Carol's Place

Dahlia felt her heart rate slow back down into normal territory, which she was sure the boy's was doing as well, and resisted the urge to pat her chest. Because no matter how badly her heart got to hurting, Ma always told her never to do that because, "It's not ladylike Dally!" and even though she would roll her eyes and she was pretty sure Greta did the same, she listened because she was right.

So she restrained herself, clenching her right hand into a semi fist.

She watched the boy shuffle his way over to them and she smiled immediately, already knowing his question.

"Well I'm not sure if he's here or not since he loves to wander around The Wasteland alot but I do know him personally." She once again jerked her thumb towards the huge, menacing doors, "I was just about to head inside. You wanna come with me? If he's here then no one can find him faster than me."

Dahlia tilted her head as she got a good look at the boy. He still looked beyond terrified. She got a slightly confused look on her face. 'This place really isn't that bad is it?' she thought as her eyes wandered around the area. Looking at this once beautiful place falling apart horribly she didn't even finish her train of thought.

"Don't worry," Dahlia said as she turned around and opened the door, walking inside and holding it open for him. "They don't bite."

Charon kept his expression stony as the kid's eyes filled with tears and he stammered out a couple of sentences. His hand continued to rest lightly on his gun until the kid had started moving. The kid wisely kept his eyes on the ghoul for a few steps, but too soon turned and presented Charon with his defenseless back as he hurried to the two others at the entrance. Charon lightly clucked his tongue against his dry throat, wondering how someone so green had threaded past the muties without getting perforated.

The kid was wearing a vault suit. It was dirty and torn enough that he could have scavved it, but his teeth were in too good of shape for a wasteland garbage collector.

Charon let his hand drop and waited for the knot of people at the doorway to clear. New faces were rarer than fresh air in Underworld, and Ahzrukhal would want to know the lowdown on the kid.

Nothing like a brand new victim for that rat bastard to crush and toss away.

Twain's heart began to drop as the girl spoke, until she mentioned she knew the man he sought personally. Finally some halfway good news... He still hadn't a clue how he'd pay the man for his assistance but for the time being he was just thankful for a friendly face and and a helping hand.

"Thank you." For a moment he considered taking the girl's hands and shaking them to properly show his gratitude but thought better of it. Yes, she was offering to help him, but he didn't even know her name yet... She could be worse then the crazy bastards outside... I can't imagine a sane person wanting to live in a place like this... He smiled politely despite the dark turn of his thoughts. He was startled slightly by her last statement, "Well I should hope not!" God, I hadn't even thought of that!

"My name is Twain, by the way, Twain Edwards. It's a pleasure to meet you Ms...?"

He glanced over his shoulder as he waited for her response. The gunman hadn't moved Does he just stand there all day? and was watching them silently. His gaze sent shivers down Twain's spine and he quickly turned his attention back to the girl before him, trying to shake the feeling of impending doom.

Dahlia leaned against the open door, praying that Winthrop wouldn't walk past as she held it open by pressing her foot against it. He hated having the door open for any amount of time which made no sense to her because it's not like anyone came here anyway.

"Nice to meet you Twain Edwards! I'm Dahlia Morrow but mostly everyone around here has some nickname for me. You can just call me Dahlia."She smiled at him then turned her head to search the interior of the exhibit they all called home. Quinn, when he got back from his long trips, usually liked to go to the common room and pass out for awhile. Then he went to see what Tulip was up to and get some caps from her to go buy what everyone down here needed, before he left on another one of his adventures.

When she was little she used to beg him to tell her about his travels. He would pretend to get all riled up but she knew better and then he would scoop her up and sit down on a bench and tell her everything. He never left anything out. Ma didn't like that much but he argued with her, saying that 'She won't live out here long if she doesn't know Carol!' It always made her feel better to know that Quinn would always be on her side.

Clearing her thoughts, Dahlia looked back over at Twain and motioned to his empty hands. "How did you make it all the way out here anyway? We're in the middle of DC after all! Those Muties shoulda had you for breakfast! Don't you have a gun? A grenade? A lead pipe?"

{OOC: Sorry for short post, can't really come up with much at the moment. }

Twain cast another quick, nervous glance over his shoulder at the gunman in the lobby before ducking past Dahlia into the adjoining room. Turning as he passed the threshold he almost cried out as his eyes fell upon the towering, hellish centerpiece before him. What the hell is wrong with this place?!

Taking a few more uneasy steps further he waited for Dahlia and her companion, which he suddenly realized he hadn't caught the name of.

Dahlia stepped in behind Twain and let the heavy doors slam shut behind them. She stretched a little and began walking down the hall, waving at a few of the ghouls who were stumbling around drunk or high out of their minds. Turning her head to make sure Twain was following behind her, she reached the common rooms and peeked in. Seeing no one she turned back around to face the boy.

"Yeah, I don't think he's in here. He could be hanging around Tulip though..." Dahlia tapped a finger against her chin.

(OOC: It seems like you're going that way with it anyway, but I figured I'd let you know I'd prefer if Quinn wasn't there.)

Twain jerked violently and yelped as the door slammed behind him. He took a moment to regain his composure before setting off after Dahlia. She seemed well acquainted with everyone, which he should have found comforting... But I don't... It doesn't make sense for her to be here... She should be with her own kind. Not just that, but something doesn't feel right about this place. It can't be healthy for people to be constantly surrounded by such macabre images of death and horror.

He cringed as he passed too close to a swaggering man who seemed almost to be falling apart, Then again, I suppose they would be anyway... no matter what the decor.

Dahlia's words broke him from his thoughts and he felt his stomach jerk violently. Things seemed to be getting worse and worse.

"A-alright. Where is... Tulip?" He hoped the momentary confusion in his voice wasn't too apparent.

(OOC: Oh good! Cause I had no idea what we'd have him say anyway. Or Tulip for that matter. Huh.)

Dahlia leaned against the doorway to the common rooms, placing one foot up on the other side of it as she scratched her head. "Well Tulip, she's our resident store owner. She's right down the hall, on the other side of that really morbid statue we have. Back the way we came." She pointed over to where Tulip's little shop was located. Dropping her leg down from the doorway, she moved, letting another one of Underworld's residents move past her. She hoped that Ma was worried about where she had ran off to.

She should have been back a long time ago.

Dahlia looked over at the main entrance doors for a second then focused on the terrified boy in front of her. She crossed her arms as her eyes slightly narrowed at him. "Ya know...a regular smoothskin like you would think way more than twice before bringing themselves down here. And you keep giving me the strangest looks. What is it?"

Suddenly she clapped her hands together and she smiled her normal smile again. "I know! I bet you're wondering just what in the hell am I doing in a place like this huh?" Brushing her hair out of her face she nodded and nudged him lightly to show she was playing around. "Am I right? I am ain't I?"

Twain stammered and stuttered for a few moments, looking nervously around to see if anyone had caught the girl's question. Of course he wondered what a girl like her was doing in a place like this, but he hated to think of what the citizens of the macabre city would do to him if he were to question it. "Well... that is to say... I mean, I guess..."

He trailed off, eyes set on his filthy shoes. She was the first person who seemed to be openly charitable to him, the last thing he wanted to do was offend her. Glancing up he caught her eyes and felt his apprehension fade. She doesn't look mad...

He cleared his throat and rolled back his shoulders, trying to act casual, "How.... How did you ever end up here?"

Dahlia grabbed his arm gently and moved him over to the benches that lined the wall of the exhibit. She sat down and motioned for him to as well. "It's kind of a long story and I don't wanna bore you with the details or anything like that but to make my sentence stop running off..." She leaned back against the wall and looked over at Twain.

"I was found wandering the Wasteland by Quinn and he brought me back here and no one here really saw anything wrong with me staying here and I didn't have anywhere else to go so..." She motioned to herself and gave a slight shrug with a grin on her face. "Here I am! Ma raised me. That's Carol to everyone else. She runs the inn upstairs. I was really young when he found me." Dahlia pointed upstairs where a Mister Gutsy was patrolling right above their heads. She shook her head and rolled her eyes at the things he was muttering.

Dahlia sat up straight and looked the boy straight in the eye. "So...can you tell me where you came from? And why you're looking for Quinn? I mean if it's personal you don't have to tell me. But...maybe I can help? I'm really good with helping." She was excited but tried to tone it down, knowing how she got sometimes. She didn't want to scare her new friend off.

Twain listened to her story thoughtfully, keeping an ever vigilant eye on the citizens of Underworld as they shuffled around them. His eyebrows scrunched together near the end of the girl's story but he let her finish before asking the question that was gnawing at his mind, "So wait... they found you out there when you were a kid? Out there?!"

He shuddered at the thought. The skeletal remains of the city had almost claimed his life more times than he could count, one way or another. Between the traps, mines, raiders and mutated monsters he was lucky to reach this morbid sanctuary in one piece. She got through it as a kid though... a young kid she said. He studied her in a way he hoped wasn't too obvious, [/i]She's tough... Tougher than she looks and a hell of a lot tougher than you.[/i]

Letting out a long sigh he leaned back, allowing his head to rest against the wall behind him, "I'm looking for Quinn because I need to get to Rivet City... The woman outside told me he was my best bet for getting there..." For a long moment he wasn't sure whether he'd go on or not. He had no reason not to tell this girl who he was or where he was from, but one of the mercenaries they had hired told them never to trust anyone. Pulling the bag he'd taken off the man's corpse closer he continued, "I'm from the Vault... A bunch of us were trying to get to Rivet City for... whatever reason. We were caught in a firefight... I-I don't know if anyone else survived... If they did though, they'd be there."

Dahlia nodded her head. "Yeah. Everyone said it was lucky I survived. But I can't really remember it so I don't let it bother me." Dahlia crossed her legs and played with the unfinished cigarette on her ear. "Changes your whole perspective of them doesn't it? They could have let me die after all. What would they have cared?" She thought back to kindly Nurse Graves and how she made sure she had everything she needed. Dr. Barrows and how he never gave up, even when she begged for them to just end it. "Yeah they sure are something else..."

She listened to him tell his side of the story and smiled a bit when he mentioned Willow outside. "Oh you're talking about Willow? Yeah she's pretty cool isn't she? I like to go out there sometimes and take shots at the Muties. She says I'm getting really better with my aiming."

When Twain mentioned he came from a Vault her eyes almost bugged out her head. "You're from a Vault? Wow...that's amazing. Ma's been telling me that a lot of people have been coming from those things for awhile now. Wonder what's got everyone in such a hurry to come out here?" Dahlia fell silent for a moment, her thoughts taking her back to when she was just a little girl, delirious and lost. She remembered being in a large gray room, then running out across the wasteland, calling for someone. Her eyes closed for a moment before she opened them and stared at the sad/lost looking boy across from her.

"I know a way to Rivet City. Not that I've ever been there but...Quinn likes to tell stories after all. And I listen. Besides swimming in the radiated river you're gonna have to go through more metro tunnels." She glanced around them then leaned in close to whisper, "Are you sure you're up to that?"

He mulled over her words for a few moments "Changes your whole perspective of them doesn't it?" Yeah... I guess it does... He changed a glance up at the shambling crowd and felt a smile tug at his lips despite his best efforts to hide it.

At her mention of Rivet City his head snapped around, eyes wide, "You do? Really?!" He was on his feet before he even realized, "Would you, I mean... Could you take--" He could suddenly feel an abundance of eyes on him and with a nervous look around he realized his outburst had drawn the attention of many of the rotted folk. His initial excitement quelled, he dropped back into his seat, a hot flush creeping across his face, "Sorry..."

After another few moments of consideration he felt his heart sink further. Yes, he had a gun, and the girl claimed the guard outside said she was a good shot or at least getting better... but he'd never used the gun in his bag and doubted he'd be able to hit anything with it if he figured out how. There's no way we'd make it...

Letting his head drop into his hands he sighed heavily, "If you'd be willing to show me... I mean, if you want to... I don't have anything to offer... but if you'd be willing to show me the way, do you know if there is anyone else that would as well? Somehow I doubt we'd be much of a match for those... beasts."

At his offer to join him on his mission or quest or whatever it was she almost jumped for joy and the only reason why she didn't was because she always ran into one of the residents and something unpleasant always had a way of falling off them and that made for bad days all around. She bit her lip, trying not to squeal for joy. It was like a dream come true for her after all! Ever since Quinn had rescued her from the Wastes she always wanted to do what he did.

But she also knew that deep down Twain was right. They really were no match for the creatures out there. Just because she had taken a few shots at some Mutants didn't qualify her for becoming someone else's guide. She was a pretty sheltered girl.

But that didn't mean she couldn't fight.

Dahlia nibbled on her lip as she tried to think of a way around that. First she would have to get Ma to agree which would definitely not be an easy task. Then she'd have to get a better gun, probably from Tulip or Willow since they liked her. Maybe grab a couple of supplies from Nurse Graves, remember which of the two ways Quinn had mentioned would be fastest.....

Looking over at Twain she laid a hand on his shoulder and waited for him to look back up at her. "I'll gladly help you out. You have no idea how much you're helping me out." Standing up the stretch out her legs she looked down at what she was wearing and knew she had to change if she was going out there. "I can't really think of anyone who would come with us. The only people I know who actually leave this place regularly is Quinn and Charon. And Quinn is nowhere to be found and Charon..." She glanced towards the huge doors. "I don't think he'd help us. I could ask Willow when we head outside! She might help us get there. She's really good with a sniper rifle." Dahlia stated while she headed towards the stairs and made the motion for Twain to follow.

Charon silently counted back from one hundred to give the humans time to get lost, not twitching so much as a muscle as he waited. He'd never been much for toe-tapping or fidgeting. Then he stepped into Underworld proper, negotiating the door oddly gracefully for someone of his extreme size.

Though he made no effort to draw attention to himself or to discourage it, his entrances usually drew a few pairs of worried eyes. Cerberus usually tailed him at the edge of his field of vision all the way back to Ahzrukhal's, though Charon was never sure if it was because the robot thought he was a threat or because it was secretly hoping he would commit the acts of slaughter the robot could not.

This time, however, it looked like there were more interesting things for the rubberneckers to gawk at than Ahzrukhal's right hand. A low throb of whispers echoed through the museum halls, concentrated near the common rooms. No doubt that was where the kid had gone. Judging by how tense the kid had been a minute ago, Charon bet that the combined weight of a dozen stares from rotting corpses had him close to rabbiting right back out onto the mall. At least supermutants had all their skin on.

He sidestepped the slowly gathering crowd, taking the stairs two at a time without effort.

(OOC: Sorry for short post... Just trying to get things moving again.)

Twain stood and fell in step behind his new companion. He was painfully aware of multiple sets of seemingly dead eyes that were fixed on him, and the accompanying raspy murmurs. He rushed forward a bit, making sure to stay a close to Dahlia as possible, "Do you really think they'd part with their sentry?"

He was about to go into a paranoid spiel about the patrons of Underworld rising up and lynching him for trying to take away their first line of defense when a sudden movement on the stairs across the lobby caught his attention. It was the man from the lobby. Is that Charon? He remembered the way Dahlia had eyed the doors when she said the name and assumed it must be... he doubted a look that anxious would have been directed at the man she had been chatting with when he first arrived.

He sighed heavily, "It's really too bad we couldn't get him to come with us... One look at him and the monsters would go running." Twain blanched suddenly, realizing how horrible that statement must have sounded to the eavesdropping ghouls around him, "B-because... He's big. B-big and badass..."

"She's not their sentry. She's more like the only one crazy enough to stand out there all day and night and watch over the front doors. She also let's people know exactly where they are." Dahlia gave Twain a look, complete with raised eyebrows. "Didn't she let you know you were by Underworld? Or did you just run right in here?"

She dragged her hand up the banister next to her as she hopped up the steps. Weaving in and out of the ghouls surrounding her, she reached for Twain's sleeve to gently pull him out of the way as they headed for Carol's Place. Seeing Charon out of the corner of her eye she stopped for a second and stared at him, noting the way he carried himself.

'Even surrounded by his own kind he's still not comfortable...'

Hearing what Twain just said, practically in awe, Dahlia looked at him, trying to hold back another one of her smiles. "You mean Charon? Yeah he would be pretty handy wouldn't he?" She gave a look to all the other ghouls in the area and smiled brightly at them when they rolled their eyes and went back to not eavesdropping so blatantly. "I've heard of ways to get him. But everyone here say they won't risk Kullie's wrath to have him help out. It makes everyone so mad. Especially Winthrop. He certainly needs the help." She pointed him out down below, wearing that bright blue jumpsuit of his. "He's the one in the RoboCo outfit. But anyway, I'm not supposed to know about any of this so try to keep quiet about it when we go see my Ma ok?" Dahlia gave Twain the puppy dog eyes to further convince him not to say anything to Carol.

Dahlia knew she would have a conniption fit if she knew what her adopted daughter really did in her free time.