Dante Sarante knew what everyone in the camp thought of her and the fact was that she didn't care.
She had dealt with the way people looked at her all her life.
When Dante was around her sister, Nora, people always looked at her this way.
This wasn't Nora's fault and Dante would never blame her sister for it, even if she resented the other woman for it - just slightly.
Nora was...well...perfect.
Nora was beautiful, tall, extraordinarily intelligent, kind, and patient. She had been a researcher at the CDC before all of this shit went down and Dante went to get her out of the city before she could get trapped in the hell hole it subsequently became.
Nora had beautiful, short, curly, brown hair that bobbed just below her chin. She was slender and tan, reaching at about 5'9 in a pair of tennis shoes. She wore little red rimmed glasses on the end of her nose that only accentuated her cute face even more. She was strikingly smart, knowing quite a bit about anything and everything you could think to ask about, and she knew more than anyone else in their survivor group about the dead who had returned to life.
Dante, on the other hand, was barely 5'3 in her rugged black, hunting boots. When anyone saw her and her sister together they were immediately shell shocked by Dante's palor in comparison to Nora's beautifully tanned skin. Well, maybe their contrasting skin wasn't the only thing that made them shell shocked... Dante also had a head full of long, dark blue hair. She had a tendency to tie it back in a ponytail but if it was worn down it would reach her lower back.
Nora also had a tendency to wear cute little blouses and, before the apocalypse, matching skirts. Nowadays, Nora wore her cute blouses with a pair of blue jeans and her running sneakers. Dante still wore what she had always worn - a pair of beat up old black jeans that conformed to her shape all the way down to her ankles, her equally beaten up black boots and a plain colored tank top beneath a long sleeved plaid shirt.
Nora had always made fun of her for having so many variations of the same thing in her closet. Dante had about 5 different colored plaid over shirts to choose from and at least 50 different tank tops in varying colors. Only a few pairs of jeans though, she was too petite to find many pairs of pants that fit her comfortably, although she would never admit it. Her height was a sore spot for her that only her sister could tease her about and hope to get away with it.
On this particular day, Nora was about to go out on a run to Atlanta with a few of the other survivors that they had met up with on the highway.
Dante had fought with Nora about her going at first but Nora had assured her younger sibling that she was smart, fairly fast and she really just wanted to contribute more to the group than doing laundry.
Dante had struggled with letting her go at first. Even though Nora was the older sibling Dante was fiercely overprotective of her and had said that if Nora wanted to go that she wanted to go with her, but Nora told her that they would be fine being separated for one day, just a few hours even! And had eventually convinced Dante that they needed Dante there to hunt for more food.
Nora knew that only Dante and the Dixon brothers knew how to hunt, not that they ever hunted together.
Daryl, the younger of the Dixons, was already off hunting somewhere and Merle was planning on going along to Atlanta.
This only worried Dante more, as Merle Dixon was not the kind of guy she wanted her precious Nora around.
"That punk ass puts a hand on you and I will cut it off myself." Dante warned Nora.
Nora only rolled her eyes and patted Dante's head, earning a glare from her little (in every way) sister before getting into the car and heading off to Atlanta.
Dante grabbed her crossbow, her prized possession, and a backpack full of essentials - a few water bottles, a flashlight, the last of her granola bars - and set off into the woods to go hunting just an hour or so later.
That was another thing that often earned her strange looks, and Dante knew that the younger Dixon brother had noticed it as well.
To the strangers that she now shared a campsite with she often seemed more similar to Daryl Dixon than to her own sister.
Honestly though, Dante had hardly ever spoken a word to anyone in the campsite, both of the Dixon brothers included.
She had observed Merle's sordid behavior though, and had almost picked a fight with him once, Nora had put a hand on Dante's shoulder and stopped her before she could cause any trouble, always being the more calm and rational of the two of them.
Not to say that Dante was hotheaded, or at least, she didn't think of herself as being hotheaded. She just didn't like racist, sexist pieces of shit like Merle Dixon and since the world ended and there were no more prisons, she was finding less and less reasons to put up with the kind of bullshit that Merle was constantly putting out.
As she entered the woods, Dante fiddled with the star shaped locket she wore on her neck, noting the tracks of the Dixon brother who was currently out hunting and making sure to go in the opposite direction.
Dante thought fondly back to her sixteenth birthday, when Nora had presented her with the locket containing a picture of the two of them.
She hummed down at the locket as she stepped quietly through the woods, she was small in both stature and size and it made her tread through the woods light and quiet, perfect for hunting.
Ahh yes she thought, catching sight of a rabbit some fifteen feet in front of her. Nora loved rabbit a lot more than the squirrels that Daryl often brought back.
Dante couldn't wait to see the look on her face when she got back to camp.
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Only the next morning when Dante returned to camp, it seemed like everyone was there BUT her sister.
"Nora?" Dante called out, as she stepped around their tent, peeking inside to find no one.
"Nora!?" Dante called out, louder.
"Dante, hold on for a minute now." Dale calls down to her from the top of the RV.
"Why? What's going on? Andrea's back, where the fuck is my sister!?" Dante yells up at him.
A man Dante doesn't recognize walks up to her then and Dante takes a step back, not allowing him to impose his height on her.
"Who the fuck are you?" She breathes out, looking him up and down. He's dressed in a plain, white shirt and a pair of dark slacks with creases down the center of each pant leg from being pressed. She recognizes the style and narrows her eyes at him.
He opens his mouth to speak but at that moment screams erupt from the edge of the forest and he takes off running in that direction.
Dante throws her hunting bag, now stuffed with three rabbits, down to the dirt and then races off after him, crossbow at the ready.
When she catches up, most of the men from camp are already taking turns beating the crap out of a walker that had, apparently been munching on a deer.
Dante frowns and goes to inspect the deer, finding several bolts similar to the ones that she uses in her own crossbow sticking out of it.
Once the men have decapitated the walker they turn to look at her.
"That your handiwork?" Shane asks her, looking down at the deer.
Before she can answer the sounds of twigs snapping behind her make her spin around, raising her crossbow and pointing it towards the moving branches until -
"Son of a bitch! That's MY deer!" The younger Dixon brother barks as he emerges from the brush.
He squints at her as she lowers her crossbow but he doesn't raise his own in return.
"Look at it. All gnawed on by this stupid!" He begins kicking the still walker body in anger, "Disease bearing!" *kick "Motherless!" *kick "Poxy bastard!"
"I been tracking this thing for miles. Gonna cook us up some venison. What ya think? We can cut around this chewed up part right here?" Daryl continues.
Dante rolls her eyes and begins walking away when she notices the head of the walker, still blinking and growling, despite being some feet away from its body.
Dante sighs as Amy and Andrea rush away, Amy clutching her stomach like she's going to be sick.
She aims at the skull of the thing but another arrow meets the walker's eye before she has a chance to discharge her weapon.
She turns back and glares.
"Too slow, smurfette." Daryl says, smirking and moving forward, grabbing his bolt back out of the walker's eye before stalking off towards the camp.
She scoffs in his general direction but says nothing, just moves to follow him back towards the camp.
"Merle! Hey Merle! Get your ugly ass out here! I got us some squirrel!" He yells into the camp and that's when Dante notices that she hasn't seen or heard Merle during her search for her sister either.
Dante hurries towards the center of camp, looking around for either one of their missing siblings.
"Daryl, Dante, just slow up a bit, I need to talk to you." Shane says, putting his rifle away in his jeep.
"About what?" Daryl asks, stopping to turn and look at Shane.
Dante leers up at him and the newcomer.
"Where's my sister, Shane?" Dante growls, straight to the point.
Daryl looks down at her for a moment and then peers around the campsite.
Dante can practically hear those rarely used gears in his brain turning.
"Well that's kinda what I need to talk to you both about." Shane continues.
Dante continues to glare at him. Daryl looks at her and then can't seem to decide where to look after that.
"There was a...problem in Atlanta." Shane says finally and Dante shakes her head, she doesn't want to hear what she's sure he's about to say..
"He dead?" Daryl asks finally, and Dante's glad that she didn't have to ask it because she really didn't want to.
They both watch Shane now, Daryl is kind of pacing back and forth, displaying a bit of pent up energy that Dante is also feeling in this moment.
"We're not sure." Shane say.
"The fuck do you mean you're not sure!?" "Either he is or he ain't!" Daryl and Dante both yell, voices overriding one another's.
The newcomer approaches them both then and Dante turns her glare on him immediately.
"There's no easy way to say this so I'll just say it."
"Who are you!?" Daryl barks out and Dante just keeps her mouth shut because Daryl is already asking all the same questions that she wants answers to.
"Rick Grimes." He answers shortly.
"Rick Grimes. You got somethin' you wanna tell me?" Daryl fires back at him.
"Your brother was a danger to us all. So I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there." He answers calmly.
"Hold on, lemme process this." Daryl says, walking away a few steps, his face growing red.
"What about my sister?" Dante asks, and Rick won't meet her eyes.
"IS SHE DEAD?!" Dante yells when he doesn't answer her.
"You tellin' me you handcuffed my brother to a roof and you LEFT HIM THERE!?" Daryl screams at Rick suddenly and Dante sidesteps to keep herself out of his direct path to Rick.
"Yeah."
Daryl chucks his string of squirrels at Rick and then makes to tackle him but Shane tackles Daryl to the ground first and immediately gets him in a chokehold.
Dante doesn't know why she does it, probably just the pent up anger she's feeling from getting no answers about her sister, but she rushes Shane and tackles him sideways, effectively releasing his chokehold on Daryl.
Daryl coughs and splutters on the ground for a moment and Shane shoves her off of him and roughly to the dirt.
Dante's back on her feet in an instant and about to pull out her knife -
"Now look! I want to have a calm discussion about this, do you think you two can manage that!?" Rick shouts at them both.
"Get that damn knife outta your hand girl before I take it from you." Is all Shane says and Dante nearly growls at him.
"I'll take him, you take Grimes." Daryl mutters to her and she eyes him uneasily. Since when are they partners in crime?
"I want some fucking answers. NOW!" She screams at Rick, louder than any of them are expecting and Daryl makes a face at her.
"Look now, what I did was not on a whim. Merle does not work and play well with others..." Rick says calmly to Daryl before turning to look at her.
"As for you...Dante, is it?" Dante only glares at the sheriff.
He knows her damn name. Small talk does not go over well with her.
"Dante, your sister was knocked out by Merle right before we escaped Atlanta. T-Dog was the only one left on the roof at that point and he wasn't able to carry her down to us."
Dante turns her glare on T-Dog then.
"Look, it's not Rick's fault. I had the key. Merle wanted it. He tried to punch my lights out...Nora got in the way and he punched hers out instead. I tried to pick her up but...Merle had already kicked my ass and your sister's big, even if she is skinny. I...dropped the key to the cuffs in the process." He says nervously, not meeting anyone's eyes.
"You couldn't pick it up?" Daryl asks.
Dante's about ready to lunge at T-Dog now.
"I dropped it down a drain." He explains.
"Where the fuck did you leave her!?" Dante shouts at him. She can hear Daryl sniffling a little behind her.
"Now, calm down." Shane says, approaching her from the side, trying to flank her.
She takes another step towards T-Dog.
"You said he punched my fucking sister out and then you left her there, was she within grabbing distance of him then? Was he somewhere he could fucking grab her!?" She screams at him urgently.
"I...I dragged her a little ways...I don't know." T-Dog answers, still not meeting her eyes.
"You're telling me you left my big sister knocked out cold on a fucking roof with MERLE DIXON!? Mr. 'NICE TITS' DIXON!?" She screams at him. Shane is taking another step towards her and she snaps her head to the side to glare at him.
"Don't you fucking worry about me, Shane. I'm not going to kick his sorry ass. Just tell me where the fuck you left her so I can go get her before Merle does something he's going to fucking regret!" She yells.
"My brother ain't a rapist!" Daryl snarls at her.
"I don't fucking know that!" She snarls straight back.
"Just what the fuck you tryna say?" He barks, stepping toward her. Dante is aware of Shane taking a step towards them too now.
"What I'm trying to say is: look the fuck around you! These women here all lasted because they had men protecting them. Women and men were fifty fifty in this country before this shit broke out but I'm willing to bet that those odds are no longer in our favor, ladies!" She shouts, looking around at the women in the camp.
"Understand that the longer we survive this shit, the rarer we're going to become. Before the dead started waking back up, you know what killed women more than anything else on this god damn planet? MEN. Merle's a racist, sexist, punk that I wouldn't even wipe my damn boots on and now he's handcuffed to a roof next to my beautiful UNCONSCIOUS sister." She growls.
The camp is silent.
Dante looks at Daryl but he's pointedly looking at the dirt now.
"Look, I chained the door to the roof so the geeks couldn't get at them. It was all I could do. It's padlocked. They're not getting through that." T-Dog says.
"Like that makes it any better!" She shouts at the man.
"The hell with all y'all! Just tell me where my brother is so's I can go get him!" Daryl snarls.
Dante looks from T-Dog to Rick, expectantly.
"He'll show you." Lori says suddenly, and everyone turns to look at her. "Isn't that right, Rick?" She adds quietly.
Rick looks between Dante and Daryl and then finally nods.
"I'm going back."
Dante and Daryl both immediately go to get their crossbows from their respective resting places and Dante unloads the rabbits from her pack to make room for anything else she might need.
She catches Daryl looking at her but when she turns to look back at him he looks away.
Shane starts making a fuss about Rick going back to save Merle and Nora.
"A douchebag and a biologist, man? Neither of them are worth it, Rick, you just made it back."
"That's easy for you to say, it's not your fucking family up there!" Dante growls, coming up to Shane and Daryl immediately stands behind her, backing her up literally.
"You, Daryl and...Dante? That's your big plan?" Lori asks. Dante glares at her.
"Why do you people act like I don't exist? I get that you don't like me, I don't like you either, but I've brought in half the food that you sure as hell don't mind eating! My sister taught you how to disinfect your water with bleach instead of boiling it, which is actually safer, and you act like we're not worth shit to you!? Fuck you!"
"Calm down or I'll take you down." Shane says, stepping towards her, looming over her.
To her surprise Daryl steps in front of her then.
"You gonna beat up a little girl now?" Daryl growls at the other man.
"Is that what you all see me as!? My sister is older than me but I'm twenty-seven. I know how I might look but I have my fucking driver's license to prove it. I'm not some little fucking girl, I'm a woman and I can hold my own!" She snarls.
"Hey, hey, no one is saying that you can't." Rick says, turning back to look at her. "But I wouldn't mind having an extra hand." He adds, turning to look at Glenn then.
"Oh, come on." Glenn groans.
"In and out, like you said." Rick starts, and Dante scoffs, heading back to her tent to stuff her pack with a few extra water bottles.
When she comes back Daryl is already climbing into the back of the big van that everyone but her sister and Merle had rode back to camp in. Dante sighs and shoulders her crossbow, checks that her knife is secure in it's holster and then jumps into the van after him.
"Hey." Daryl says, his voice is low and gruff and she realizes that he's never talked to her like this before.
Quietly, just between the two of them when no one else is around.
Well...he had once...they had nearly shot each other hunting in the woods at the same time, but then he had only scoffed and told her she was lucky he didn't put an arrow in her head before stalking off in the other direction.
This was different.
He seemed almost...gentle.
"Didn't mean to say you were a kid. Didn't know you were that old." He mutters and Dante is a little surprised.
She's still riled up about her sister but this is the closest to an apology that she thinks anyone has ever gotten from one of the Dixon brothers, although they've both had plenty to apologize for since their camp had come together.
Dante just puts a hand on his shoulder and nods and then Glenn enters the truck and Daryl immediately shakes her off his shoulder, all gentility lost.
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