Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead or any of it's characters, merely Arlen and Avery Derringer. (Though I confess I wouldn't mind owning Daryl Dixon lol)
On November 7, 2000, a young colt was born. The first albino Arabian colt that Colt Derringer had seen in over thirty years. There was a huge celebration the next day that welcomed the young mare, Alpine Mountain she was named, into the world.
Two days later, there was another colt born. A bay-colored stallion. Nothing special, just a normal American Quaterhorse. There was no celebration, just a happy horse breeder and his two young children to take care of the newborn. Colt and his thirteen year old son, Arlen, paid little attention to the colt outside of basic maintenance.
No, the love of this colt lay in the hands of the breeder's eleven year old daughter, Avery.
Every day, Avery would take over the colt- whom she lovingly named Winchester, or Ches for short- and his maintenance, but she would also be diligent in taking him out so he could grow up happy.
But as the years passed, all the horses, Alpine included, were sold off to pay for the expenses. Colt grew older and older, his health fading more and more each day.
Arlen joined the Marines soon as his seventeenth birthday rolled around, and served a happy six year term as a sniper before coming back home to the little town outside Atlanta, working on a family-owned farm in the Georgia Country, but not without his disturbances.
Avery was selected at the age of fifteen for a special music school for her singing, even had a chance to become famous, yet she said no and spent her spare time coming home and riding Ches around as much as she could. The last time she saw him, he was happily munching an apple from her step-mother's hand.
She'd been living with a friend in a little town not far from the city.
That was not the happy animal laying in front of her now. In the streets of Atlanta, where he shouldn't have been. He should have been in his pen, eating grass and laying in the sun. But no. He was here. Ripped to shreds, his entrails spread all over the ground around them.
Avery shook her head, pushing up her red sunglasses and massaging her forehead. So much had happened. First the fever spread, then people died...then they came back. The siblings had been in Birmingham, visiting sick cousins, but sped back when they heard of the fever that was plaguing the area. They came home to the dead bodies, obviously suicides, of their father and step-mother. Ches was gone.
After hearing what the CDC was offering, refuge, food, water, they headed to Atlanta. Between Arlen's war-time service techniques and mere good handling of a machete, after some fun survival exercises with her brother, on Avery's part, they'd stripped almost six blocks of walkers with little to no ruckus. There was hardly anything besides the corpses of walkers on the street, save the parked cars and one oddly placed tank.
"Avery," Arlen muttered down to his sister, "Avery, hun, we gotta get movin'. Only a matter of time 'fore more walkers come. There's nothin' we can do for 'im."
The woman looked at her brother, no longer the skinny, oddly tall teenager she remembered waving as he got on the plane to basic, but the muscular, cleanly kept Marine that had come back, and nodded. He'd grown his hair back so that it was maybe two or three inches long, always slicked back and that beautiful mahogany brown color it'd been when he was young, but with the blue eyes of their father.
He wasn't the only one who'd changed though.
Arlen wasn't looking down at his baby sister, but the young woman she'd become over the time he'd been gone. Still a midget compared to his massive six foot five frame, but as beautiful as their mother with her black curls and obsidian black eyes, though they both shared the pale skin of their mother.
"Alright." She gave him a sad smile and pulled her machete out of the skull of the walker she'd put down. She slung the bag of guns over her shoulder, more to find it's rightful owner. The Derringer siblings were more than supplied with guns and ammo, thanks to a quick raid of the military base. Unfortunately, it was getting dark, and they needed to find a place to stay.
"Daylight's burnin', brother. Let's get a move-on."
((A.N.)) Thanks for reading, guys! I'll update as quick as I can! Please leave reviews, this is my first official fanfic! Lemme know how I did?