Issue 1 Downtime

"Don't touch me," she snarls from the treetop.

"I'll keep it for us, thanks." She said quickly and climbed up into the trees with Brigid.

"Okay, what's up?" She asked Brigid.

"Nothing. We need to keep moving."

"I know you, Brig. I recall many nights keeping you from growling and snarling at people, but if you don't want to talk, that's fine. Just so you know, I can walk and talk at the same time. Multi-talented."

"Things change. Everything changes," she says, continuing through the treetops, leaping and swinging.

"Yes and we adapt, or we die." She side moving closer to the ground once reunited with her 'bodyguards'.

"The world went to hell while I was gone. Am I supposed to be happy about that?"

"There would be something wrong with you if you were, but you are alive. There are people out there still alive and they need us. They need what we are and what we can do. I don't think about yesterday and all the horribleness. It's gone, over, done. Today we have food. Today we have fresh water. Today we have friends to stand beside and rebuild with."

"And the people we didn't save?"

"We mourn and move on. Being a rage bitch isn't going to bring them back, nor does it honor their memory. Gar told me to run and I did, I felt like a coward. My friends were fighting and dying and I was in the mountains chilling with sheep. Then the calm came and I came down with those sheep and found a village that was starving. I realized why Gar told me to run. I had to run away to survive, to be one of the ones to come back and help pick up the pieces."

"I wasn't even there..."

"...I wasn't there for her."

"You were for your family. That's why you left, yes? Well, you're here now. Make it count."

"I knew she must be hurting, I just... wasn't ready for this."

""Are you ready for it now?"

"I... don't know."

"I volunteered to go out to meet you to have some time to think, but it's only making me angrier."

"I don't think sitting on your glorious butt back at the church would've improve your mood either."

Brigid leaps to the next tree limb and gives Vertie a confused glance over her shoulder at the 'glorious butt' comment before talking again.

"If I had a solution, I wouldn't be out here... prowling."

She smiled and chuckled. "I've spent the last year alone or talking to random sheep. Though I am still partial to males, you're and always have been a very stunning and pleasing sight. Always loved your hair. Anyway, what's wrong with prowling? Some were born to sit around looking cute, others born to prowl. I don't think there is a solution for this city, what is once was is long dead and gone. It's being reborn and birth is painful. New rules, new way of doing everything. Animals don't worry about yesterday or tomorrow. They live in the here and now. Prowl and hunt. Feed the young. Protect the dens. Live another day. That is the way it is now."

"It was simpler when I just had to think about fighting my way here. I know what I'm doing when I'm fighting."

"But even then you weren't fighting all the time, everyday. There was the walking in between fights. Don't worry there will be fights again. There will always be idiots out there who will think they can do whatever they want simply because no one's been able to prove them wrong yet. You always were the fighter and this world still needs you. Just not right this moment, at least not that skill. Now, is the walking time. The moving from place A to place B. Your gift expends to strategy, yes? Think of this as a war, long term, not a battle, short term. Look for store signs. Street names. Make plans for scavenging supplies, materials for rebuilding and fortifying. You are no longer a single warrior on the field, you are the general."

"I don't know if the war I'd fight is the one they'd want me to."

"It feels... right, out here. It feels more alive than it's ever been. And you get that."

"Theresa gave London a gift... even if the price was too steep."

"She gave up so much and in that moment of rage, she did a lot of good. It may not have seemed like it at the time, but the plant life has taken the bulk of the radiation. From what I've seen, there really only seems to be enough in the area to trigger latent X-genes in people, but not out right kill normal humans. There's all kinds of strategies to a war. Sometimes it's time to fight and kick ass, sometimes it's time to pull back and regroup."

"So how long do you think we have before they start thinking we got lost?"

"We should probably double time it. I've been wanting a good run since coming into town." She gave a brief stretch and climbed up into the trees with Brigid. "See you in church?" She smiled.

"I'll give you that view you were talking about," she smirks toothily and leaps, heading onward through the trees.