’d offer him, the glass in his arms saving him from another employer, another long night after so brief a moment of sunshine. He’d always told himself she’d be his last employer - one way or the other.

Charon closed his eyes, and hoped he’d never open them.