[SEMI-OPEN]

[acreage]

WHO: Amos Burton, James Holden, Wysteria, Ellis, and YOU
WHAT: Two spacemen fall out of a rift, later explore scenic Kirkwall
WHEN: Nnnnowish? Waves hands
WHERE: The Wounded Coast, then Kirkwall
NOTES: A closed arrival thread, plus open individual threads for meeting Amos and/or Jim after their quarantine period.

Comments

[acreage]

He nods, looking up at Noon and then back at the map.

Mostly because he'd heard similar advice from Amos, he asks, slow, "What's with Darktown?"

[noonrodeon]

"Used to be a mine back in the day," Noon says, pointing to the entrance of it, "Now it's all of the worst. You got the chokedamp, which gets in your lungs somethin' terrible. And that's if whatever sickness is running amok down there doesn't get ya first. Carta's got a pretty strong foothold there, too, but there's still a few of the smaller gangs that don't answer to them."

He closes the book, tapping it's spine against Holden's chest pointedly, "And if you're pretty enough, you might get the slavers' attention. Darktown's not a place to go lightly, friend."

[acreage]

Reminds me of Ganymede, Amos had said.

He listens quietly at that explanation, frown deepening, and he can see why. He remembers Roma, offering help to desperate refugees, but only the ones who could pay with chicken. He remembers the gangs on Ceres, and the muscle who were recruited to Eros, trapped and infected people, and were left to die there.

He blows out a breath.

"And people live there?" he asks, low.

He knows the answer, of course, or thinks he does. Yes, the people who aren't accepted elsewhere, are too poor to leave, people without options or opportunities; and the people who take advantage of them.

[noonrodeon]

There's a look some people get sometimes. He's seen it now and then, back in the war camps. In green recruits who thought their blood and lives could make a difference against the ever rolling nightmare of battle. Mostly, they didn't. And if they did, it was never a happy victory.

"People live everywhere," he says, because it's true, "Other places just hide 'em better than Kirkwall does." After all, the saying went that Dark Town was only one step above the alienages.

[acreage]

Holden likes to tell himself that he knows better than that, now. That he's no boy longing to be someone's knight, no arrogant fool who thinks he can single-handedly save the world, be some random arbiter of justice. And in some ways, he does know better. But there are other ways that are rooted too deep, including his willingness to pay blood and bone for someone else's sake.

But Noon is right, of course; people live everywhere. That's simply universal fact; they subsist on Basic on Earth and worse, they live on barely habitable stations flung across the system, they set up camp on dangerous unknown planets because they have nowhere else to go. Kirkwall is just more of the same, even if he hates the same.

Well. Despite his curiosity, despite everything, it's also not as if he's in a hurry to go back underground after Ilus.

"Yeah," he says, "No matter where you are, huh." Then, as if remembering his manners: "I appreciate your answering all of my questions. Really. I've probably taken up enough of your time."

Noon was probably like, doing something, before getting waylaid into a game of 20 questions.

[noonrodeon]

"No trouble at all, friend." It's not quite acting as an actual guide, but it's close. And Noon should leave well enough alone, there's a reason he retired and not getting mixed up with green new comers was definitely one of them.

Still, he sets a hand on Holden's shoulder, "Listen, I'm not in the business of hunting trouble anymore, but if you need somebody to watch your back? Leave word at the Hanged Man for Noon. It'll get back to me."

[acreage]

"Thank you," he says, both with real gratitude and a little surprise. It's a kind offer for a man who barely knows him, though in keeping with the impression he's given this conversation. "I will. Really."