Fallout Kink Meme Part IV: Closed to prompts, open for fills.

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Prequel to New Vegas

[(Anonymous)]

Having read A LOT of New Vegas stories on this meme, I have certainly had my favorites in the Courier department. However, I'm always left wondering what that Courier's story is. Their story BEFORE getting shot in the head, before they knew about Boone or Veronica or Cass or whatever! Before they were the big shot of the Mojave.

This is like, the most open prompt ever. All I want is YOUR Courier's story before their life in New Vegas took a turn for the crazy. Were they a farm kid? A city kid? An NCR deserter? A Legion deserter? Any and all stories are welcome, lets just make this a giant Courier's life story thread!

Re: Prequel to New Vegas

[(Anonymous)]

Any courier? I mean, should I just invent a courier or should I take one of the couriers I played or one of the couriers that feature in my writing here?
Or would that be awkward, suddenly having a cameo appearance of one of the main characters of my current WIP?

I feel intrigued to try, though.......

Re: Prequel to New Vegas

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, any of those options! You could use one from a fill, I don't think that would be awkward, or you can use the one you play with and think of a back-story. This isn't the time in New Vegas, this is before, just remember that! To be honest, just make it whatever you like. Tie New Vegas characters in or whatever you want! I'm just curious to see what people believe to be their Courier's backstory.

Re: Prequel to New Vegas

[(Anonymous)]

I love this prompt. Might attempt something later but my writing has been really really terrible lately so---not promising anything.


Oh captcha, you scamp you---Edible Government.

Re: Prequel to New Vegas

[(Anonymous)]

Whoa, I love this prompt. I have a lot of Couriers, and only two have actually been posted to the public. I'll probably be posting something soon too! (Despite the few other WIPs that I'm horribly neglecting)

Rosolare la Donna 1/2

[(Anonymous)]

I wrote and posted this on FF a couple weeks ago for my Courier Charlie and I think you might like it.

It's been hours, long enough that she's no longer sure if she's fought in this pit before, but then there's always the chance that this is a brand new one. Walls of dirt and stone, busted rebar and concrete, badly welded scraps made out of who the hell knows what; they're all the same in the end until a rival family or what passes for the law busts it up and breaks it down. She doesn't favour a side, just takes what she wants from whoever will set it up. An opponent, screams in the air, blood on the sand, and a purse full of caps at the end of the day. Same dirty little fucking dance.

She flicks her duster out and spits, waiting for the bell. "New Reno is a shithole."

Her final guest of the night grins from across the ring at her, all scarred muscle and dug-in smoky blue tattoos leaning against a sledge that weighs at least twenty pounds if it's an ounce. "I hear you keep saying that."

"Reckon it keeps being true."

"Then why the fuck don't you leave?"

"And give up your fine company?"

Both of them raise their voices as the announcer starts his patter to the crowd, outlining the skills of both, their histories of wins, or sometimes just total bullshit he pulls from his ass, all exaggerated to make the bets fly even faster. Same unending prattle.

'In this corner, weighing in at a long 165 pounds-'

"Last chance to give up before I kill you."

'Your darling of the desert, your queen of the blades-'

"I could say the same."

'The one, the only Duster!'

"Duster? That's supposed to scare me?"

Duster flicks out her leathery namesake again, giving the sheaths at her hips a flash of daylight. "Don't care what it does for you. Crowd give it to me because it makes it easier for the betting."

'And in this corner, at a whip-whopping 278 pounds-'

"Makes it easier to identify the paste I'll turn you into."

'Your Beast from the East-'

"Ah heck Jules, do I really need to know who the fuck he is? Not like I can keep track any more." She slaps a shit-eating grin on her face and Jules laughs from his perch high above, gold-capped teeth shining out of his dark wizened face, and everyone laughs with him, all except for the lunk with the sledge. it doesn't matter. The bell rings and then they're at it. Same shit, different day.

He's faster than she thought he would be, faster than he has a right to be, and Duster knows there has to be some sort of chemical edge at work. All it does is make the fire in her belly burn higher, and she starts laughing as she dances around, ducking and bobbing as the sledge comes within an inch of tearing her hat off with her head still in it. Faster, but there's no flair, no fight, no skill.

The sound of the crowd rises around her with each bit of blood that falls from the little nicks she's leaving in him, a flow that matches the sound of her own in her ears. Why in all the stars and sky they'd match her up with such an ox for her last go around the ring for the night she has no idea. Duster even goes so far as to bash his teeth in with the hilt of one of her knives, a risky, stupid move with his kind of reach, just to see if it would mean a better fight, a better thrill, the only kind of high she wants. She doesn't get it.

She's moving in for the killing blow, bored and ready to make him smile from ear to ear under the chin when something jumps up from nowhere and bites her.

Rosolare la Donna 2/2

[(Anonymous)]

"What the fuck-" She slaps at the back of her neck and pulls away a dart, sticky and black. There's time to stare at it, time to think 'well, this is an interesting turn of my key' before her feet are flying out from under her, blades gone and the end of her long coat caught up in his meaty, fat fist. She stares up at him, eyes burning from under the brim of her hat like two coals in the ground as whatever the dart was smeared in works into her brain. "You low-down dirty whoremaster."

"You've pissed off too many of the wrong people, you cocky little cunt. Time for you to shuffle on down the trail."

"Some people just can't stand a girl winning fair and square. Who was it, the Mordinos? The Wrights?"

"Does it matter? You don't give a shit about names, remember?" He grimaces and hefts the sledge, broken teeth streaked with a sick ruddy orange from his bleeding gums that smears when he pats the tip of his tongue over them. "Fucking teeth-busting bitch. I was just supposed to make it look good. Now I'll make it last. Looks like your fancy coat got you killed."

Duster locks eyes with him as he smiles and pulls her own lips up in a rictus, putting every one of her intact pearly whites on display that she can. "Looks like it got me in close, you sonofawhore. Send whoever the fuck and the Golgotha my love."

Her hand flicks out faster than a spurt of heat lightning and slaps against his groin, pulling her up and out of the way of the sledge just in time. He's howling and she's dancing, although it's more of a dirge with that dreck in her blood, the slow, sick march of it taking the sweetness out of the song. Duster holds up her hand as he pats at his now-sopping crotch, waggling the handle of a recently whole switchblade.

"What..."

"Cheap little stick for a cheap little prick."

"How..."

"Never try to cross a cunt or send a tribal tripping, sunshine. You won't win on either account."

She circles him until he drops, retrieves the dart from the sand and thocks it into the side of his skull to send a message back. The crowd's still roaring, she's still on top, but the song's gone fully sour for her now, and she sighs.

"I'm too old for this shit." Duster takes time to make sure whoever pegged her in the neck isn't waiting in the wings before she picks up her knives and staggers off out of the arena, ignoring the crowd, ignoring Jules calling after her, openly walking through the streets until she reaches the weathered door she's looking for. Fine then; if New Reno wants her gone she can take the hint, but it'll be on her own damn terms. Even she can't have pissed off anyone here bad enough to pay for a contract to track her all over the damned NCR and beyond. "I hear you're hiring honest folk."

The oldster across the counter, who has a pate so shiny it would put a new babe's ass to shame, eyes her with his mouth in a pinch. "That we are. You know how to get around?"

Duster laughs. "I think you know I do. Think you know I need to now, too."

He grunts and pushes a battered clipboard across the melamine, the rivets on the back squeaking. "Payment on delivery. Failure means we send someone out to take it out of your hide. You get three hots, two shots and a cot at the main depots upon completion of each job; everything else you have to hunt up for yourself. You can't write your name, just mark down an X."

"I can write my name just fine." She picks up the pencil and scrawls on the dotted line.

'Courier'.

Re: Prequel to New Vegas

[(Anonymous)]

This anon is starting a story with that in mind, actually. Here's a link if you're interested, it's a collab with another author. :) http://m.fanfiction.net/s/7674080/1/

By the spirits of my tribe 1/1

[(Anonymous)]

Char(s): F!Courier, (Benny)
Tags: Gen, Pre-game

x-x-x-x-x

She had stopped praying long since. Ever since she had left the hunting grounds behind and discovered that the world was so much more complicated and yet so much richer than what the elders had taught her.
Her life passed before her inner eyes and she tried to pinpoint the exact moment where everything had gone wrong. Becoming a courier? Discovering the new and exciting world outside her tribe’s boundaries, the Mojave? Leaving her tribe?

“You’re just a second daughter; you have to do as you’re told.”
“I don’t want to mate with that brute of a man.”
“What you want is irrelevant, child. It’s the elders and your parents who chose your mate, and they have chosen to give you to a strong and capable hunter.”

She could still feel the hate, the burning hate, for everything and everyone, that she had been treated like some unwanted addition to the family to get rid of as fast as possible, a second daughter with no dowry, no rights and no one to step up for her. Her older sister had been glad it hadn’t been her lot to be given away to this man, and hadn’t spoken up for her sibling.

She had tried to refuse. In the end, nothing but fleeing in the middle of the night had been able to save her from her tribe’s wrath. She had killed him. Had killed that drinking, grunting bastard inside his tent in his drunken sleep at night, a day before the ceremony, and fled. And discovered that the world was full of dangers. No one had ever taught her how to handle a weapon.

She had survived, though, by luck or by skill or both. Had grown strong. The stolen weapons had yielded to her furiously stubborn attempts to master them. She had killed molerats, coyotes and geckos. Two solitary nightstalkers, even. And shortly after that, she had topped a rise, clambering over a few rocks to find a shelter for the night, and seen the lights. Had learned what a city was. Had learned how to deal with people outside of her tribe, wary as a shy creature of dusk.

The months after leaving her tribe’s tents behind had build up her strength and her self-assuredness, had sharpened her senses and instincts. These instincts now served her well. But as fascinating the city was, she needed to eat, and there was nothing to hunt. She found work, work as a courier.

This work now had brought her here, although she couldn’t quite remember how she got here and where exactly the here was. What she knew, however, was that the hole in the ground beside her was meant for her. That the men standing around her were her death spirits, coming to carry her to the darkness beyond.

That the man talking to her was her nemesis.

And for the first time since she had fled her tribe in the middle of the night, she prayed. She didn’t pray to the moon mother, however. She didn’t pray to the cloud father. She didn’t pray to the spirits of water, earth, fire and wind. She prayed to her. The dark one. She who lived above the darkness beyond, whose name was a dark curse in itself. She who drank the blood of the dead, she who listened only to prayers made in hate and fury and despair. Gurara Tara, she of the bloodied cloak, she who feasts on revenge. Haunts are the remnants of those who pledged themselves to her, those who sacrificed their souls for revenge.

Gurara Tara, let me survive. Let me survive. And if I don’t survive, then I pray accept my vow, I shall kiss your feet, I shall wear your bloodied cloak, and I will be your slave and servant for eternity. Let me kill this man...

“The truth is, the game was rigged from the start.”

She heard the shot, and the world vanished into a painful red haze. Her last thought was her plea for revenge, calling out her name until the last remnants of her consciousness faded.

Gurara Tara.... Gurara Tara.... Gurara... Tara.......
.......
......
.....
....
...
..
.
.

“Easy now. Let’s see what the damage is. What about your name? Can you tell me your name?”

There was only one word in her mind.

“...Tara...”

Re: By the spirits of my tribe 1/1

[(Anonymous)]

YES! Start to finish this is perfection. Love it, a!a. And I would love to read more about this character.

...If the captcha had a face, I'd punch it.

Re: By the spirits of my tribe 1/1

[(Anonymous)]

This is awesome, anon! :D I wish I was more eloquent, but you leave me at a loss for words. <3

Who Could Ask For Anything More? 1/1

[(Anonymous)]

Characters: F!Courier, Arcade, Julie Farkas
Pairings: None
Kinks: None

If people talked about you in Freeside, it generally meant you’d killed a lot of people or fucked a lot of people. Officially, Valerie was a courier and a gun-for-hire, but everyone knew her name because they said she’d screw anything with a dick, once she got enough alcohol in her system.

Which was an exaggeration, but only slightly.

She kept one hand on her gun and the other on her purse as she walked through the dark streets of Freeside. Once or twice, someone called her name, but she didn’t stop walking and she kept her head down. She had a pounding withdrawal headache and a hundred caps burning a hole in her pocket, and she was on her way to the Atomic Wrangler to kill two birds with one stone.

James Garret set a dirty glass and a mostly-empty bottle the counter as soon as she walked through the door. She took her usual seat at the end of the bar, and she settled comfortably into the shadows to watch Hadrian’s show.

He was telling the same caustic, unfunny jokes he told every night, but she found that it bothered her less than it usually did. A while back, she’d given him thirty caps to keep her name out of his routine, and he had held up his end of the bargain admirably. In the last few weeks, a lot fewer strangers had come up to her, laughing behind their hands, and ask if it was true she’d once gotten so drunk that she ended up in bed with Grecks.

The answer was yes. She didn’t count waking up on a piss-stained mattress next to a ghoul with a lazy eye among her prouder moments, but it had happened. She’d sworn him to secrecy, but everyone had found out anyway.

But it was like she told Arcade. She hadn’t ended up with her throat slit, and in Freeside, that was an accomplishment.

He’d rolled his eyes and told her to go away so he could get some work done. She stuck her tongue out and told him that she knew just as well as he did that he hadn’t done any real work in three months. Julie Farkas had cleared her throat and told her that if she didn’t need anything, she should really be on her way.

She lifted the chipped glass to her lips. Julie was a sweet lady. Bossy as hell, but she did a lot more for Freeside than anyone else, the Kings included. Valerie was pretty sure the slum would have imploded years ago if the Followers hadn’t come in when they had.

Valerie had nothing but good things to say about the Followers. They’d helped her sober up (sort of; she still drank a lot, but a lot less than she used to) and find a job. Carrying packages wasn’t steady work, but when it paid, it paid well.

Like tonight. One hundred caps was more than she’d seen in the seven years since she’d run away from home. If she were smarter, she would be saving some of it, but as it was, she was content to drink it down in a seedy bar in a hole in the bottom of the world. She’d hit rock bottom, and she’d made a life for herself there. Not much of a life, but the world had worn her down and made her complacent. She wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t so sure she believed in happy any more. She had friends, she had a job, and she had a bottle in one hand, and that was enough for her.

Nice work, if you can get it, she thought, draining her glass and motioning to the nearest Garret for a refill. And you can get it if you try.

Re: Who Could Ask For Anything More? 1/1

[(Anonymous)]

Excellent, A!A. I love that your Courier is a bit unconventional and a tad bit naughty. :D And having a previous history with Arcade is really intriguing! Makes me wonder if she'll forget about him after getting shot...

Re: Prequel to New Vegas

[(Anonymous)]

Multifills? Multifills!

So on this.

Unnamed

[(Anonymous)]

Characters: F!Courier, OC
Kink: None


-----


It was a tiny little nothing town in the middle of nowhere. It existed solely because the surrounding soil wasn't completely sterile and there was a small stream nearby that wasn't hopelessly contaminated.

The Courier still liked it, though, and not just because it had a perfectly serviceable bar. She liked these isolated little places nobody knew about. They were all different, in their own way. Of course, they were also all the same in a way.

The Courier pulled up a stool and gestured to the bartender. The bartender, whose name was John, nodded and quietly put a glass of clear water in front of her.

"Haven't seen you around in a while," John said.

The Courier shrugged. "Not a lot of packages going this way."

"So, what's happening out there?" John asked.

"The usual," the Courier replied shortly.

John nodded and silently went back to cleaning a few glasses. He knew that tone of voice well enough.

The Courier calmly drank her water, all the while trying to ignore the feeling she was an embarrassment. Water wasn't proper drink, after all. If it didn't have alcohol it wasn't worth drinking. Unless she was planning to do some drugs later, but she wasn't.

The Courier carefully put down her glass and resisted the urge to shake her head. No. She'd walked away from all that. The way she'd been brought up... no, that wasn't the way. She still didn't know what 'the way' actually was, but violence, drugs, alcohol and fucking wasn't it. Well, actually, she kind of missed the fucking sometimes. But even so, there had to be other ways of having sex than slamming your partners against the wall and clawing at their bodies like rabid animals.

As for violence... well, OK, sometimes it was necessary. The Wasteland wasn't exactly the kindest place on Earth, after all. But people shouldn't be so... enthusiastic about it. It was a last resort, not the preferred option. And there was no need to be so barbaric. A well-placed gunshot was far more elegant and efficient than some drawn-out, bloody brawl. But no, muscles were glorified and steady nerves were the sign of a sissy.

The Courier gestured to John when she noticed her glass was empty.

"Another one," she said.

John walked over to her and dutifully refilled her glass. Apparently he decided to take another stab at starting up a conversation.

"So, where are you off to next?" he asked.

"New Vegas," the Courier replied.

John whistled between his teeth. "That's quite a while away."

"The pay's good. Besides, New Vegas is supposed to be this beacon of civilization in the Wasteland. I'd quite like to see if it is."

"Very shady place, I hear," John said. "No place for decent folk."

The Courier chuckled. "You'd be amazed how many different definitions of 'decent folk' exist out there. Still haven't figured out which one's mine. Hell, maybe I'll make my own."

John blinked, clearly at a loss. "You know, you've been coming to our town a lot, haven't you?"

"Sure," the Courier said carefully, uncertain where he was going.

"It just occurred to me I still don't know your name."

"Oh, that," the Courier said. "Ain't got one."

John gave her a confused look. "Everybody's got a name," he said.

"I don't," the Courier said. "Decided not to get one. Just said 'fuck it' and walked away."

"I don't understand," said John.

"Yeah, I know," said the Courier.

And with that, the former Great Kahn put the caps she owed on the counter and walked away.

Before You Go 1/3

[(Anonymous)]

Characters: F!Courier, OC
Kink: None
Parings: None

I found I had a bunch of little ideas that weren't going to fit anywhere in my main stories on FF.net, so I figured I'll put a bunch of small-fries here :3.

This one as to do with the Courier getting a pep talk before she heads out to the Mojave.

------



“Tony!” came a call from the living room, “Layla’s here!”

The ranger looked up from the gun parts scattered all over the kitchen table and shook his head. Layla always had bad timing. She was just going to have to deal with an informal greeting.

“Send her in,” he called to his wife Deb, then went back to cleaning his revolver. A moment later he recognized the clomping gait of his little sister just before she walked into the room.

“Did I interrupt you?” the girl asked, giving him a wry smile.

“As usual,” Tony said, then kicked a chair back from the table. “Take a load off.” He looked at her ratty leather armor. “That isn’t what you’ve been running around in, is it?”

Layla sat down with a loud groan. “Please, let’s not start this again.”

“If you don’t start protecting yourself better, you’re going to end up dead,” Tony started, setting down his gun. She’d started examining a crack in the table with apparent interest. “If you stopped buying so many magazines, you could afford some decent armor.”

“How am I supposed to pass up a magazine I haven’t read before?” Layla pouted. “Besides, you know me: I don’t get in trouble.”

Tony snorted loudly at that before he continued. “There are a lot more important things out there besides pre-war useless information.”

“I didn’t hear you complain when I found you that magic trick book.”

“You still need to take your safety more seriously.”

“I will, I will,” she said dismissively, then smiled toothily at him. “What’s for dinner?”

“Well, Deb was going to make cabbage…” He noticed his sister’s delayed attempt to hide a sneer at that. “But I think we have the stuff to make burritos.”

“Really?” Now the girl was all smiles.

“Yes really, but you’re going to have to watch the kids.”

“Deal,” Layla said as she stood. “Where are you two?” she cried and took off back into the living room.

Before You Go 2a/3

[(Anonymous)]

“And then the molerat, he was very scared. But then he went back into his house. And he found a gun and he shot the ghost. Then the ghost was a … he was haunted.”

Layla nodded at her four-year-old niece while she continued bouncing baby Tony on her knee. “What happened to the molerat then?”

“He went to sleep, like this.” The small girl threw herself to the floor and covered her eyes.

“I see,” Layla laughed.

“Dinner time,” Deb said as she walked into the room. “Come here, you,” she said to baby Tony as Layla held him out to her.

“Are you staying the night?” the woman asked as Layla stood.

“If you don’t mind,” she answered, and Deb smiled.

“No, so long as you don’t mind the couch.”

“Compared to where I’ve been sleeping lately, it’ll be a welcome change,” Layla laughed as she followed her sister-in-law to the kitchen.

Tony had just started making plates when Layla sat down, and soon she was tearing into her burrito with something beyond delight. Looking up, she noticed Deb giving her and Tony an exasperated look as both siblings ate like wild animals.

“Tony, I can understand your sister eating like she’d been on the road for weeks, but what exactly is your excuse?”

“I can’t help it when there’s a good meal to be had.” He grinned broadly. “And I make a good meal.”

“I’m so glad I married a humble, well-mannered man,” the woman sighed as she bent over to retrieve the bottle the baby had thrown.

“Handsome too,” Tony added, making Layla laugh.

“They ought to send you to the Mojave, you could boost morale by just telling everyone how great you are.” The words hadn’t completely left her mouth, and she immediately regretted them. However, instead of the normal dirty look that came with the mere mention of the frontline of the war, she found him looking at her suspiciously.

“About the Mojave…” he started, and Layla felt her stomach land somewhere in her shoes.

Oh shit, he knows. She silently cursed what bad luck gave her a brother who was a ranger. Tony set down his burrito.

“What’s this I hear about you talking to Blue Skies?”

Fuck fuck fuck. Layla should have known better than talking to Thompson, the owner of Blue Skies Caravan company. She’d been warned he was a gossip.

“I was thinking about leaving Shady Sands for a while,” Layla said, trying not to sound too evasive.

“Where?” came the inevitable reply. Layla sighed, then decided to come clean.

Hat Trick - 1/2

[(Anonymous)]

This is another Charlie prequel, set some time before 'Rosolare la Donna'.

Characters: F1Courier, Beatrix Russell
Series: Standing Alone

"Honey, I'm home!"

"High-lo, Bea."

"Hello, Dutch."

"Hahlo."

Dutch scowls, letting out something unflattering in a mix of garbled Norwegian mixed with one or three of the romance languages after her second attempt at the greeting, and Bea grins. She's been teaching the tribal English for a month now, ever since they settled into the bunker the ghoul currently calls home, and while progress has been fast in retaining individual words, pronunciation and putting them together is moving like dried chicken shit on a hot tin roof. It's not the girl's fault; Bea's voice is just too raspy. If she doesn't do something soon, poor Dutch will end up with a speech impediment along with the hideous accent. Bea jiggles the box, which became her planned solution for this problem right after she had the good fortune to find it. "That's my girl Friday. Since you've been good, I picked you up something."

"Not Friday, Bea. Dutch."

"That's right, kitten, you went dutch with me on killing those bastards who had you. Now come get your present."

"Am present. Right heear, Bea." Dutch sidles closer, and peers into the box, which is filled with smaller, colourfully printed boxes. "Whaat?"

"I decided it was high time to introduce you to the wonders of the silver screen."

It's a hoot and a half to watch Dutch in front of the television; in front of any working modern convenience, really. She approaches it with a cross between fascination and outright aggression, and a very large stick. Literally. It's probably a testament to her stolid nature that it hasn't gone through anything yet, although now there's a fresh little mound of dirt out in the yard, and the alarm clock radio is suspiciously absent from her bedside table. Bea answers a few questions about what films are for, a few more about why people would be stupid enough to pay for stories since their elders should be telling them all for free, and leaves her to it.

The first thing Dutch pays attention to are the women in them, looking for something she can recognize in herself. They are pathetic things, for the most part; tied in too much cloth and screeching. The ones wearing next to nothing, however; they are bold, and fierce, and seem to like laying with men very much. It isn't hard for her to choose which sort she wants to emulate in the world outside.

The rest of the films are filled with tribes and armies, those like her and those who destroyed her, but in the middle, there are those that walk the nothing space of between. There are the riders, the rustlers, the scouts and the bandits. They are old and young, crippled and whole. Everyone likes them or not, clean-cut lines of behaviour, and they answer to no-one at all.

She particularly likes the ones with no name, and the ones in the black hats.

Dutch plays the films over and over again, until she can mimic every line of dialogue, until she knows what every word really means and how to use them outside of her obsessive parrotry. When her companion returns home again, she decides she is ready.

Dutch pokes her head out of the living room as soon as she hears the ghoulette come in. She calls out in a smooth, clear, and ridiculously twangy voice. "Bea! I need you to go into town for me!"

"Shit on toast, I turned you into the Duke." Bea claps a hand on her face. Dutch frowns.

"No, Bea. Dutch. You goin' soft in the sun?"

Re: Hat Trick - 2/2

[(Anonymous)]

Bea humours her requests for specific clothing, wondering if she's created a kitschy monster as she digs through several dilapidated barns, bunkhouses and the lone costume shop in town, then decides if Dutch ever does decide to go off the deep end and kill her, it'd probably be more comfortable going out by B-movie cowboy than something that looks like a cross between an Amazon and a mutated canary. She brings them back in a heavy bundle, bemused as Dutch dips her head in gratitude and then pecks her on the cheek for good measure before disappearing into her room with them, slamming the door behind her.

The worn remains of hide and handwoven cloth come loose from her, and new jeans and chaps and a soft cotton shirt go back on. Tattered feathers fly as she brushes out her hair. It takes an hour to braid it up the same way as her favourite leading lady did, before the shrewish church-women shore it clean from her head. It takes slightly longer to sit the empty gun belts low on her hips to her satisfaction, just as her favourite leading man does. She will have to break them apart to fit her hatchets as soon as possible, but for now they will do.

She shrugs into the leather duster and finally dons her new hat, sliding her finger and thumb over the edge of the wide brim and back again. It came fresh out of a round box, and is still as black as pitch. She turns, watches the long coat flare out, then stands side-on to admire herself, one arm akimbo. She looks nothing like the woman who was. Dutch smiles, and it's an empty, soulless thing.

Yes, she likes having no name, except for the ones others give her. It means that who she was is dying, dead, dust in the past no one knows, will make the ones who cannot guess at her or it wary. And she likes having the black hat, because somewhere, somehow, someone always gives the black hat exactly what's coming to them.

It's as good a way as any to ensure she gets her end.

Lorilei (1/?)

[(Anonymous)]

Kink: origin story
Characters: f!Courier, Benny, Jessup, McMurphy (and if you kinda look sideways, f!LW and James)
Relationship: Gen
Summary: She was just a girl from Arroyo


Before the kick in the head, before the fate of the Bear and the Bull over a wall that neither would possess, she had been little more than a girl with desperation in her eye and a streak of determination so thick it could be cut with a sword.

She hailed from Arroyo, though it would be years after the shot rang out and changed everything that she would go back, years before she would see her mother and her cousin, whose father had left that village so long ago with a dream for the Capitol Wasteland of a dead nation. Years before she knew that her own father was the very man she would beat to death with a bloody dog-tag fist as he sat upon his throne of everything she would never believe in.

And it would take years before she was ready, because only a woman could do those things, and she started out as nothing but a girl.

The Courier known occasionally as Friday, had another name once, one she wouldn’t remember again until her homecoming, but one which carried her at eleven away from her destitute family in a plea to save them. She had a little sister, and no food on the table, and her mother was too sick and malnourished to carry their flag any longer. So she took it up, because no-one had told her that normally this was the work of a big brother. She’d never had one, so how was she to know?

The Mojave Express agent in Klamath signed her up hesitantly. The girl was barely five foot, her head shaved against the heat and her face younger than the ‘sixteen’ the agent scribbled hastily onto her application after asking. The girl from Arroyo could write some and she could barely read, but she could remember everything the agent told her and that was enough. She was given her first delivery, a test of her mettle, a package to be delivered to a small camp in a place known only as Hopeville.

The girl took the name to heart, it was hope after all that then made her voyage hundreds of miles and more under the relentless stars until she reached the salvagers' camp, in the derelict shell of a ruined city. There, she found friends and a second home, nurtured that home after the delivery and helped it grow, unaware that beasts with larger claws would one day wish to tear it from her.

No delivery was too dangerous or troublesome, and she sent all but a small quantity of expenses for boots and a bedroll home to her family. Her hair grew back out, and she did not cut it this time because that would cost money her sister needed for schooling, and her hand was not steady enough with a knife to shave it herself. She also foraged for most of what she ate. Sure, she realized radscorpions and giant mantis were not the most palatable of choices, but there was the occasional wild bighorner to shoot, and even a deathclaw tasted amicable if grilled with plenty of honey mesquite pods.

Eventually, she delivered the fateful package that tore her from Hopeville and the place the residents had referred to as ‘the Courier’s Mile’, because it was often where she hung her hat when not crossing the world between deliveries. She had heard that her mother and sister were finally prospering, and she was getting ready to return home for a rare visit when the Divide ripped itself and her dreams apart.

She survived it, her end to all hope, though no one else she knew there did. And when she returned to the Express office in Nipton, it was with a body covered in ash and a look in her eyes that was no longer that of a child, though she was only fourteen. Nipton was corrupt, but the agent at the office was rather sympathetic, and lent her a pallet for her sleeping bag and a token for a bath at the communal house.

Sitting frozen, much later, in the quiet of the warm water with only her thoughts and the knots in the ceiling, she decided that she would tell no-one of the events in the Divide, of the destruction she had wrought with her own hands to something so lovely and fragile. And because it still benefited the few that she loved, she would continue as a courier, and she would not let her pain ruin her.

Re: Lorilei (1b/1)

[(Anonymous)]

The day when Benny and the Khans caught her in the desert, it was only because she trusted them, the Khans. She often brought them packages when few others would, with candy and fireside stories for their children. It was simply the money that Benny offered, the promises, that moved their hand. For in the harsh embrace of the desert they too had their backs to a wall and this appeared to be a way out.

Lying there, bound and baffled, watching the faces of Jessup and McMurphy, both men that she knew, if only at a distance, she realized this was the end even before Benny spoke. She thought briefly of her mother, of her little sister. Her mind imagined a time in which she might have intercepted them before they caught her, of some sign in the miles between Red Rock and Goodsprings in which she would have known. But there was none, and as Benny held his 9mm to her face, her eyes were caught by the picture of the beautiful woman engraved on the side, her head and half her body visible through Benny’s clenched fingers and the firelight.

The shot which sinks her into darkness is warm, numbing, like being blinded by a thousand of the stars above falling into her brain. She shudders once, as the young woman that she was is burned out into the sand, the earth hungrily stealing the blood which traveled so many miles in both tribulation and need.

And then the Mojave is silent, but for the shushing sound of a shovel hitting grit, and a lone coyote calling her soul back from the avenging moon.

Crossroads (1/9)

[(Anonymous)]

Character: F!courier, various Legion, OCs
Tags: Violence, noncon
Summary: Couriers aren’t born old and mean. It takes a hard road to get them there.
Series: Mean Old Woman
Ready for another self-indulgent background piece? No? OK!

“What’s wrong with geckos?”

Ches fidgeted, turning his knife over in his hands. He stuck his lip out, muttering something about a “little dumb blue gecko.”

Lying prone in the grass next to him, Adal put her chin on her hand. “Sun’s shining, weather’s fine. I can wait all day, boyo.”

He frowned, looking very like her. His hair curled where hers was straight, maybe, and he freckled rather than tanned, but that little scowl was the mirror image of his ma. “Babies could skin geckos,” he said, with every ounce of wisdom he could muster.

“Hold on, now.” Adal tugged at the leather of her hood. “Calling your old lady a sissy?”

Mumble mumble “mebbe not fire geckos” mumble mumble.

“That’s right, you’re not.” She parted the grass with a hand. The geckos in the meadow below were still milling about, unaware of them. “No shame in it. They’re plentiful, we hunt ‘em all the time. Half of us hunters are wearing gecko hoods now.”

“I wanna night stalker.”

“Hey now,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “You better be able to back that one up, brave hunter. I’m not letting any son-of-mine go hunting night stalkers with a knife.” He avoided her eyes. “You’re young, my boy. You have another eight years, maybe, before you’re expected to do your Trial. I was that old, anyway. Don’t set your heart. We might not even be in night stalker territory then.”

Ches stared down at the knife, the handle made of a hooked antler, just like hers. She remembered leaving him in the deers’ territory earlier that year, returning to camp to wait for him to either prove himself a hunter or a disgrace. Two agonizing days ended with him returning, triumphant, and her near bursting with pride that her boy, her shadow, her little Ches was going to be as much a hunter as she.

She reached out to tuck a lick of hair behind his ear. “What’s bothering you, dearling?”

He scowled and scratched at it, making it stand up again. “They say I’m not really Walker because I’m a by-blow.”

“Wha—who says?” The geckos below jerked to attention.

“The others,” he said, peeling apart a bit of grass to not look at her. “Alam. ‘Cause my dad’s just some Circle Junction trader you don’t even know the name of and not a Walker man.”

“Oh, I’ll whip your brother’s feet,” she said, scowling. “No shame in it, Ches.”

“Say m’soft,” he mumbled. “Can’t keep up.”

“Only because you mope about it and drag along,” she said. “We’re small, us Walker, but that means a half-blood’s still miles ahead of any townie. Bit too small; you start marrying cousins if you don’t get new blood in sometimes, and you heard the tales about the people in Box Canyon.”

“Those are just scary stories,” he said.

“Oh, that they aren’t, boyo. I saw a man with his eyes where his ears ought to be,” she said, voice hushed.

“Don’t be silly, ma.”

“Arm growing out of his nose…” She touched the back of her wrist to her face and wriggled her fingers.

Ches giggled, then tried to frown. “I mean it, ma,” he said. “I gotta prove I can.”

“You’re set on this?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, solemn.

“I teach you how, you’ll listen and heed me, no matter what I say?”

“Yup.”

“Even if it’s no?”

He stuck his tongue out. “Sure.”

Adal smiled. She reached out to tousle his hair. “We’ll bag you a night stalker.”

He sat up, eyes going bright. “Really?”

“Really truly,” she said, nodding. “We’re walking to Crossroads, boyo. I might die of pride to see you lined up with the other new hunters, young as you are and in a skin like that. I can teach you tricks to sneak up on them.” She pointed down into the meadow. “But we start with geckos. You can walk in the middle of a pack and not upset them, it’s near the same trick you use on night stalkers. Learn to cut one out, isolate it. You kill one where the others see, the rest want your blood, and you ain’t walking out alive. Hear me, my boy?”

He nodded like his head was on springs. She smiled. “It’s all in the eyes. Animals don’t like being stared at, right…”

Crossroads (2a/9)

[(Anonymous)]

“…so then, when he’s doubled over from the gut punch, you can grab him by the ears and bash his face on your knee,” Adal said, demonstrating as she walked.

Ches nodded, fascinated. “I heard Trevi say you could kill someone, if you did that hard enough.”

“Well, I busted plenty of noses, boyo, and haven’t managed to yet,” she said, hiking the gecko carcass higher on her shoulders. “Takes the fight right out of ‘em, though.”

The day was ending as they picked up the trail back to camp. The massive bluffs gave way to low meadows between, and lazily winding rivers. Everything was deep in shadow as they neared the lush area the Walker had claimed, the only light coming from modest fires. Between them, the adults had gathered, and Adal could hear raised voices between them. She dropped the carcass at the edge of the camp and waved a hand at her son. “Go find your brother and get started on this.”

Adal pushed into the crowd, trying to hear. They made room, cousins and further relations. All shared the same dark, hooded eyes and near-black hair, skin tan and weathered. She found Jeth midway through the pack and took his hand, twisting her fingers through his. “What’s happened?”

He pulled his hand away, expression grim. “Peda and Sen found more of the Red men near the roads. They killed some of them.”

“We’ve seen what they do!” Adal stood on her toes. Peda, one of the older hunters, stood in the center of the ring. Her apprentice, Sen, held a strange rifle, the stock blank, missing the carving and paintings of a Walker weapon. Both wore scarred hunter’s hides, a mirror of Adal’s own. “Bodies tied up to rot! People stolen from their homes!” She gestured at the people around her, voice hoarse from yelling. “We can’t kill them all, no, but we can make their march painful as we can.”

“It’s not our fight!” one of the men shouted, wearing the rough cloth of a forager. “And it’s not our way. We’re Walker. We don’t have our feet nailed down like the townies, we can move on when things get dark. It’s served us long enough.”

“So we abandon the whole region?” Sen said, a little shrill with so many eyes on him. He clutched the foreign rifle tighter. “Walker move on when we can’t hold, but that doesn’t mean we don’t fight to keep what’s ours.”

“What happens if we leave?” Adal pushed her way into the center. Jeth tugged at her hood, trying to stop her. “Huh? These aren’t raids. These bastards don’t take what they need and go back to ground. The towns they take, they mean to keep. They break the people there. We leave, what the hell are we going to come back to?”

“So we find new land!”

“It might not be our problem, but other bands?” Peda said, giving Adal an approving nod. “Our children, when they Walk? What will they find? World’s gotten smaller. Land’s getting carved up. We’re running out of places to go to.

She looked around at the group. The rest of the Walker shifted where they stood, uncertain. Adal ground her teeth. “We have to fight. We show them the world isn’t theirs to take, make them hurt, maybe drive them off. But we can’t just let them trample us down.”

“No.”

Crossroads (3a/9)

[(Anonymous)]

No announcements were made among the Walker band, with rumor and word-of-mouth all that was needed in such a small group. Santi and the other elders forbade contact with the Red men. Any who sought them out were to be shunned.

So Peda, after Adal’s own heart, began leaving in the dead of night. She returned with foreign coins and a swatch of red and black feathers tied to her pack as trophies. When Adal asked, she just said, Clearing the road, a phrase reserved for dangerous animals on the trail ahead. Peda said nothing more, not asking the other hunters to risk their status. Yet soon, she was followed out by a throng of them, only a handful staying to protect the camp.

On her third night out, Adal paused, looking back at where she and Jeth had laid out their bedrolls. He stared past her, pretending not to see as he re-bound the grip on a spear, but there was a scowl on his face. Beside him, Alam was clumsily sewing up a rip in his shirt, pretending nothing was happening. Ches looked from one adult to the other, clutching his own spear.

Archly, as though addressing no one, Jeth said, “It would be very hard to teach you to be a man if I were not allowed to speak to you.”

Ches looked at him, then to his mother. “But I want to be a hunter.” He stood slowly. “I… I can have Sen teach me.”

She hugged him with one arm as they left. “Good boy. You know you’re doing something right, never let anyone stop you.”

“Is it right? They’ll shun us,” he said. “They only do that for the real bad troublemakers…”

“They can’t very well shun every hunter we have,” Adal said. “It needs to be all of us, all the way down to the apprentices. Only way to make a dent in the Red men, only way to get through to Santi.”

Ches gave her a worried look. She ruffled his hair. “Tracking men’s easier than tracking beasties. You’ll learn quick.”

Nearly every one of them, menders and foragers, gave them standoffish looks as they left on their hunts, but by Santi’s order said nothing. Ches stayed in her shadow, watching, learning, staying out of sight. She found a pistol on one of the strangers, gave it to him to practice. The other hunters indulged him, letting him lead as they tracked the Red men, falling back to stay in the dark of night while the adults went on with guns and spears.

Mostly. She felt him poke her leg. “Ma? Is that one a woman?”

Adal poked her head over the rock, looking at the group in the gully below. It was hard to tell in the dark, but one of the figures was slighter, rounder, wearing tattered clothes instead of armor. She sat, tending the fire rather than sleeping. “You see her, Sen?”

“Sure as,” he said. “They’ve all been men so far. What do you think? She’s not armed.”

“Leave her.” Adal raised herself higher, signaling to the other side of the camp. A quick wave told her the others were in position, the sentries on that side dealt with. She settled the butt of her rifle on her shoulder. “I’ve got the one with the feathers on.”

Crossroads (4a/9)

[(Anonymous)]

The sun was high before the Walker broke camp the next day, every one of them restless, muttering to one another. They watched the low tent Santi and Peda had disappeared into, the rest of the elders following soon after. By the time they finally emerged, and Santi called cadence, rumors had already run wild through the band.

No announcement was made, no orders or instructions, but word rippled through them: The Red men, the Legion, were enemies of the Walker. The shunning was to be forgotten, but no aid was to be given to the hunters. Gradually, the nightly hunts became part of life, another step of the cycle of walking, camping, and walking again. Things became mostly normal as they followed the old trails back to Crossroads.

Mostly.

Adal sat with Alam on her lap. Her rifle was laid out on a hide, carefully stripped for cleaning. “Hunters keep up their own gear,” she said. Across from her, Ches had broken down his pistol, following along. “Their guns, at least. Menders are well and good, but when you range away, you need to be independent.” She tapped the stock, carved and painted through generations. “These weapons were carried since the first of us started the Long Walk. No one touches them but the hunter who’s earned one, and the elder who keeps them and gifts them.”

“But da wants me to be a mender,” Alam said, looking up. “Teach Ches.”

“You’re five, dearling,” she said, kissing his forehead. “You don’t have to choose yet. And he doesn’t have to spell out your whole life.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because. Shush,” she said, carefully wiping grit out of a mechanism.

“He says it’s better to be a mender because we aren’t silly,” Alam said, picking at the edge of the hide. “We Walk like we should, not chase things.”

“Well, menders are boring,” Ches said. “Sit at camp and glue things up all day. I want to run around and explore!”

“Break your neck on a cliff!” Alam stuck his tongue out.

“Boys.” Ches was up on his knees, hands fisted, and Alam slid back against her to hide. “Walker needs both of them, and they do it better without fighting.”

“Da told Bern you like to fight with everyone, and are making Ches a terror.”

“Well, we’re doing good things, and your da’s too scared to fight!”

“Don’t know yours, townie!”

”Boys!” Adal stood and grabbed them each by the arms, keeping them from each other’s throats. “Stop that right now!” Others were looking up from their tasks, turning away from their fires. She knelt between them, still holding on. “Both of you apologize. Now,” she said, quieter.

“No! He’s more a terror than me!”

“Not even a Walker!”

“What’s going on?” She looked over her shoulder at Jeth, his jaw clenched. “What are you doing to my son?”