we're not villains [open, joining/newcomer] we're not saints

[Darky]

Protection for servitude; most people wouldn’t take such a deal, especially when someone as.. Strange, as Sel was, offered. But John was desperate to leave the prison-turned-colony which still was technically a prison, since nobody was allowed to leave. It was a shitty deal, since he’d been falsely imprisoned for drug crimes and he wasn’t exactly the toughest guy in the world.

Still, he managed to survive after everything went to shit by living in abandoned solitary blocks and keeping to himself. He caught rats and traded the meat for matches, blankets and clothing. It wasn’t much, but he was living. He even managed to snag a sweet cougar cape-cowl thing off someone too ill and delirious to realize they were trading away something valuable for rat meat.

But living in the prison wasn’t all fun and games. The hierarchy was whoever had the most drugs and alcohol and could protect their stuff; most people had been drug addicts or alcoholics before getting locked up, and they sure as hell hadn’t stopped being that way. The makeshift boss kept the population under control using the illegal items by using them to pay people for work and goods.

But he’d never dabbled in such things, so he had to be paid in other ways; his payment was usually keeping his face intact though.

So was it really that strange when he took the deal to escape this hellhole, if it meant a couple years playing butler for some half-insane chick? Couldn’t be any worse than his original situation.

John trotted behind Sel as they approached what looked to be a city. No giant walls or otherwise ways to keep him trapped; that was good, he didn’t really like enclosed spaces anymore.

His cape was gently flowing behind him; it was rather good quality, considering it was made out of a literal cougar pelt. It was preserved and everything though, so it would never rot or start to smell because of decomposition.

The cowl was up, but it was pretty much just a bear-face hood with some extra fur to protect his neck. It was pretty fucking weird, and it felt weird too, so he’d lined it with soft fur from rabbits the second he got outside the prison. It helped keep the sun off his head though, so he tolerated it.

“This is the place?” John asked, turning to his companion as he looked at the city.