On Any Other Day

[earthborn]

Who| Shepard And Her Adoring Fans
What| The Customer Complaints Desk Is [OPEN]
Where| A lovely little park outside a lovely little café on a quiet day when the sun is shining, just after a certain network post
When| The morning after Shepard's Exposé goes live.
Warnings/Notes| Talk of murder, genocide, cussing, and political discourse. God help us all.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, she's got a rail-thin barrista with a shock of violet-pink hair, and he keeps bringing her coffee from all the way across the street. On any other day, she'd call it perfect— he keeps sarcastically saluting her and she keeps sarcastically thanking him as 'private', and the coffee is damn good in addition to cheap and hand-delivered. On any other day.

But despite the shining weather and the convenient caffeine-drip, she's not set up here with the empty chair beside her own for the sake of simple joys.

Come at me, bro.

Comments

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy looked surprised by the question, "Well...not really?"

It came out as a question because she hadn't considered that she had anything to worry about. And that in itself surprised her. She thought about it a moment more.

"The last arena, I thought I met someone really cool. Then she used me to piss off my best friend enough that they would attack her. She killed Pruna all to try and teach me a lesson and get me to actually fight back." Even talking about it now made her stomach knot up.

"I thought it would be hard to trust anyone after that...but I trust you." She decided.

[earthborn]

"I'll try not to let you down."

Another for the quick-list queue. Each Arena generated more than a month's worth of footage for every tribute, between the multiple angles. You could watch all of it, of course, but only if you did nothing else. Shepard liked a lot of 'else' in her life. But she had her priorities.

"What you need is a... alliance. A group of people who promise not to screw with each other. Take me, for instance; so long as you're not actually trying to kill me, I've been letting you go," Though, at this point, the Sandy-and-Pruna ambushes were getting to be almost a tradition, "You wanna be careful about picking your people, though. There are a lot of assholes around here, and it's a strong incentive to turn on your friends. They have to be smarter than that."

[justoutrunyou]

She nodded with understanding already stacking up her allies in her head.

"I have a few...and I wouldn't betray them. You're on that list." She promised though she couldn't imagine how her betrayal could do much to hurt Shephard. Maybe slow her down but hurt?

"Even Mindy isn't a bad person...she just was so full of herself. Like she's the only one who knows what's right. It's not that easy. I know that now."

Right and wrong weren't exactly so clear in this world.

"I'd be easier if we could all just work together. Even the worst humans can pull together and be decent when there's something bigger and badder to fight against...right?"

[earthborn]

"You'd think so, but sometimes that just makes people even more selfish. Or panicky," She could think of a few very good examples, but nothing that wouldn't involve a lot of explaining, so she let it go. People needed a leader, a figurehead, or a symbol to rally around. Usually that came down to Shepard, and she was more than willing if it would just move things along.

"Mindy's only a little older than you, but now she's gotta do my job," Shepard replied, gesturing sharply to illustrate the severity of the task, "And somebody back home definitely gave her some serious training. Go easy on her, she needs all the help she can get in getting people to fall in line."

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy nodded gently feeling a bit of guilt for still being upset with Mindy when she had tried so hard to lay things to rest.

"We gotta do what we gotta do right?" She thought out loud. It wasn't a matter of what Sandy wanted, or even so much what she needed. It was what would be required for her to keep going.

"I've been ripped apart, dragged around a mangled leg for a month, eaten three times, and blown up. I even had some kind of monster burst out of my chest. If I can handle some hurt feelings after all of that maybe I'm doing it wrong."

[earthborn]

Shepard considered that, momentarily nonplussed by the laundry list reckoning of Sandy's various handshakes with death, then laughed.

"Good point," What a good kid. She'd go far if nothing really killed her, "And after all that, you deserve a free drink, at least. Hot cocoa, on me?"

[justoutrunyou]

Her eyes lit up with what was left of her childhood. A faint glimmer of unbridled joy at the simple happiness of being given something sweet for seemingly no effort. She smiled a crooked smile and nodded.

"Thank you Shepard." She stood up to follow the woman inside and then a funny thought crossed her mind. She stiffed her posture a little the way she'd seen people do in the video and saluted the woman.

"Ma'am." She added sheepishly.