September Who: Orion & Lot What: Orion meets the famously tight lipped Lawu leader Where: The trading post When: September Status: Complete
(Orion in italics. Lot in standard font)
Orion did manage to get some sandpaper while she was at the trading post, and she went ahead and started work on the handles of the cart before heading back. Better to have blisters than splinters. She’d eat her lunch when she was done, then set out to her place.
She’d gotten over her embarrassment from her encounter with Hagar, and the emotion had settled into determination. Now that she knew, she was less likely to step into the same pitfall if they saw each other again. The hunter would have to wash the leftover blood out of the cart when she got back to avoid attracting animals, but that was a minor chore.
When she was satisfied with her work, she took her lunch out of its paper bag and found a place to sit down on a nearby bench. She’d have stew when she got back to ward off the chill of evening, then cover up really good and get some sleep. It had been what passed for a profitable day.
In order to prevent himself from dwelling on the course of events that led him to being in charge of a tribe that seemed to pride itself on it’s criminal foundations Lot had taken to visiting the trading post regularly. For some tribes the leaders stayed close to home keeping the nest warm or building an empire but he’d grown weary of watching societies damned stray into his encampment and cause trouble and had decided rather than spend the day breaking up knife fights he’d rather do some window shopping. That wasn’t to say that window shopping was all he was good for, Lot had plenty of things to trade with he just preferred to quietly browse the shelves before parting ways with whatever it was his bootleggers had managed to get their hands on. When it came to the Lawu the more illegal it had been before the Pulse the higher the trade rate but as he looked around he realised that what his hunters had gathered was worth more than what lay on others desks and with an unusually resigned sigh he settled himself upon a bench next to a mousy brunette eating a sandwich. Looking over at her he noticed a cart lying carefully next to her, blood stained the wood and his gaze flicked to her face searching her for signs of criminal insanity. She didn’t look very threatening so Lot assumed that the blood was probably just animal blood, then again when people assumed they often ended up missing limbs or dead. Looking at her again he frowned but no matter how many times he looked at her all he saw was a girl trying to eat in peace.
She could feel the stare, the weight of it resting on her as certainly as if it was a hand on the back of her neck, and after she finished the first half of her sandwich, Orion looked up and at the tall man who kept watching her. She took a drink of the water she’d brought along, cocked her head to the left.
“What?” The question wasn’t meant to be rude even though her tone was a little clipped, and she looked down at her lap to see if she’d spilled food on herself and didn’t realize it. She was always skittery around people, it was just that men made her less nervous than women did. It was probably just because she liked women so much. “See something green?”
The mousey brunettes accent was thick even in that single word but instead of averting his eyes the moment he was caught out he gave her a calm measured stare, better to brazen it out than look away and make it seem like he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be. Though her next question made him frown, “Something green?” he repeated tonelessly, “I’m not familiar with that phrase,” he pointed to the cart, “I was actually just wondering whether the cart was stained with animal blood or whether the town was about to become a set for another Wrong Turn movie,”
Slowly he removed his eyes from her figure and cast them out over the crowds of people, some clamouring for trade and others scoping out easy targets.
Orion snickered, gestured at the cart where it sat motionless nearby. “It’s rabbit blood, and a little bit of deer,” she explained. If he could still smell the leftovers, she’d really have to give the thing a good scrubbing. The last thing she wanted was raccoons all over the place. They were hard to trap, and the meat wasn’t very good.
“I was just trading for vegetables and milk,” she elaborated a little reluctantly. He might be Chet for all she knew, and the Chets tended to take it personally if they felt like you’d been hunting in their territory. Which she hadn’t, but he might think she had. The best way to get along in the post-Pulse world was to keep below radar. Off the grid, as it were.
“Do you hunt or just barter the stuff?”
Lot’s gaze returned to her momentarily as she answered and he nodded slowly, “Sounds like a good hunt,” he looked towards the woods, “Deer can be hard to get, they’re pretty popular around here,” Lot carefully extended his arms to rest on the back of the bench but though his body was elongated his muscles were still tight, ready to coil back up like a spring.
His left eyebrow twitched as if it wanted to quirk into a questioning or suspicion arch, “I trade,” he answered, “Hunting whilst useful is not the only thing that keeps me flush as it were,” his voice was careful, slow but not dumbed down, he wasn’t object to talking to people but he had a hard time carrying on conversations as if the answer wouldn’t get you in trouble.
Should she introduce herself? Would he care what her name was if he turned out to be part of the Chets? Orion was not a fool, and wouldn’t have survived this long if she was. Dark eyes blinked as she pondered the question, and after a minute the corners of her mouth twitched upwards in a there-and-gone smile.
“I’m not what passes for rich either,” she admitted. “But I live on the fringes of the community, so I don’t need much. I just try not to be wasteful.”
Finally Lot’s eyes stopped darting all around him and he turned his head to look at her properly. “It’s funny isn’t it?” he began, “There’s nothing money can buy anymore and yet some people still walk around as if they’re rich, at least in the traditional sense.” his back muscles relaxed a little his inner coil unfurling with a little more ease, “I would say those are the riches are those who know the true worth of what it is they have. Someone like you for example. You say you don’t want to waste anything so I would say that you are rich, because clearly you understand the true value of what it is you can get. Tribes can make people cocky,”
He wasn’t what she’d imagined, she could tell just from the way he talked, and the hand she hadn’t realized had turned into a fist relaxed one finger at the time. She shook out the last of the tension as she offered her other hand for a casual shake. “Orion. I’m not very good with words, but I’ve already embarrassed myself once today, so it can hardly get worse.”
He extended his arm smoothly and shook her hand gently, “Lot,” his mouth turned up into a little half smile, “Actions speak louder than words,” he said, “But unfortunately for some that’s more of a hinderance than a blessing, you’re doing fine though,” he tipped his head back and watched the clouds glide above them, spurned on by the wind that barely touched them below, “Besides you’re still alive so the meeting can’t have gone that badly,”
It was easy for him to say, he hadn’t seen her blushing and stammering, but it was in the past now. Better not to dwell on it. “I thought you were a Chet,” Orion said, schooling her expression into one of careful blandness. “They get.....territorial about what’s supposedly theirs. I’d rather not have a confrontation with one of them.”
The hunter looked around after she finished making the remark, then faced forward again, returning to a bite of her lunch. “You’ve lived here a while?”
He looked down and let out a humoured grunt, “I’m not a Chet relax,” he nodded towards the direction of the Marina, “I’m a Chowilawu,” he was about to say leader but it sounded boastful so he kept it to himself, besides it was enough just to reassure her he wasn’t a Chet, “You’re wise to be wary of the Chets though,” he said slowly he didn’t want to bad mouth them because they did exceedingly good business together but she’d hinted that she was a drifter and the refusal to align yourself didn’t always go over well so despite the fact that he liked to mind his own business he did offer her this piece of advice.
“I’ve lived here a while, maybe too long,” he murmured, “Perhaps it is lazy to settle but it’s a consistent place to sleep,” he admitted.
“I came up here from what used to be Texas,” the brunette said, hooking a thumb over her shoulder as if to indicate the place that had once been her home. “Most of Dallas was destroyed when some planes crashed into the city, and there wasn’t anything to stay for once the riots got started. I packed up what I could comfortably carry and stole a car. When the car ran out of gas, I took what I could keep on my back and started walking.”
Orion looked in the direction of the marina when she finished the sentence, wondering if Hagar would tell the story of the strange person she’d met on the road to the trading post. Probably not, she seemed too mature for that. Teenagers gossiped, adults didn’t. She hoped.
“What’s it like to live so close to the water?”
He hadn’t heard much about other states in the US but mostly he’d been focusing on getting the hell out of prison and once he’d reached the ‘countryside’ he’d been so absorbed in losing himself he had almost forgotten there were other places outside Oregon. To him it felt like Oregon was becoming a new country all by itself or at least Cascade Locks felt free enough to feel like it’s own independent state completely detached from anything around it. “So the great state of Texas got reduce to rubble and ash huh?” he blew out a low whistle, “I bet border patrol loved that,”
He looked towards the Marina absently, “The possibility of being able to cast off and float wherever you like is a great comfort,” he sighed, “On hot days it smells like shit and on cold days the moisture in the air invades every pore on your body soaking you to the bone. But the companies interesting,” he shrugged, “If you like to keep one foot out the door the rivers the perfect gate way,” he grinned at her knowing that the answer was full of as many negatives as positives which was Lot all over these days, constantly at war with himself, unable to decide if he thought his life was worse or better for being here. Maybe one day he’d find out for sure.
“Lot’s from the Bible,” Orion said, brushing bread crumbs off of her shirt and onto the ground. “Do you feel like you’re going to turn into a pillar of salt if you look back at where you came from?” It was supposed to be a joke, but considering the subject matter her erstwhile companion might not take it as humor. She knew she didn’t look back much, at least because she might have lost her whole family and might not ever see them again.
“It’s not so bad living on the outskirts,” she added. “You don’t have to worry about others looking over your shoulder all the time and what you don’t eat yourself you can always save for later or trade for what you can’t get on your own. That’s one thing I learned from all this.”
He hadn’t thought about it that way before. His sleeves had risen where he’d thrown his arms over the back of the bench and he could see the edges of his tattoos peeking out, each image taken from a story in the bible. Lot wasn’t a strict catholic anymore, had maybe never been, but sometimes the overwhelming urge to confess struck him and he’d feel an odd constricting of the heart, a faint unusual panic at the thought of being unable to lighten his soul before meeting God at the gates of Heaven. He told himself he did not believe in hell but he feared the idea of ending up there much more than he should have. He blinked, “It would be quite the way to go,” he said eventually. She had touched quite a nerve and Lot felt his inner coil tense, his muscles freezing, his back arching forward slightly. How funny that a perfect stranger should take his name and associate it with a story that lay so close to his heart, so close he hadn’t even seen it before. Had he strayed so far from the righteous path? Why did he even care now, he had never done so before. He closed his eyes briefly.
“You’ve got the right idea though,” he pointed at her subconsciously, “Constantly moving forward, nothing productive gets done if you look back,”
She’d finished her sandwich, but instead of getting up and getting going, Orion decided to sit for a little while longer. Maybe it would be counted as gossip if it got around that she’d asked, but she wanted to know and her slightly backwards ways didn’t know any other way than to just...ask. If she got the cold shoulder because of it, she’d deal with it.
“Hagar offered to sleep with me for a couple of rabbits,” she said, because she’d been wondering if the woman had been serious or only pulling her leg. If she’d been kidding, that was one thing, but if she’d been serious...it might mean she’d stand a chance. “Does she...uh...does she go with female...clients?”
Lot found a smirk cross his face all troubles brought on by her nailing his inner turmoil forgotten and he even felt a chuckle push it’s way from his lungs and out of his lips. “Sorry,” he coughed, “Hagar is a lady of the night, a harlot, a prostitute, a business woman. She wants something you have and she will use her flesh to get it as that is her trading tool. She sleeps with women and men to get what she wants, if she’s offended you I hoped she apologised,” he moved his hand from the bench and brushed it down his face trying to wipe away the vague amusement on his face, “I don’t know if Hagar likes women more than men that’s something you’d have to ask her yourself,”
And she was already blushing even before he’d started to talk, and she damned her fair complexion for making it so obvious. “It’s not...I wasn’t offended. More like taken aback. I’ve never had someone offer themselves like that. Not so openly.” Would it offend him if she said she wouldn’t have wanted to buy Hagar for an evening? Technically she supposed he was the older brunette’s employer and she didn’t want to get her in trouble. In times like these a woman needed protections that had come easier in the old world.
“She’s very beautiful,” the hunter said, sounding a little wistful, but she managed to maintain whatever dignity she had left. Which probably wasn’t much. “I used to wish I was beautiful. Now, not so much.”
He found her blushing strangely endearing, refreshing even. With the collapse of government the underworld was clawing to the surface and setting up shop on everyone’s doorstep. Hell Lot was the leader of a tribe that prided itself on it’s being built on the backs of criminals and their behaviour, something he was still trying to swallow. “Hagar doesn’t make any apologies for what she does,” why bother when it was becoming so normal? “All women are beautiful in some way,” he was not very well versed in the complexities of women’s relationships with themselves, his wife had been very confident in herself but then there was never a moment he didn’t look at her and think she was the most beautiful person he’d ever met ‘And look what you did to her’. He bit his lip, “Around here that won’t be the only time you get openly propositioned, maybe even Hagar will throw herself your way again,” he gave her a knowing look, “If you should ever find yourself by the water again I’m sure she’ll be around,”
“Yeah, she mentioned that I should ask for her if I ever get down by the marina,” Orion responded a bit nervously. She wasn’t used to having conversations like this with anyone, much less with men she had just met. But there didn’t seem to be anything harmful in Lot’s attitude towards her, and that relieved the part of her brain that was mortified by all this talking on her part. Maybe she should get back to her shack in the trees so she didn’t run her mouth anymore.
“I hope I’m not keeping you from anything,” she told Lot, shifting her position on the bench so she could see the sun where it was continuing its slow trek across the sky. The shadows would be getting long by the time she reached home if she didn’t move soon, because the trading had taken a bit longer than she’d expected. “It’s getting to be about four o’clock, and I’ve got a ways to go before I get back home. You’ve probably got...stuff to do.”
Lot waved her off casually, “The only thing you’re keeping me from is breaking up knife fights and disgruntled idiots, I should thank you,” he looked at the sky, “I wish you a safe journey back to your camp and if you should desire come by the Marina, I’d be happy to trade you for some Rabbits but I promise to keep my clothes on,” he straightened up and leant forward his body sagging in disappointment at the thought of going back to the three ring circus that was his home, “Until we meet again,” he nodded his head towards her.
Orion almost smiled, but caught herself at the last second and managed to nod instead. At least Lot hadn’t laughed at her about Hagar. She could take a bunch of stuff she hadn’t imagined herself capable of these days, but merriment at her discomfiture was not on that list. She brushed at her shirt again to make sure she hadn’t missed any crumbs, put her lunch bag in the cart along with what she’d managed to trade for that day. It’d be at least a couple of weeks before she had to visit the post again.
But now she had even more reason to visit the marina, and it would only be half because of her wanting to see the other brunette again. The hunter offered Lot a vague salute, grabbed the handles of her cart, and began to pull it in the direction of home. She’d sleep well that night.