The Snake Woman of the Tahoe - 5/16/2287 [Archive]

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Dreams When Bitten

Jun 17th, 2012, 10:31:22 PM

The woman's eyes opened, and reality rushed into focus as she woke from sleep. She was still here. Still in a cage, sleeping on matted, flea-infested rags. For the moment, there was some respite. The heavy cloth cover that went over her cage after viewing hours was still there, giving her the delusion of privacy. She took advantage of that privacy to relieve herself in the corner of the cage where a hole had been cut in the floor planks just wide enough for her to do her business without attempting escape.

As she squatted, she could see the fabric cover lightening as the sun began to hit it more and more surely. It wouldn't be long before the cover would be up, and she again would be displayed to all comers, provided they had the payment. And in New Reno, there was certainly a desire to see the strange and unusual.

A wood-on-wood creak scratched behind her, and she instantly whirled about in time to see the meal hatch open in her cage. Inside was a bottle of dirty water and some fancy lads snack cakes. Her ration for the day.

"Five minutes to show. And if you bite another customer, boss will have you beaten senseless, you mongrel."

WHOOSH

The cover was pulled off in a flourish, and the woman winced, shielding her eyes from the sun as she stuffed half a snack cake into her mouth without ceremony. As her eyes adjusted to the daylight, she looked at the throng that was already preparing to gather round for a better look. The woman's nostrils flared as she backed away from the bars of her cage, breathing a little faster than before.

The sideshow crier, a troll of a man named Neil, pulled the sweat-stained baseball cap off his head long enough to blot his balding dome with a rag. He winced against the sun, scanning the crowd as they all filed towards him, dropping bottlecaps into a filthy glass carboy.

"Gather round, men and women, young and old, human, mutant, and ghoul alike! Witness the Terror of the Tahoe! The last thing you'll ever see when heading west! Behold, the Snake Woman of the Tahoe!"

MortalDanger

Jun 21st, 2012, 09:13:09 AM

Water. Dirty water.

[I]One of the great pleasures of civilized life, thought John Abraham as he forked over a hefty amount of caps to fill his two canteens. At least in the desert he could filter his water clean. He sighed, it would do for now.

The tanned man, well beyond his years now from the sun and heat, took a sip as he turned to look at all the people. It was a strange sight for a man who’d been traveling in the desert the last three years. Sure, there’d been the odd town here and there, for days or even weeks at a time, but nothing like this. New Reno was bustling with miserable life. The stench was evidence enough. Hell, they even had electricity! And entertainment, by the looks of it -- all the modern luxuries of a starving town in the Wastelands.

“What’s going on over there,” the rambling man asked of the man who served him the water, sticking a thumb towards the tent like structure with the crowd gathering round.

He snarled aloud as he served the next paying costumer, “hay, sum ole’ witch they caught while back. One of them cannibals, face painters n’ shit.”

“Hmph. Bit early for that don’t ya think?” John didn’t wait for a response that wouldn’t be much more than another snarl and began shuffling over. Of course he was still bitter about slavers. He’d killed quite a few in the last seven years. Enough to earn him a title somewhere, for sure. But his curiosity got the best of him and before he knew it he was in line to see this ‘witch’.

Dreams When Bitten

Jun 25th, 2012, 10:24:04 PM

"Many a prospector from Sac-Town came east, lookin to make their fortunes. Some found their way here. Others? They found the Tahoe."

The sideshow crier flourished, in his element.

"They found a beautiful place, untouched by the Old War! Trees as tall as mountains! And a lake so deep and full of pure clean water, that no one's ever seen the bottom of it!"

He paused for effect, a knowing smile on his face.

"Of course, beauty can be deceiving!"

He rushed to the cage's side, rapping his cane against the bars. The woman within didn't flinch, instead she reached for the cane where it made contact. The showman, knowing too-well the nature of his captive, was quick to pull the cane away from her grasp before she had a hold of it.

"Cannibals! Craven beasts in human form! Worse than mutants! Worse than ghouls! Right this very minute she's scheming to gnaw the meat off your very bones!"

Some in the crowd scoffed, disbelieving. Some in the crowd took the cues, stepping back from the cage. The woman inside watched them all, baring her teeth as she squatted on her haunches. She gave a long hiss as a warning to keep away. Of course, she had to. Her back bore a cris-crossing of red lines from when she didn't.

Runner

Jun 27th, 2012, 12:31:27 AM

Time, and heat, thinned the crowds as they always did. Runner had seen the wild tribes of the Tahoe first hand, at a distance. For someone who spent more time between towns than in them, you had to learn a certain degree of caution. One of those things was care in the midday heat of the high desert.

Runner gave a caress to his mustache and narrowed his eyes against glare of the sun. She had been there when he had arrived in town before midmorning, and now after high noon, she was still here.

Confident, her proprietor was on a saloon stoop, in the shade. Runner stopped a good five paces from the cage. Close enough for a good look, far enough to avoid suspicion. Runner wasn't looking at a show attraction. He was looking at a puzzle.

"How'd they get you in there?" He asked, as much to himself as to the Tahoe oddity.

Dreams When Bitten

Jun 27th, 2012, 11:57:14 PM

Her eyes were on him immediately, and when he spoke, it wasn't in a bellow of disgust or a fearful shriek. He spoke to her. Her on-edge mannerisms softened barely. She stopped shifting her weight from foot to foot in a crouch, and now simply rested on her haunches. The Tahoe woman said nothing, only briefly tracking her eyes toward the saloon the sideshow barker had traveled to, before quickly returning them to Runner.

Runner

Jun 28th, 2012, 12:15:36 AM

Runner paused to sculpt his mustache.

"I've been close enough to Tahoe before. I know you can talk, La Mujer de Tahoe. Es Hipi or Yupi?" Runner interjected some espanol, his first language, to the tribal. He suspected the former rather than the later. Sometimes he had to skirt the lake area, but he always tried to do it at night.

Dreams When Bitten

Jun 28th, 2012, 12:55:17 AM

He'd been the only one to speak to her, confident that she spoke the back-when. The others were content to only see her as an animal, and that's exactly what she'd given them.

Another careful look about - none of the barker's thugs nearby.

"Hipi."

She looked at the stranger in a new light, her head canting a bit as she approached the bars of her cage. A sudden look of realization caused her eyes to widen slightly.

"Night Walker."

Now she remembered. He passed at the edge of the ponderosas, and traveled with a light foot.

"You come through our land. Dreams When Bitten follow. Many times."

John Abraham

Jun 28th, 2012, 09:53:19 AM

((Fixing my etiquette, and made a new account, apologies))

John casually moved through the crowd to get a better look at her. Soon he was at the front, a few feet from the cage. Kneeling down he marveled at the creature in front of him.

“Why, I didn’t think cannibals could be so beautiful,” he spoke to to no one in particular. John gave the stranger next to him a quick am-I-right-or-am-I-right smile, then returned his attention to the girl, listening to their conversation.

"You come through our land. Dreams When Bitten follow. Many times."

John couldn’t help but chuckle a little, “well, I bet you’ll sleep well tonight, eh? Cannibals following you. At night. In the dark.” He gave them both a curt smirk with raised eyebrows.

“How long you been in there, darlin’?” He felt his hatred for slavery beginning to well inside of him. It was odd though. He grouped cannibals and slavers in the same category, usually. Perhaps she wasn’t really one, anyway. He didn’t know. These showboatin’ assholes would spout any kind of non-sense for some measily caps.

Runner

Jun 28th, 2012, 11:04:51 AM

He knew he had been followed, but had caught only the barest of glimpses of a vague human form behind him. It was their land, and Runner merely passed through it. Dreams was given a respectful nod.

Runner's curiosity was driven away by the stranger. He took another step away from the cage, clearly flustered. It was clear he didn't understand the Tahoe, but without much in the way of the gift of speech, he clammed up and waited for the man to finish his bluster.

As he always did in situations like this one, Runner wished for the vastness of wilderness instead of some pendejo who did not understand the wilds.

Dreams When Bitten

Jun 29th, 2012, 12:53:18 AM

Again on edge, the woman backed away from the cage bars somewhat as she looked at the second man who spoke. Unlike Runner, she didn't know him. He spoke like the others spoke, and that was enough to instill caution and unease in her. Eventually, she decided answering that question wouldn't put her in a sizeable amount of danger.

"Lost count after five-and-five days. All together, days are the same. Rise and do nothing. Go nowhere. Only see strange faces."

John Abraham

Jun 29th, 2012, 08:04:03 AM

John grinned at the brown man that he’d been speaking too. Apparently, he wasn’t very welcome here. Well, not like [I]she had any choice anyway. He’d see about that later.

“Eh? No comprende, partner? No habla englies?” John smirked at the obviously put-off fella. Well, maybe compadre here needed to work on his people skills a little. John just shrugged.

“Five-and-five days, huh? Well, it could be worse. At least you’re not out there shoveling rocks or honkin’ some bobo’s nose somewhere, right?” John forced out a laugh, but it was tinged with the faintest bit of sorrow. He felt it wash over him in a flash, but the wanderer forced it down into his belly, where he would soon be killing it with whiskey.

John smiled uneasily at her. Like an animal in a cage, he thought. What would be worse, labor or being the main attraction? John decided he’d rather work with a whip at his back.

Finally he slapped his knees, content to let compadre here finish his conversation with animal-in-a-cage, and stood up, “you just sit tight, darlin’. Don’t go no where.” John let out a wink, took a quick glance around the room, and bumped the crier on his way out to the nearest bar.

Runner

Jun 30th, 2012, 12:02:56 AM

OOC: we're outdoors, in the town square, hence my comments about the heat of the day.

Whatever plight John had suffered previously, it hadn't affected his ability to yap needlessly.

Runner watched the other man disappear into the bar, who bumped the crier. The crier immediately looked to his captive, decided the tan courier was of no consequence, and went back to his distractions. Runner removed his hat, scratched his head, and put it back on.

"That was me, but I didn't know it was you following, just someone. Night Walker. Huh." He said, his mind reorganizing as it came down from irritation, and then remembered his original question.

"How did they get Dreams When Bitten into a cage?" The pair was not a curiosity for moment, but Runner kept his voice down anyway.

Dreams When Bitten

Jun 30th, 2012, 12:53:03 AM

The tribal's eyes averted, looking down at the bottom of her shabby cage.

"Yupi light-bringer. Powerful back-when magic. Shine the blue light to make sleep come. Then they take people. Trade for more back-when."

She looked up, a conflicted expression on her face.

"Yupi kill, but they rather take. For making trade with the battucaps."

Dreams When Bitten again approached the bars, looking at the Night Walker's mustachioed face.

"Many nights, Dreams When Bitten watch you. Watch to see if Night Walker make that trade."

Runner

Jul 1st, 2012, 08:17:21 PM

"I don't do that kind of work. People pay me bottlecaps to take things or messages from one place to 'nother." Runner shrugged.

"I don't deal weapons or people or nothin' like that. Just papers an' trinkets." He said. Outside of the rifle, the revolver and a knife, Runner didn't carry much. More than that slowed him down too much.

But now he had an interesting conundrum. It was questionable how long they would be able to keep Dreams in the cage, because eventually she was going to break out. She was clever, in Runner's estimation, but would play stupid to fool her handlers, and that would likely end in a bloodbath. Fact was Dreams When Bitten didn't belong here.

Runner didn't have any deadlines on the few parcels he'd acquired, but he hadn't made his normal rounds yet. He had some time to figure out what he was going to do, if anything.

John Abraham

Jul 3rd, 2012, 11:05:02 AM

Ah, the greatest aspect of civilized life – the bar. Nothing in this world was packed quite so full of the processes that came with communal living. Fighting, laughing, singing, fucking, conversing, and so on and on ad infinitum – it had it all. And of course, all of the stink, as well. The desert heat was dry and was great for the transmission of smell. The heat baked everything. They kept the windows open but that just let the dust in. Well, spilled beer always helped.

Regardless, John stood a few steps inside the door and drew a savoring breath. Whiskey was on the air. Already, not yet noon, the place was full of patrons, some already drunk. He smiled from ear-to-ear.

“Hello Lloyd,” he said to the old man behind the bar as he sat down. The geezer looked at him funny for a second, then pulled down a bottle of whiskey. “Good memory there, Lloyd. Good to see you again. Thought you was over in Austin?” Lloyd didn’t say anything, he’d lost his tongue in some scuffle years back, John recalled.

“No? Well, how’s Ann? Still kickin’?” John regretted the question as soon as it came out of his mouth. The expression on the old man’s face was one of sorrow. Check one emotion. Well, that would explain the change of location at least. “I’m sorry to hear that Lloyd, Ann was a good girl.” He kicked back the shot of whiskey. Check two. Well, he decided he would get drunk, and set out to do just that. And in the meantime, figure out what to do about that girl.

Chirp

Jul 3rd, 2012, 04:08:05 PM

He'd finally found her! After what seemed like aeons of searching, he finally tracked her down.

He had to be careful, though. The town was dangerous, it was, and he couldn't try to get close to her until night fell. Most people's eyesight was hampered by the night, but not his, not at all.

The circus, a travelling show of prisoners and poor souls, had rooted itself here for a few days it seemed before he'd arrived. He'd have to do things quickly, as he didn't know when they were leaving and so when the best time to spring her from her captivity would be.

He couldn't ask for help. They'd throw him in a cage, and then where would he be in his quest? In a cage, that's where, stuck and likely without a means of communication.

He settled down on his haunches, and pulled out a tiny telescope, scraped together and jury-rigged from a microscope, a tiny dart gun, fashioned for him especially and subsequently fixed and modified after extensive use from his travelling bag.

He chirped in frustration and resigned himself to getting closer and finding her that way. He placed the bag in a small cluster of rocks and darted his way into the town, making sure to stay in the shadows and out of sight of the denizens.

This was exciting!