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Isiah sighed, shutting his eyes. It felt like an eternity ago that he actually had a purpose, and going back that far through what seemed like months of haze through their time in the shelter was difficult. "I was a cop," he started. "Or.. training to be a cop. Just graduated from boot camp and I was on my way to an assignment." He rubbed the back of his neck, turning his head away. "I was in so deep by then with my tribe that.. Well. I couldn't have both."

Denziens sold drugs and weapons to survive. They couldn't hold real jobs in the way that most people could. Tattoos held a certain taboo, especially after people found out what they meant and what they were for. Isiah's superiors were not stupid. They knew what he was the second that they hired him on- no vagrant teen like he was could have afforded to spend all that time working out or the ink he had, and his excuses for bruises, contusions, sprains and broken bones were laughable, time after time. They had kept him in hopes of having a mole inside.

Isiah had originally been interested in the force because he had a strong sense of justice- and while he didn't like what his people.. well, the gang he was in, was doing, it was a matter of survival, of necessity. When the time came to set him up on assignment, and his superiors tossed the idea out to him, he set his badge down then and there and didn't come back.

"It never amounted to anything, I guess," he finished, after a long pause. He felt intensely uncomfortable then, scratching along the back of his burnt neck. "You?"

Isiah looked him over for a moment before shrugging. It suited him. He probably had some pretty damn good eyesight. Or.. maybe not. He didn't know that much about dog..s? Wolves? ... Huskies? Whatever. "Bet it paid good," he stumbled, just to break the silence. "Better than I woulda been paid anyway."

Isiah nodded slowly, pushing up on his knees to stand before bending down to heft the duffel bag over his shoulder. He adjusted the strap to have it hang diagonally over his back, bending down to pick up his jacket to toss it over his shoulders. "Rested as I'll ever be." He started walking, slowly and tentatively- he couldn't see too good in the dark, after all. He caught pace soon enough.

There was a good few minutes of silence before Isiah figured.. better now than never. "What do you want to know?"

Isiah shrugged, slinging it off of his shoulder to offer it to him, folding his arms while he waited for the other to adjust. He let his former question dangle- maybe he'd forget about it. One could only hope.

He sighed, nodding once or twice. "There was a certain.. religious aspect to it. I wasn't in it for heaven or for rewards later on." He peeled now dead skin off of the back of his neck, grimacing before flicking it downward. "There was safety in it. In the routine. Same thing, every day." He looked down at his pectorals, then his arms, wondering where to start. "... It says a lot of things, I guess." He ran his finger from the waves first. "Migration from the homeland to mainland.." trailing over to his other pectoral. "Battle of the Kanes.. a lot of people died.." He let his eyes wander, pointing from piece to piece. "That's where I made Ceta.." He sighed. "I don't even remember all of it anymore."

That was a lie. Tattooing was too time intensive and too painful to forget. But he didn't have the energy to go on describing every single one of them.. it would take days. Not to mention a lot of it went on beneath his beltline.

He smiled a little, teeth gleaming in the quick glow that Q's eyes offered before it vanished. "I did all right," he said with a chuckle. "It took a lot of work and time to stay there. I tried for Alpha once or twice but never made it." He almost winced at the thought.

He nodded slowly. "I know something about it, yeah." He knew it was a way to open up the ranking system to him, so he did. "We dropped the psychological," he began, reaching up to brush short read hair back, stifling a yawn in his throat. "Fought for rank. In the most.. civilized way men can fight. No weapons. You announce your bid and the other member has to agree. Submission or knockout." He cleared his throat. "Everyone starts on the bottom and works up."