remains_npc (remains_npc) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-12-15 12:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2018 [12] december, npc: riley stockton |
Who: Tesla and open if you want in La Quinta!!
Where; La Quinta
Why: Tesla makes a friend
When: December 3, 4, 5
There’s a rat on Tesla’s bunk. It aint Sonny and it aint Teagan. It’s not that kind of rat. This is the kind that steals pizza and drags it up steps, of the breed that usually keeps company with the ghouls down below but, this particular rat has eschewed that life. He has come up top side to start a new life, tired of chewing on moss and licking up mildew. Up here there’s sun. Up here there’s scraps.
It’s mostly the scraps he’s come for.
He’d tried the Capitol building first but all he received were shrieks of disapproval. Those bigots in that shelter wore their prejudices like brooches. Women pointed, yelling for someone to KILL him. Men in clippity shoes and front creased slacks chased him with brooms and venom in their voices. He knew when he wasn’t welcomed and so he went.
La Quinta had been his next stop and he has to say...the garbage here is exquis. The company isn’t so bad either. Mostly people ignore him. There have been a few narrow misses. Ill timed scuttling under foot but no one has intentionally kicked at him and not a one had screamed.
He’s on the top of a bunk. He’s systematically been going over each one, looking for food but there’s hardly any. The effort has exhausted him and he finds a cardboard box on it and chews his way inside. Inside there is miscellaneous - Toothpaste and floss, shaving cream and jock itch powder. Nothing edible.
The bunk he’s found himself on top of belongs to Tesla and Trapper. Tesla is on the top and Trapper on the bottom. There hadn’t been much thought about it when the two of them had stalked up to their new sleeping place. It just happened that way. Tesla had leaped up, claiming it without a thought. It made more sense for him and his slender, skinny self to have to amble up to bed anyway.
It’s free time and that means that the general population is grouped in their respective territories, separated by allegiances and vengeance's wanted.
Tesla’s decided to use this time for a nap. The nights are long here. No one really sleeps. They all just plot their next move and now is the time to catch a few winks. When he gets up on the top he noticed his box and the chewed up cardboard that sits surrounding the hole that’s been made. Tesla opens the top and sees the rat inside. Not two big but certainly unexpected. The rat wakes slowly but when it finally wakes all the way it jumps from the box and chatters angrily at the human.
“Come on li’l guy. I aint gonna hurt ya.” Tesla consoles. He’s always taken a shine to animals. When Willa brought in her cows and chickens he had been one of the first to volunteer. It’s normal, for him anyway, to have animals around. It might not be normal to sweet talk a rat but the little guy is scared - feeling cornered and even if the thought of rabies and black death run through his mind there isn’t any violent outburst that comes from him.
It’s only when another inmate passes that the creature makes a leap for the person’s head and that person screams. It’s a high pitched wail. The sort of noise that isn’t expected from a person that is basically a tattooed piece of solid muscle. The bulky form clutches the creature on his face and turns around and around blindly, forcing it off and then throwing it across the room. The rat hits the floor in a skid, sliding across and when it gets its footing it scrambles for a rodent hole in the wall.
Rodeo’s been in solitary. His friends are all in dismal moods.
Tesla has seen the critter and had made it a goal to befriend it. There isn’t much to do in La Quinta. The book selection sucks. There isn’t T.V. - no Maury and his paternity tests to pass the afternoons. Lifting weights isn’t really his thing. He gets conversation when he can but mostly the company outside of his crew isas skimpy as the food in here.
So, every day he’d sit near the rat hole and try to entice the creature out with crumbs from his lunch and dinner if they got it.
It took a few days for him to see the rat again. It took a few more than that to get the rat to eat out of his hand. It took another couple to make friends. But once the rat knew that Tesla was a meal ticket he wouldn’t leave him alone. Tesla named him Folsom and it sits on his shoulders as if it was a bird. A prison parrot.
He slept in the box, ate food that Tesla brought back from his own meals. It felt good to have something to care for in here. Something to take his mind off Jenny and all the ones back home. He didn’t want to fight like the others did. Teagan’s betrayal had affected him differently. He didn’t feel rage. He just felt hurt….and taking care of an animal made him feel less hurt.
“What the fuck is that?” says someone in passing.
“Careful. He’ll bite your nuts off.”