Maybe Ellie might as well be diving into a shark tank with a bunch of juicy fish tied to her body, but you know what? Sometimes you gotta make sacrifices if you want to get something good. She doesn't have anything to hide... (Okay, that's absolutely a lie - but whatever. Don't burst her bubble. She can TOTALLY do this.)

So, there's a non-committal shrug of her shoulders in response to the first question; it's an easy enough one to answer.

"She knew my Mom back in the day." It makes her briefly think of her backpack and what few possessions she has now lost to her. Mom's letter, the switchblade - she really hopes they're safe wherever the hell they are. "So I kinda knew her from around."

'Around.' It's a long story and the details wouldn't be particularly interesting to Tess, she figures. That works.

"What'd you do before? Before the outbreak happened."

Ellie isn't sure how old Tess was when it all went down, but she's kind of curious what life was like for her - and why she eventually ended up a smuggler. Was she like Joel, someone who had lost everything? Or had she slowly gravitated toward that line of work for personal reasons?


[ ooc: Whaaaat, I have been out of the loop on the HBO deets this sounds... super promising?! I wish they would just give us a nice big hefty chunk of goodness from that whole time period, it would easily make for its own show, game, DLC, what the heck ever!!! ]