foundherhero | There is nowhere to stop anywhere on this road

And they say the world spins madly on, they tell you that it's a blessing you're still breathing but she's not sure, she can't tell if it's good enough or not.

Clover its in a corner of the little shack they found, hiding away from the heat of the day and the sandstorms that were threatening to fall upon them. Her hands are wrapped around her knees and she's watching Zephyr, looking like she's waiting for something.

She wants to ask the other girl to tell her that this is what they should be doing, that traveling is going to be worth it one day. Zephyr has never been the optimistic one though and when Clover's faith in the world falters, she find herself unsure of where to turn.

"Zeph?" she questions, tilting her head to the side. "Think we can just...I dunno, play a game or something?" It's the best she can do without flat out asking Zephyr to tell her everything is going to be allr ight, that they aren't going to die in the wastes of the desert and that looking for something good in the world is still worthwhile.

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As per usual when they ended up in places like this, when they had a roof over their heads for the first time in months Zephyr sat by the single window. It would be hard to see through the sandstorm when it came but some visual warning was better than nothing. So she'd taken up a perch on a creaky table, her weapons laid out next to her as she tended to each of them.

But Clover is quiet. Too quiet for her. Sure they could go hours without a word to each other, just walking through the desert heat in silence. However when they found places like this one or when they simply stopped for the night they would talk. Well, Clover would talk and Zephyr would respond in simple answers. Which meant there was something on the other girl's mind - something she wouldn't say outright.

So when the question comes, Zephyr's not surprised. She puts down her handgun and turns to face Clover. "What kind of game?"

"I dunno," she admits. "Just...something. I'm bored." The lie stumbles out of her mouth and hits the air between them. It's clumsy and awkward but it's the best she can do.

"What sort of games did you play when you were back home?" She didn't get to play a lot of games herself, having been busy trying to keep what little energy she had after being used as a human battery to do simple things like eating and bathing. It was taxing being the thing that a small village ran on and it always left her nearly comatose.

And yet she found herself missing it, found herself craving that need to be used, that ability to be of service. It's not that she can't be of use to Zephyr it's more that the only way she knew how to be useful was by using her power and that never sat well with Zephyr.

A few games came to mind but they were all so childish - something Clover would like but not something she was willing to play. Not anymore. There was one that she knew how to play, a game she learned from watching her drunken mother the few times she'd gone to try and collect her from the bar. It came in handy when they did find themselves in a town. Zephyr won a lot of supplies from the local drunks.

So she grabs her bag and hauls it over to dig in it for a moment before pulling out a battered pair of cards tied together with a string. Zephyr holds them up.

"How about poker?" She hops off the table, grabbing a crate to drag it over to Clover's corner as a makeshift table.

She grins, simply pleased by the fact that she is being indulged. "Okay!"

She uncurls herself andsettles across Zephyr, looking quite pleased. "Do we gotta place bets? Cause I don't have anything interesting to bet with."

The idea of making bets was entertaining enough to make Zephyr smile a little. She leans over to scoop up a pile of rocks, splitting them up evenly between the two of them. "Betting is the best part of the game."

But then she shrugs. Most of what they got was shared between the two of them anyway. "We'll just keep the betting for fun." Nothing would really change hands.

She's beaming all over again, quite pleased with ow things have worked out. "Okay! That works for me."

There's a bit of squirming on her part, excited by the prospect of the game and maybe, just maybe, winning. Though she's not much of a poker player, she enjoys the idea of maybe getting good enough to win against Zephyr at one point.

She shuffles the cards like a pro before dealing. Then, without looking up from her cards, says: "You wanna talk about what's bugging you?"

Because she can always tell. Even if she pretends not to notice when Clover's mood suddenly shifts, Zeph knows. It's just that she's not good with talking about feelings or other such things.

"it....I don't know." She bites her lip, looking away. "I don't know what to say."

She pushes a few strands of hair back, eyes losing for a moment. She wants the words to be there, wants to be able t tell Zephyr what's bothering her but it feels like a hand is losing around her throat and keeping her from actually using words.

"Are we doing the right thing?"

Right up until Clover asks that question she was doing a great job of staring intently at her cards. Then her gaze finally flicks upwards towards the other woman.

"The right thing? We're surviving. We're taking care of ourselves when no one else would. How is that not the right thing?"

She had no sympathy for those who refused to take care of themselves, who would sell out their neighbor. This world was beyond cruel, it was sick. Something evil festered beneath the surface that would end up killing them all if it went untreated.

"I don't..I don't know." she admitted. "I feel like..Like we should be doing more than surviving. Like three's something we can do to make things better but we're not. We're getting by but so many people aren't. We're running away. We're hiding."

She looks down at her cards, embarrassed for having said what she was thinking. She knows Zephyr's thought son this sort of thing but she couldn't help but put it out there all the same.

"Clover, most of the people we come across would sell you to the cities. They only want to use you. That means their problems should not be ours. We learned how to survive without handing someone over for money or supplies, they should too. If they don't want to then that's not our problem."

Just as Clover knew her thoughts, she knew Clover's thoughts on the matter. Those who couldn't support themselves and depended on sacrificing someone else deserved to die.

"I know, I do, I just...I can't help it." She bites her lip, looking away, feeling almost embarrassed by her thoughts. "I still feel bad for them. They...They look like they're dying, some of them anyway, and just...I don't know."

She looks up again. "I just wish we could help or something or....I don't know. Not let them down. I feel like I'm letting them down when I'm not doing anything."

"They are dying, Clover. They're fighting for survival every day." Yet Zephyr felt no sympathy for them. Even though the destruction of their world wasn't their fault, it was their responsibility to make it better but instead they fought. They resorted to killing each other and stepping over corpses to get their way.

Zephyr shakes her head. "They're responsible for their own actions. Not us."

There is nowhere to stop anywhere on this road

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