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[assassin_daddy]

Jᴀᴄᴏʙ Fʀʏᴇ "I'm no criminal. I just do as I please."

 

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[handleyourshit]

She hesitates, filling in this new information, watching Jacob's face to take in as much of the context his having lived it can tell her; she shakes her head at the offer, none for her thanks, and makes a dismissive motion with her hand.

"Actually, I was just thinking how very controlling a wildly contagious virus would be," she comments - not because she thinks that's what happened, but because yeah, she knows. Just because she's struggling with it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

"So - you're just going back and forth killing each other, trying to get the one up?"

[assassin_daddy]

"Depends if you can prevent yourself from getting it," He says, after a moment of thought, and then adds, "But I had to deal with something similar. A tonic they used to sell people, cure coughs, colds, aches and pains, but it felt people worse than they started."

He nods, accepting the fact she doesn't want a drink easily enough. He shouldn't really.

"More or less. We try to stop them from harming others, get in the way of any plans they have to infiltrate governments or start wars and try to prevent them from getting their hands on anything they could use to make the situation worse. But it's like a balance, sometimes tipping our way, sometimes tipping theirs. Before my sister and I arrived, London had been in Templar hands for over 150 years."

[handleyourshit]

"I never get that, but then, people will believe what they want." This is not as dismissive as it might be in someone else - she's seen it, after all. People will do anything to rationalize what they want to be true, and ignoring worsening symptoms to focus on one thing that might improve? Not the worst way Rosita has seen people lie to themselves.

"So you two really cleaned house?" she prompts, saving how two native Londoners can arrive there for if the answers don't come on their own.

[assassin_daddy]

"Sometimes, you've got so little hope left, you'll try anything." He tells her. Besides, it was different, in his time. There wasn't education for everyone, there weren't many doctors, and what few there were did not have the science that she was clearly used to having. She knows the word virus, for a start. If your baby is sick, if your husband is sick, and you don't have many other choices? Something like that is what so many people turn to. "But there were people who knew to stay away from it."

"Not on our own. There was one assassin that had been in London, spying, making connections. Hen- his name is Jayadeep, but we knew him as Henry back then. He helped us. There were Templars everywhere- in government, in the police, in industry. All hurting people, to keep control." He begins, "Most of London was run by gangs, with a leader in the pocket of the Templars. We formed our own gang and got rid of the others one by one. We had to kill some Lords- fucking pricks-" he still remembers Lord Bloody Cardigan, "and repeatedly try to stop them from killing Queen Victoria. But mostly it was me, Evie, and Jayadeep."

[handleyourshit]

She's seen that, so Rosita just nods. Hope is a brutally dangerous thing - the presence of only a sliver of it makes people do insane things to try to save it, and the absence of it makes them do worse things because what is the point? It's easy to judge when she's outside of it. She finishes her cake, reminds herself to be grateful, and listens to the story he has to tell.

She barely remembers any of her high school history, and it's been years since any other part of the world - England or India or, shit, Mexico or Canada - seemed like even the same planet for all that they could reach it physically or by radio of any kind. She does eye the way he's dressed as he speaks - he talks about gangs and she remembers they're different from the American version, though maybe not so much as everyone would wish - and finally, she nods.

"I probably would have clutched my pearls once upon a time, but - " That Rosita Espinosa might as well be as dead as the rest, so she only adds, "I can think of a few times we could have used someone willing and able to do that. I'm sorry your family raised you up into it though. Did you ever get a choice not to, if you wanted?"

[assassin_daddy]

He's heard about variations of Earth that have a different history to his own- hers may well have been wildly different. Or did the templars and Assassins exist in her world, and their ridiculous war only ended when society fell completely? He doesn't know, she doesn't either, and probably they won't ever actually know. He just assumes their worlds aren't connected, and that's probably for the best.

Jacob laughs. "I can't imagine you doing that. I don't think too much surprises you."

"No. There wasn't ever any choice. My father... he was very dedicated. He wanted us to be dedicated too. I've tried... not to be the same. My boys know what's happening in the world. But their path has to be their own."

[handleyourshit]

Jacob laughs, and Rosita smiles tolerantly, a dry, understated expression that isn't exactly disingenuine but isn't her most sincere, either. "I'm not who I used to be," she answers simply. If he can't understand that - and she thinks maybe he can, with everything going on now - she can't explain it any better.

Besides, this is more important just now. She's not surprised, not with comments she's already heard, but she also has to be careful which questions she chooses from here.

So, watchful: "Boys? How many kids do you have?"

[assassin_daddy]

"None of us are." He says- how can they be? Everything they've endured has changed them somehow, maybe them something new. Not better, just new, different from the old. He would like to think he's learned, become more careful, more responsible, but he may well have just become more distant from other people for having been left alone.

"I had two. Two sons." He says softly, fingers toying with the glass and for a moment it seems he's going to take another drink, but instead he sets it down on the table again. He can't look at her, as he says it, he doesn't want to see what her expression might be. Pity? He's not sure. She's seen enough death. But it's different when it's your own child. "One died, just before I came back here."

[handleyourshit]

Kids die first and hard these days. It's difficult enough to get through a full term pregnancy, to get through a birth with minimal complications, but winters are hard, food is scarce, and walkers are everywhere. Of all the women she's seen start to swell, of all the babies she's seen born, she's seen maybe two handfuls make it to learning to walk, barely more than half of those making it to double digits. It used to just be depressing, mostly, to hear someone has lost their child; but now something seizes in her that feels more like fear.

She barely manages not to look down, and to delay moving her good arm across her own stomach protectively until she's already answered, until it's on a delay.

"I'm sorry," she says, not pity, but sincere. And, a subtle edge that might be anger on his behalf: "However they make choices for this program, they're certainly not doing you any favors."

[assassin_daddy]

They have a shared experience there. Obviously she knows it doesn't have to be that way, that a world can be safer for mothers and newborns, that both surviving and being well could be the norm- at least in some places.

But Jacob doesn't know that reality. For everyone who bears a child in his time, there is a high chance you will die, your child will die, or both will. Frankly, it's surprising he and Evie both lived after their mother died giving birth, but that was all thanks to his grandmother.

"Thank you." He says, and then, "No. They never have been practically kind." He raises his hand to the bridge of his nose, pinching at it to try and ease the pain that still flares sometimes from his eye. "But I don't expect kindness in this city. Not from our hosts, or the residents."

He won't say that the LIERS should be kind to each other. But it's implied. Especially now when they're discussing this contract. They need to be kind to each other, understanding. Supportive.

[handleyourshit]

Kindness is a harder sell than basic decency for Rosita, who does not consider herself a kind person, who does not expect anyone to show her the same; it's part of why she values Jesus so much just for his sheer existence. She thinks it's only sensible not to expect it from anyone, because she's certainly not extending it as a matter of course.

And people can judge her for it if they want - she knows why she is the way she is, and she's not ashamed of or for it. But she can be decent. She can not dig into things that don't pertain to what they're trying to do here.

"The man who lead the group mine joined - his name was Rick Grimes," she says after a moment. "When we were trying to figure out how to decide who to let join us and who to leave, he would ask them three questions. Everyone got the same three questions, everyone had the same three chances. After we'd settled into a community for a while it became more obsolete, but - it was important, for a while." She picks up her water, takes a small drink, considers it while she holds it. "Would you mind if I asked you? I'll answer too, if you want. Just for old time's sake." For ritual, which was once a matter of potential life and death for her and everyone she cared about left in the world.

[assassin_daddy]

"As a test, you mean?" He asks, although really it's a rhetorical question. Of course it's a test, although he can't decide if it's one which has set right or wrong answers, or if it's one of those where you'll be judged on the quality of the answer, whether you say certain phrases and the like.

He supposes he'll find out.

"I mean, I'm not opposed. Although I'm assuming you know the right answers, so I should probably go first."

[handleyourshit]

"Yes and no," she answers, running her fingertip along the top edge of the glass. It was a test, once, but Jacob has people here who won't let him die if they have any say in it. He has resources, and they don't revolve around whether or not Rosita lets him stay near her. But its important to her nonetheless.

"And it's not a right or wrong thing. It's -" She shakes her head. He'll see.

"First one doesn't really apply here, but. Well. How many walkers have you killed?" She lets it hang anyway so it can be ridiculous for him, and obsolete for her.

[assassin_daddy]

Interesting question, he imagines its very relevant to her world, but he can see in her face she knows it doesn't translate to here, or his own. But he can at least answer it.

"None. But I haven't met any yet so it's not for lack of trying. If we translate that to non-human monsters bent on attacking me? Five. They were creatures from Vrenille's world that turned up here. I don't know how many people I've killed."

He knows that sounds bad, but he's telling the truth. As an assassin, you can't carry that with you.

[handleyourshit]

She meets his eyes squarely while he answers - on the road, it was important to watch for tells, for lies, for uncertainty or infirmness. She meant what she said though: the communities make it a bit obsolete. She knows he's not insane. She doesn't know him well enough to know for sure if he's lying to her.

But she does believe that answer, and doesn't correct his definition of what walkers are; if that's what it translates for him as, then that's as important as the number. Besides, there are those who define them as exactly that.

The corner of her mouth quirks. "That's the second question: how many people have you killed?" Because they are, indeed, two different questions where she's from. They tell two different stories, and this is where the lies usually show up.

[assassin_daddy]

"Prempted that one, then." He says, with a little shrug. He assumed that the questions might be about how good at finding food you might be, if you had any medical training or had some sort of useful training, like in engineering or something more relevant to the future she lived in.

But maybe these questions are also a lot about the people who ask them what they needed. What they had survived.

"Like I said, I couldn't tell you. I wouldn't even want to hazard a guess." He's serious about that too. There are, unfortunately, some lives that are more important than others. Maybe he could remember how many missions the Council had sent him on, how many gang leaders he'd had to take out. But ordinary bastards that would kill you for your shoes? Men or women that were cruel by nature and killed because it was easy money? He doesn't know.

[handleyourshit]

Scavenging can be learned, and also there's a certain merit to someone simply surviving long enough to be discovered by a larger group; their physical condition is telling, too. Training can't be changed, and who a person was in the old world rarely matters in the new. Not enough not to be able to find a way to be useful, anyway.

But character? Honesty? Real desire to be a part of the group rather than taking advantage of them? These matter. Rosita nods, accepting the answer. It's not about the numbers, really.

"Why?" He's already told her once. She asks anyway, calm and even rather than accusing, straightforward and simple rather than an obvious trap.

[assassin_daddy]

"Is that the third question, or just curiosity?" He asks, intrigued. If she's curious, she knows at least some of the details already, if it's the third question, then she's asking it because that's the game.

"Because there wasn't any other choice. Sometimes, you can knock someone out, if you don't think they deserve death, but if they're working for the bastard you're after, then they're likely to be just as much of a bastard. So you put them down before they do it to you, or before they do it to someone else."

That's all there is to it, in the end. Sometimes, you have to kill or be killed.

[handleyourshit]

So you put them down before they do it to you, or before they do it to someone else.

She almost laughs even though it's not funny, because it is; because she thinks of creeping down dimly lit cinderblock hallways and carefully opening doors to stab the men and women behind them as they sleep in their beds. Because if they wake up, if one of them sounds the alarm, all of her own people are dead. If her people die, Jesus's are next.

We don't want to kill. We don't like it. It happens.

She nods. "It was the third question," she says, and: "Thank you."

[assassin_daddy]

"Did I pass?" He has to ask the question even though he doesn't know how relevant it is really, if she still wants to sign with him based on what he's told her, if she has concerns. Frankly, if she did he's sure she'd air them, but maybe she needs a little while to think. He wouldn't be upset with that either, he appreciates it's... a little much.

"What about you? What are your answers?" He has no idea of numbers, although he supposes it's probably pretty high on the monster count, and less so on the human. But he's not sure, not really. He also has no idea if he'll view her differently, but she did say she'd answer.

[handleyourshit]

She chuckles, shakes her head a bit at herself, at the concern; like she said, she's a different person these days. A wildly different person who does not shy from certain things she would have once avoided the same way most people in a functioning society avoid it still.

"You did," she assures him, not knowing how else to explain it. Then she holds up a finger: number one.

"I don't know an exact number on walkers. It's... a lot. When I first got here there was a thing where I was given a piece of paper with three facts on it for someone else, and they were given a piece with three facts on me. One of mine was a kill count, and the other two were true even though there's no way for anyone here to know them, so it's possible that one was too. It put me over five hundred."

Which is not out of the question. She hesitates a moment and adds, "I've worked with explosives a couple times. They aren't all directly or by hand."

[assassin_daddy]

The number doesn't seem to shock him, horrify him or impress him. He accepts it as a fact, because he has no reason to disbelieve what she's saying.

"Explosives are a very useful tool to have at hand," He agrees, because he's used them himself. They are messy though, and not ideal for a setting where there's innocent people who might be wandering around. Or children.

"So are traps, if you can rig them. That's not always a luxury I had time for." He pauses, and then because he realises he's not actually even sure, at this point, he's just got a vague idea, he interrupts her in giving the rest of her answers.

"What actually... is a walker? I know it's a body, with a virus. Walking around. But... how?"

CW: undead and sundry to do with them

[handleyourshit]

This is a question she's gotten enough times here now that it doesn't visibly surprise her, but it's still a bit odd to her; it would be like someone asking what a tree is, or the warmth of the sun. They're always there, they're always a consideration, there is never a day when the wind doesn't carry their scent or the sound of their shuffling and gurgling, when she doesn't have to deal with one for one reason or another.

But she nods to show she understands while she tries to work out how to pack over a decade of near mundanity into an answer he has to ask about.

"They're people who died, and then the virus reanimated them," is the short answer. "There's a sickness that goes with it, that killed... Most of my world. But even those of us that didn't get sick have it, and when we die, it'll bring us back up unless our brainstem is destroyed."

She's put down so many of her friends at this point it doesn't even bear thinking of just one. It's the reason she sometimes checks the side of Jesus's head, because the last time she saw him, Aaron had already done them all the favor and now she can't stop herself.

"They're not human anymore though. There's nothing left of whoever they were. They chase down noise, and movement, and fresh meat. They decompose but until everything literally disintegrates they walk and walk and walk and never stop or get tired." Which can take years, depending on the climate and the weather. "And they're everywhere. Sometimes they group up in bigger herds and just mow down everything in their path. Biggest one I ever saw was easily several thousand strong."

[assassin_daddy]

He listens, fascinated and mildly horrified, uncertain what sort of strange disease can so that to a person, what can make a body move like that and act in such a way once life is extinguished. Or where such an illness came from. But he's no scientist and neither is she, he may well not understand a more complex explanation.

"It sounds almost top incredible. It only effects humans? No other animals?"

[handleyourshit]

And indeed: "I don't know a lot about it. It moved too fast and by the time any of us might have been able to stop trying to survive it to ask questions, all the people that could answer them were dead."

But she's friends with Eugene, who comes closest; she does have some answers that others don't.

"Just humans. It didn't even hit primates like it did us. Walkers'll still eat other animals if they can catch them, mind you, so we're fighting for resources with them across the board even though they're not capable of thinking or planning or... anything that isn't walking forward and tearing something living apart."

Except - but she doesn't know what was wrong with the last herd she encountered, the one that almost killed her. That did kill Jesus. She decides not to mention the ones that were whispering to each other.