Test Drive 001

[atonementmods]

Test Drive #001 Welcome to Atonement's first test drive, and thank you very much for stopping by! Please refer to the prompts below for ideas, or simply make up your own, whichever is easiest for you. Prompts Arrival: You don't quite remember how you arrived here. It appears that you're suddenly in a dead land with eerily red skies. The grass is dead, the trees are dying, and there's absolutely no sounds of life beyond your own footsteps, even if it feels like you're being watched somehow. Eventually along the narrow path you follow, you walk through gates that seem to guard a quiet, abandoned town and a sinking feeling starts to settle in that you are far from home and there may not be an easy way back. The sign hanging above the gates simply says "Welcome to Penance: Home Between Homes" and nothing more. Within the gates, there are the leftovers of what may have once been a lively, welcoming little town, if it didn't look as if people either fled or somehow vanished in the blink of an eye. There are dusty shops that are still stocked with supplies, many with their doors busted out or left open. There are homes that haven't been touched in what feels like an eternity but they still have furniture and the remnants of the people who lived there previously. Cars and bikes are littering the streets that are in varying shapes of usability. The more you look, the more unsettling everything becomes... First Punishment: As a show of good will, your hosts will give you a very easy, albeit potentially embarrassing, task to carry out for your punishment this month. First: There will as few secrets in Penance as possible. Transparency is key to atonement. You will reveal at least one sin in a way that will be permanent, which means via tattoo, scarring, branding, or other permanent means somewhere on your person. For those who are unable to be injured or scarred, there will be enchanted items that will be able to pierce even the toughest skin, cut deeper than even increased healing can recover from. All necessary items will be available at the tattoo parlor in town. If desired, characters may also make an announcement on the network listing their sin(s) for judgement from their peers. Please note that if the character insists they are free of sin, they will be provided a list of what they're guilty of by their hosts. Settling: It's time to settle into a home in Penance, either alone or with roommates. There is comfort and safety in numbers after all... Do try not to fight over housing if you've both accidentally chosen the same home... Your hosts will be very unhappy if you start a fight this early on over such a silly thing. If settling down isn't something you feel like doing, you may go and explore anywhere that you'd like, including outside the gates. Please be aware that there may be demonic forms of all types of common animals living outside them that move swiftly and silently. They will vary in aggressiveness and tamability, so please keep this in mind. As a note, all threads may be considered game canon if all parties agree. Hope you have fun and thank you! Game is set to officially open February 1st or when we reach a minimum of 10 players. premise | faq | taken | reserves | apps | hiatus/drop | network | logs | ooc | mods | requests

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[intheashes]

"Perhaps." He doesn't sound too positive about it. But not for Vasquez. He's certain for that man, things will be a lot more peaceful. Perhaps, Vasquez will finally get to have a full nights rest. Goody isn't so foolish to think he personally is going to get any peace. Why should death stop the ghosts that haunt him. Now, he's on their level.

"They are that. But nothing in the world is prettier than Billy with his knives." He might be a bit biased there. "Of course, you're welcome in the house we pick without any lessons. Or cards." He would say they have to stick together, but he's shown his ability to stay around when things got difficult.

[quinientos]

Vasquez can't help his derisive snort, not because he disapproves or because he thinks it's something silly, but when he gives Goodnight a reaction, it's a dubious look that says that he's not subtle and that people are going to pick up on him, even if he's not saying things so bluntly. "Not even going to bother staying in different houses?" he points out.

"You know, my abuela would say that it's a very big sin, that." One that he'd indulged in, of course, but it's not like he has someone at his side to make it so obvious. "Do you think purgatory is going to like that?"

[intheashes]

He hears the snort and perhaps Vasquez has a point. But at the same time, it just seemed natural for him to say that he and Billy were going to be in the same house. They'd been together so long that it seemed strange to even think that they might stay in different places. And while he knows he's not terribly subtle around Vasquez, he knows when to be careful. He thinks if the other man would have had issue with them, he would have surely said something.

At the question, Goody just gives his most eloquent shrug. "Honestly, why would we? It's what we're used to after so long on the road together. Besides, isn't it always said that there is strength in numbers. That and these houses are fair to middling in size." Technically, for most of the Heroes of Rose Creek, these houses would be mansions. For Goodnight, who had once lived in a plantation house, they were actually on the small side. "The one I chose has four separate bedrooms. For all anyone knows, we sleep on opposite ends of the house."

He then gives a long low sigh and for a moment there is something like guilt, but it is short lived, replaced by resignation. "Your granmè and my daddy would probably have gotten along with all the things they would say. However, like it or not, this is the one thing I won't give up on. They can do what they want to me, but I'm not about to sell Billy out to save my neck. Not a second time." He knows this is Vasquez and so he feels he can at least say this. "And if they decide to punish someone for it, I'll make certain it's me. Because being with him is the one happiness I simply can't bare to let go of. If Billy is to be my albatross, so be it."

[quinientos]

There is strength in numbers, which is why he'd been the one snoring away when the others had been protecting him in Comanche territory, figuring that if he was going to die, it wouldn't be because any of them were slouching on the trigger finger to make sure that they were protected. "I was happy to walk out of Rose Creek alive, with some gold at my side," he says, patting his pockets to find that he hasn't got it on him.

Last he'd seen of it, it had been in his bags in the new cabin he'd been holing up in, waiting for a few bounty hunters to pass. "It's almost romantic, what you say, if we weren't stuck in some backwards shithole place that wants our sins on us," he says, gesturing to the number he'd carved into Goodnight.

"I could have done that for you, you know," he teases. "Big heart, Billy's name."

[intheashes]

The fact that Vasquez walked out means that they had won, somehow. It would be the only explanation for the man surviving and taking his share of the gold. He doesn't know if he should be happy or not about that. He supposes he should be. That's what they had wanted even if it had ended with himself and Billy dead.

He won't ask though. He doesn't want to know. Instead, he focuses on the things he does like to talk about. Billy is often that specific subject. It's actually a bit soothing to be able to and know that he doesn't have to really watch his words and dance around the truth of things with this one man.

"You say almost. I say is. I think after ten years of multitudes of backwater shitholes, as you so eloquently put it, the romance would be dead. This is just another stop for us, like any other." He makes a slightly airy gesture with one hand, as if tomorrow, or the day after, he and Billy would be riding out, a couple hundred dollars richer due to a quick draw or some other scam that Goody would concoct.

He knows the man is teasing and so he has to tease back a little. Honestly, he'd never do such a thing because he's not ashamed of Billy. He never will be. "Yes. I'm sure it would be a lovely tribute. But then I'm sure Billy might want one as well. I would be in luck. His is a short name. But mine..." He gives Vasquez a cheeky grin. "You know how good Catholics are about naming their children." Goodnight is just the tip of that particular mountain. "I'd bet five dollars that you personally have no fewer that 3 first names."

[quinientos]

"Ten years, if I spent ten years with anyone, I think I would have shot them at least ten times," is his deadpanned remark, seeing as he doesn't exactly feel like he's the romantic soul that would be able to manage that long without that.

Still, there's a part of him jealous. Neither Goodnight nor Billy are typical men, but they have each other and they have something he doesn't think he'll ever get. It's definitely worth being jealous for. Grinning, though, when Goodnight brings up names, he can't help his shrug. "Plenty of them," he agrees. "None of them I'm going to share with you today. We might be friends, but we're not that close yet."

"But, at least tell me this. Is Goodnight really your first name?"

[intheashes]

Goody has to laugh a little. "And you don't think Billy isn't sorely tempted to do so on a regular basis. You didn't travel with me long enough to know how bad I can get." He doesn't mean his...unfortunate episodes. He means his inability to abide with silence. He's lost count of the number of one-sided conversations he's had with Billy over this last decade.

His smile grows a bit impetuous. It seems he had been caught out. It's always been a curiosity to find out the other man's name. It seems unfair that a man could go through life with just the one. Even his wanted poster seems to only give the one name. He doesn't mind that he's been caught in his little fishing expedition and he's not insulted that he doesn't get a bite.

"So, then I am right and you do have many." His grin doesn't change in the least. Instead, he just gives an eloquent shrug. "One of them. Family name. Named after the granddaddy your granddaddy removed from this earth."

[quinientos]

"Plenty enough, for my actual friends and family to know," he says, which hadn't been many people at home. Lucky for him that his reticence in saying his name meant that only a last name had wound up on that wanted poster with the image that didn't so much look like him. So long as he kept shaving every once in a while and hiding, he could make a good case that it wasn't him.

"Your grandfather was named Goodnight?" he scoffs, not apologizing for what his family did, especially because that whole history is still a sore spot for him. "What's wrong with you white men?"

[intheashes]

"Your actual friends, hmmm? I'm so wounded." He's not. He understands. They might have traveled together for a few days. Planned a war together. Trained some idiots. But in the end, they'd been stranger when they met. Strangers when Goodnight ran out. Strangers when he came back. Strangers when he did. Those few days had been nice. Perhaps a promise of a friendship, but reality says that had he and Billy survived, they would have taken their shares and rode away and never thought about Vasquez again. Just like Vasquez would likely never think of Goodnight or Billy. None of them had any ties other than that handful of days.

They might have bonded in a way, but that's the honest truth of their association. But now, perhaps, he could see if indeed they could perhaps try being friendly as they acted towards one another. "Unfortunately so." He doesn't blame Vasquez for not liking that particular history that may be between them. Honestly, Goody holds no love for the man for whom he was named. It was the fault of that Goodnight that this one had been pressured into service. Robicheaux war heroes. "I think his mother must have opened the Bible and pointed to the first word she came upon. I count myself fortunate that I am not 'And'. As for what's wrong with us...I haven't that much time to explain it all. It would take an eternity." He keenly holds no love for his own people either.

"But I would just prefer Goody." Only his friends got to call him that. Billy and Sam. Only them. But Vasquez has earned that right. "Though I suppose given the circumstances, dumbass is apt." Yes, he knows exactly what cabron meant.

[quinientos]

Vasquez only raises his brow when Goodnight starts to sound sorry for himself for not getting to be one of Vasquez's friends, because they were together for a week, maybe a day or two more. That's not friendship so much as they held similar ideals and wound up in the same place. Yes, he could see them becoming friends with enough time and alcohol, but not enough that he's sharing first names yet.

He snorts, though, at the name. "I always thought 'Goody' was very ironic," he points out, giving him a dubious look. "With Goodnight, at least it held some truth, no? Goody, it just makes me think that you're trying to be something you're not. You know, like calling Faraday 'Clever'."

[intheashes]

The snort has Goodnight shifting a little. He's never been too fond of his given name. But he doesn't like how on the nose Vasquez is about his chosen nickname. He gives a small and nervous laugh, hand going over the mark cut into his skin. "I could quote some philosopher about the concept of goodness, but in the present location and the present company I fear it would be lost." He doesn't think Vasquez stupid. He just doesn't think the man would have patience for him to talk the finer points of Heraclitus or Plato.

"It sadly does." He's put too many boys to bed, permanently. "And you may be right about that. But abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss.” So sadly Vasquez can't get away from quotes. "And you know I'd never call that boy clever. So I suppose I'll just let you call me what you want. Just be careful of the insults around Billy."