Only the lonely know the way I feel tonight,

Only the lonely know this feeling ain't right.

And there goes my baby, there goes my heart

They're gone forever, so far apart.

- "Only the Lonely", by Roy Orbison

Humans are social creatures. So, that cliché has been established, and denied, by every lonely person in living history. Solitude is often the last thing humans factor into their state of misery, but it's solitude that takes the greatest toll on the human psyche. As a point of pride, humans always deny their need for attention, and their need for love.

In a conversation once with Mr. House, they had discussed a point that few in the Mojave were well-versed to talk about. It had been the esteemed topic of solitude as a precipitant to several abnormalities of the mind and otherwise. He'd disagreed, of course, as a solitary creature. She supposed it was his right, and he'd had several good pointers, though he never denied that he felt the weight of solitude. It was easy to view him as above such things, but she didn't. She never could. Perhaps she is a secret romantic, convincing herself that she can save him?

No, he didn't need to be saved. And it's a funny thing to suggest, too, considering she is the one who is enslaved.

If she had to make an educated guess, she'd imagine it'd been about two weeks since her initial step beyond the Fort's walls. Two long, insufferable weeks under the Mojave's early summer sun. Instead of a pale tan that glimmered over her skin, most of it was now covered in sunburns from prolonged exposure to the elements. One positive improvement was that she ate more filling meals, but the rare meat that was provided was always turned down, making her look like the sulker she once would've poked fun at. She's resolved to never eat meat again.

Occasionally, she will still see the face of the Weathers boy, and feel the texture of the meat grinding between her teeth.

Awful, awful, awful.

None of the slaves ever spoke to her. If they did, they were trying to fish for information for the frumentarii. So, effectively, she could trust none of the women she bunked with, but she shrugged it off well enough. It wasn't any of their faults, technically, so she held her tongue and made up some absolutely dreadful lie to turn them down. The lie was dreadful, but they were ignorant enough of the nuances of English that they bought everything. And, many of them were tribals anyhow, ergo extremely gullible.

At least she had Antony.

Eris made no secret about her collection of outcasts with personalities many would deem 'exotic' or 'undesirable'. Chief among her group of outcasts had been Mr. House, though Layla had been a nice addition, and as had Arcade. But Layla was due to be replaced, she gathered, and who better than Antony, who sat next to her?

He was Legion, but he was not Legion. The uninitiated might call him 'insane', but she knows better, and she's not the type to put lofty titles like that on other people. There was always a glint in his eyes, that told a story of his hardship without him ever needing to open his mouth – but plenty of that happened too. She assumed that the only reason he had not been crucified or moved to the slave tents was his impressive finesse with dogs, who were apparently his entire life. None of his brothers spoke with him, and if they did, it was brisk, or they would pick at him, much to his confusion.

The story behind his behavior was disheartening, a sad tale if she's ever heard one, made all the more sad by how his psychotic behavior and monologues all orbited around the killing of his tribe's dogs by the Legion. In his mind, he was one with the dogs, he even panted sometimes, similarly to how Lupa panted under the heat. She is certain it's the trauma from having a significant, psychological totem crushed beneath someone's heel. The totem being that of a hound, which had been the god of his people. The way she works it out in her head is that he is trying to become them to replace what was lost. That, or there is a repressed, sexual fixation with whatever canines embody.

Either way, she sat with him for as long as she could for every meal she brought to him. Together, they would sit, he would talk, and for once, she would really just listen. Sometimes, she spoke, when there was a possibility to get a word in, but there's a reason that was only a possibility, and not a habit. He talked a lot, like Veronica had. Only, this time, she listened, and afforded him what little human decency she had. The same couldn't be said for the other legionaries.

Fortunately, her talent for language gave her a defense against the ones who were less wise to her ways. Most of them were under the impression that she was insane like Antony, some of the more superstitious ones thought that Antony had rubbed off on her in a form of primitive essence theft. The frumentarii, though, well, they were not so thick. So immersed were they in 'dissolute' life, that they understood exactly what game she was playing. Daringly, she swapped words with them in both English and broken Latin, but her mischievous spirit had dwindled somewhat in the fortnight since she's been here. Exposure and negligence were key ingredients in the cocktail of surrender.

To say she'd surrendered would be a lie, however. Spending all of her 'free time' with the hound master had other perks, besides food for thought. And no, she did not plan on manipulating him into unlocking her collar. She'd grown fond of him during her time here, even though that was a contingency plan if all else failed.

In disgust, mostly with herself, she looked away from some of the scraps of meat he fed his hounds, and contemplated the river that the cliff face overlooked. It was a stoop drop to the ground below, but she knew there were crevices in the stone. Crevices that could be conveniently climbed down, should the need arise.

If the Fort's ambience wasn't constantly riddled with the sounds of human suffering, it might have been peaceful. In the early morning hours, when only blacksmiths and guard patrols were awake, crickets could be heard from half a mile down from the gates. Occasionally, birds would chirp, or the occasional crow would caw, but that one was cursed, because it was usually a sign of new crucifixions. Besides, weren't crows menacing anyhow?

"How's Lupa's newest litter doing, Antony?" Eris asked him over a bowl of maize mash and carrots. She'd given him all her meat – which wasn't much, and he'd likely be giving it all to Lupa anyhow. Eris wishes she could be half as devoted to anything as Antony was to his dogs. "Have they opened their eyes yet?"

Apparently, that opened up a can of worms, and she watched his dark eyes bulge out of his head in a childish kind of excitement that reminded her of herself somehow, when anyone brought up politics.

"Only one of them so far! The rest will follow anytime now, but that one.." He paused, a look of elation overcoming his childlike features, despite being older than herself, if she had her history correct. Learning an accurate history of the Legion was difficult – most were illiterate, but she's considering it a rare, interesting thing to do in her pastime. "Oh, she shall be the pride of the litter. Would not be surprised if she were to become our new bitch."

He spoke in between mouthfuls of his food, something that disgusted the other legionaries. When first she noticed that, her surprise was quickly remedied by learning that hygiene in the Legion was taken very seriously. The reasons for this, she suspected, were an extreme repression of former tribal, or 'uncivilized' practices, some of which she knew, from speaking with Antony, were infamously short in the cleanliness department. Case in point, being the Hangdogs' unsavory practice of rubbing dog shit all over their bodies.

For her part, she can't judge much. Eris was never too bothered by hygiene until she spent a week in a cage, sitting in her own urine. And, civilized societies like Vegas had the means to be clean, but often weren't. So many wasted opportunities. Taking a dip in the river here did not even come close to the sensation of steaming, hot water baths in the Lucky 38, however. Her hair was a menace, too long to be practical here in a military camp, and she waits for the day that a legionary finds a long strand of blonde hair in their meal. If she wanted to be clever, she'd retort and say it was one of Caesar's hairs. Perhaps even spin it more and tell them that all of his hairs were dedicated to seasoning the foods here.

She can't get rid of the hair, though. Oddly enough, it reminds her of home. Home has always been an elusive term, rarely ever used in her extensive bank of vocabulary. The color of it, normally a light gold, had lightened somewhat in the past couple of weeks, where some of the strands were almost flaxen. It was an unfamiliar sight to her, which leads her to eliminating the theory that she'd ever done manual labor in her past life.

"Have you named her yet? If not, might I suggest some names? Ruth, Rachel, Delilah…" Eris trailed off and scrunched her brows together, having just realized she'd been listing off Jewish names from the Old Testament. "Actually, don't take any of my recommendations, if you know what's good for you."

Only Caesar would see the mockery in naming a Legion hound something like 'Ruth', and therefore he'd immediately know who'd suggested it. Then, both Antony and herself would be paying for the bare minimum of humor. At least learning the rules wasn't a gradual process, Caesar most definitely did not employ smoke and mirrors for the terms and conditions. But she could gripe about that too, and did – to herself.

"No.. no, I haven't thought of a name. Guess I should, heh." He threw some of his scraps at Lupa, who caught them in her mouth. "It will need to be menacing, it will have to convey her strength of spirit."

He lapsed into silence then, probably contemplating the names that would spell 'suicide' for him. She couldn't blame him for playing with the things he was told not to play with, she had a similar habit as his. They were partners in mischief, though he's had far fewer chances at it as she has. Why couldn't she stop getting people in trouble? If she had the willpower, or any kind of willpower at all, she'd keep her mouth closed, but as it is, her mouth is like a broken faucet – she can't hardly turn it off or on.

Already, and only a fortnight into her stay at this wretched heap of pseudo-civilization, she misses the conversations between herself and Mr. House. Nearly a month had gone by since she'd been in Vegas, or maybe it had already been a month. If she had to apologize for every misdemeanor she's committed against him, if only to hear him say something ingenious again, she would. Weaknesses aside, she knew who her real friend was. Again, she is remorseful that these events were the precipitant to her properly sorting her own values, as well as the value of human life.

There would be one less good legionary in the coming battle for Hoover Dam – Canyon Runner. If she were delusional enough, maybe she could trace every ill in the world to her own doings, but she didn't have the self-importance required for that kind of work.

Eris shook her head at her own thoughts, having forgotten that she was supposed to be serving the other legionaries. It was easy to get lost in thought while looking at the only escape route that the Fort offered. Her fingers twitched for a cigarette, a habit that was thwarted too soon for her mind to forget the movements, and the reflexes. There were precious few things she wouldn't do just for one measly little drag, only, when she thought of what she wouldn't do, she saw Aurelius' face, and a hunk of flesh held in one meaty palm. It always went full circle, and this only led her to the point that there is no such thing as conclusiveness. At least, not for her experience.

"Where are you going? Don't want to watch for the other pups?" Antony asked her, watching her rise from the seat she'd taken a few paces away from the kennels. The way he watched her reminded her of a lost child in need of guidance, and she was too comforted by his eccentric tendencies that she didn't dare tell him that she was in no position to offer him direction.

"You know I'd do anything to stay here with you in the kennels, Antony.." She smiled at him, a small and sincere one, because she wasn't lying, though she was flattering him. "But I prefer my back unscourged, don't you? Probably in both of our best interests, and in the interests of Lupa's litter, that I get to your other brothers."

"Right, yes. Astute." He nodded to himself, and she watched in morbid intrigue as he tried to reinforce some kind of Legion authority in his person, as though he'd forgotten that he was legally entitled to have her on the ground if he so wished, just like the hounds he raised. The dissolving of identities made him a primary candidate to be taken advantage of, which is why she was giving herself that job – she had nothing to gain from him, so it might as well be her. "You had better go then, otherwise you won't be able to help name the new pups." He joked awkwardly, nearly everything he spoke of would inevitably come back to his dogs. His smile was crazed, and she bit her lip to try not to laugh at the absurdity of it.

"Try not to have too much fun without me, I'm a lady, you know?" She said, winking, and picking up the empty bucket she'd be using to serve mash to the higher echelons of the camp.

Among the few other saving graces that Inculta had granted her, was that she did not serve the lower orders of legionaries, perhaps for her own protection. As long as House had not cut his strings with her and collected a new right hand, she had her uses, and the Legion, or the frumentarii, were not below using mercy as a farce to instill security for their own ends. She wasn't prepared to tell him that it only benefited her, because truly, Mr. House was tight-lipped about most of the details of his plans, and he had the ability to defend the Strip from invasion if he were so inclined. The few secrets she had of his were about what lay in that bunker here, and what kind of system he intended to integrate into the Mojave after securing it.

Much to her chagrin, he was a private person, though she wondered if that was not why she was so utterly fascinated with him? And, dare she say, admiring? Someday, if she's fortunate, she'll get to hear him go on a tirade about the malcontents of looking to the past for answers, instead of the future, because that was the kind of wisdom she was lacking.

Too late. Were five minutes really a great length of time compared to the world at large? Apparently, it was, and she was in so much pain that she found it hard to point out the inconsistencies in the Legion's priorities. One troublemaker, compared to a legion of conformists?

Crack!

She flinched at the pain of the whip on her back. Five lashes, for the five minutes she was late for serving meals for the legionaries. Somehow, every stroke of the decanus felt like a thousand lashes, but she knew she was terribly biased, here on the ground. She thought of how ruined the person was who carried out the punishment, how he felt, if he felt anything at all, at this point. Was this his designation, his role, in the camp? Dreadful.

Another crack, and she startled herself out of the cognitive empathy she was using to cope with the sheer pain inflicted on her bare back. Had she learned nothing? The Legion doesn't care if she can place herself in their shoes, and try to experience the world from their vantage. It does her very little good, but that old habit dies extremely hard.

Finally, with one final lash, it was done. It would not leave a mark, but it would sting, probably for a few weeks. She's so out of it that she stands up immediately, though soon regrets that, because kneeling prone on the ground made her exceptionally lightheaded, and Eris is miserably out of shape.

The legionaries standing nearby take her attempt to stand up rather stoically, with a couple of exceptions. They snicker, and she finds herself snickering too, if only out of habit. Because, it is rather funny. Most of them say nothing, nor do they react. They've all experienced it, too, so the condescension from the few is pointless. No one goes through Legion indoctrination without lying in the dust and becoming one with it, and equal of value to it.

"Go ahead…" She says, struggling to stand up again, her words faltering as she blinks away the little dots obscuring her vision, "Laugh at me. Dress me up like a fucking circus clown, that's all I'm good for."

Perhaps she was blessed for being shameless and without any sort of self-confidence whatsoever. But she's continuing to ride the intellectual high horse if she goes that direction, the direction that proposes that she is the exception to man being moved by ego. That is, after all, a chief reason why she is here.

Some of the frumentarii laugh at what she says, though the vast majority of those watching are absolutely clueless as to what she's talking about. Self-preservation bade her to keep saying verbose things, because tribals wouldn't understand, and they feared things they didn't understand, but sometimes also poked them with sticks.

"That is incorrect, woman. You're good for the purpose you've been given by Vulpes, and by extension, Caesar, yet you shirked your duties. This is the punishment for such a crime." Eris rolled her eyes, unimpressed by the constant, constant diversion back to Caesar she heard here. Caesar was okay, but she's tired of hearing his praises sung to the high heavens.

What's worse is that she can't argue, she can't poke at the flaws in anything the legionaries say. The first thing they will do is appeal to authority, the next is punishment. There are no calm discussions, nothing that she is used to, and she wonders if her experience has been abnormal.

But… the mere inclination to her experience being abnormal would denote that her experience is normal, because everyone sees their experience as exceptional and singular.

"Vulpes told me that you might be combative, have you nothing to say for yourself then?" She knew what he was trying to do, she was just trying to figure out why he was doing it.

Why does she need to be baited when she's exactly where they want her to be? Salt on the wound for good measure, she supposes? If that were the case, then criticizing it would be hypocritical. Hasn't her entire time in the Mojave been defined as kicking others while they were down?

"Nothing that is of value to the agenda you're trying to uphold." She cringed at herself for how that came out. Why must she be so combative? It is like she has a button that, when pressed, releases a slew of chancy and demeaning rhetoric, and it feels as though she has little to no control over it, despite all attempts to the contrary.

It's a quality that further drives the uncertainty that already dwells deep within. Uncertainty, because she's uncertain whether she should loathe herself, or loathe the ones who are able to enkindle it. In present circumstances, surely both are reasonable.

"And what agenda am I trying to uphold, woman?" The decanus asks, and she hesitates before answering.

This isn't Vegas, where she can dance around others with clever wordplay and an endless maze of smoke and mirrors. The Legion doesn't care for that, and is actively against pretense. So is she, of course, if society was full of people like her, there wouldn't quite be a society. Although that then begs the question of just why she can't stop.

It is painfully hot out here, in the hot mixture of dirt and sand. The sun shines over her head and beats down on her raw back and shoulders. Her eyes burn under the fatigue and heat, and she's not sure where one ends and the other begins. Surrounding her are slaves and legionaries alike, the forsaken collective that she has denounced because she was five minutes late to serving a partially edible meal. They stare at her expectantly, as though most of them just want to return to their duties, and Eris is all at once annoyed by the inefficiency of such a painfully efficient system.

But the rays of the sun shoot down her back in such a way that the stinging is made just that much worse, and her shoulders twinge, a hiss sounding through her teeth.

"That I not forsake my duties again, whether it be by tardiness, or… otherwise." She blinks then, hoping that she can just sleep. If there was one thing she desired above most all else, right now, it was rest. She barely got any at night anyhow. A sleep-deprived Eris was becoming the normal Eris.

She is proclaimed as 'lucky' for the mild punishment she's been given by 'Caesar', who appears to be the force of all justice and law in the Fort. Caesar, she learns, is like a totem with several different faces, all facing a different direction, and is the entity behind all things.

Oh yes. Very lucky! Eris is now charged with both cooking and cleaning, which entails cleaning the latrine for a week. But she wonders who is counting the days? These things seem to slip in collectivized societies. At least the latrine will be quiet and safe – bathrooms never tend to attract much sexual tension, after all.

The tent is blissfully empty of slave women, all of them busy with their duties save the eldest of them, whose days are so numbered that she is left alone even by legionaries. The old bitty watches Eris knowingly, and Eris is too tired to brace herself for a lecture on proper form. She's done nothing but learn about proper form for weeks now, and it's only further reinforced by the constant punishments that are taking place in that hot space of dirt that she just warmed. That was how the Legion kept its people in line, by reminding them constantly of what will happen, in contrast to the NCR's 'merciful' fines. The former is, regretfully, effective.

No breeze flew in through the tent's flaps, no sign that summer was ending, because it had just begun. There were no words of comfort offered to her by the elderly woman in the tent, who did her needlework as if unaffected by all that was occurring outside of the tent. These were the fruits of this society, Eris thought. In a society that prioritizes group cohesion over persons, no one is ever obligated to do anything. Initiative was rare here, and this line of thinking led her back to Mr. House, who'd always been disgusted by this.

Eris sucked a breath in at the feel of the tattered cloth on the cot scraping against her aching back, but manages to find a somewhat comfortable spot. Everything here is mediocre, so she shouldn't expect anything less at this point. And truly, does she even deserve anything less than mediocrity?

She can almost imagine the answer Mr. House would give her. Something along the lines of putting effort into anything merits reward, and if a reward couldn't be given, then it should be created. Perhaps if she had that kind of initiative, she wouldn't be here right now, in this hot, festering tent with no company save for an old, servile woman. It isn't the woman's fault, of course, she just happens to be the only object of ire that Eris can pick apart in the throes of pain.

A thought crosses her mind, of how she is ever, ever going to leave this place with that collar around her neck, flashing dangerously red occasionally enough to remind her that it's still functioning. Was there any hope of ever getting out? What would become of her in a month, year, or years from now if she couldn't manage to escape?

Then, she considered how before, she'd never given care to any implication of her future self. Not once, had she ever pondered it. No, that had been for more narrow-minded people, people who could actually fixate on a future they could tangibly build. She's not naive enough to think that she's changed, or had a turn of heart. If anything, today's goings had proven the contrary. Still, she found novel and exciting ways to break rules and never paid mind to how she'd have to pay for them later.

As if unbidden, it occurred to her a plan that was foolhardy enough to work, and without endangering others. No, it would only endanger herself, because she's got a piece of explosive metal tied around her neck. Every two days, to combat the spread of disease, slaves and legionaries alike were made to bathe under supervision down on the Colorado. If, perhaps one could pick the lock on the collar, then manage to somehow stay underwater for the sake of drawing attention off, safe passage could be made upstream near Hoover Dam.

Her brows, lighter now under near constant exposure of the Mojave sun, etched into a deep frown as she contemplated some kind of coherent plan. There was always the threat of death, but was the threat of death greater than the threat of being a slave forever, and having no will to execute on the external world? How long would it take, she wonders, to find something sharp enough to pick locks? And besides, she doesn't even know the make of the lock on her collar, but she could feel it up for a little while. Experience has proven that she's mysteriously skilled at escaping bindings.

How she's going to sleep with her back inflamed to hell was a problem she'd solve when she actually closed her eyes. As it were, she was appreciating these moments of silence that she never would have wished for a month ago. Some semblance of peace, or so she thinks – maybe she's just convinced herself that she understands the concept of peace.

"Girl, let me see that back of yours." A timeworn voice says from the corner of the tent, and Eris rolls onto her side to face the woman, but not before schooling her expression to something more contrite and palatable. The woman's voice sounds like stretched leather and, she can hear a note of something else, like maybe she'd been a smoker a few decades ago, before being captured by the Legion. She was no tribal.

"It hardly warrants attention. I didn't bleed, unfortunately." Unfortunately, because blood seemed to be the only thing that could get through to her thick skull.

"Don't matter. I won't have any of my girls getting extra duties because you're slacking. Let me look at it."

She doesn't know why she expected the old bitty to actually have a shred of empathy for her. It's plainly obvious that Eris is an outsider, and isn't going to conform well enough for her safety or for the safety of those around her, from the older woman's perspective. It could be supposed that her lack of empathy was reasonable, Eris might have encouraged it, if it wasn't for her getting the short end.

"For a moment, I thought you actually wanted to help me for the sake of helping me. I see now that I've been proven wrong, one of many such cases." Eris teased, hiding her discomfort and unease under the usual facade of nonchalance, even going so far as to snort, and shrug her shoulders, looking away from the old woman and to the entrance to the tent. The more she analyzed it, she really was like clockwork, to anyone who cared enough to notice.

Mr. House had noticed, and even predicted she was going to say something gnarly right before she said it. Really, she wasn't complicated at all, and anyone with eyes and a brain could see the contrived gestures, the predictable smiles, and the predictably unpredictable argumentative openings.

The old woman, Eris thought her name was Rona or something pseudo-Roman like that, stopped her needlework to look up and lock eyes with her. They were blue, much like hers, and truly, they should be connected by some Aryan kinship, because it was an extremely rare eye color in the Legion. But they weren't, because this society operates differently than any Eris has ever witnessed. Really, she's only ever read about, not seen, communism on this large of a scale. The fascinating theory holds not one single flame against the shocking reality.

Before Rona even answers, she laughs, wrinkles deepening on all the weathered panes of her face. Something in her deflates when the elderly woman answers.

"Girl, you've half-assed every duty you've been given since you got here! All the other girls got to pick up your slack. You still hoping for a chance to get out again? Well it's not going to happen, not now and not ever. Not until you've left this world." Eris' face darkened, and she sneered, white teeth poking out from under her slightly chapped lips. "Want me to give you some advice, girl?"

Eris laughed at that, laughed at the absolute preposterous inanity of the moment. She was a slave, a prisoner of war, in a Legion tent in the middle of the summer, being lectured by another slave about not slaving hard enough. And as if that said button from earlier had been pressed, she couldn't contain the mirthless laughter that left her lips and bubbled up into the humid, stagnant air.

For good measure, she coughed in between the unhinged laughter, echoes of a time where she smoked nearly two packs of imported cigarettes a day. That withdrawal would never be over, not truly. She'd miss it for as long as she drew breath. The downside is, her lungs would never be the same, but that was the lofty price to know what it's like to be transported away for a few moments of every hour. Rona stared at her like she'd sprouted a second head, or perhaps she stared at her with some kind of fabricated, elderly wisdom. Either way, Eris had been given a taste of real wisdom from House, someone who'd lived for over two centuries, and she couldn't go back to generic, less-than-a-century-old wisdom.

"No advice then. Fine, you will learn the hard way. Learning the hard way might have been smart wherever you came from, but you won't last long here." The woman went back to her needlework then, "A fortnight in and she's already been lashed and sent to the latrines." The woman mumbled under her breath, and Eris abandoned her coughing to sit up in her cot, her back aching like nothing before.

"You might think you're wise, but I have a pretty wide range for points of reference. Let's see how long it takes you to figure out what a fucking point of reference is."