Caesar

Caesar watched the human woman jump off the truck and dart into the forest as the jeep appeared in the distance.

He was perched on a branch high up in one of the trees, his wife and advisors all around him, and they all looked at each other perplexed. Even Koba seemed, at the very least, curious at this point.

They had found her about half an hour before she had reached the road, and as they had agreed back at the colony the previous day, the apes watched her from a distance to try and figure out where she seemed to be heading.

It had taken the group quite some time to find her. Longer than Caesar had expected, since he had thought she would leave clearer signs of her presence around the path she was taking. Broken branches, trodden-down undergrowth, anything that would normally be left behind when a human moved through nature. Not that there hadn't been any such signs, but they had been few and far between, making it near impossible to make out a clear path for the group of apes to follow. In the end it had been the trails that the dogs had left which had alerted Rocket, one of their most experienced trackers and hunters, to her presence. They had left clear tracks and trails through the bushes and because of that, the apes were also able to find some footprints from the human woman herself nearby. Immediately, Caesar had noticed something.

She was going the exact opposite direction of the city of San Francisco, contrary to what Koba had theorized when they first set out to look for her. He had been insisting that they should go in that direction if they wanted to find her. Towards where the last of the humans' electric lights still shone brightly through the night, though they were getting fewer and fewer as the months went by. He was sure she had been lying when she said she wanted to avoid people. Certain that she would hurry to the humans in the city and tell them the exact location of the Ape Colony first chance she got.

Only she hadn't.

Caesar signalled for the others to follow him down so they could cross the road as well, following her further and further through the dense forest.

After a few more hours the trees opened up to reveal a huge lake where she seemed to have decided to stop and make camp. The water was calm and a few ducks were making their way merrily across the surface. It seemed the ideal place to settle down for the night.

The thing about the woods, though, is that danger can present itself at any given time, even in the most idyllic of places.

And sure enough, as Lydia was pulling out a weathered, green canvas that Caesar suspected she used as a makeshift tent from her backpack, the unmistakable grunting and panting of a bear sounded from the edge of the forest.

Lydia visibly stiffened as she turned her head toward the bear and her dogs began to growl viciously at the huge predator loping cautiously towards the human. Like it wasn't quite sure what to make of her. Caesar vaguely heard Cornelia's sharp intake of breath beside him as the woman slowly got up from her crouching position over her backpack.

Something in Caesar told him to interfere. To make sure the woman wouldn't get killed. He wanted to roar at the top of his lungs and chase the bear away and from the way Cornelia tensed beside him, he wasn't the only one.

Something held him back, though.

It was the way she just slowly rose to her full height, perfectly calm in the face of one of the forest's most fearsome predators, which was slowly making its way towards her. There was no panic written across her features, no trembling limbs and no hesitation in her movements as she reached for her bow on her back.

She wasn't seriously going to attack the bear, was she?

The look on her face was stern, bordering on furious anger, as she kept her eyes trained on the bear. Caesar caught himself thinking that he wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that stare, and it seemed as if the bear was beginning to get the same idea as its steps came to a halt.

She began to reach for an arrow in the quiver she wore on her back and the dogs seemed to take that as a hint to start barking madly at the bear. This visibly startled the huge beast and it jumped a few steps backwards as a result, then hesitated, but finally got the message when the woman shot a warning arrow right in front of its paws.

Then it fled, as fast as it could, back into the forest.

The Ape King let out a breath he didn't realise he was holding and Cornelia visibly relaxed beside him. He turned to share a look with Maurice, who looked so baffled it was almost comical. Luca and Rocket were looking to him as well, waiting for him to give them orders on what to do.

Koba's eyes were still trained on the human and Caesar could not for the life of him discern the expression the bonobo was currently sporting. He seemed almost… approving? Yes, that was it, he seemed to approve of this obvious display of courage, even if there was still a clear trace of his persevering distrust for humans in general, there seemed to at least be a spark of respect in his gaze now.

Caesar turned his eyes towards the woman down by the lake once again.

She had sat down on the trunk of a fallen young redwood, against which she had started to make camp. Her bow was lying against her backpack on the ground and the dogs were sniffing around the area, probably making sure the bear was truly gone.

Before the Ape King could signal for his entourage to follow him down the tree to approach the human, she called out into the silent forest, not turning her head away from the lake she was currently staring at.

"Are you going to come out and talk to me or not?"

The apes looked around at each other in bewilderment. She had noticed them? How long had she known they were there?

Caesar began to make his way down the tree, his wife and advisors following suit. His feet hit the ground with a dull "thump" and he calmly walked over to the woman they had been shadowing for the better part of a day. She still didn't look at them as they approached.

The dogs, recognising the apes, came over to sniff at them with wagging tails. Koba growled when Blaze got near, but the other apes reached out their hands to briefly pet the canines' heads.

"Have you come to kill me?" Her voice sounded, ever calm as the water in front of her.

"No… Not. To kill." Caesar was taken aback by her question. Did they really seem that hostile to her? He knew she wasn't exactly received with open arms when she and her companions first showed up a few days past, but had their behaviour really warranted such a suspicion from her?

She cracked a subtle smile before replying.

"I figured as much. I suppose you would have already done it long ago if that had been your intention, instead of following me around for hours on end." She turned her head to look Caesar in the eyes, her expression serious.

"Sorry for suspecting such a horrible thing of you… It's just a bad habit of mine to always expect the worst…" She hesitated for a fraction of a second, the shrugged. "Though it has kept me alive up until now."

Caesar nodded. He could understand the logic behind that very well. Then he began to sign.

"How long have you known we were there?" He just had to know what had given them away.

"Since I left that road a couple of hours ago. I heard some branches creaking behind me and caught a glimpse of Maurice as he climbed back up into the trees." She smiled almost apologetically at the orangutan, who in turn rumbled low in his throat before signing an answer.

"Not used to move quietly through forest. Spend most of my time in the village." She nodded with a slight smile before turning back to Caesar.

"I wasn't sure what to make of you guys following me, so I figured I'd just continue on my way and that you'd approach me if you wanted something." She said. Caesar had to admit that he was impressed by her attitude towards this whole situation. She spoke to them as he would expect her to speak to any human, not animals, as most of her species thought them to be.

"We want to invite you to come back with us. To the Ape Village. To live." Caesar signed, blunt and straight-forward as ever. It was better to get to the point and not beat around the bush. She seemed like the kind of person who would appreciate such an approach.

Her eyes widened slightly in surprise at his words.

"What…? But that's… Why the sudden change of heart?" She seemed utterly confused.

This time, it was Cornelia who answered. She stepped forward before Caesar could as much as raise his hands to answer and began to sign with graceful movements.

"You have proven yourself. Showed great kindness to apes. We have decided to return this kindness." She then hesitated before continuing her explanation in a more subdued manner. "You said you have nowhere to go. No one to go back to…" Then she smiled kindly at Lydia. "Go back with us. Back to Roy and Orion."

Lydia's eyes softened at the mention of the apes she had come to see as family, and looked to Caesar for confirmation. He nodded seriously and she smiled truly for the first time.

"I'd be honoured to live with the apes and I'd do anything to be with Roy and Orion again… They are my family…" She then looked down in thought. "but wouldn't it cause problems for you if I came back? I don't want there to be unrest in the colony because of me… I know your people has no reason to trust me…" A frown marred her features as she said this.

"What you have done for apes should be reason enough to trust you. Anyone who says otherwise can come to me." Caesar signed. His eyes were ever serious and he made sure his movements as he signed left no room for discussion. She nodded in understanding.

"But we have some questions before we go back to Ape Village," Caesar continued. Again, she nodded.

"Seems only fair. What do you want to know?"

Maurice stepped forward and began to sign now.

"Why are you not with humans? Why do you run away from them?" Caesar noted how the orangutan kept his movements calm and his stare kindly towards the woman. The Ape King turned to her for an answer, staring at her expectantly.

"That's… not something I usually like to talk about… but I guess I owe you an explanation." She took a deep breath before exhaling into a somewhat hopeless sigh. "You see, most of my family died when the virus broke out. My mother, my older sister and youngest brother all died within the first month after you guys had made your escape across The Golden Gate Bridge. After that, it was just me, my dad and the last one of my brothers that was left."

Caesar noted that she got a far-off look in her eyes as she spoke about her family. Like she wasn't really there anymore. Her expression was neutral and her shoulders were slumped.

"After about six months food began to run seriously low and it was hard to find clean water. The power had also started to fail, since many of the people who usually worked with this stuff were either dead or dying. That's when people started moving together into colonies in the bigger cities. Me, my dad and my brother moved to the one in Minneapolis, which was the closest to where we lived."

She turned her head to look out across the lake again, still maintaining her neutral mask.

"It was alright at first. A bit crowded, but alright. There was food, water and we still had a warm place to sleep at night… That lasted about three years. Then the third winter came, and people were struggling to make ends meet and they began to do what many humans trapped together in small spaces with no recourses usually do. They began to steal, fight and then kill for whatever scrap they could find. Some started to gather in smaller groups within the colony and gang up on others, threatening them with all kinds of things if they didn't hand over a share of their rations…"

Caesar's stare grew harder as her story progressed. He had a pretty good idea of where this was going. Cornelia reached for his hand and squeezed comfortingly.

The Ape King exhaled deeply through his nose in an effort to calm himself and continued to listen.

"My dad refused every time they came to threaten him. They wrecked our living quarters when we were out, broke our windows and threatened our neighbours so they wouldn't help us fix our place when it got trashed… When that didn't work either, they decided that we were a waste of recourses… That our food and water might as well go to other, less stubborn people…"

A hard look appeared on her face, not unlike the one she had worn against the bear only moments ago and she turned to Caesar, staring right into his verdant eyes, "Three of them cornered us in our living quarters one night and a fight broke out. They slit my brother's throat and stabbed my dad so many times I lost count… They would have done the same to me, if I hadn't gotten hold of the dagger we kept near my dad's bed…"

She trailed off and looked down into her hands. The look on her face was now a strange mix of rage and hopelessness.

"My dad managed to get a hold of his gun and shoot two of them before they got to me… And I killed the last one by stabbing him in the throat when he grabbed me." She looked up again and Caesar could see in her eyes that the memory plagued her. There was an unease behind the look she gave him and the Ape King felt a twinge of sadness for the woman in front of him. She wasn't that old for a human now, as she sat before him. She had been even younger when this had happened.

"After that, I cleaned the wounds from the fight as best as I could, grabbed everything I needed, and ran away… There was no way I was going to stay in that place, or any other place with humans for that matter. I've seen how ugly people can be, how cruelly they can act for their own benefit… I never want to see that again. That's why I ran away when that car came down the road. That's why I avoid humans at all costs. They're simply not worth the risk." She concluded.

Cornelia moved forward and put a tentative hand on the woman's shoulder and Lydia looked at her reassuringly. She smiled slightly at the Ape Queen.

"I wandered around alone until I found Roy and Orion and the other apes about five months later, and broke them free from the place they were being held captive…"

Surprisingly, Koba was the one to speak up now.

"Why. Save. Apes?" Came his breathy, rough voice. Caesar had to admit he was curious too. What had compelled her to free the apes? Putting her own life at risk to save creatures her species saw as nothing but pets. Sometimes even less than that.

She looked at Koba as if it was a strange question he was asking.

"Why wouldn't I have?" She questioned, cocking her head to one side. The movement reminded Caesar of a dog.

"Human. Keep. Apes. In. Cage." Koba rasped out, "Human. Do. Not. Care. For. Apes." He gestured to the scar across his milky white eye as if to prove his point.

"Well, I do." Came her resolute reply. "What should I have done? Leave them to be killed when those bastards were done with them? I could hear their screaming from miles away, way before I could even see the building they were kept in." She clenched her fists resting on top of her knees, as if the mere thought made her blood boil. "No one deserves what they did to those apes. No one."

Cornelia grunted to get Lydia's attention.

"How did you free the apes?" She signed with an inquisitive look in her eyes. Caesar had wondered about that too. From what Roy had described, there had been quite a few people to guard the facility. People with guns.

The question brought Lydia out of her angry state and she looked thoughtfully at Cornelia while she answered.

"Well, I snuck around the place and figured out how many people were there and where it would be easiest to sneak in unseen. The building was pretty run-down and had holes in the walls so it wasn't hard to get in once I knew the guards' routine. The hardest part would be opening the cages, since they were locked tight so the apes wouldn't escape." Cornelia nodded for her to continue.

"Once I was in, I discovered that some of the apes, a female with a baby and one of the males, were signing to each other. Later, I found out it was because they'd been raised in labs and trained to do that before the virus broke out- "

"How. You. Know. Sign?" Caesar interrupted. He just had to ask. He had been wondering that since he first saw her do it. He knew not many humans could sign and had wondered if maybe Roy had taught her, but her sign language seemed too fluent for her to have learned it in the span of just one year.

"Oh, my brother was born deaf, so I've known it since I was little." She smiled fondly, "I was kind of a translator for him when we were younger. He wanted to take lessons in jiu-jitsu, a kind of sport where you fight hand-to-hand, but no one there knew sign, so I had to attend the lessons too so I could translate what he was signing." She squared her shoulders a bit, "I actually became quite good at it, the fighting, I mean. It has come in quite handy several times since the virus broke out."

Caesar nodded. He didn't really know what this jiu-jitsu was or why someone would take such lessons if they didn't expect to fight, but he could see how having learned that would be useful for a lone female on the road.

"Anyway, I caught the eye of the female with the baby and began signing to her, telling her that I wanted to get them all out of there and asking if she knew who had the keys to the cages. She didn't really trust me in the beginning, though I can't really say I blame her. But she warmed up to me and told me her name. She was called Mara…" A sad look temporarily clouded Lydia's features before she went on. "She described the guy I needed to look for to get the keys. It went pretty well, since he was quite drunk, sitting in his "office"," Lydia brought up two hands and made sarcastic quotations with her fingers. Caesar almost huffed out a chuckle at the gesture.

"Then I went back to the cages and started letting out the apes, starting with Mara and her baby, then the male she had been signing with earlier. He didn't like me much but I suppose he figured I wasn't a threat, since he didn't attack me or anything. I gave him the spare key and he helped me unlock the rest of the cages. We were almost done when the ape in the second to last cage jumped out, knocked me to the floor and screeched at the top of his lungs. The first male pushed him out of the way but… the guards had heard the commotion and came to investigate. We all ran for our lives…"

Lydia's expression became unreadable to Caesar and once again, he was pretty sure he knew where this was going. Yet he dared not interrupt.

"I ran with Mara and the male, who you probably already guessed was Roy. Then Mara… got shot in the back… She handed me her baby after she tried to get up but couldn't… Roy couldn't run and carry her at the same time."

A lump formed in Caesar's throat. This must have been a nightmare… He looked to his wife to find that she was visibly shaken by the story. She had reached forward and grabbed one of Lydia's hands and was looking at the woman with teary eyes. His wife's words from two days ago rang through Caesar's mind then. "Could. Have. Been. Blue Eyes."

"I grabbed the child and ran with Roy as fast as I could… We never saw her again…" She sighed shakily before confirming what Caesar had been guessing at since she mentioned the female and her baby. "She was Orion's mother… His real mother…" There was no bitterness in her voice, only regret. She looked to each of the apes in turn, before her gaze finally settled on Caesar. "I adopted him after that. And Roy decided to stay and help me raise him. It wasn't long after that I remembered seeing you guys on the news a few years back, and decided that your colony would be the best chance Orion had of being with apes his own age. All the others from the facility were killed, after all."

There was a sombre silence after that and the Ape King took some time to look, really look at the woman sitting in front of him. She had a slender build, long legs and a slightly slumped posture. Her thick, dark brown hair, gathered in a braid, greatly contrasted her relatively pale skin tone and she had deep blue eyes. She wore a weathered khaki green jacket which stood open to reveal a grey shirt underneath. Fingerless, black gloves covered her hands and her jeans were dark blue with holes on the knees. Caesar assumed she had worn them thin for them to look like that. On her feet she wore light boots which had, at some point, probably been a much darker shade of brown. Now, they were bleached by the sun and covered in dirt. Around her slender neck, the leather string with the bear tooth and claws was still displayed proudly.

It was clear that she had been hardened, in body and soul, by past events and judging by the way she had dealt with the bear, she had a healthy amount of courage too. What was the phrase humans used to describe that? Caesar thought. Ah! Guts, that was it, she had guts.

Her story had been a lot to process, even for Caesar. But he was glad that he had changed his mind. This woman had truly gone above and beyond for the apes and had expected nothing at all in return. There was no way he was going to turn his back on someone like that.

He reached forward for her to grab his hand to help her stand up.

"Come." He said, "We. Go. Back. Now… To Apes."


Maurice

It had taken them quite a while to get back to the colony. Lydia had insisted on walking herself as opposed to being carried by Luca. Her reason had been that she had two perfectly good legs to move about on.

Also, she didn't like to be carried, she later revealed. She liked to be in control of her own movements.

Maurice could only chuckle at that.

So, Luca had offered to carry her backpack instead, which she had agreed to, and with the extra weight off her shoulders, she moved quite quickly through the undergrowth beneath the apes. Even without any hunting experience himself, Maurice could tell she must have been skilled at it. Her movements were quick and silent, so much so that they reminded the orangutan of a mountain lion on the prowl.

When she had left the colony, she didn't have any particular destination to reach and so, her trail had been weaving through the forest aimlessly, even if she had walked in a general north/north-western direction. Because of this, her three-day journey hadn't really brought her that far away.

Now though, they had a set destination and with the apes navigating them effortlessly through the forest, it took about a day for the group to get back.

As they passed through the gates leading into the Ape Colony, the occupants of the village began hooting excitedly. Their leader was back.

A happy squeal sounded through the air, and Blue Eyes came barrelling through the crowd towards his parents, throwing himself into his mother's waiting arms. Cornelia hugged her son tightly to her chest and Caesar laid his arm protectively around his family, cooing soothingly at the child. The scene brought a warm smile to Maurice's face.

Then he turned his attention to the crowd once more.

Maurice guessed that the elders had probably informed the rest of the village about the reason for their absence, because no one seemed surprised by the human woman who was with them. Most seemed apprehensive and hesitant to get near her, but that was to be expected. Maurice looked to her to gauge her state of mind.

She seemed calm as ever, though her eyes were searching through the village. Maurice knew exactly who she was looking for.

Soon, a sharp intake of breath told him that she had spotted them and he followed her gaze.

Roy stood with little Orion clinging to his chest at the entrance to Maurice's home, and the old orangutan guessed that they had probably been huddled up in there all day. The chimpanzee looked like he didn't quite believe what he was seeing and it wasn't until Orion turned his head from Roy's chest to look at what had caused all this commotion that he seemed to realise what was happening.

Before the older male could as much as let go of the child, though, Orion had flung himself out of Roy's grip and darted towards Lydia at a pace which surprised even Maurice.

She only managed to take about two steps forward and drop down to one knee before Orion jumped into her arms and gripped her jacket tightly, whimpering all the while pressing his teary face against the side of her neck. Her arms wrapped protectively around the little chimp as she tried to calm him.

"Shhh, it's alright now." She cooed soothingly. "I'm back and I'm never going to leave you ever again…"

Soon, Roy had made his way over to the woman and ape child, albeit at a much slower pace than Orion. As he stood in front of Lydia, she raised her eyes to meet his before she stood up and let go of Orion with one arm, pulling Roy into a fierce embrace. He returned it instantly and breathed out an audible sigh of relief.

The colony was silent save for a quiet hoot here and there from the crowd.

Then Lydia let go of Roy and turned toward Caesar with a serious, yet teary-eyed look before stepping forward and bowing down in front of him on one knee. It seemed difficult, as Orion was still clinging to her chest, but nonetheless, she stretched out her right arm and held her palm upwards for him to swipe his fingers against, as any of the apes would do.

It seemed to surprise Caesar that she even knew the gesture at all, as Maurice noticed how his leader's eyes momentarily widened at the woman. He quickly got over it, though, and gently ran his rough fingers against her soft palm.

She retracted her hand to her chest afterwards and looked up at Caesar, her face filled with sincere gratitude.

"Thank you." She whispered shakily.

And just like that, a human became part of Caesar's Ape Colony.