𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐫 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 | 𝐉𝐨𝐞𝐥 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 - 𝐓𝐋𝐎𝐔

𝐎𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐡𝐚𝐳𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬.

"You've worked with him?"

"I've worked for him, rather."

"Why? I'd find it hard to believe he's done anything for you to owe him any favours."

Ciri snorts. "And you'd be right to. I don't owe him anything, but he ain't a bad bloke. I'm happy to help out where I can, despite having a pretty rocky introduction."

"Let me guess, he threatened you?"

"Ohh yes." She drawls. "Well actually - he tried to kill me first. I was making my way across the rooftops when he shot up at me from the street, then yelled all kinds of obscenities at me."

Joel hums. "Yeah, that sounds like Bill."

After setting off north for Lincoln, Ciri worked out very quickly that they were heading for Bill's town and mentioned she knew him. Which had prompted the current conversation as Joel wondered what kind of business she did.

"I realised he was on his own, I introduced myself and gave him a good idea of what what happen to him if he tried to kill me again." She says, making him let out an amused breath. "And it just went from there, I ran a couple jobs for him that he couldn't do himself and earned his trust."

"What kinda jobs?"

"Supply runs. He'd let me keep some of the stuff I'd get for him as payment."

"Makes sense." He nods. "So... why do you do it? I thought you just went around savin' people?"

"Various reasons. But 'saving lives' isn't what my purpose simply boils down to. I just want to help give people a chance at this life and in return it gives me a sense of fulfilment, I guess." She explains.

"You ain't at all concerned about the threats from being out here on your own?" He furrows his brows, gesturing his hand as he talked and tried to make sense of it all.

"If I was, do you think I'd have been doing it for over a decade?"

He opens his mouth to respond but closes it again. "I guess not... but..."

"To really answer your question-" She cuts him off. "Of course I am, but you get used to it. It ain't easy by any means but I gained some good habits out of it... and thankfully not paranoia."

"Have you been alone from the very beginning?" Ellie chimes in.

After meeting one another, Ciri and Ellie took it upon themselves to get to know one another for a couple days in the week before they were to depart from Boston QZ. Ciri very vaguely answered Ellie's rapid fire questions about herself, however, this was one she hadn't asked previously.

Ciri glanced back at her briefly but facing forward again. "No... I did have someone with me at some point."

Joel was quick to notice something flash in her eyes as her expression became emotionless.

"Oh..." Ellie frowns, realising she may have dug up some bad feelings.

They all fell silent but their minds were anything but.

After a couple hours, the slight tension eased and Ellie hung behind with Ciri as Joel was ahead.

"Hey, can I ask why you didn't show up earlier?"

Ciri lets out a quiet sigh. "So, you know what I did to those two Fireflies?"

She nods.

"Well, I ran into a bunch of others on my way to you and they tried to ambush me."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah... the one who lead it was the brother to one of the Fireflies I'd killed."

"Oh shit. He was trying to take revenge?"