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It had started to rain, the skies dark almost in mourning.
They dropped onto the ground, as gentle as a feather, yet as heavy as pounds of sand. The wind chilled—that cold sharp kind—against the wet ground. The crunch of feet, or what could best be described as such, crunched onto the ground. A sound, loud, metallic, heavy, had been what had drawn her in, her—sensitive to sound as she was. Her eye, green and confused, gazed upon the now corpse of something that irritated her (note: non-existent?) ears almost as much as the civilians. While they were easy to quiet down, which consequently killed them—Harken had her reasons—the being in front of her didn’t seem capable of even understanding the concept of silence. Not that it ever had a need to.
Its body—oddly metal—was definitely a site to behold: It was large, with almost an ebony shade to its glistening body. It sat, broken and lifeless, upon the ground. It had terrorized Harken the few times she’d seen it, but now with it on the ground, she wondered just what had been strong enough to take down such a thing. Clearly it hadn’t been those nosy civilians, not possible, not probable, but then that raised the question of WHAT. It chilled at her core, distracting her from the noise caused by one of the civilians. They approached Harken with caution, trying to be as silent as possible. Unable to speak, they slid over a note—while keeping some distance of course—unsure if The Harken could read it.
This took Harken out of her thoughts, looking away from the corpse of the being so evil, and scary, and towards the Civilian. This one wore an orange shirt, along with punch gloves Harken always found these particular Civillians—along with Revolver and Block—to be difficult to deal with. Although in Harken's opinion, taunt was very well the WORST one. That one was loud, obnoxious, and ungodly. She didn’t dwell on him—she didn’t think he deserved to be dwelled upon—instead she took the note, noticing how similar the writing in the note was to where she was from although it was notably missing a few letters. She looked towards the civilian, then towards the note, before looking towards the civilian once more. She clicked, as if trying to ask the civilian about it, but instead seemed to realize they really only had written communication.
[There’s no one else like you, and you don’t seem to like noise very much. Can you stop attacking us? You’re the only thing hurting us… other then a couple robots, an apex predator and, a french guy. I’m sure the others can be quiet. That’s what bugs you, right?]
Harken stepped forward carefully, like the floor might crack beneath her if she moved too fast. She looked down, searching for any sign of a trick. Any sign that this was some kind of trick, and pondered to herself. It was a quiet clicking noise—almost reminiscent of some kind of bug, or something else that clicked.
Harken let herself stare down at the civilian, her thoughts wandering to the note. Attacking? Technically she was saving them. They didn’t realize that she was keeping the noise down, and instead of being relieved or thanking her, they almost acted as if SHE was the scary one… It took her a bit too long to come to that realization. She nodded down at Punch—since they didn’t share the same verbal language and she wasn’t about to try and figure out english any time soon.
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It took lots of adjusting.
Harken, despite how irritated the noises made her, was as of now ‘docile’. She didn’t quite know what that word actually meant, but she figured it meant some version of safe or normal. She was learning all of kinds of different things, and so was her ‘housing partner’. The government didn’t exactly know she was living there, they knew she was alive and possibly in a quiet area, but they didn’t care to know the extent. How reliable.
Caretaker, who had volunteered once Punch brought harken to where the others were—of course being scolded by the others (mainly revolver) for such a stupid thing, had all managed to figure out that writing in notes could work: with Punch agreeing to tutor Harken on spoken words. She knew a few, although she was unable to speak them much herself (Read: Harken probably doesn’t have a tongue or mouth, hence lack of verbal ability), but at least she could say she knew.
Caretaker, who was only keeping a watch on Harken so that it was easier to calm her from being overwhelmed—Caretaker chalked it up to calming down Harken like one would dealing with Civilians with disability—and always kept a quiet tone. They knew even with explaining things, it wasn’t a good idea to introduce loud noises to Harken right away, as it still startled her. Caretaker was still trying to figure out how exactly Harken could hear, perhaps make her a pair of earphones so she wouldn’t freak out as much, but for now they kept it to trying not to startle her. Harken herself was trying to be mindful, although there were accidents…
But Caretaker, being Caretaker, managed to patch them up. So far, only 3 cassualites and 30 injured. Not terrible numbers when you consider the hundreds killed prior. They didnt wish to dwell.
Nobody wants to dwell on the dead.
The only issue, aside from the injuries, was Taunt. They couldn't help taunting Harken, which given his name wasn’t a surprise mind you, but also was a handful and annoying to deal with. Harken, still, did not like him—he was loud, obnoxious, and honestly she doubted she’d ever think of him any lower than she already did. He would wait till Harken was asleep, then bang pots above her head while shouting “Wuss! Wuss!”, which was annoying enough on its own, but add every loud sound known to man and getting her aggravated on purpose was just as bad.
Loveshot also wasn’t the biggest fan, although he isn’t much of an issue. In the beginning he aided Taunt, provided him a soundboard of sorts, but eventually left it alone after it became boring. He and Harken tend to hang out in the garden, which Caretaker is thankful for. Harken has a friend, other than Caretaker themselves, and she seems quite happy.
If only the other killers could be calmed in such away, but that was only wishful thinking. Harken was hard enough to have as is, and nobody could forgive a willing killer. Someone unwilling, someone scared maybe—they’d managed to fit in with the others after all….
But nobody could forgive someone who lashes out in anger, someone who kills and knows that its wrong.
Someone like…
Artful.