(no subject)

[calmhrtprevails]

The door opens on a vista of rocky landscape punctuated here and there by yellowed, rough-edged grass and low, scrubby brush. There's a hint of coolness on the breeze in the otherwise warming air, and a scent of distant rain. "We are," Fawkes rumbles, "some hours' distance from the Citadel. We're likely to stop at the town of Megaton first, and then make for the Arlington route the rest of the way."

Comments

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

He raises a hand in farewell, and heaves with all his strength against the lever that holds the door shut. Beyond lies a high-ceilinged, dimly lit cave that smells of damp and coolness. The light is enough to show a few wrecked things of human manufacture- old bits of fencing, shopping carts pilfered from the surface, things like that. And footprints. Not many; all small.

He'll close the door behind her as quickly as he can. She'll come to the children soon enough.

[cantdiequiteyet]

As she waits for the door to open and steps through, Teresa reflects that she could have opened it herself, but it's not that important.

She steps through into the cool, dim tunnel and heads off, her sword at her back and her hands by her side, just the tmp tmp tmp of her gentle pace.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

It was a matter of manners more than anything else. Fawkes owes Teresa courtesy, for all her aid.

The tunnel here is high-ceilinged, a good fifteen or twenty feet overhead, and the ground underfoot is stone. As she approaches a greater cavern, though, she comes upon the ruin of a wire fence that formerly spanned the cavern-mouth, and may see in the dimness ahead a kind of jury-rigged watchtower, cobbled together from old remnants and ruins. A shadow huddles warily in the tower window, watching.

[cantdiequiteyet]

Teresa stops, just this side of the wire fence, far enough away from the watchtower that she can look up at the window without making the angle uncomfortable.

She raises a hand to around shoulder height, in greeting.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Hold it right there," snarls the voice of a boy who can't be more than about nine. "I've got you in my sights, so don't try anything funny. What are you doing coming out of Murder Pass, mungo?"

[cantdiequiteyet]

"I've come to warn you," she says, as pleasantly as if she's doing him a great favor, "that there will shortly be a big explosion in the building at the other end of the pass."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

There's a pause.

"You're joking. People don't come out of there alive."

[cantdiequiteyet]

"Oh?"

Teresa smiles up at him.

"I did. And my companion Fawkes is now setting the devices that will explode, and destroy it at last."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Fawkes," says the boy cautiously. "Another mungo?"

[cantdiequiteyet]

"Yes," says Teresa. "he came to take Dogmeat home, he told me."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"... just a second. Don't try anything funny."

There is some scrambling and some whispering, and then a child running off into the rest of the caves. A little while later, the sound of several children's feet comes pattering out of the darkness: first a short pale-skinned boy in a coat far too big for him and an adult's army helmet, then a taller, brown-skinned boy in a jacket and short pants, and then a girl a little taller than the helmeted boy, wearing a tattered pink dress and a positively murderous look.

"Tell them what you told me," says the boy in the watchtower. "And don't try anything, they're all armed too."

[cantdiequiteyet]

Teresa smiles at them, like any adult might smile at any child, weapons notwithstanding.

"There is about to be an explosion in the building I have just left," she says. "You might want to know, in case you want to get out."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Building? You mean where the monsters come from?" says the helmeted boy. "You're shitting me. Nobody ever goes in there for as long as I've been living here, now people are just wandering in with explosives twice in the space of four months?"

"I don't think she's kidding, Mayor," says the dark boy. He's got his eyes on Teresa, and a dead sober expression. "You don't look like you're from around here. Did you bring the explosives yourself, or are you working for somebody?"

[cantdiequiteyet]

"Well spotted," she says, brightly.

"I've been working with a man called Fawkes. He says you know him from bringing Dogmeat home? Anyway, he's bringing the explosives, and I came down here to talk to you. He should be nearly done by now."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The girl scowls at that. "I remember him," she says. "And the armored mungoes he was with. So they're trying to kill all the monsters, huh?"

"Don't be stupid. Nobody can make an explosive that big."

"I don't know, Mayor," says the dark boy. "I don't think we should take that chance."

"So what are you saying? That we should just take their word for it and run like a bunch of scared babies?"

[cantdiequiteyet]

"It's your choice, of course," Teresa answers. "The explosion doesn't care whether you're here or not."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The helmeted boy fingers his gun, eyeing Teresa.

"Why didn't anybody tell us before?" mutters the girl.

"Because we're hiding from the mungos. Duh," says the helmeted boy. "And now we're going to have to find somewhere else to hide."

"At least until the explosion passes," says the dark-skinned boy. "Let's just get everybody up close to the surface. We can send someone back down here to find out if it's safe afterwards."

"Fine," says the helmeted boy. "Okay. Fine. But I wouldn't be doing this if the monsters weren't getting way worse lately. Don't think this means I believe you, lady. I just don't want to find out you're right because some dumbass six-year-old got exploded."

"Speaking of six-year-olds," says the dark boy, "we're going to need some help getting everyone up to the higher tunnel. My name's Joseph. This is Princess-" He indicates the girl.

"And I'm Mayor MacCready," says the helmeted boy, who looks a little sour at the idea of anyone else speaking for him.

Joseph nods. "We can round up the others pretty quickly," he says, "but if you could come along with us, to make sure nobody wanders off along the way..."

[cantdiequiteyet]

What do they expect her to do? Cut down wanderers? Even though Teresa doubts this is the kind of help they want, she acquiesces with a nod.

"I am Teresa."

As long as no one hugs her, she can probably survive this.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Right," says Mayor MacCready. "Okay, Teresa, let's get moving. I've got a lot of kids to push around."

He sets off at a run with Princess in tow. Joseph lags behind, looking up at Teresa. "I know he wants to turn around and come back when the explosion passes," he says, "but... if this gets rid of those green things, it might just be worth finding somewhere else to live. Thank you."

"Now, follow me. I'll show you the way up," he says, and sets off at a run into a cavern easily big enough to house a town. "And if you have any questions, feel free to ask."

[cantdiequiteyet]

Teresa isn't even surprised at the gratitude! She does smile at it, though. And this one might even be real; stranger things have happened.

"How long have you lived here?" she asks.

He did say she could ask questions!

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Since I was four years old," says Joseph, "so that's eleven years now. I don't remember my parents much, just hiding when something big and loud came for them. Some of the other kids who used to live here found me and brought me here, so I've lived in Lamplight since then."

[cantdiequiteyet]

"Is that how all the kids come here?" she asks. "Taken in from outside?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Mostly," says Joseph, as the hue and cry starts to go up and children start pattering through the dark, grabbing whatever they can carry. "Everyone has to leave here when they turn sixteen. Sometimes people who grew up here wind up sending their kids back here. Sometimes kids get busy and have babies before they're sixteen. But there's a lot of orphans that wind up here."

[cantdiequiteyet]

"Oh."

Teresa was an orphan when she was... she can't remember how old she was nowadays. All of the warriors were. She wonders if these children see in her what Clare saw in her, what she's unable to see in other people since she shut that part of herself down. She wonders if, if she were born in this world, she would have ended up here.


It's the first time she's wondered anything like that.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

A dog rushes past at knee height, yapping and snapping at one of the slower children to chivvy him along through the great chamber.

"It's not the best place in the world to live. But it's safe, and you get a good education here, and you learn to use a weapon," says Joseph. "We take care of each other. I hope we don't have to leave forever."