The Art of Self Preservation

"Yo Corsair!"

A huff of amusement filled the air as the lanky teen-aged girl sitting on the bed lowered her comic and placed it to the side. Her bright green eyes pierced the intruder with something akin to mirth and simultaneous annoyance. She brushed her long, jet-black bangs out of her face, settling her chin in her hand and sighed. "That's not my name either, Nicholas."

"I gotta call you somethin', don' I?" The large beast of a man shrugged from the door frame, "S'not like you've told any of us what yer actual name be." He made his way into the room, the dim light illuminating his features. His hair, she had always been a secret fan of his hair. He had found some way to make dye from the mutated plants, and as such, turned it a dark purple, at least on top. His beard, however, belied his actual sandy blond color. If football was still played anymore, she imagined he would excel at the sport. As it was, he used his tank-like build as a wall for the others in case of bandit encounters on their raid jobs.

Corsair assumed he thought the nickname, "pirate" for all intents and purposes, quite clever given the way she and Nicholas had met; in all honesty, it kind of was, but she would never tell him that. He had a big enough ego in the first place, and she wasn't planning to add to it.
"Whatever, you burst into my room becauuuse..." She scooted to the side as the giant man took up residence on her bed. Bed being a relative term, mind you; it was more a pile of torn blankets and the remains of still surviving mattresses, but it wasn't any better than what others in the group had. After the Great War, and the massive destruction world-wide, beggars couldn't afford to be choosers. Especially when the cost of finding better was possibly their life.

"Dinner's ready, it's a real treat tonight!" He laughed thunderously as he shoved her off the bed. The teenage girl soared off the side with a shriek, long limbs contained in jeans and a plain blue shirt flailing as she hit the ground. She groaned in frustration, picking herself off the ground. She hated eating meals with the rest of the "colony", it was so awkward. Normally meals were eaten wherever in the main portion of their shelter, and she could easily avoid unwanted guests that way by taking things back to her room, but the night before a raid the team always ate together in what she considered a vain attempt to forge trust. She adapted to their humor relatively well, especially since she had to be around most of the group for raid planning, being the "corsair"--i.e. "help me break into this lock or crawl through this narrow space"--but that gathering was less painful. No one attempted to talk about anything other than the missions at hand for those. Dinner was all small talk and connecting. She didn't care.

Wendy and her constant complaining about the heat, or lack thereof, during night hours.
Nicholas and his prying questions in an attempt to get her to open up.
Thom and his crass comments and backward thinking.
Dewey and his sister Abby, with their admittedly humorous pranks but nearly the same damn small talk.
The rest of the people that lived in this broken down warehouse that didn't even contribute to raids or hunts, but shared in the reward all the same.

Corsair didn't give a good damn about any of them. The only thing she was grateful for, having been captured by Nicholas several months ago, was that meals were a bit more consistent, and she didn't have to worry about surprise ghoul encounters and strategic shelter when needing to sleep. Admittedly, there was strength in numbers, but adding more human elements always extended the chance for screwups from others that could cost you in the long run.

"Oh yeah, mole rat meat is such a treat every night. Every SINGLE night. Or mongrel meat, don't forget that tough delicacy. I'm surprised you haven't authorized feeding ghouls to us yet," she spat at the man, but she knew he would take it as sarcasm. He always did, no matter how much vitriol she put into her words. Whether it was deliberate or from ignorance, however, she never knew.
As she made her way to the main warehouse, Nicholas reached his gloved hands out and tugged on her long ponytail in a way that was obviously not playing around, but not too painful.

"Trust me, yer gonna flip shit over this 'ere." Nicholas walked together with her towards the main building, nodding to the guards outside the living quarters. Corsair couldn't really blame him for the escort, she had tried to escape several times within the first couple of months, having been used to surviving the wasteland alone for years at that point, but the man's heart was, if possible, bigger than his muscles, and he refused to let the teen scurry back into the wilderness. She was essentially a prisoner, but aside from that and the guards patrolling in and around the camp to ensure safety and alert for attacks, that was the only part that felt like a prison. Or at least what she was told prisons were like. Maybe the food too.

The two made their way into the curtained off room they considered the dining table. Almost everyone was there; Wendy was missing, but the older girl was always late. Hell, honestly Corsair wouldn't have been there herself had Nicholas not come to get her out of her room.
"Hey hey, Corsair!" The cries of welcoming came from everyone at the table causing the girl to sigh. Apparently, Nicholas had convinced everyone to call her this as opposed to their normal nicknames for her. She raised her right hand in a stationary wave and looked over the group. Despite Wendy's absence, the room seemed full due to the Scott's presence. Seeing him brought a smile to her face.
Scott was a fellow member of the Desolate Hunters, a mixed group of teens and adults in the colony that took it upon themselves to hunt for food for the week, specifically meat. Most vegetables served were the result of storage raids like the one planned for the next day, but there were times they found the odd discarded can while on a hunt. Corsair was a member as well, and normally stayed in the same building as the rest of the Hunters, but again, night before a raid, she was with the Planners. She felt a little better knowing Scott was going to be stuck here as well.

Scott was alright. He didn't make the same small talk as the others. He talked about how he hunted, what he saw, strategies he developed. She was one of the few who actually listened. Most of the girls in the group were more interested in staring into his chocolate brown eyes than applying tactics to a hunt. She had no reason to listen other than to not be predictable, however. The irradiated beasts of the land were much easier to hunt than the humans she'd had to deal with before the colony.
Not that she wasn't guilty of losing herself in his eyes at times, or his angular face, that smooth chestnut hair, or his muscular-but-not-the-great-wall-of-Nicholas type build, or his thin lips, his callousy hands...Hey, you give a group of teenagers some tents, adrenaline from chasing down food, and barely any supervision out in the wild, or even barely divided rooms in a cold metal building and nothing to talk about? They'll find ways to pass the time, guaranteed. Nothing tended to get far on that front though, what with over protective adults constantly patrolling the camp sites or the warehouse buildings for actual monsters, extremely thin walls and such. Scott wasn't the only boy to ever sneak into her room past curfew to get caught, just the latest, and she could definitely see the appeal.
Scott coughed, snapping the newly arrived teen out of staring off into space.

Shit.

He gave her a knowing look, which she returned in kind with her hand flipping from its standstill wave to a middle finger and an irritated smile. Another hard pull registered on the Corsair's ponytail from behind her, and she smacked Nicholas's hand away, choosing to take a spot on the floor that was relatively void of neighbors, but not so far as to appear too anti-social. Wendy scrambled into the room moments later with rolled up papers under her arms before sitting down.

"Awright everyone," Nicholas spoke lough enough it reverberated off the metal walls of the building, reaching the occupants far beyond the curtained off room the Planners were using. "Now if you were payin' attention, dinner's being a little early today. We didn' have ta scramble for anythin' last minute. Pay yer thanks to lil' Scotty boy if'n you feel so obliged. By the grace!"
The return prayer reverberated around the building as she turned her head towards the plate Thom handed her way. This wasn't mole rat by a long shot, and nowhere near as horrid looking as mongrel meat. She swiveled her head back to look for Scott, who had been called over by Wendy to go over their scouting locations for tomorrow's raid. There was only one thing this could be, if Scott was accepting Nicholas calling him out on hunting it.

"I don't fucking believe it," Corsair called over to him, "you bagged the damned Radstag?"
Conversation between the other two stopped as they both looked over to her. Scott's face went from ponderous to shit-eating grin within minutes. "Right in the heads," he boasted, thumping his fist against his chest with pride, "I decided, for once, to pay attention to some advice from a salacious little 'corsair' about waiting for the right time to strike instead of being too sure of myself." The boy ended with a wink before turning back to the sketches of the next target. Wendy's gaze lingered a little too long to be considered friendly, before going back to discussing where to scout with Scott, the attitude switching from cold to downright bubbly at neck-break pace.

Moving her bangs back out of her face to begin eating, she shrugged nonchalantly. Corsair had no problem with Wendy vying for Scott's affections. Hell, she knew for a fact Scott had been seen around plenty of the other girls' bedrooms as well as her own. Wendy was going to have some problems, though, if she thought the chiseled hunter boy was looking for a monogamous relationship. Not a lot of people in the colony were, including herself. Mortality was a constantly close subject, and there wasn't any practicality in making plans for a life that could be so easily ripped out from under you with one botched job. That didn't mean life had to be without its pleasures, or boring or...movement grabbed the teen's eye as she glanced back to the two scouts. Scott had raised his head back to her, in a not so subtle way raking his eyes over her tanned skin dimly illuminated by the aged light bulbs. She smiled deviously as he turned his head back to Wendy's sketch maps just in time for the conversation to be continued.

Looks like Wendy wasn't on the hunter's menu tonight.

-----

The sky was beginning to burn a beautiful orange as the sun began its descent. Contrasted with the post-apocalyptic landscape made it feel slightly less desolate. Chill-tinged wind gently blew through the remnants of crisp leaves on trees, signaling the last gasp of early autumn to break away to the oncoming arctic bleakness of winter.

Raking the discarded remnants of leaves off the porch and walking path, Corsair pushed her hand through her bangs and stared up at the roof of the wooden barnhouse. It had been a concentrated effort between her father and mother to patch up the holes broken in on all sides, and the result was a building that looked more like a quilt, with the various colors of reclaimed wood patching the washed out original red.
Casting her eyes further up, Corsair took note of the sun and began to worry. Her parents were not back from the trader post yet. The farm they lived on was not one of beasts, but of forage and fruit. Beasts were common enough to come by, and with the upcoming winter, the family of three made a killing in trade for things they needed during the frostier months, like blankets and extra clothing. Not many could cultivate the irradiated land like her parents could. The result was a decent enough life, as much as one could ask for in a world where every square inch of the landscape was decaying and hostile.

Further into the sun's descent, Corsair made the decision to put up her rake and grab her wagon. Maybe her parents had bartered so much it was slowing them down. It wasn't the first time that would have happened, especially since it had been a super productive year for the vegetable crops. With an affirming grunt, Corsair locked the main door, and headed out the gate down the winding dirt path that led to the outpost. It was several miles away, but she hopefully wouldn't have to travel that far and meet her parents on the road.

Eventually, the clear path gave way to a dense area of pinewood, the only real thing to survive the Great War that kept its green. Corsair smiled as she remembered scaring her parents a great deal by playing hide and seek with them along this part of the path whenever they took her with them to the outpost. Her father was way more forgiving, but her mother would berate her the rest of the way, warning her of beastly dangers and hidden bandits.

The burning orange of the sky dimmed to a dark navy and the stars began to blink into existence one by one, but the atmosphere within the trees still held a tinge of red, strangely enough. Corsair was a little confused, but chalked it up to the weird lighting of the tree tops that still
caught the dying light filtering down to the base trunks of the trees, and rounded the next corner.

She dropped her wagon handle.

She opened her mouth to shriek.

Corsair's eyes shot open and she bolted upright from her bed, tears flowing freely from her eyes and her fists as she gathered the blankets so tight her knuckles were drained of color. She had long since stopped screaming when she woke from this nightmare, but the tears were always there. Every night she had it - she was younger, age twelve, when she had found her parents slaughtered in the wooded area leading to the trade outpost. Their packs had been ransacked, obviously the work of bandits rather than the local wildlife. The nightmare always stopped before she screamed, but she remembered the aftermath as if it were still yesterday, despite it being over four years ago. She had struggled to load her parents' bodies onto her wagon, and slowly pulled it back to their farm. She buried them before the crop fields, hanging her father's hat from one end of the cross she'd fashioned out of broken fence posts, and her mother's locket from the other end. She stuffed a pack full of crops, clothes, and blankets, knowing full well she wasn't old enough or strong enough to protect the amount of land they had,
and head out into the wasteland.

Sighing, Corsair looked around the room as she swung her legs over the side of her bed to land on the floor. It mirrored her feelings perfectly: cold, empty, and only dimly lit by the rising sun. As to be expected, she and Scott were caught before anything between them got too intense, and he was swiftly escorted back to his room. Not that he would have stayed afterward had they not been caught anyway. She'd only been with the colony for six months, and hadn't really connected with anyone, but she always found herself wishing for someone next to her, even if just to relish in another living being's presence, when she woke up like this.

She found herself thinking back to the time she met Nicholas. Corsair had survived in the world by stealing from others, surveying them from afar, learning their routines, and sneaking in once she knew they would be out. She also became somewhat proficient in the art of the "bullshit", making up lies and excuses to warrant pity and enabling an escape from a botched job. There were times she had to resort to more drastic measures, offering herself as a payment for trespass. She never let it get that far, of course; once she had the party in a compromising enough situation, she would murder them. If they were willing to participate in a younger girl's body like that without hesitation?
They obviously weren't a decent enough person to live.

The art of self-preservation. That was her whole life.

And then she tried to plunder what turned out to be an offsite storage facility for the colony. She had thought it to be an abandoned building, having spent a week scouting it for a presence. It was bad timing on her part, really. As she was cracking open the trap floor she had found, he walked in. This behemoth of a man, with shoulders as broad as her old barn door and stood about as tall, shockingly colored hair, and mechanics covering his back connecting to the fierce looking gun attached to his forearm.

"Git your scrawny-ass up, girlie." His voice filled the small house, and for the first time since she started living like this, Corsair felt true fear.

"I beg you, sir, please, I'm only looking for a bite to--"

"Shut that mouth of yers, you think I don' know a thieving lil' punk when I see one?"

Corsair remembered her hands had started shaking at that point. Normally those who caught her would at least hear her out, but he wasn't having any of that.

"Sir, I am sooo sorry, I could make it up to you if...you're interested..." Corsair cringed inwardy as she remembered offering herself to Nicholas, but it was nothing compared to his reaction at the time.

Nicholas had staggered back and actually crossed his arms in front of him a tad. "You mus' think I'm really sick in the head if I'll jump at a proposition from someone as young as you. How long you been 'ere, girlie?"

"I...what?"

"Stakin' this place out. Plannin' yer thievin'. How long have you been thievin'?"

Corsair had, at this point, realized Nicholas wasn't going to let her go as easily as the others, so she began looking for a way out while trying to stall, but as she began to bolt, he swung his arm out at the perfect time, causing her to run straight into his arm and knock herself down. Before she knew it, she felt a blow to the back of her head and blacked out.
It was the best rest she'd had in a while, actually. She came to surrounded by people that she would later spend the next several months with.

Corsair's thoughts were interrupted by the beeping of her alarm. She slammed her hand down on the trigger, the shrill beeping subsiding as she pushed herself off the bed towards the pile of her clothes in the corner. Shucking off her nightwear, she quickly slipped into her day clothes and meandered out of the room. Nearly last to dinner, always first to the rendezvous.

-----

The market area was desolate; even she couldn't see any signs of hiding scavengers. Nicholas and Dewey were slowly making their way down the street first. Wendy and Scott were patrolling opposite sides of the perimeter, checking for oncoming groups of people or packs of creatures. Abby was bringing up the middle with her. Since Corsair was getting older, she couldn't fit through as tight of spaces as she used to, so Abby stepped up to join the Raid parties. Corsair could still break into locks and disarm traps like no one's business, though. Thom was in his preferred spot covering the rear. She knew he only did it to leer at her and Abby, but he was a crack shot with a rifle, and as long as he kept his head in the game, she could deal with a little creep factor. They were pretty damn good looking girls, after all.

"Oy, Corsair!"

She made her way over to the main door of the abandoned super store in the center of the street and began working on the archaic lock as Abby searched around the building for a ventilation entrance they could make use of. Nicholas and Dewey stood at her back as she entered her element. She had a nasty habit of blocking out the world when she worked on locks, but that came from years of breaking into dilapidated and unoccupied homes while she knew the owners were out. No need to pay attention to the sound when you're well-hidden and know you won't be interrupted. Raids were different, less covered, more dangerous. She was glad for the muscle.

She heard Abby crawling in the roof vents as the lock finally gave way with a loud clack and tumbled to the ground. Corsair shoved at the thick glass and metal doors, and heard Nicholas laugh behind her as they didn't budge an inch. She glared at him as she took his spot next to Dewey. She wasn't there long, as Nicholas made short work of the heavy doors. The group piled inside, with Dewey and Thom now staking out the entrance. Abby dropped in from a ceiling tile with a familiar grin on her face. Corsair felt a small tug on her heartstrings that was easily ignored. She must have inspired the younger girl; hopefully someone rectified that mistake soon. Nicholas laughed heartily as he dropped the massive bags strapped to his sides.

"Let's fill 'em up, folks!" Nicholas zipped the bags open and began stalking down the aisles. Abby took the half of the store opposite Nicholas, and Corsair went to the checkout area, scouring for anything useful that may have survived the test of time. Bags were always useful, especially to pile other things in--any cash or caps she could find, transaction paper, extra pens, all fell prey to her kleptomania. She made her way to the back of the market. If it was anything like other marts they raided, there was absolutely a fusion core in the back. When she reached the generator room, Corsair thanked the stars her luck held out as it was guarded by a locked door and not an encryption code. She wasn't the worst at it, but hacking a system was much harder and more time consuming than lock picking.

She was in the middle of disconnecting the core when she heard it, the scout signal for incoming hostiles. Corsair froze and waited, but no second signal was sounded. A beast attack. She finished the disconnection and hurried her way back to the entrance of the store, placing the core in one of the bigger bags. Abby climbed shelves to make her way back into the vent system to hide, while the rest clamored outside and shut the doors. Nicholas, Dewey, and Thom spread out in the street, while Corsair ran behind a building for cover, hands hovering over her daggers. Wendy had come in from the west, which meant she wasn't the one who sound the signal.

Corsair looked north to see Scott take out his shotgun and point it east. While she still couldn't see the threat, it was obvious from Scott's body language that he sure did, and whatever it was caused a fear in his eyes that Corsair had never been witness to before.
She heard a loud series of thumps followed by an eardrum splitting roar, and she didn't need to see the creature to know what it was anymore. She had never actually seen one in real life, but she had heard tales from her parents. They almost always started out attacks with that pattern. Scott was actually screaming by this point as he attempted to unload his shotgun. It was on him in seconds, and Corsair actually had to suppress her own scream of terror as the terrifying beast charged into view, and impaled the poor Hunter on its left claw, slashing across his chest with its right.

Scott crumpled to the ground the instant he was released from the claws, blood pooling everywhere. Without his body in the way, Corsair got a decent look at the beast of legend. It was distinctly reptilian, and while it stood on two legs now, when it charged earlier it used all four for speed. Its face was terrifying, like something out of biblical and fantastical mythology, with up and outward curving wicked horns on the crown of its head and sharper teeth than she had ever seen on anything in her life. Its leathery skin was pulled taut over deadly muscle, with various hardened horn sections sticking out, its body adorned by red highlights. The creature's upper arms were long, nearly reaching the ground even as it stood, ending in massive five fingered hands, each finger capped by a wickedly long claw. The same could be said for its legs and feet. The least deadly thing about the creature looked to be its tail, and only because it wasn't littered in razor sharp spines like the rest of its back was. Hunched over as it was, the thing looked like it could rival Nicholas in height.

A battle cry from said man-behemoth was issued as he began aiming at the encroaching reptile-demon with his arm mounted gun. Thom had taken cover behind an abandoned vehicle, trying to slow it down with his rifle, while Wendy began chucking grenades, screaming in rage.
Corsair looked down to her belt at her small and inadequate looking daggers, and looked back at the scene.

They were all fucking insane.

This was a deathclaw. This was horror, brimstone, and power being brought to their faces, and they were all fucking insane. There was no way, nothing they possessed that could defeat this thing. She looked at the bags tied to her belt of supplies from the super mart, and back up at the group.

Nicholas was reloading, and moving between buildings as the beast came barreling down the street. Thom was looking for cover, Dewey was frantically looking for his little sister in the chaos, and poor Wendy, she was sent flying as the deathclaw rammed directly into her ribcage with a sickening crack. The sound of it broke Corsair out of her trance, and she made her decision.

She ran the hell away. The fuck was she going to do? She had short daggers, and there was no way on this damned earth she was going to enter melee range with that thing. Not after what it did to Scott. As always, she had calculated her odds of survival in any given situation; staying with the group had them severely lacking, and since the only member of the group she had any small connection with had just gotten his innards eviscerated, it was an easy decision.

The dried-out corpses of bushes and trees flew past her peripheral vision as she attempted to block out the reverberating howls of the deathclaw. She made a point not to run back in the colony's direction. Even if the group managed to survive that encounter, she was likely to be forced out after abandoning them for death. She found the prospect really didn't break her heart. After she was a decent clip away, she began scanning the landscape for any kind of shelter, and eventually came upon what looked to be a former mole rat hovel with a mechanical door wedged into the entrance hole. A hopefully former abode for what was more than likely a bandit or scavenger. She forced her legs to slow and approached the door; while it wasn't locked, it was sealed closed--a hatch with a turn-wheel.

Cursing to the sky, she attempted to get enough leverage to turn the heavy wheel to an open position. Under normal circumstances it should have been impossible for her, but the rush of fresh adrenaline was screaming through her bloodstream. Or maybe that was just her actually screaming. Either way, she eventually got the seal to weaken, and the wheel began to turn, unlocking the door. She threw the damnable thing open, still able to barely hear the beast from her position, and slid inside shutting the hatch behind her, but not sealing it in case a quick escape was needed.

Corsair dug a small flashlight from her pocket, the light just enough to see that this hovel had been heavily modified with upgrades, including a switch, which she flicked up in assumption that they belonged to something better than a cheap pocket light. When she was proven correct in her assumptions, the dim flickering light produced by the remaining working bulbs shone enough for her to see the place hadn't been used in a very long time. It was cleared out of anything useful for consumption, but all she needed was shelter for a night or two before she went back out, and back to the life she knew six months prior.

"Well, Thola," the teen said to herself, pushing her bangs off to one side, "looks like we're back at square one."