[DVFP] Session One Closing (All)

Rich

All,

As the day winds down into a chilly night, you find a place of respite or quiet. Or perhaps just a place to pass out. Please describe how things work out for you in the final moments of your day. Where are you? Are you alone? What's going on as you wrap things up?

(and no, you don't have to narrate all the way to sleep, this is just a "capper" for the events, a moment for you to show us a private moment for you)

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Once you have posted your capper, please move on to the next step. HX!

SESSION END
At the end of every session, choose a character who knows you better than they used to. If there’s more than one, choose one at your whim. Tell that player to add +1 to their Hx with you on their sheet. If this brings them to Hx+4, they reset to Hx+1 (and therefore mark experience). If no one knows you better, choose a character who doesn’t know you as well as they thought, or choose any character at your whim. Tell that player to take -1 to their Hx with you on their sheet. If this brings them to Hx -3, they reset to Hx=0 (and therefore mark experience).

LadyAmalthea

I finish my last song of the night with a flourish. And thank blazes it's over because I am tired. I was at the keys for lengths longer than I had planned. Two songs became twelve, became twenty, till I lost count - but I do have a nice amount of jingle to my name now, might even buy myself a new book.

The highlight of the night was most assuredly Motley's rendition of "we're not gonna take it" - which got his whole crue and a number of the ladies on their feet, screaming and singing. It was, well, fun.

Beyond the tired, I feel new. For the first time, in my life, not every movement I make is being re-calibrated for someone else. For the first time, I am just living my life. Yes, there are still dangers, but baby steps. I am taking baby steps, to make something that is my own.

I won't live by her rules anymore. I take a second to thank Cinch, wherever she is.

After all, I've touched and been touched by more people today then I have in my life by three times. And we are all still here, blazes, Reese is still here. Thank the stars. So, I'll be careful, but I can't just live my life on the edges.

I swipe my hands along the keys and look up to see Krin staring back at me, a half smile hidden in part by her drink, and yeah, that's a scary-fun feeling in my gut I wouldn't mind getting used to.

Behind her, minding the bar is Esco. I don't know how to feel about Esco, I just know I want him on my side. With Cinch and Esco, JD, Fleece and Reese, I'm creating a community. I don't know what they will all be yet - friends, acquaintances, perhaps something else - but they'll be something to me.

And it's because I'm choosing them. I get to choose. Sadness, Joy? both? It's hard to name what briefly overcomes me.

Gloriana isn't taking me away from this. From this life. If she wants to, she is going to have to come here herself and wrestle it from my cold dead hands.

exterminatorx

As promised, I buy Last and her girls a couple of rounds at Diamond, but I make sure I'm gone before Sierra dedicates my song to her. I know there's no way I'll play that off if I'm there with her when that happens.

After leaving Diamond, I head down to Fleece's to pay her a visit. I've got barter and my body hasn't felt right since the tumble in the bus crash, and I need to be 100% before we head out to fug with Ziggy. I get her to fix up my gashed hand, and she pops a few joints and sockets back in place before giving me a bag of fluids. I feel new again. Through a morphine haze, Reese sees me getting treatment by Fleece. Will he remember it when he comes out of the opiate nod? Was it just a hallucination?

I've always hated the way cowboys whooped it up, drinking, shooting their guns, snogging with their gals and buckeroos, and I go find some lonely tunnel to hole up in and shut the eye, but all I see are rememberin flashes of that green-haired bus driver and the old woman in the back with the borax. And Chaz, in the passenger seat, eyes wide open staring off into the scorch, blood pooling on the floorboards. And so for the first time ever, I shuffle back down to Diamond and grab a table in the corner and watch and listen to the cowboys and cowgirls whoop it up, and they make me forget all about Chaz and the women of the borax bus.

LadyAmalthea

I actually flipped a coin on this one...

Cinch aka @scott‌ take +1 HX

exterminatorx

Without a doubt, I think Motley knows Gigg better

Motley aka @will_nabors‌ take +1 Hx. Since Motley saw Gigg unmasked, I think this will take Motley to +4 Hx. Your welcome for the XP.

will_nabors

I buy my crue a round of drinks to get them started, they've earned it. I warn them of the next days job. They get to stretch their muscles, earn some jingle and fug up some people, so don't get too wasted. If they can't ride their bike in the mornin' they will be stuck here doing maintenance on the bikes with Motorhead.

Then I hear Sierra calling my name, telling me it's time. I roll my eyes, I wanted HER to sing the fugging song, not me. 'Sis and Rose figure out what is happening and start pushing me towards the stage. I finally accept and get up starting to sing.

"We're not going to take it." rings out as I look out among my crue. They are beaten down, suffered a lot of pain the past few weeks with very little victory.

"We're not going to take it!" I pour more energy and volume into it. Some of the crue begins to join in. I see Dokken drinking angrily, not singing, just brooding with broken arm girl. 'Oh Dokken, I hope you can get past this. If you only knew that I see you as a good Alpha when I'm gone, if you would only get over trying to prove yourself.'

"We're not going to take it!!" Our volume begins to carry as the entire crue has joined in and even some of Last's girls are joining in the chorus. They could blend well with us. I will need to work on incorporating Last with my decisions instead of barking orders. She's their alpha and that is hard to back down from that, but she had my back out there, she deserves more respect. I will give it to her.

"We're not going to take it anymore!!" I sing out as I look at this place. It could be home, we aint really been allowed to have one of those, but this could be the first. I look at my crue with a feeling of pride welling up inside as I finish out the song. I thought I even saw the start of a smile on Dokken's face.

will_nabors

I think Gigg is the only one who spent enough time with me to learn more about me.

Gigg take +1 with me.

and thanks for the XP.

Adam

The rest of my day was a flurry of serving, and listening. Listening to the folks that come in, tryin' to sort out opportunities for Mot and his boys, listening for "business" opportunities, listening to Mot make an arse of himself singing a song, and singing along, because I'm an arse too...

Listening to Sierra... More than I should have.

Fek.

I don't know where Sierra ended up, but when things finally wind down enough that I can pass off bar duties to JD for the early morning, I make my way up to my room alone. My room is quiet, save the low hum of the Edison bulbs, and I get to work in stripping down for the night. Mid-way through undressing, I swear I hear the whirring Sierra mentioned yesterday, and I take a moment to seek it out – putting an ear to the wall in hopes I can narrow down where it's coming from – but all I hear is silence.

I reluctantly go back to undressing, and hop into bed. I don't touch the bottle of swill on the nightstand, even though I want to. Eventually, I fall asleep sitting up, gripping the knife under my pillow.

OOC: Sierra, take +1Hx with Esco.

halcy

After a couple of drinks and jokin' with Beckett, I excuse myself to clean up and rest. The liquor is good and I could definitely keep goin' at it..only my exhaustion from the day lets me take it easy.

My garden is arranged but not really resettled yet. That'll get done in the morning. The Gallica will have less hips come fall for each bloom I give to Sight-of-Day. I'm at peace with that.

The implant is in a jar fulla water with some salt and sugar and a couple lumps of meat in it. That's tomorrow, too. Gonna see a Fat Man about a kebab.

Layin' down on my new bed, surrounded by the sloppy misarrangement of what little I have left in the world, I sip at a glass of water and just feel my buzz. Diamonds comes back into my head..I push it away, but it won't leave. What was the Feed doin', back then? And how did Sierra do what she did? That was either an internal ability or an external interference. Both possibilities scare me.

Hell. I liked the Irons, the dirty miners, the lousy gamblin', the cramped market stalls, the near-constant lack of fippers. Esco's piss-n-vinegar attitude beltin' out of that baby face o'his. My gussied up little cave. Hell.

Tomorrow I can make this all work, me an' my new business. Right now I'm too tired to replace thinkin' with workin', and my mind wanders..

---

A silent courtroom filled with dark wood and somber expressions surrounds me. In the back, I recognize people. A corporate lord. A middle-high ranking Fed. A couple of rival academics, whoring their intellects and convictions to power. A couple journalists. People with a capital-I Interest in today. To my right is an empty jurist's box. To my left, the prosecutor and his team.

I shift in the metallic fiber mesh suit that keeps signal from entering or exiting my body. A gift to the court from a concerned party. The judge finishes shuffling pages and speaks.

"June Hortense Weaver, throughout this trial you have attempted to hijack the process as a platform for your repugnant ideas. You have assaulted two bailiffs, virally corrupted over twelve separate recording devices, and made it impossible for me to use an in-court legal AI.."

"In your case, necessity is the undertaker of invention, isn't it?" I love interrupting him, and he squirms obligingly.

"..furthermore your doctor has confirmed that your body is as irredeemable as your mind. You cannot be rehabilitated, unlike many of the people you've corrupted and collaborated with. The state will remove their offending parts and help them recover. Miss Weaver, this highlights an important feature of your sentence; you cannot be kept in a traditional prison.

As one of the least repentant, most perverse individuals I have ever tried in this court, it is a personal relief to sentence you to two hundred consecutive years in the Death Valley Free Prison. Your example will remain a beacon to others."

Wood cracks on wood. It's over.

halcy

I think Esco knows me less well than before, -1 Hx.

scott

Stopped on the side of the road, dozen or so miles out from the Irons, delicately scraping the dusting of Borax from my back seat into a plastic bottlecap, then dumping that carefully into it's box. I try to get the package back together for Lether, at least presentable. And I know if I can't find June then this is kind of a fail.

I step out into the sun and wipe my brow, check up and down the road for company (predictably none) and walk 'round the back of the car and run a fingertip along the indents left by the machinegun.

"Fuggin shoot me?" I complain down the road towards the Irons... and can't help but picture her laying there in the morning light. "Fuggin'" I hit myself in the side of helmet with the heel of my hand, enough to knock the present back into my senses. Sweat drips down my back.

But it was awesome. I fall back to lean against the hot metal of the car, take a long drink from my canteen and watch the heat mirage shimmer and play across the desert.

But I hate it when they shoot at me. You don't really get used to that.

"Rocksuckers." I complain, then raise my canteen like a toast to the horizon. Break into a smile, then a laugh. I like to borrow words... Esco gave me that one. He knows me a little better than before... any time the man wants to share a drink. I'm there.