Author's Note:
Chapter 5: Daydream No. 19
Information gathering was the name of the game for The Courier for her first week with the people of Viviane as she found herself ingrained into their daily troubles by offering a hand when and where she could, not for any particular reward as much as it was to pass time and because the information she got out of them was all the value she needed for now.
If her time in the Mojave had taught her anything it was that helping people got you answers a lot faster than just asking outright, not to mention her Frumentarii training that helped blend her in and ingratiate herself on other work she'd done for Caesar.
And if her talks with Ulysses had taught her anything, it was that people needed hope- be that in, for or about something or someone.
Joshua and the Tribals of Zion showed her the answer first, but she had been lost back then and a lot of what she did was still a haze.
'It must have been around the time I was asked if I wanted to fight the Ghost of She' The thought passed through her mind as she recalled the time.
Was she heading to deal with the Boomers back then? or had she simply been in need of money to get into the Strip?
It was something that Arielle couldn't quite remember.
'I was still just Courier Six back then, I hadn't remembered my name yet.' It had been a funny thing coming into a world you'd apparently spent some time moving about in but now knew nothing about.
The opposite of things now she supposed, now she was truly a stranger in a strange land.
At least she knew who she was this time.
'Maybe that was why I was so obsessed with Clark.' The notion occurred to her as she looked down at the refitted gear the man had once worn.
Holding a hand in front of her she looked at it and clenched it into a fist.
'I still have those scriptures Daniel gave me, I could read them later…' She sighed, unclenching her hand and turning her attention back to her task.
The Courier had noticed the obvious lack of food amongst the people of the town, many of the men and younger guardsmen she had seen were looking somewhat gaunt and lacking while what women and children there were looking fairly healthy.
It was clear to her the men were giving up some of their share to keep the others alive.
Looking at the state of the town she knew it would take time for them to get the mine going, it would take even longer still to have enough people to work the fields and it would be just as long before they'd be able to convince anyone to come live and work in the town.
For now as she understood it they were getting their food mostly through hunting trips and a greenhouse that supplied a large majority of the vegetables and fruit, but because of the lack of manpower they couldn't hunt for long enough or a large enough amount of meat to feed everyone properly.
"Sebastian." Arielle greeted the green eyed man who arched a dark brow at her approach.
"No suit of Atlas armour this time?" He joked and she shrugged, when she wasn't wearing it she wore the desert ranger armour. "What did you need Rhea?"
"I'd like to offer my help to your hunters but I don't know where to start with that- could you point me in the right direction?" She asked and the man hummed as he responded.
"It'd definitely be nice to have more hands for it, we can't really bring back as much as we need… alright sure, Marcus should be with… lemme think..." his voice trailed off for a moment. "Oh! Right he's with Orion at the Butcher. Just head to the statue of Vivi and take a left down the road with the smithy sign on the right and you should be able to find the place- small building with a deer skull out front."
"Okay got it, thanks for the help." She said turning away from the man as he replied.
"I should be thanking you."
Following his instructions Arielle passed through the streets of the town heading toward where she hoped to find the man in charge of collecting food, she wanted to know what they did to hunt, what they hunted and how long what they hunted lasted so she could start making plans around that.
She supposed her plan was the opposite of the scorched earth policy she'd seen Caesar use against the NCR at times to force their hands and destroy morale, it was a fairly quick and assured method to make them want to give in when all they had were barely enough bullets, no food and a corrupt commanding officer who didn't care much about whether or not they died trying to break the Legions barricade around wherever it happened to be they were doing it.
In contrast, she was trying to uplift the town by giving them food, supplying them with the means to break the line the Grimm drew in the sand that prevented them from feeling safe and inspire them to trust their leadership could turn it around when things were better again.
It would be a hard thing to do, getting the people who had been locked in a cycle of grieving and dying to stand back up and fight against what were likely overwhelming odds, but she had seen it happen before with many different groups.
'What was that poem again?' She wondered as she spotted the mentioned Deer skull. 'Oh that's right-'
'Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'
She couldn't remember the whole thing of course it had been a long time since she heard it, she remembered her father speaking it once.. Or maybe it had been Arcade?
Arielle struggled to remember the man's face, had it been so long? Or had what happened just made it hard to recall too many things?
The Courier rubbed her brow dismissing the thoughts for now and focusing on what laid in front of her.
[1]
Stepping into the butchers Deli the cold of the buildings white walls and refrigerated display counter met The Courier's expectation of a prewar business fairly well, she had come to the conclusion by this point that the people of this world were living in a timeline where whatever wars they had did evolve into nuclear disaster.
It was a pleasant idea, but it didn't hide the marks of the poor pre-war ideology that the NCR had running so rampant through it.
As she walked in a chime played from a bell on the door and a portly, but by no means weak looking man appeared from a plastic curtain covering the doorway behind the counter.
Like the Shalott woman, the butcher that appeared was a Faunus, brutish tusks poked out of his mouth giving him the appearance of Boar- this wasn't helped by the darker skin tone of the man and the slight amberish colour of his sharp eyes that gave a bit of an animalistic quality.
The butcher arched his brow. "Shit they weren't jokn' about you." he said looking up.
"I'm looking for Orion, Seb sent me here to ask about helping the hunts." Arielle cut straight to the point.
"He's in the back-" The man pointed his thumb over his shoulder. "Come through- don't expect much out of him this early. He's been drinkin' a storm after his wife and kid died in the last attack."
The butcher opened up part of the counter and let her through, showing her into the room behind the curtain and down a short hall to a door that led into a different building where they found a living room with a tall man laying over a couch in an unconscious state.
"He's all yours I need to get back to sorting things." With that said the Butcher left her alone.
Sighing Arielle looked at the man and put a hand on his shoulder shaking him awake-
A hand lashed out and grip her forearm, it was strong, but it didn't bother her any as a pair of bloodshot crimson eyes glared at her.
"-Hell are you?" The man slurred his words.
"Rhea, Seb said you were the guy to talk to if I wanted to help with the Hunts." She eyed him as he huffed and let go of her, swinging himself upright and stumbling a little as he stood up too fast.
The man towered over her standing even taller than Lanius, he was slightly gangly with strong muscle definition across his torso and arms, the singlet he wore failing to hide it.
"Guns or bow?" Orion asked as he scratched his jaw and rolled his neck the smell of alcohol rolling off him.
"Guns, I've never had the chance to try a bow." Arielle answered and the man nodded.
"Guess that'll do, heard you stomped those Grimm in the mine? You aren't gonna bring that mech suit hunting are you?" He looked at her with an unsure expression.
"No, just this." Her answer got a curious look from him.
"The eyes on the helmet have to glow or are you just a fan of LEDs?"
"I can turn it off yes."
Grumbling, the drunkard sighed dragging a hand down his face.
"Meet us at twelve by the statue then, bring something quiet." Releasing breath he flexed and stretched his back. "You can piss off now I gotta sober up."
Leaving the way she'd come in through she said her thanks to the Butcher and left to figure out what to use on the hunt.
Arielle figured her Hecate II wasn't exactly subtle and probably wouldn't leave anything left on the bone if she used it to hunt so she just brought out her tried and true Winchester 1897.
Arriving at the statue of Vivi a few hours later she found the giant hunter waiting with two other men and a woman, one of the men and the woman had rifles that looked fairly well taken care of if somewhat old, not that she could comment on it much considering the three hundred year old gun she was using. The other man was using a crossbow with a scope while the largest of them had a tall bow with a just as large quiver on his back.
The Courier noticed how heavy the weapons the Hunters used were, they were fully metal- even the bow and its arrows, it seemed excessive and most importantly impractical to the state of the town's wealth.
It just seemed off to her.
She supposed they had a lot of metal and not much else so it was just a convenient expenditure or a callus waste of what little they had.
Something to add to her list of questions.
"The illustrious android appears on time." Orion said sarcastically.
'Better than being a robobrain' She thought idly while shrugging her shoulders outwardly to the man.
"That quiet or are you trying to tell the whole mountainside we're here?" He asked with his brow arched, red eyes on her gun.
"If it needs to be quiet I have something else."
"That would be for the best, there usually aren't enough animals for us to use louder weapons." the other bowman replied.
Understanding their point, Arielle pulled up her Pip-Boy and dialled through to her small list of weapons finding her suppressed PTR-91 and switching the shotgun out for it, manifesting it she checked the magazine and bolt before slinging it over her shoulder and quickly pulling out a box of .308 to put in her hip pouch.
Looking up she found four sets of eyes on her all flabbergasted.
"Is there something on my face?" She asked jokingly.
"Bloody Semblance users…" Orion grumbled before turning and wordlessly leading the group off to get their hunt started.
[2]
Wasting no time The Courier started asking questions.
"How long do these hunts usually last? And should I expect anything like Grimm?" Her questions found answers in the other woman of the group.
The woman was on the shorter side with ginger hair, pale skin and green eyes dressed simply in a hoodie, trousers and boots with a bandolier across her chest and belt around her waist that had a pouch on her right hip.
"Three hours, four at most. No Grimm, not since you uprooted them." She had a very blunt way of talking that Arielle appreciated.
"What are we hunting? Deer, pheasants or just whatever we come across?"
"Whatever you can pull with enough on it to eat for a few days or weeks." Orion answered from the front of their troupe.
The way they were arranged was with the tall bowman in front, two rifle users and bowman in the back alongside The Courier.
"How much do you usually manage to bring back aside from the goal of a week's worth?"
She couldn't remember who had told her it but she could recall being told 'Being blunt is subtle sometimes.'
"Well we're trying to feed the Owens, Mauves and Sables so two maybe three deer in the ideal world?" The rifle wielding man said. "That'll last them half a year each but usually we only manage to bring back one between us all."
"Too bad we don't got a goddess of luck, just Cyril's blessing." The other bowman complained.
"I know a goddess of luck if you want her blessing?" Arielle offered, digging into her thigh pocket and retrieving a Denarius stamped with Fortuna's visage.
They had originally been intended to be stand-ins for an intermediate coin between normal Denarius and Aureus but she hadn't been around long enough to actually see their implementation- that hadn't stopped her from keeping one in her pocket like a good luck charm.
She flicked the coin to the bowman, his eyes flashed with surprise.
"Shit! Where'd you even get coins like this? Hasn't been anything like this since way before the Vytal agreement."
"Found a few of them lying around in a crate." She shrugged.
"What'd you mean by goddess of luck? This meant to be her?" The man asked, eyeing the woman holding a cornucopia.
Arielle was still impressed with the detail pressed on the coin.
Not long after this the group organised the areas they were heading to hunt in to avoid overlap and accidentally shooting one another or scaring off anything they were about to bag.
Marching off on her own Arielle considered what she'd heard and mulled over a particularly part of what was said-
'Why are they hunting for such a short amount of time? It took me hours to come across anything on my own…'
She was left feeling confused as she double checked the PTR-91 making sure it's optic was still zeroed for mid range and got to finding something more than enough food for a few families.
Author's Note:
I finished the first arc of the story just before posting the last chapter and now that I'm writing the second it I've found myself being pulled in a different direction for the story than I initially intended, though its not like that's difficult considering the story was just based around the title which itself was a piece of the character I made Arielle from- another fanfiction idea I would have written if I could have done more than write a page of that characters story before giving up four or five times eventually letting it die and taking the parts I liked most and giving it a new coat of paint to Begin Again.
With that said an alternate title for the story would be Salvation in Paradise, this fitting where the story is actually heading.
Finally, lastly even. Thank you for reading the chapter I really appreciate it, I hope you have a good rest of your day and that if things aren't going well they get better.