Hello Hello i am back and i am so sorry for AML if that's where ur coming from :((((((( i just haven't had the desire to much related to Voltron recently, but this is something i'm a little shy about because i made it way too personal to me. Enjoy Rebba, the character i use to cope.
Rebba had come to realize that she was too darn big.
None of the pre-war women's clothing fit her, too short and tight for her tall, broad frame, cut much differently than she was built. Women of the past must have been a soft, petite lot. Small.
It sucked that she had to attempt to seduce Benny into a lull while she looked like a bruiser in the suit she wore. It wasn't obvious that she was a woman, at first, and men were often more tense around other men.
Especially dead ones.
Even more so ones that they themselves had supposedly killed.
It had been months, months of waiting, of healing, of regaining her mobility and enough of a sense of tongue so that she didn't stumble and fall every time she opened her mouth to even get to the outskirts of Vegas. She was a powerful figure in the wastes, a well-known stranger, but in Vegas, she had no reputation. They expected more talk than shows of brute strength or tactical skill.
She'd only stayed in Good Springs for as long as it took for her to learn how to walk again, after that, she left, sometimes looking back and visiting when she passed. The open road held more for the aching pit in her heart than anything else; she could talk to herself however she wished, words flowing as smoothly as chunky honey, but flowing nonetheless.
Through it all, the rage in her belly had grown as she was sure her quarry had grown fat on his awaiting success. Each stumble and lock or give of her fawn-like legs, every momentary loss of vision and spell of vertigo or ringing tinnitus spurred her on, her mouth frothing with her snarled hurt.
After all, all the fat cat had to do was kill some walk-the-wasteland-fuck to ensure his future; his rule over Vegas. A nobody.
Rebba wanted to make sure his dream would never come to pass; wanted to make sure that no man would ever rule this cursed den of sin ever again. Old world sickness would be a thing of the past. She'd always preferred to let the wastes sort things out.
She wanted to gut him as he gutted out all of her insides with two bullets to the head.
But, for the moment, she sat at the bar and flirted shamelessly with the bartender to pass the time, to build one of her many personas.
Benny Gecko had grown complacent and unafraid. The wild woman couldn't wait to change that. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, playing the tables with the shine of greed on his fat tongue, the muscle bitten between his cigarette yellowed teeth as he looked, one eyed, down the pool stick.
She imagined driving it through the eye he had closed, the same one she lost.
Rebba turned her attention back to the bartender, hollow-point smirk not dimming for a second, using her roguish appearance and strong face to play with the cute, little blonde woman across from her.
And boy, was she little. Like one of those pre-war girls, soft and petite, wearing a pre-war dress that fit her just right. The Courier couldn't help but be a little jealous at the ease and innocence that the small woman seemed to ooze out of her pores, green eyes shining and bright, cheeks pink with a healthy blush. Or, maybe Rebba was the source of the blush. Either way, Swank was giving her the evil-eye at his place at the front desk.
Interesting.
And fun.
Rebba had thought that losing an eye would have turned people away, but this one seemed to like how rough she looked. Though, the bartender didn't seem to realize that the patron with the graveled voice and strong chin wasn't a man, calling her 'sir' or 'mister' every other sentence.
She probably would have appreciated the attention a little less if she did. Or, more, Rebba really didn't know this woman from Eve. She kept shooting glances at her scarred lips. Rebba could easily imagine the other's pouty lips all kiss-bruised and swollen.
But, that would have to be the deed of another. Rebba wasn't...capable of intimate acts. Even in her fucked memory, she knew she'd never been able. Never felt compelled to act. It was too bad, too, the little blonde thing was just so cute with those big eyes and big ears and soft looking hair.
Warmth at her side, another patron, different, larger, the air shifting with a kind of stifled strength that only one individual she knew could give off. She'd gotten so wrapped up in her little game of bedroom eye and make-Swank-jealous-enough-to-make-a-move, that she'd forgotten her number one paranoia.
Man.
"It is odd to see you, courier. Though, not unpleasant." The smooth drawl with the slight burr to the edge made her back muscles tighten to an almost unnatural pain, the empty socket of her eye aching with the sharp memory of melting tar and burning bodies, the greasy, sweet smoke still heavy on her skin.
Vulpes. Sharp-eyed, able-bodied, standing just below her clavicle; a silver-tongued individual with a fox's savvy. He was brutal, unmerciful, and here he was, looking much smaller without his thick armor. He was less menacing without the black smoke from rubber and body fires at his back, casting deep shadows across his angular face.
He was a savage beast.
But, he was a savage beast in a poorly fitted suit and it took away a good deal of the fear. It was too big at the waist and shoulders and too short at the hem and sleeves. The trousers were bunched in a way she was sure meant that he'd set them low on his hips to hide the fact that they were too short. Vulpes was a long man, trimly muscled versus the fat, semi-formed muscle that so many people had held. Most wastelanders were just hungry looking, but she'd seen enough Legion boys to know that not very man. if the men went hungry.
He looked funny in the clothes that looked more fit for a mob's drug peddler, but it was better than crimson and spikes. Legion red had always made her hair stand on end; brown was fairly taming to his severity. Perhaps that was the point.
"You seemed surprised, friend, can't a gal get a drink in peace?"
"More like deceive young women into thinking you're a man to pass the time. Besides, it's obvious you don't drink."
She couldn't help the satisfied smirk that curled her lip when she saw the blush stain her unwitting victim even further, the scarlet making her skin glow under the dim lights. Swank was to her back, but she was sure that his expression was shocked. So, the little bartender appreciated her attention a little more? Rebba would take care to remember her face.
It was true, the drinking thing. She'd been sipping little bits of scotch since it was put down in front of her, not really paying it any attention. Certainly not as much attention as she shot towards Gecko or the Bartender.
Sneaky fox.
"Oh, like you haven't d-done the same, Fox."
"Dressed in women's clothing?"
"No, ssssilly, f-flirted to pass the t-time; get what you want." Rebba held her tongue, obviously tonight, after all her stutterless flirting, her luck had run out with the one person she really didn't want to show weakness to.
He hummed, not mentioning the slip-ups, motioning the bartender back over from the corner she'd backed herself into to hide her burning face in her hands.
"W-what can I-I get you, sir?" Oh, she was going to have to keep in contact with this one. The sentence came out as nothing more than a squeak, the blush somehow deepening and spreading beyond the woman's cheeks and ears, down the column of her throat and to the tops of her breasts.
"My colleague and I will have water, as well as a private booth."
"Yes, sir. A-and ma'am." Rebba winked salaciously, giving the girl a healthy view of her smirking predator's maw, white teeth glinting in the low lights.
The booth was situated in such a way that she could still watch the lax man she'd been hunting for so long, and she silently thanked the frumentarius across from her for his foresight.
"Water? I'll take a healthy guess that you l-l-legion boysss don't drink much alcohol."
"You guess correctly, we are not allowed to drink alcohol, consume any drug or use old world medicines."
"Stimpacks are mighty helpful, Cunning Brute. Might save y'all a g-g-good deal of grief."
His eyes lit up from their disinterested slate grey, his body leaning almost imperceptibly in her direction. His poker face was impressive, but nothing got past Rebba's shining eye. "You know latin?"
"Satis dicero sum."
He perched his elbows on the table and Rebba got a flash of Trudy slapping her forearms with a wet dish towel for doing the same thing. Trudy had said it was considered bad manners, but Trudy wasn't here to stop her or Vulpes. The thought of the woman slapping a wet dish towel across her current company's face made her smile a bit. It was a satisfying image.
"Very few know the tongue, Courier. I wonder how you came to know it."
She could see the cogs spinning in his mind, how his eyes flickered across her visible skin for a sign she wasn't sure was there. Hoped wasn't there.
"I couldn't tell you, honestly. Also, please c-call me Rebba, it's a name I believe I had once."
"Not latin?"
"No." She let her eye fall from the man across from her, roaming the thickening midnight crowd, almost instantly catching a flash of that ugly daisy suit. She breathed easy, letting tension fall from her shoulders that she hadn't realized was there before.
The Chairmen's top-dog wouldn't be leaving his den in the near future, not unless she lit a fire under his asscheeks. She'd heard from a little birdy that there was a massive armory full of securitrons underneath Caesar's hill.
She'd scouted out the camp from its back with a pair of binoculars, trying to guess at why House needed her to go there so badly. There was a mound behind Caesar's hill, and some parts of the camp were visible. She could see slaves and training contuberniums, the preistesses in their heavy shrouds shuffling along up to the despot's den. She had seen the Dog-headed man from Nipton training in the high sun, half naked and shining like moon with his oddly pale skin.
An old woman, her shape like a viper's, spoke to her in dream of demons that wore the skin of man that enticed and seduced the weak to their side with their charisma. She wondered if Vulpes was one.
"This has been...a pleasant encounter thus far, but I'd like for you t-t-to c-cut the shit." She wanted to fucking die. She knew that her nightly tolerance for company was waning fast, tongue a choppy, hissing beast in her mouth.
He cocked a brow and she puffed up her chest, daring him to give her a reason to lash out, to take him down so many pegs he hit bedrock. He, thankfully and disappointingly, did not even ask about her less than elegant tongue.
She nearly choked when he slid a medallion out of his pocket, the flash of gold against the red twine sent her hurtling into a place far, far, far from where she was. She could barely hear the words passing his stern mouth. She already knew what the medallion meant. She had seen ones like it before. Exactly fucking like it.
She couldn't breathe.
Caesar wanted her to come to him. He wanted to size her up like his men had all those years upon years ago, she would be caught again, a slave, only this time there would be no luck as to have-
A sharp palm against her cheek brought her back. She rubbed at the residual sting, letting her wide eye narrow back to its usual sleepy hood.
"Thanks."
"Were you one of the ancillae?" So straight forward, not even attempting to hide the predatory glint in his eye. Rebba, giantess and escaped slave, found in Vegas, returned to a life of torture and servitude under a throng of men. She would have gagged had she not still been in shock from the abrupt slap.
She was sure that she was different, now, than she had been, then. In her dreams, more fragmented memories than dreams, all the men were taller, standing at just a foot or so shorter than a door frame. She'd been small. Much smaller.
The top of her head was higher than those who had held her, she was no child any longer.
"If you don't mind, I'd rather not answer questions I'm not one hundred percent on, Vulpes." Oh, but she knew, now, or had the burgeoning beginnings of understanding. The scars ringing her neck, just above where her trapeziums tapered up, the criss-cross mess of her back and legs and arms. The one or two jaggedly racing across her belly.
She wasn't sure; she didn't like to look at them. They made her vision go fuzzy at the edges, made it hard to breathe, made it so that all she could see was blood and a brilliant, brilliant red undulating like the sea in the wind.
Eyes that burned, and burned, and burned...
He nodded, still pretending to have a veneer of sympathy or understanding. They wanted to be in her good graces for whatever reason, and it made her shake somewhere in the vulnerable pit in the soft tissue of her head. There was still a look in his eye that made her feel like she was twelve years old again, torn from a warm familiarity, thrown into a world of fear and loneliness.
She hated it.