It caught him from behind just as he was preparing to get moving again, while he was putting on his leather jacket, pulling it up over his left arm, his helmet still lying at his feet. The heavy body slammed into his back, the claws digging into his right shoulder and arm, ripping and tearing through fabric and skin and flesh. Blood started streaming down his back and his arm, soaking the ground, soaking his clothes. At first, he didn't even feel the pain, his body going into emergency mode, operating on pure survival instinct.

He managed to push himself up off the ground, turn, and get on top of the beast. With its slavering jaws now snapping at his face, he pushed it down into the wet leaves, then managed to lean on it and pin it down with his good arm while his bloodstained right hand reached for the knife at his hip. The blood from his shoulder and arm kept dripping down on the Changed wolf as he brought the knife up and sank it into the sinewy neck, still holding the animal down as it continued to fight his hold on it until, at last, the light left its amber eyes.

The Hunter exhaled, closing his eyes and allowing his head to sink down onto the dead wolf's chest. With one of its paws resting on his torn shoulder, they seemed to be embracing, and in a way, there had been some degree of intimacy to their interactions. Trying to kill another living being would do that, and he had been tracking it for days.

Slowly, he pushed himself up onto his knees, feeling as if the sky itself was weighing him down. It was light enough by now for him to inspect his wounds without lighting a torch, and what he saw was disheartening. The damage to his shoulder was extensive, with his movements limited already – maybe some of it would be permanent. Moving as slowly as if he were drifting through molasses, he dug his first aid roll from his backpack and rooted through it. Taking off his torn shirt, he slapped several dressings onto his arm and shoulder, fixing them in place with half a dozen rolls of bandages as he made a mental note to get new ones at the next village – and maybe find a medic or herbalist there who could have a look at him.

Once he had taken care of his injuries, he put on his other shirt, followed now by his jacket, helmet, and fingerless gloves. Standing tall over the beast he had fought and killed, he languidly pulled his knife from its sheath again, leaned down and slowly but deliberately set the knife onto the animal's chest right above its heart and pushed it down.

Carefully wiping the blade first on the dewy grass and then on his destroyed shirt, he gently slid it back into its sheath on his hip and secured it in place again before closing his helmet visor, slipping the straps of his backpack over his shoulders and mounting his bike.

The engine roaring to life tore through the early morning silence.

The body, already beginning to Change into its human form as the sun came up, and the Hunter's bloody shirt were the only signs left of his passing.

How had his Companion not come to his aid?

.-.

It was dark by the time the Hunter rode into town – had been for some time, long before he had passed the last marker telling him how far he still had to go to get here. The clouds looked torn, driven across the sky by a fierce, unrelenting wind that had been blowing for days.

The moon was waxing, its light creating fitful shadows on the ground, cast by the naked branches of the trees around him as he took in the village in front of him, the engine of his bike idling, his booted right foot firmly planted on the ground, anchoring him, balancing the weight of the bike.

Looking about himself, all he saw was houses ducking down toward the damp earth as if afraid, with their windows dark, looking like empty eye sockets in skulls long picked clean of flesh, and with their straw roofs moldy from the near-constant drizzle of the past weeks. Just looking at them made him shiver, even though he was dressed in jeans reaching down over his heavy black boots, and a warm leather jacket lined with a gray sweater, with the hood bunched at the nape of his neck along the edge of his helmet to keep out the late October cold.

He raised a gloved hand to push up his helmet visor, which was steaming up with his breath on the inside. Riding open from here on out wouldn't hurt - not far to go now, and he wouldn't be going fast. The letter had said that it was the third house in on the left.

The Hunter put his bike into first gear again, pushing the gear lever down with his left foot, and gently started releasing his clutch even as his right foot rose on its toes, his hand gradually letting go of the brake. He lifted his foot back up to the footrest as the bike slowly started rolling into the village, rumbling softly. The heat rising from the engine felt good, with the cold creeping up on him.

He only looked up at the moon once, his eyes a vivd blue in its cold light.

His Companion would only follow once the moon was down, and daylight on its way.

.-.

The knock on her door nearly had Carol jump out of her skin. His letter had said that he was going to arrive today, but between the cold and the late hour she had stopped expecting him some time ago, assuming that he would prefer to turn in well before nightfall. Nevertheless, she had no doubt that this was him - she had heard a soft rumbling outside, and then a metallic scrape against the cobblestones and a tired grunt.

She got out of bed and put on her warm sweater. As winter was coming early this year, she was already wearing socks in bed again, and she decided that they would be enough for the quick trip downstairs to let him in. She slipped out into the hallway and quickly made her way down to the first floor. Looking toward the door from the foot of the stairway, she saw a shadow on the other side of the glass set into the top third of the door. It looked unusually bulky - until two hands reached up and started tugging and she realized that he was wearing a helmet which he was only taking off now.

Her hand automatically found the switch next to the stairs, and she winced when the lights came on. She padded over to the door and turned the key in the lock, taking a deep breath. This man had been recommended to her by a stranger on his way even further up north, but he had seemed trustworthy enough.

Carol was ready to find out if this Hunter was as good as he was said to be.

.-.

He looked shaggy, almost as if he were a wolf himself. His long, dark blond hair was tied into a bun at the nape of his neck, but some strands had escaped the tie when he had taken off his helmet and hung loosely around his head now. His face showed the wear of the years upon him, and the hours he had spent on the road to get here. His line of work had also left its marks on him, with three parallel scars marring his face from his right cheekbone - narrowly missing his eye - down to his lower jaw.

The Hunter was dressed all in black - leather jacket, jeans, and boots - down to his fingerless gloves. The only lighter item on him was the gray lining of his jacket. Even his helmet was jet black, the once shiny surface marred by scratches and scrapes, much like his face. A small part of her noted that the helmet's visor was spotless, seemingly in mint condition. His jacket was padded at the elbows and shoulders, just in case. His bulky black motorbike sat on its kickstand next to him. The crossbow the stranger had mentioned rode on his back, pointing up at the sky, with a bolt already nocked. He took one last step toward the door, closing in on her, and the light of her ceiling lamp fell into his eyes which had been hidden by shadows until now. Her heart seemed to turn in her chest - they looked like small bits of summer sky caught in his face.

„Daryl Dixon," he introduced himself, his voice dark and rough from hours, maybe days of disuse.

„Carol Peletier," she nodded at him.

The look he gave her was intense enough to make her take a step back, and she tried to make it less awkward by taking another one to the side so he could enter the house. He grunted his thanks as he passed her, and when she closed the door behind him she felt the cold waft off him in waves. He had to be frozen to the bone. „Have you eaten?" she asked, looking at him over her shoulder as she preceded him to the stove where her pot still sat with at least one more serving of the potato and meat stew she'd had for dinner.

„Yeah, we have," he mumbled, his voice surprisingly soft, barely loud enough to hear. She wondered at the „we", but didn't ask. He seemed cold, aloof … intimidating even, yet he also exuded a sense of vulnerability, and of his soul having been hurt, and she wanted to avoid interacting with him tonight as much as possible. She needed time to read him, time to adapt to this overpowering presence in her home, before taking him on.

„Would you like something warm to drink then - some mulled wine, or beer, or maybe tea?" Her hand reached for her small pot to take it to the water barrel, but stilled when he shook his head.

„Jus' a bed, don't need nothin' else tonight", he almost growled, shaking his head. „Need ta be awake again when he arrives in the mornin'." He gave no further explanation of who he was still waiting for. Maybe, since the stranger had met him a while back, he had taken to Hunting with a partner.

Carol showed him to the small room where she had made his bed - the room where no child had ever slept or played. The one she had hoped to have, she had lost a few months in, and this loss had been so devastating that she had not allowed it to happen again. The herb woman, Andrea, had supplied her with what was necessary, and Ed had believed her to the end every time she told him that the tea eased her lingering physical pain in the wake of the loss she had suffered. At the same time, preventing a repeat occurrence of this painful experience ensured that Ed was unable to lay his hands on a child the way he regularly laid them on Carol, leaving her black and blue at least once a week.

The Hunter didn't even look around the room as he entered before shedding his jacket like heavy black armor, dropping it on the single chair standing against the wall. He grunted something that might have been a word of thanks, then sank onto the bed with a sigh that belied his earlier defiant posturing.

Without another word, they nodded at each other and Carol withdrew, leaving the Hunter alone to rest.