Prologue.

When the sun set, the world came to life.

Crickets began their chirping, hidden in the long grass. Fireflies lit up the horizon, like stars come down to earth. Folks stopped working and started drinking. With enough time and patience, one could spend the rest of their days watching the world go by, and never get bored of it.

It had been years since Annie had had the chance to do that. Too many years.

She started running and never stopped. The world got hard, she got harder. But she could feel civilization closing in, like a lasso around an ox's head. She'd known for years that outlaws weren't tolerated anymore. Not even in the Wild, Wild West.

Well, that was America. She knew that Mexico had other plans.

She hadn't been so far south in years, but it was familiar in a way that she hadn't known since. Mountains in the distance, sparse grass for her horse to nibble on, critters that scuttled past her camp. It called her back to decades of gunslinging and thievery.

Thirty years she'd been living on the run, but half of it had been spent alone. It wasn't good for her, loneliness. Someone had said that to her once— a half-blind beggar in Blackwater that clutched at her hands and all but wept until she handed over a dollar.

You look lonely, miss, he'd said. Loneliness ain't good for you. Drives a man crazy, it does... You ain't got no one 'round these parts no more? No father, brother? Not even a husband or somethin'?

She hadn't answered. His eyes, milky-white with cataracts, bored a hole into her very soul. She'd jerked her hand away and tossed a bill into his hat, but the feeling didn't subside. Only the burn of whiskey down her throat dulled the rattle of his words in her skull.

Dirt crunched under Annie's feet as she dismounted from her horse. "Boy," she'd named him— she went through too many mounts as it was, but the old stallion had stuck around long enough.

She tried not to give her horses names. It didn't do her any good to get attached to some mare or gelding that wouldn't make it three months under her lead.

The signs had pointed her west, to a little town called Escalera. "Staircase," in English. And looking at the buildings from a distance, she could see how the town earned its name. The higher the building, the wealthier the occupant, she guessed. The mansion overlooking a hillside full of little shacks was a dead giveaway.

Annie never planned on sticking around long in the towns she visited. They were good sources of cheap bourbon and handsome men, but they never invited anything more than trouble.

She was no Dutch. She couldn't whip up a gang out of nowhere. Hell, she could hardly swindle folks out of their last dollar anymore. It seemed that her fingers always twitched towards her revolver at the first sign of unrest.

The cool air nipped at her neck. She ran her fingers through her short red hair— a rough job, but a necessary one. She'd learned her lesson after a bounty hunter yanked a little too hard on her hair and came away with a fistful. It only felt right, anyway. New world, new hair, new her.

Footsteps echoed behind her. They might have gone unnoticed had she not dismounted a good few hundred feet from Escalera, and if Boy hadn't begun to squeal at his post.

Annie had her revolver aimed at his head almost instantly. Call her jumpy or just plain cruel, but she had mastered the quickdraw in her thirty years of gunslinging. And she had no qualms about killing.

The gun almost fell from her hand at the sight of the man in front of her. He was twelve years older, sure, and lacking the charm she'd known him for, but she didn't forget a face that easily.

Javier Escuella lowered his revolver, saying, "It's... Good to see you again, Annie."

"Tell me why I shouldn't shoot you where you stand," she retorted.

His uneasy grin turned into a short, mirthless laugh. "Come on, you wouldn't shoot me, would you? We was family."

"Were we?" She cocked the hammer on her revolver. "Last I checked, family didn't mean shit to you."

"You cut your hair. Guess now we match, huh?"

"It's been a hard twelve years."

"Come on," Javier said, and raised his hands. "I'll buy you a drink. We can talk."

She didn't know why she did it. A small part of her, one still stuck in 1899, couldn't turn down an old friend. For all she knew, Javier wanted to see her hang, but the thought of having him back was more tantalizing than any bottle of rum or prospect of revenge.

Annie gave a long sigh as she shoved her revolver back into its holster. Javier lowered his hands and took a step closer, though she noticed that he kept glancing at the weapons on her belt. At least he understood that he wasn't yet absolved of sin.

The saloon got real quiet once Javier walked in. Annie had grown used to it, over the years— the whispers, the sudden shift in the air, the looks patrons shot towards the "WANTED" poster on the wall. But when Javier led her into that saloon, the atmosphere was one of fear and disgust, rather than awe.

He sat her down at the bar, ordered something. Annie tipped the brim of her hat lower over her face. Chatter picked up again among the other customers, but it never reached the same liveliness that it once had.

"Didn't realize you'd been keepin' tabs on me," she muttered.

"People talk," Javier said. "I got Bill down here, you know. He's protected by the government."

"I don't give a damn about your crooked government—"

Annie fell silent as the bartender slid two glasses their way. When he'd turned his back, she glared at Javier and shook her head.

"Is that what you are, now?" She asked. "A lapdog?"

"What have you been doing?" He shot back. "Last I heard, you're worth five, six thousand dollars in the States."

"Guess I shouldn't be surprised. You were Dutch's lapdog to the very end."

"That's rich, comin' from you."

She scoffed. "I changed."

Javier let out a short laugh. "I thought you was loyal."

Annie slammed her hand on the mahogany countertop. Her palm stung from the force of the blow, and her ears rang with the impact. Dozens of eyes bored into her, but they were as much background noise as the tune warbling from the gramophone.

"I buried him, Javier!" She snapped. "I was with him until the very end, and where were you? Where was your loyalty that night?"

She turned away then, doubled over in her seat. She wasn't crying, but coughing, working air back into her lungs with deep, forceful breaths. Finally, with a flushed face and watering eyes, she leaned against the bar and met his gaze.

"Don't talk to me about loyalty."

Javier gave a weary nod. She could sense his eyes on her, could feel the drumming of his fingers halt on the countertop. Her entire body felt heavy, and she might have fallen asleep there if he hadn't spoken up.

"You ever miss the old days?"

The tiniest smile came to her lips. "Was Uncle a useless drunk?"

He grinned and nudged her. "You remember when Jack threw one of those, uh, snowballs at him? Up in Colter? Knocked the hat right off his head."

"Aw, that was my fault," she said, shaking her head. "I told Jack I'd take all the blame for it. Didn't stop Abigail from tellin' us both off."

Chuckling, Javier took a swig from the glass in front of him. Annie traced her fingers around the rim of her own glass. The amber liquid inside tempted her, but she didn't have the stomach for it.

"I miss those days," she murmured.

"Yeah." Javier sighed. "You seen anyone since then?"

"Charles and I rode around a bit. Tried to make it as a pair."

He perked up, saying, "Never took you two for a couple."

"We weren't." Annie shrugged, murmuring, "I just didn't want to be alone after..."

She paused, traced her nail along the wood grain of the bar top. Talking about those days always put a lump in her throat, and she only managed to croak out a feeble, "Well."

He must have understood, because he cleared his throat and asked, "How'd that turn out for you?"

"He started fightin' in Blackwater and I went east. Stirred up plenty of trouble in Saint-Denis."

"And now you're here." Javier glanced at her and said, "You gonna stick around long, or no?"

Annie fell silent. She swirled the whiskey around in her glass, watching it slosh and nearly spill over the rim. Every outlaw had a past, but none of them had a future. And she was no exception.

"No," she murmured. "I couldn't if I wanted to."

Javier nudged her, saying, "Am I ever gonna see you again?"

It was a playful gesture. One meant to cull up good memories between them— trading insults over a game of dominoes, outrunning the law after a failed robbery, that night by the campfire back in '95 or '96. But it only put a pit in her stomach.

Outlaws didn't get the luxury of having a future. It was the first thing Annie had sacrificed when she took up that lifestyle, aside from her dignity. And, for about fifteen years, she didn't mind the thought of dying at the hands of civilization, killed in some grand showdown with the law. She almost expected it. Wished for it, even.

But for a few good months, all that changed. She wanted to hope that she could live a little longer, that she could get out of the vicious cycle and settle down. Have a couple of kids, raise some chickens, and die peacefully in her bed at seventy-one. Preferably with her husband of thirty-some years at her side.

Well, he never was her husband. But he was a good man, loathe as he was to admit it. He wasn't kind, and he wasn't patient, but he was good.

Her dream died with him. And once again, she embraced the idea of a young, violent death. The longer she went on her own, it almost seemed like a mercy. Finally, at forty-five, she knew it was coming. And she hadn't known anything that brought her more peace than the idea of leaving the world that hated her behind.

"You got any more stories, Javier?" She asked. It took a concentrated effort to tear her eyes away from the way her whiskey swirled in its glass.

He grinned. "Yeah. I got a few."

"Guess I'm gettin' real sentimental with age," she murmured. "Always hung up on the good old days."

Maybe they ought to have spoken more about the present, about the events of the last twelve years. But with the creeping heaviness in her chest, Annie didn't want to waste precious time talking about the worst years of her life. She wanted a nice conversation about a time she could stand to look back on.

Javier ordered another drink for himself. His gaze lingered on her untouched glass, but he said nothing. Nothing about her drinking habits, that is.

"What sorts of stories do you have, huh?" He asked.

Annie smiled. "How much time you got, Escuella?"

birdie's comments!

love how annie spends this entire prologue completely skirting around almost any mention of arthur morgan or TB. sorry queen but those things still exist even if you pretend they don't

oughhghfdhh rdr javier i want to throttle you but rdr2 javier i want you carnally... the duality of man

anyways i hope javier's happy because he just signed himself up for like 40+ chapters of annie going