Released

Log Title: Released

Characters: Kimber, Major Bludd

Location: Somewhere in Australia

Date: 20 Mar 2016

TP: Killing Jar TP

Summary: Seemingly released from their captivity, Kimber and Major Bludd seek out civilisation.

As logged by  Major Bludd - Sun 20 March, 2016, 7:30 pm

Australian Continent - Australia
Welcome to the land down under, where women glow and men plunder. Can you hear, can you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover. Australia is an island so large it is considered a continent in its own right. Formerly a British penal colony, Australia is known these days for koalas, didjeridoos and Crocodile Dundee. Australia's interior is hot and dry desert, while the coastal regions can be quite mild and pleasant. Tasmania, a smaller island off-shoot, is located off the southeastern coast of Australia, near the province of Victoria. The separate and independent nation of New Zealand is 1,200 miles southeast of Australia. For More Information, see +views.

You awaken from a swirl of half-forgotten memories. Images of you lying on a table while the tentacled alien looming over you, staring down at you with one of its cruel, frightening faces... some sort of machine scanning your body and mind... a rush of moment, and you lifted by one of the sharp-toothed robots... and then you awaken, lying in a field in the clothes you were wearing when you were captured, feeling mildly drugged by otherwise healthy and unharmed.

It's a calm, clear autumn morning. Sunlight filters down from above. Kimber lies next to you. She sits up and touches her head gingerly, as if waking from a dream. A small flock of butterflies erupts into the sky in reaction to the movement. Kimber looks around, and then her gaze focuses on you, and she frowns. "Did that - did that really happen?" she asks in disbelief.

Major Bludd groans, squinting up and holding up an arm to shield his eyes from the brightness of the day. His gaze darts to Kimber as she speaks. "Tentacled robot alien guy?" he asks, sitting up slowly. "Either it happened or it was a curiously specifically-targetted shared hallucination." He rubs absently at a shoulder blade, frowning, then gets cautiously to his feet. "I wonder where the hell we are."

Kimber stands up and looks around, brushing grass out of her pinkish-red hair. The field is empty, and bordered by trees on all sides in the near distance. It's peaceful, at least, and the air feels wonderful after being cooped up in metal cells. It's a near-perfect 72 degrees Fahrenheit. "It doesn't look like LA," Kimber allows. "Is this where you're from? I'm not sure where Cobras are from, really. Don't you have a country in the Middle East now or something?"

"I would hazard a guess that it's not L.A." Bludd sniffs at the air. "Not smoggy enough." He smirks at Kimber and begins walking slowly toward the trees. "Let's see if we can get a better perspective on things. Should be easy enough to tell if we're on the Australian continent, at any rate."

Kimber hurries to keep up in her ridiculous red high heels. The ground is soft and still somewhat dewy. "How can you tell if we're in Australia?" she asks curiously. She stops for a moment, frowns, and finally just takes off her shoes and carries them as she walks barefoot, struggling to catch up.

"I mean, I'm from California and I couldn't tell you if this was a North American field or Africa for all I know," Kimber admits. "Do you think that alien would have left us someplace dangerous? Do you think this is another of its tests? Is it watching us right now?" She looks up and scans the sky, smooth forehead crinkling in anxiety.

Bludd smiles over at Kimber. "Australia has some very unique flora and fauna," he explains. "Eucalyptus trees, for example, grow almost exclusively in Australia. They grow in a few other places, but mostly in Oz." He reaches the line of trees and smiles, reaching out to feel the bark of the nearest one as he gazes up into its droopy branches. "Yep. This is a gum tree. I'd lay odds we're in Australia." He shrugs at her question. "It could be watching us still."

Kimber watches Bludd with wide blue eyes, and looks impressed. "Outrageous!" she exclaims. "You're just full of surprises!" She glances upward at the acknowledgment that they could be watched, but visibly decides to literally shrug it off as well. Instead, she focuses on their present predicament. "Any idea how we might get home? Does moss grow on the north side of trees in Australia?" She bends down and squints hard at the gum tree.

"I grew up in this country; I'd better know something about it. And no," Bludd walks around the tree, examining its trunk, "moss tends to grow on the south side of trees in the southern hemisphere." He sighs at the eucalyptus tree. "Dammit, now I have the kookaburra song in my head."

Kimber grins at Bludd, seeming amused by his predicament and not at all worried about the fact that they're lost, placing her faith in Bludd to get them back to civilization. "What's the kookaburra song?" she asks curiously. "How's it go? Maybe if you sing it'll help," she suggests, wrinkling her cute freckled little nose as she smiles. She straightens up, looking more now at Bludd than the tree or her surroundings.

Without preamble, Bludd begins to sing. "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he." He walks to a nearby, slightly sturdier-looking tree as he sings, and hauls himself up into its lower branches. "Laugh, kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra," he continues to sing, his voice drifting down to Kimber as he all but vanishes into the tree, "gay your life must be."

Kimber squeals and claps with the enthusiasm of a girl a small fraction of her age. "Again! Again!" she calls up gamely towards the sound of Bludd's voice, and attempts to join in on the chorus if Bludd keeps singing. Relief at their apparent escape has her literally giddy as she giggles in joyful mirth at their ridiculous situation. She drops her shoes beneath the tree and tries to climb it as well with her hands and bare feet.

Bludd chuckles as he climbs into the upper branches of the tree. "That good, is it?" He peers down toward Kimber when he feels the tree shake as she starts climbing toward him. "What're you doin'?" he asks, laughing at her. "I'm just trying to get a better view of the area. You don't have to climb up here with me."

Kimber stops climbing a moment, and grins up at Bludd. "Oh! I just thought it was a fun idea! What do you see?" From Bludd's vantage point, he can see a road not too far away, and civilization not much farther still. Kimber finds a nice sturdy branch and sits down, swinging her feet while Bludd reconnoiters the area. Even when Bludd stops singing she continues on with "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he!"

"Looks like there's a place not far off where we can at least ask where we are." He laughs at Kimber's antics, relieved she's not freaking out over being lost or the alien or anything else. As he climbs back down the tree he finds himself not entirely intentionally joining her in song.

Kimber laughs as Bludd re-joins the song, and sings louder and more boisterously as she climbs back down the tree. She risks a barefoot hop down the last bit to the ground. She picks her shoes back up, and then continues to sing as she waits for Bludd to point the way. She then bounds off towards the road, skipping along with grass and mud squishing between her toes. For someone so completely made-up both times they met, it's a weird sight to see her happily muddy and makeup free.

Bludd reaches the ground and sets off toward the road, grinning and shaking his head at Kimber. "What is happenin' 'ere?" he drawls, watching her skip like a schoolgirl. "Is this the same Kimber Benton who called me 'Major Jerk' a few years back?"

Kimber looks over at Bludd and smirks. "That's before I got to know you! I guess you're not so bad when you're not kidnapping people." She frowns, squinting her eyes slightly as gears start to grind in her head. "Do you really kill people for a living? I mean, really? That seems outrageous - you really don't seem the sort." Kimber Benton - eternal optimist, or the worst judge of character in the world?

Bludd frowns, regretting opening the topic. "As I've said, I don't do kidnappings except on the rare occasion they become part of another job. And as a soldier, I've killed plenty of people. It kind of comes with the territory." He sighs, fixing his gaze on the road in front of him as he walks. "But yes, I have killed for money." He flicks a brief glance at Kimber. "If you went back in time and told my teenage self he'd be an internationally wanted terrorist one day, he would have hurt himself laughing. But things change."

Kimber glances back over, and her perky mood sobers. "So how did you wind up on this path, if you don't mind me asking?" she asks quietly. "I grew up with my sisters and we all formed a band - for me it was easy. For you, though - if you could steer your teenage self to a different path, would you? What changed to make you a man who kills for money?" She gulps hard, turning back to the road and looking a little regretful herself that the topic's been changed.

"It's a very long story," Bludd replies quietly, "and some of it you would undoubtedly find deeply upsetting." He stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Short version: I left home for a reason I thought was very very important. I did some things for the wrong reasons. And it just kind of snowballed from there. I would have been happy to keep playing with the band, but people's lives were changing and it just fell apart." He shrugs, not looking over at Kimber. "I did learn one thing, though: never run away from your problems -into- the army. It never helps."

Kimber nods slowly, torn between curiosity and believing Bludd when he tells her she really doesn't want to know. "I'll keep that lesson in mind," she says lamely. "And... I'm sorry bad things happened to you that led you where you are today." She walks silently a moment in thought, and then asks quietly, "Any chance you could quit now, though? Find something else to do - hide out from the cops, and I dunno, G.I. Joe - just maybe play music and leave the fighting behind you?"

Bludd's silent for some time, as Kimber's question brings back memories of a certain bathrobe-clad man and other people in another universe. "A strange yet probably very wise man once told me, 'it's never too late to change'. I can't agree. I certainly can't go back and try to pick up the life I never had," he continues, chuckling bitterly. "But I have considered giving up the soldier's lifestyle. I've tried it several times. But I always get antsy after a month or so. Civilian life doesn't really agree with me." He smirks. "I found that out coming out of the Legion. Against all the odds, I make a good soldier. A good officer." He looks over at her. "Doesn't mean I can't still play music once in a while. But I can't imagine retiring from this life. Even if I could ... I don't want to spend the rest of my life either in prison or on the run. There are a lot of people out there who want a piece of me. A couple of them would be satisfied with just my head."

Kimber shudders at the literal mental image of someone claiming Bludd's head. "I wish there was something I could do," she says in a small voice. "I wish maybe - maybe you could work for good people, instead of bad people, and then you could be a soldier and a good man at the same time." She sighs deeply, as if Bludd's situation physically pains her. "I can't imagine being in your position. I get being bored if you can't do what you do well, but what you do--" She hugs herself as she walks, and shivers even in the warm autumn sun.

"If only it were that simple," Bludd replies. "Most of the 'good people' I can think of would be obligated to dob me in to the US or Interpol or something. I do own a PMC -- a private military company -- and we do some military-grade security when we can. I keep their operations clean, just in case ..." He trails off, frowning. "Sometimes I really do just wanna toss in the towel and drop my contract with Cobra. Though technically I'm out-of-contract at the moment anyway..." He thinks of his agreement with Miles Mayhem and shakes his head. "Maybe for all my skill as a soldier and an officer, I just make really lousy life decisions," he says finally, chuckling and shrugging helplessly. "I've thought for a long time it was just me being too entrenched in the soldier's life, the mercenary's life. I dunno."

Kimber glances over at Bludd and gives him a weak smile. "I know for some poor life decisions, but Jeez Louise - you have me beat. With me it's just going home with the wrong boy or girl and it winding up all over the tabloids for weeks at a time!" She frowns and sighs. "I guess I shouldn't complain when other people have it a lot harder than I do."

Kimber falls silent for a few minutes more, and then says wistfully, "I wish - if I could, I'd just hire you to work Holograms security and then you wouldn't have to fight anymore - except maybe annoying paparazzi." She laughs faintly at her poor attempt at a joke. "Jerrica'd prolly have a stroke, though," she mutters quietly.

Bludd laughs at Kimber's reaction. "I can understand being a rock star has its drawbacks." When she mentions hiring him on as a security man for the Holograms, he stops in the middle of the road and turns to regard her with an odd, curious-yet-disbelieving expresion. "Yeah," he says after a long moment, "she probably would." He tilts his head at her. "Would you really ... really? Me?"

Kimber turns in reaction to Bludd stopping, and then stops to really think about what Bludd asks. "I... yeah. I mean, yeah, Jerrica'd have a stroke, but... you protected me from that alien. You didn't have to. In fact, it might have gone better for you if you hadn't. But you did. I think there's still good in you, Major. You deserve a second chance. If I could give you one.... I would. Really." She looks at Bludd searchingly, wanting to help so badly she seems ready to cry.

"Think maybe even I don't think I deserve one any more," Bludd mumbles, mostly to himself. He steps up to Kimber and lays a hand on her shoulder, returning her searching gaze. "Thank you," he says earnestly, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze, then turning to continue down the road. "C'mon," he calls over his shoulder, "we're nearly there."