"She always had a good gut, knew when to fight, when to be alert, when to find peace in things. She taught me to relax."
The dark ink of the pen rested upon the white of the paper book she bought. Sometimes she would put two or three strokes down in the same spot, making it darker or more prominent. She knew what she saw, and what she put on the page was more twisted, more cartoonish to a realistic degree. She loved drawing. It let others know how she felt without the awkwardness of telling them or even trying to explain the unexplainable.
"Mary, where'd you get that?"
"I traded one of your Dinosaur heads for it." It was said with an almost unnatural ease. She was of course talking about one of the five trophies in his living area. "You were just crowding your walls with it." Mary returned to drawing, she had already filled a few pages, and was honestly just trying to tune them out. She yelped when he wrapped his hand around her arm and pulled the book from her. Shutting it, he dragged her out to the obstacle course.
"You owe me a door and a new trophy. Start running." He barked, but she just huffed and started out, she still hadn't beaten him in the three days since she got here. And from what she heard about the old ass, she would never beat his time or his second's time soon.
As she ran, the old Commander opened her book and stared at the picture. It was really….good. Cartoonish but with a darker twist. It was kinda sad.
The second one showed that of a building or rather machine, where a man dressed in dark was dropping babies into a spout. On the front of the machines read 'Orphanage'. And as babies went in, little angels came out. Except for another, much smaller person dressed in black. Watching the new little angels.
"Hey, I'm done. Give me my book." Mary snarled, but he turned the page.
This one had a very fat police officer with a thick mustache and bushy brows that covered his eyes. He was eating a donut and looking the other way as one man was beaten by three others.
"Why did you draw this?" If there was anything Taylor knew it was that there was a reason for everything.
"None of your fucking business." She hissed and reached for the book.
"What did I saw about respect?"
"Respect your dinosaurs." Mary said sweetly and reached for it once more. Instead he told her to run another lap.
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Taylor had told Mary to sit on the porch and draw while he took Jim on some sort of trip outside the gate.
She sighed and returned into her room and pulled out her other books. She had stolen them, just to draw, but she only ever stole from those who could survive the loss of the product. She wasn't a dumbass after all.
She finished a few more pictures of ox creatures or rabbits, how she would want to see a real one of the animals. Her hand started cramping just as a commotion started at the gates. Mary rose and wrapped her hands around the book as she walked towards all the noise. She decided to get a better angle and climbed on top one of the fences by the watch tower.
There were people, most of who looked ragged and tense. Taylor and Wash seemed tense as they barked at a very dark skinned woman. She didn't know what was going on, but she already didn't like these new people. One of the ragged men yelled at Taylor and pointed his gun to the sky and fired. The book was ripped from her hand. That dumbass had shot her book.
She looked back at him with a scowl and his eyes met her, he understood he almost killed her. But he shot her book and that was a no no.
Jumping down into a squat to release the power from the height and transfer it elsewhere, Mary pulled a six inch knife. An arm wrapped around her and Wash pulled the knife from her. "We'll talk about this when we get home." She pushed Mary behind a couple of crates as Taylor calmed the armed ragged people.
She huffed and looked at the crate before letting a smirk cover her face. "Hello Daisy." She reached her hand in and scooped out three of the objects.
They wanted the meds, hell she would kill them for what they did to her new god damn book.
As they placed a few crates near the Rover that the ragged people came in, Mary sneaked around the side, Wash's eyes on her Commander. Mary paused, they had to be sleeping together for them to respond the way they do. They were just too close.
As she opened the med crate and placed them in, she watched the ragged man that shot her book approach. Making sure they were set, she smiled at him and pushed the crate closer.
They loaded up and took off out of the gates, Mary smiling as she walked a little afterwards. She wanted a good view of this. "You looked pretty pissed off when he shot your book. Why are you grinning?" Taylor asked, but she just pointed at the rover as the back lit up. Fire spilled out of the thing as everyone slipped out and into the second rover. She was grinning as another explosion popped.
When she looked back at Taylor and Wash her smile faded as they looked between themselves with worry.
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Wash sat across from Taylor as they ate dinner. Mary sitting at the awkward angle, looking out the window as she ate. She chewed her food slowly, trying to memorize the taste of it and was glad Alicia cooked, because Dinosaur couldn't do that. The hell was he here for? Oh yeah, to make life a living hell.
She opened one of her old books again and let the tip of the pen kiss the paper as she added touches to bottle that held a little boy, drowning as the water rose within while people walked by without looking at him.
It was quiet, neither Taylor nor Wash would look at her longer than a few seconds. And she had seen them talking to Dr. Elizabeth Shannon earlier.
What was wrong? She helped them, those ragged people could have killed someone and she took care of them. Were they angry? She didn't know. Did she care? Nope.
Mary grabbed her book and pen and stood up. "I'm going to bed." Walking away, she skipped around and pressed herself to the wall as the 'adults' started talking.
They were soft, but she could hear them.
"We can't keep her here." It was Taylor, he sounded exhausted. "She is dangerous, what if that was a colonist."
"Well, where can we put her? She would be a danger with anyone else. Nathaniel, she's kicked in a door, and had a knife none of us knew about, not to mention has a tendency to let out her anger the wrong way." She heard creaking and movement, sending her to her room. She didn't hear the rest of the conversation as she silently packed her bag.
Mary has already overstayed her welcome. She would go to the coast, make it there by morning.
As she walked out of the house on quiet feet, Mary made sure that no one saw her, the stupid igmos.
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Taylor woke up at 4:52 am. Why? Because his damn spidey senses are tingling. Something wasn't right. Rising, he grabbed his sonic and padded into the halls. He opened the door to Mary's room and panicked. She was not the type of person to lose track of.
"Wash, wake up." He whispered as after he opened her door. He made the mistake of looking at her and found that she liked to sleep in her shirt and underwear, her blankets thrown off her. "Get some pants on."
"You like it, admit it." She mumbled, still in a slight dream daze. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, letting them grow wide. "Oh, oh, my god, I am so sorry sir."
"Mary is missing, we need to find her." He turned away as she rose from the bed, her long lithe legs moving to grab a new set of pants from her dresser.
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Mary had heard plenty of dinos in the night, but they didn't bother her, probably because they would have to get past the mines that were around the colony.
She heard a hissing and turned her head to see a large dinosaur, maybe nine feet in height. It was dark colored and held its tail in such a way as if it would strike.
The yellow glowing eyes stared at her, but there was something else wrong here. It was favoring a leg. She moved to pull her knife, before mentally slapping herself, Wash still had her favorite knife. All she had was a pocket knife, but what the hell.
She pulled it and kept on walking, keeping it close to her leg, but ready to strike out. As she walked, Mary heard the cracking of sticks. It was following her. Rolling her eyes, the girl came to a stream, kneeling down to refill her canteen and pull her dark hair back.
She sat down and leaned against a tree while resting her head back. As Mary rested, she watched the thing that was following her lap up water from the stream before turned its bright eyes to her.
"Wow, the first time I'm wanted is for food. Great." She hissed, the thing starts to approached her in a hunched down position, as if it was about to launch itself at her. But instead, he just laid down and rested his boney chin on her legs.
Mary sighed, "Only for five minutes, cause I have to get to the coast soon."
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Taylor had a tracker on the inside of Mary's violin, he put it there after she blew up the Sixer rover. However, he was terrified now as she had stopped moving nearly an hour ago. Both he and Wash had been driving to her location when they noted how she has been still.
As they slipped from the rover, Taylor was the one rushing into the brush. "Mary!"
"What?"
"Where are you?"
"Wouldn't you like to know, dumbass." He followed her voice and came to see her sitting cross legged on the ground and rubbed her hand over a rock.
"Mary, why are you out here?"
"I can take care of myself, Dinosaur. I always have," pulling herself up, Mary grabbed her bag. "It's not you, it's me, no one wants….people don't want me." She corrected herself, as she patted the rock. "Up." The rock turned into a slasher is it roused and breathed out.
"Jesus." Wash hissed as soon as she came around the tree. "Is that a slasher?"
"Well, no, it's Dinosaur's cousin." The creature looked at her, and she patted the side of it's head. "Well, were headed to the coast." She bowed and started walking as the dino limped after her.
"Do you have fishing gear?"
"No, I was gonna cross that bridge when I get there." She called, but Taylor just sighed.
"We are going home. Tomorrow, I'll take you fishing."
"No, s'alright." She kept walking, and Taylor huffed.
He rubbed the back of his head and groaned, "C'mon, Wash, we're going fishing."
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"No!" Mary yelled as the Slasher dragged her away by the fish. The fish she caught was grasped by her by the tail as he bit into the middle of it. "That's mine." Her little body was lifted slightly before the tail was ripped off and she fell on her ass as the monster ate the fish. "You bastard, you owe me a fish." She growled as she stood up.
Wash was standing next to Taylor as he threw his line out into the water again. He was actually enjoying this. "Sir, what are we going to do with them?"
"Idonknow." He laughed. "Enjoy this, Wash, we'll cross that bridge when we get there."
"I swear you are more like her than you let people on." She grinned as he flashed her a smile.
"Awe, I'm gonna puke." Mary said loudly as the adults looked at her. She was leaning against the slasher and looked at them. "Look if you two are gonna start going at it, I suggest you find your own beach."
"Damn it, Mary, I'm not fucking her." Taylor growled.
"Awe, you're blushing, and so is she." Mary laughed, before running back to the surf and grabbing her fishing pole. "Fifth time's the charm." She sat in the sand and the slasher next to her, his huge clawed paw just brushing her shoulder.
Wash leaned closer to Taylor and whispered, "We need to clean up her language before putting her in the general population."
"Do you think another few laps will clean her up?"
"Yep."
"Think she should ever meet Boylan."
"Hell no." Wash grinned. "I fear what those two would get up to."
"Agreed. C'mere." Nathaniel grabbed his second and placed the fishing rod in her hands. He stood behind her as one of his hands still held the rod. "Like this." Her hands laid over his and soon they were both really in a big fish. That was promptly eaten by the limping Slasher.