ship to wreck / [krueger & vallen]
Jun 13, 2023 21:04:37 GMT -5
Post by pogue on Jun 13, 2023 21:04:37 GMT -5
He knows what survival means, has had it rooted in the pit of his bones for years now. The troupe had been wounded when the plague started, a bullet to the cap of the knee and the wound allowed to do nothing but fester, rosy cheeks and coffins to match. He'd watched his friends and his family come and go, braced their form and listened to shattering lungs slip into the darkness.
And in their wake he'd held hands with their ghosts, taken their burdens and placed them on his own aching, sore shoulders. It meant they'd survived, if only barely.
But it came with costs: calloused hands and bruised skin, aching stomach and shallow hearts. Feral and twisted and living off the scraps they could manage, he'd learned what it meant to pull the shadows in between one's fingertips and use it to keep on breathing. To set a trap, to skin an animal, to wash the blood from one's fingertips but still feel it burn.
It meant that he'd ignored the trapping station for the first few days, passed it by with a glance and a shrug and silent lips as he'd explored the other stations, listening in to shallow conversations and tombstones waiting to be carved. But he'd witnessed enough to gather his interest, twisted metal scraps and a boy hunched over and a trainer scoffing feet away. He makes his way over there on the third day of the center being open, cocking his head as he watches the boy's fingers press the pieces into place, precise and sure.
He'd met people like him, figures coming and going in the troupe with skillsets that made them just as dangerous as they were unique. He pockets the thought, for now.
"Gotta say-" He starts, soft footsteps on a metal floor as he walks up, "If you manage to build a killer robot in the arena, I'll be stumped."
