PSL | voicetesting?

[franchisepirate]

What I'm doing with this, I have no idea.

Links for various muses:

™ Westley | The Princess Bride | random encounters

♥ Saya Otonashi | Blood+ | newly hatched (recycled from older musebox)

♣ Saya Otonashi | Blood+/AU-ish | hunting

♠ Cross Marian | D.Gray-Man/AU-ish | suspicious circumstances (given his recent game history)

♦ Penelope Garcia | Criminal Minds | deserted hotel

∉ Zelgadis Greywars | Slayers | nothing to swipe

∈ Zelgadis Greywars | Slayers | underground wraith fight (yes seriously)

♛ Carol Peletier | The Walking Dead | child walkers (...yep)

∅ Xellos | Slayers | PESTERING YOU ♥

Comments

[worn_wings]

[ It's hard to be sure if the explosions are still echoing in his ears, or if the thunder is his heart pounding. It really doesn't matter.

In the chaos as Terminus had fallen, as the tide had turned and they'd managed, impossibly, to escape-- he'd seen her in the distance. He'd seen someone, anyway, and he'd been absolutely fucking sure of it-- sure-- impossible as it had seemed. They'd streamed out of the cannibal camp, grabbing whatever weapons they could, feeling more like rats fleeing a sinking ship than anything else.

Tyreese had been nearby-- Judith, thank God, Judith had been with him-- and he'd said just enough for Daryl to know he'd been right. So he'd gone after, shouting some explanation that didn't really matter to Rick, who wasn't really listening, having taken his daughter in his arms.

Despite the stories inked on his skin Daryl's not the sort to believe in avenging angels. But it's hard not to think of her like that, in this moment-- to be awestruck alongside grateful. Focus on that. Don't think about the fact that he's chasing her.

Don't think about the fact that she left.

Coming to it after, following her trail rather than adrenaline, he sees the cheery, faded signs and knows what he's walking into. Takes a breath, circles it once to make sure there're no footsteps out. Not a good place to go to ground.

Inside he's slow. Careful. There are more corpses than walkers in the hallway he takes-- he can hear the rasp and growl, scrabbling little fingers on cheap wood paneling, and follows to find the cluster of them around the door.

It's not that it's easy for him. But maybe it's easier. Maybe it'll make a difference to her, that he can spare her having to do it.

One. Two.

Three.

The short forms tumble, leaving only a much taller shadow outside her door. Hesitating. Unsure, suddenly, of what's waiting when he opens the door. ]

[dum_spiro]

[She feels more than hears the bodies fall, watches a still shadow settle in the glass, and a different form of dread rises to fill the space. Odd, isn't it, how many ways to run for your life?]

[Her numb fingers squeeze her knife hilt as she quickly stands. Whoever it is, she resolves that she doesn't want to see them -- which will be a decision easier made now, when the figure is only shade and movement. Her strength isn't enough to actually say so, she knows. She'll try and remember the locked car door of Rick shutting her out rather than the kindness that has tiny, rotting corpses sprawled around their feet.]

[When she sees him, Carol wonders why she's not more surprised. At least she doesn't need to make efforts to look exhausted, and is glad of a reason other than his presence to look it.]

[At least, it seems, she did one thing right: they made it out alive.]

[worn_wings]

[ The dead, as unnatural as they may be, are still a natural sort of hazard. Predictable, more or less, and without malice, only hunger and some remnant of instinct. The only cruelty they have is what you put on them: old memories, half-recognitions, the occasional inability to make yourself forget that they used to be something else.

The living are always the real danger.

He's expecting her, of course, but it's still a shock to actually see her. It feels like it's been ages. Maybe because he was, only hours ago, so close to death. Maybe because he's gotten the sense, all too late, that even in the same room, not so long ago, she was hiding from him. Maybe it's nothing. Still, he draws a shuddering breath, lifts his chin a little, regards her.

He wants to scream at her, actually. It's an old ugly habit brought to the surface by adrenaline, the close call and the harried chase. He's too fucking tired to feel all the things he's feeling so he defaults to the easy one, to being angry, and he thinks-- it's not unjustified, because she ran without saying a goddamn word.

It's tempered by a thousand other things-- gratitude and grief and sheer terror and a deep hurt he doesn't wanna even touch the edges of, things that have nothing to do with Carol and things that have everything to do with her. Something shows of it-- the tension around his eyes and in his jaw, the springloaded way he holds himself, not knowing if he wants to shake her or cling to her or if he'll have to catch her as she tries to bolt. ]

Where you goin'?

[ he asks instead, lifeless and flat because he doesn't want to let anything more leak into it. A question only in structure. Maybe he means it in the straightforward way, maybe it means how the fuck could you, who knows.

He definitely doesn't know. ]

[dum_spiro]

[ Such an obvious question, she'd swear she had the perfect answer a moment ago, something that would both send him on his way and stop her from giving a damn about that, but it's gone. Whatever he knows, or doesn't, about Karen and David, what Rick said to her, it doesn't seem as relevant as it should. Maybe it would be easier not knowing him as she does; running being a worse crime, perhaps, than maybe-justified murder of their own. ]

[ Carol should have managed to harden her heart as she promised herself, that say when she took a load of supplies and the opposite path from everything she had left to care about, but this won't be the first time she's failed at that. A long history of doing the wrong thing has yet to teach her much except the cruelty of self-preservation. ]

...I don't know, [ is the pitiful reply she finally admits to. The plain truth. Lying to him just isn't possible in the end, however tempting self-delusion sounds. If he's going to be pissed, well, that will make this easier. ]

[worn_wings]

[ He knows enough, and knows too that it doesn't matter. Maybe it would've mattered some but now-- now, after all these crumbling walls and fires and the things they've seen-- not even a little goddamn bit. When they get back-- he tells himself it's as easy as that, not a question, that he'll get her and they will find the others-- he can't imagine Rick will object.

You can't say what would have been but Daryl wouldn't have taken it easy in any world. Doesn't matter whether he agrees with what she did-- he sure as hell doesn't but he sees it, he's seen enough of how that flu tore through their people to understand why she did it. By habit he rarely argues with Rick but he was fixed to fight on this one before things fell apart. ]

So come back,

[ he says, like it's easy, knowing it's not that easy. But what else is there? Where the hell is she going to go?

If she's running maybe she could run to something rather than away with something.

He means to be calm about this-- the unnatural stillness of this moment could go any way at all, and he doesn't want to be the one to set the tone with rage or hurt or anything-- but he can't help the little crack in his voice on the last word. A word that can't be home because there's no such thing, can't be with us because he won't for a second entertain the notion that us doesn't inherently include her.

But at the same time he can't pretend it's not personal. He's not breaking inside, a little, because he thinks Rick needs her or because she's so good with Judith or because the kids look up to her. Come back to me. Come back with me.]