Somewhere in Texas, Kathy's universe, September, probably
Raven was stuck in Texas.
She wasn't sure how long it had been. She wasn't very good at judging seasons this far south, so all she knew was that it still felt like summer, and she'd lost Kathy at the end of spring, and it felt like it'd been forever and she was only maybe halfway to Baltimore and Fandom and someone, anyone, who could help save Kathy from being a mindless eating machine and probably offed by some smug superhero in LA and she was wasting time -- but she was stuck. Stupid kind-hearted Texan survivalists had found her wandering around in dog form to scavenge for food and slapped a stupid collar on her and adopted her as some kind of pet. And yeah, sure, she could just shift again into something smaller and slip the collar and then fly away when they weren't looking and they'd be just like "oh shit, disappearing dog, hope a zombie didn't eat it" and move on with their lives but the first week or so someone was always looking. They weren't sure if the ex-virus thing affected animals and they wanted to make sure she wouldn't go all meta for? Old Yeller on them and start, like, foaming at the mouth or something. Then after that she'd kind of gotten used to eating on a regular basis and it was nice not to have to hunt for water or dig herself a hole to get shade from the desert sun. There was a little girl, Pammy, maybe eight years old, who reminded her so much of Kathy and Charles, and who liked to scratch her behind the ears (which felt really fucking good, oh god, she was so touch starved out there on the road) and she just. She loved her. She and her mom took care of her. And the road was hot and hard and Raven was lonely and she was going to get back to looking for help for Kathy, she was, but she was going to be stuck here for a little while first.
Just a little while.
Just until fall came and it started to get a little cooler.
It was hard, at first, holding the dog shape almost all the time. It wasn't one she'd used a lot before leaving LA, and her shifting was like any other sort of muscle: it liked to have practice. She was more used to faking a normal human appearance, of course, but people were suspicious of strangers, and Texas had erected an actual damn wall around the state when the world ended, and the state was way too big for her to go around it or over the whole thing. So she'd flown in as a bird, and shifted when she landed into the one thing she thought paranoid, terrified humans wouldn't shoot at: a sad, pitiful, adorable little dog. With flopped ears and a wagging tail, who whimpered instead of barked. And it had worked like a dream.
Worked too damn well.
The family she lived with now was small, just Pammy and her mother, Margie, but they lived in the most stable town Raven had seen since LA, a little community on the banks of a river far enough from the wall that you couldn't see it without walking for several days. They'd rebuilt surprisingly well after the infrastructure dissolved; there was no electricity or running water, but the river meant they could still keep things clean, and the Texas weather meant they didn't have to worry about keeping fires for anything other than light or cooking. There was some concern about mosquitos, whether or not old summer illnesses would come back to ravage the south now that civilization had collapsed, but there was still plenty of bug spray for the time being, and the town had a little clinic that was still pretty well stocked from before the fall, with a full staff of nurses and a young doctor, Joanne, who'd done a few years with the Peace Corps and knew how to keep the bugs off.
There were almost no men. No one ever talked about it, and Raven was too scared of what they'd do if she tried to actually ask, so she didn't know what had happened to them, if they'd gone off to fight in the militia or had been killed off somehow. Texas had declared itself an independent nation almost before the US government actually fell, and the militia patrolled the whole border wall day and night to keep the exes out. That much she'd managed to pick up, listening in on conversations. But no one ever mentioned anyone specific, not even the name of the new Texan president. Raven had no idea if Margie had a husband out there somewhere, or if it had always been just her and Pammy and now their beloved little guard dog who never even needed any training.
They called her "Star". As in "Lone Star". It was pretty corny, but what was Raven going to do, introduce herself?
"Star" had a pretty good life. She helped out with the farm work, herding the goats the community kept for milk and occasional meat, and chasing off scavengers like rabbits or crows who wanted to raid the town vegetable garden. She carried water up from the river and curled up in bed with Pammy when she had nightmares -- or Margie, when she did. She hadn't seen a single ex in ages. She'd almost forgotten what it felt like to feel their blood on her shifted hands.
Then Margie got hurt. It wasn't anything big, just a wood scrape from falling off a log that went just deep enough to bleed. But despite all the efforts to keep things clean, the hoarding of antibiotic soaps and sterile bandages, infection still set in. Margie kept it hidden, not wanting to worry her friends. She washed the wound every day and kept it covered all the time and smiled and tried to keep up with the work and wait for the problem to go away. When she went septic, no one knew but her good, loyal "dog".
Raven had seen enough gross, horrible illnesses in her few weeks in LA at the start of the crisis to recognize a life threatening infection when she saw one. And she knew from those same sources what was likely to happen when Margie succombed. She ran into Pammy's room in the little house by the river, shifting as she went, her collar jingling around her blue scaled neck. Pammy took one look at her and screamed, but Raven scooped her up anyway, apologizing all the while.
"I'm sorry, I need arms for this, I'm so sorry, we have to go." She ran out into the night, Pammy clinging to the collar, which would have choked Raven if she hadn't stiffened the scales around her neck to protect her throat.
"Star?" Pammy asked, once she'd had a chance to calm down a little.
"Yeah." Raven stretched her legs -- literally, as long as she could and still keep the coordination to run -- and pelted for the clinic.
"Okay," Pammy said, with the simple understanding and acceptance only a small child could have.
The folks at the clinic weren't nearly so nice about it. There was always a crowd there, day or night -- it was the only place in town that had enough lights to read by after dark, and the women would stay up late into the night chatting and telling stories of before the fall, and keeping the fear at bay, but Raven hadn't expected quite this many people when she came running up.
Everyone in town had a gun. Everyone. And everyone in the clinic had their guns aimed right at Raven as she burst through the doors. "Please," Raven gasped, exhausted from the effort of keeping her longer legs and stiffer neck and not falling back into the dog form she'd grown so used to. She lifted her free hand, the one not supporting Pammy against her hip. "Margie's dying. She'll turn. Please."
Someone took Pammy from her, and Raven almost swooned from relief as she finally let her body shift completely back into its normal, natural shape, something she hadn't done since she first got to town. Joanne grabbed her bag and rushed out the door, one of the nurses hot on her heels, but the others kept their guns on Raven.
"What are you?" Ellen, one of the town leaders, asked. She stood at the front, rifle propped almost casually against her shoulder, aimed at Raven's chest.
Raven had always liked Ellen.
She swallowed, then straightened her shoulders, both her hands up and out to show that she was unarmed. "My name is Raven. I'm -- you've heard of Nautilus? I'm like that. I'm a shapeshifter, but I'm not --" Not what? Not evil? Not a monster? Not a threat to these people who had pet her and cared for her for weeks now?
Shots rang out from across town. From the river. Someone outside screamed. Raven was forced backwards out the clinic door at gunpoint.
"What did you do to her?" Ellen asked.
"Nothing." Raven felt tears spring to her eyes. She was supposed to be done with this, with the fear and hate, but she never would be, would she? Kathy's world had superheros, ones everyone knew, but it didn't matter. She'd always be a scapegoat. "I noticed she was sick. I brought Pammy here to be safe and get help. That's all."
"It's Star," whispered Pammy, somewhere back behind Ellen, behind the crowd of weapons. Raven winced. "She's my dog."
Someone pressed a pistol into Raven's face. "Are you a spy?!" the person demanded, voice shrill. Ellen did nothing to calm her. "What are you doing here?!"
Raven took another step back. She wasn't stuck anymore. She was the opposite. "I just wanted to be safe. You were all so kind --"
There were more gunshots from the river, more screams, and then it was like the world exploded with sound and light and pain --
A bullet ripped through Raven's shoulder and she roared. She shifted instinctively, going large and vicious and terrifying. She tore through the one with the pistol with her claws, smashed someone else to the ground with the heavy weight of her shifted arms. There was blood in the air, and the stink of gunpowder, and screaming, screaming from the river and screaming from the clinic as Raven disarmed the women who threatened her.
As Raven made more exes.
Finally, the collar choking her much thicker neck pulled Raven up short, and she shrank back down to her natural shape, panting and crying. There were bodies on the ground, including Ellen's. Pammy was nowhere to be seen.
Raven couldn't look for her. She wasn't welcome anymore. If anyone saw her again now, they'd kill her on the spot.
"Run," she told the air, hoping Pammy could hear her. "Run away and don't let anyone touch you. I know it's scary and I know it's hard, but you can survive." She swallowed. "I did."
And she turned, pressing her hand into her bleeding shoulder, and sprinted off into the night, her scales the perfect camouflage once she'd cleared the weak light of the lanterns.
She'd let herself get comfortable. She'd let herself feel safe and everyone had paid.
She wouldn't make that mistake again.
[content note: here there be violence, blood, and named OC deaths. Also, it got kinda long. NFI (natch), OOC welcome]
She wasn't sure how long it had been. She wasn't very good at judging seasons this far south, so all she knew was that it still felt like summer, and she'd lost Kathy at the end of spring, and it felt like it'd been forever and she was only maybe halfway to Baltimore and Fandom and someone, anyone, who could help save Kathy from being a mindless eating machine and probably offed by some smug superhero in LA and she was wasting time -- but she was stuck. Stupid kind-hearted Texan survivalists had found her wandering around in dog form to scavenge for food and slapped a stupid collar on her and adopted her as some kind of pet. And yeah, sure, she could just shift again into something smaller and slip the collar and then fly away when they weren't looking and they'd be just like "oh shit, disappearing dog, hope a zombie didn't eat it" and move on with their lives but the first week or so someone was always looking. They weren't sure if the ex-virus thing affected animals and they wanted to make sure she wouldn't go all meta for? Old Yeller on them and start, like, foaming at the mouth or something. Then after that she'd kind of gotten used to eating on a regular basis and it was nice not to have to hunt for water or dig herself a hole to get shade from the desert sun. There was a little girl, Pammy, maybe eight years old, who reminded her so much of Kathy and Charles, and who liked to scratch her behind the ears (which felt really fucking good, oh god, she was so touch starved out there on the road) and she just. She loved her. She and her mom took care of her. And the road was hot and hard and Raven was lonely and she was going to get back to looking for help for Kathy, she was, but she was going to be stuck here for a little while first.
Just a little while.
Just until fall came and it started to get a little cooler.
It was hard, at first, holding the dog shape almost all the time. It wasn't one she'd used a lot before leaving LA, and her shifting was like any other sort of muscle: it liked to have practice. She was more used to faking a normal human appearance, of course, but people were suspicious of strangers, and Texas had erected an actual damn wall around the state when the world ended, and the state was way too big for her to go around it or over the whole thing. So she'd flown in as a bird, and shifted when she landed into the one thing she thought paranoid, terrified humans wouldn't shoot at: a sad, pitiful, adorable little dog. With flopped ears and a wagging tail, who whimpered instead of barked. And it had worked like a dream.
Worked too damn well.
The family she lived with now was small, just Pammy and her mother, Margie, but they lived in the most stable town Raven had seen since LA, a little community on the banks of a river far enough from the wall that you couldn't see it without walking for several days. They'd rebuilt surprisingly well after the infrastructure dissolved; there was no electricity or running water, but the river meant they could still keep things clean, and the Texas weather meant they didn't have to worry about keeping fires for anything other than light or cooking. There was some concern about mosquitos, whether or not old summer illnesses would come back to ravage the south now that civilization had collapsed, but there was still plenty of bug spray for the time being, and the town had a little clinic that was still pretty well stocked from before the fall, with a full staff of nurses and a young doctor, Joanne, who'd done a few years with the Peace Corps and knew how to keep the bugs off.
There were almost no men. No one ever talked about it, and Raven was too scared of what they'd do if she tried to actually ask, so she didn't know what had happened to them, if they'd gone off to fight in the militia or had been killed off somehow. Texas had declared itself an independent nation almost before the US government actually fell, and the militia patrolled the whole border wall day and night to keep the exes out. That much she'd managed to pick up, listening in on conversations. But no one ever mentioned anyone specific, not even the name of the new Texan president. Raven had no idea if Margie had a husband out there somewhere, or if it had always been just her and Pammy and now their beloved little guard dog who never even needed any training.
They called her "Star". As in "Lone Star". It was pretty corny, but what was Raven going to do, introduce herself?
"Star" had a pretty good life. She helped out with the farm work, herding the goats the community kept for milk and occasional meat, and chasing off scavengers like rabbits or crows who wanted to raid the town vegetable garden. She carried water up from the river and curled up in bed with Pammy when she had nightmares -- or Margie, when she did. She hadn't seen a single ex in ages. She'd almost forgotten what it felt like to feel their blood on her shifted hands.
Then Margie got hurt. It wasn't anything big, just a wood scrape from falling off a log that went just deep enough to bleed. But despite all the efforts to keep things clean, the hoarding of antibiotic soaps and sterile bandages, infection still set in. Margie kept it hidden, not wanting to worry her friends. She washed the wound every day and kept it covered all the time and smiled and tried to keep up with the work and wait for the problem to go away. When she went septic, no one knew but her good, loyal "dog".
Raven had seen enough gross, horrible illnesses in her few weeks in LA at the start of the crisis to recognize a life threatening infection when she saw one. And she knew from those same sources what was likely to happen when Margie succombed. She ran into Pammy's room in the little house by the river, shifting as she went, her collar jingling around her blue scaled neck. Pammy took one look at her and screamed, but Raven scooped her up anyway, apologizing all the while.
"I'm sorry, I need arms for this, I'm so sorry, we have to go." She ran out into the night, Pammy clinging to the collar, which would have choked Raven if she hadn't stiffened the scales around her neck to protect her throat.
"Star?" Pammy asked, once she'd had a chance to calm down a little.
"Yeah." Raven stretched her legs -- literally, as long as she could and still keep the coordination to run -- and pelted for the clinic.
"Okay," Pammy said, with the simple understanding and acceptance only a small child could have.
The folks at the clinic weren't nearly so nice about it. There was always a crowd there, day or night -- it was the only place in town that had enough lights to read by after dark, and the women would stay up late into the night chatting and telling stories of before the fall, and keeping the fear at bay, but Raven hadn't expected quite this many people when she came running up.
Everyone in town had a gun. Everyone. And everyone in the clinic had their guns aimed right at Raven as she burst through the doors. "Please," Raven gasped, exhausted from the effort of keeping her longer legs and stiffer neck and not falling back into the dog form she'd grown so used to. She lifted her free hand, the one not supporting Pammy against her hip. "Margie's dying. She'll turn. Please."
Someone took Pammy from her, and Raven almost swooned from relief as she finally let her body shift completely back into its normal, natural shape, something she hadn't done since she first got to town. Joanne grabbed her bag and rushed out the door, one of the nurses hot on her heels, but the others kept their guns on Raven.
"What are you?" Ellen, one of the town leaders, asked. She stood at the front, rifle propped almost casually against her shoulder, aimed at Raven's chest.
Raven had always liked Ellen.
She swallowed, then straightened her shoulders, both her hands up and out to show that she was unarmed. "My name is Raven. I'm -- you've heard of Nautilus? I'm like that. I'm a shapeshifter, but I'm not --" Not what? Not evil? Not a monster? Not a threat to these people who had pet her and cared for her for weeks now?
Shots rang out from across town. From the river. Someone outside screamed. Raven was forced backwards out the clinic door at gunpoint.
"What did you do to her?" Ellen asked.
"Nothing." Raven felt tears spring to her eyes. She was supposed to be done with this, with the fear and hate, but she never would be, would she? Kathy's world had superheros, ones everyone knew, but it didn't matter. She'd always be a scapegoat. "I noticed she was sick. I brought Pammy here to be safe and get help. That's all."
"It's Star," whispered Pammy, somewhere back behind Ellen, behind the crowd of weapons. Raven winced. "She's my dog."
Someone pressed a pistol into Raven's face. "Are you a spy?!" the person demanded, voice shrill. Ellen did nothing to calm her. "What are you doing here?!"
Raven took another step back. She wasn't stuck anymore. She was the opposite. "I just wanted to be safe. You were all so kind --"
There were more gunshots from the river, more screams, and then it was like the world exploded with sound and light and pain --
A bullet ripped through Raven's shoulder and she roared. She shifted instinctively, going large and vicious and terrifying. She tore through the one with the pistol with her claws, smashed someone else to the ground with the heavy weight of her shifted arms. There was blood in the air, and the stink of gunpowder, and screaming, screaming from the river and screaming from the clinic as Raven disarmed the women who threatened her.
As Raven made more exes.
Finally, the collar choking her much thicker neck pulled Raven up short, and she shrank back down to her natural shape, panting and crying. There were bodies on the ground, including Ellen's. Pammy was nowhere to be seen.
Raven couldn't look for her. She wasn't welcome anymore. If anyone saw her again now, they'd kill her on the spot.
"Run," she told the air, hoping Pammy could hear her. "Run away and don't let anyone touch you. I know it's scary and I know it's hard, but you can survive." She swallowed. "I did."
And she turned, pressing her hand into her bleeding shoulder, and sprinted off into the night, her scales the perfect camouflage once she'd cleared the weak light of the lanterns.
She'd let herself get comfortable. She'd let herself feel safe and everyone had paid.
She wouldn't make that mistake again.
[content note: here there be violence, blood, and named OC deaths. Also, it got kinda long. NFI (natch), OOC welcome]