Caesar
The sun was just peeking over the horizon as Caesar sat at the entrance to his home high in the main tree of the village, already sporting his intimidating war-paint and looking out across his kingdom calmly. Soon the village would be teeming with life, as the males of the village would prepare to go hunting. Most of the females would separate into smaller foraging-groups, tasked with looking through the forest for berries and roots, while the young would be looked after by the remaining apes. They would spend half the day being tutored by Maurice in the ways of the apes, until he'd release them and let them do as they pleased for the rest of the day.
The Ape King caught sight of Roy as he made his way out of his hut to sit at the edge of the wooden walkway leading up to the peculiar family's home. The ape started checking his spear for weaknesses, preparing for the day's hunt. It did not take long before his human mate, well, Caesar at least supposed she was Roy's mate in some sense, stepped out of the hut, sat down behind the chimp and began grooming him absentmindedly while looking at the colourful sky to the east. Caesar couldn't help pondering the strange family-scene.
It had been one and a half year since they first arrived at the colony in the early days of autumn.
Since then, there had been some major changes happening in the Ape Village as a result. Most of the apes had been wary of the human woman, hesitant to even get near her despite the fact that she actually seemed to adapt well to life in the village. She had done everything to contribute to the community in every way she could, which had been no small feat.
First of all, Lydia was a skilled hunter, which had made itself apparent just a few days after the family was settled in Maurice's hut while waiting for their own home to be built. She brought home a doe and five rabbits on the first day the apes had allowed her to go armed into the forest. Koba had objected to let her go unsupervised into the forest with a weapon, still not trusting the human woman and believing she would turn on them first chance she got. Caesar had dismissed his advisor as soon as he had finished signing his complaint. Koba saw fault in most things Lydia did and had been proven wrong time and time again ever since.
Caesar remembered one time, when their first winter with the family had come to a close, Lydia had approached Caesar with a suggestion. She had showed him an arrange of different packages that she had scavenged on her journey with Roy and Orion. The packages had pictures of different fruits and vegetables on them and she had explained that they contained seeds of the plants on the pictures. She then went on to explain that she would like to try and grow some, as an experiment, to see if it was even possible. If it turned out to be a success, she reasoned, they could plant more to supplement the colony's diet and perhaps limit the time spent foraging. Koba had been certain she was trying to poison them, to which Maurice had rolled his eyes and replied that she would have already done that through the kills from her hunts if that had been her plan.
Caesar had seen no flaw in her reasoning and welcomed the opportunity to have a stable food source nearby, at least for as long as the plants would bear fruit, should the woman's experiment succeed. If it failed, then no harm had been done and they would continue as usual. It was a no-risk option and thus, it was a no-brainer to the Ape King. He granted her permission and selected a spot within the village, considering her advice concerning sunlight and watering of the plants, and Lydia went on with her idea. Cornelia, who oversaw the foraging, had taken immediate interest and begun to help the woman tend to the plants, which quickly caught the attention of the other females, who then also began to help. That summer and autumn, the village had enjoyed the fruit of their labour, feasting on tomatoes, onions, strawberries and a few other things. Needless to say, it had been a huge success and Caesar had already ordered that the garden be expanded and seeds from the fruits be picked out and saved for next time.
From that point on, Koba simply had no more ammunition against the woman and had to recognise that her presence was actually benefitting the Ape Colony. She almost always brought home a kill from her hunts and even on the rare occasions that she didn't, she would briefly return to the village to eat, only to head out to the river to see if she could catch some fish. Caesar had to give her at least that, she was quite industrious.
As this continued, the other apes began to warm up to the new resident of the village and some even began befriending her as time passed on, including Caesar himself, as well as his wife, the Ape Queen.
Her friendship had, without a doubt, smoothed things along for the woman, Caesar was sure of that. It had been Cornelia's motherly instincts which had first made her urge Caesar to bring back the human, but it was a genuine, though guarded interest in the woman herself which had helped form the friendship they now shared. Cornelia would often invite Lydia to sit with her and the other females when there was a task for them to do, which encouraged the others to take an interest in the woman as well.
In that way, Blue Eyes got to spend a lot of time with Orion and had, in a way, taken it upon himself to tutor the younger child in the ways of the village, with Ash and Lake soon tagging along as well. Caesar was proud of his young son's initiative to take Orion under his wing, and it also seemed to put Lydia at ease to see that her adoptive son was not an outcast in the community because of her.
As Caesar looked on, Lydia had brought out the war paint from within the hut and was halfway through applying it to Roy's body, creating a skeletal pattern on his face and fur, not unlike the rest of the hunting party's attire. Afterward, the male took hold of another bowl of war paint the human had brought out, and proceeded to paint her face as well. Her paint was unique. The apes used white and red because of their dark fur and, therefore, black paint was of little use to them, whereas Lydia was pale-skinned and almost exclusively used black war paint to contrast her light colouring.
Roy ran his paint-covered fingers over and around her eyes, making the area look like empty sockets in a skull when she closed her eyes. Afterwards, he dragged three lines down from each eye across her cheeks to her jaw. It was a simple, yet intimidating design which highlighted her blue orbs even more when she opened them.
While they had been decorating each other, Orion had come out to sit in his mother's lap, enthralled, as always, by the activity. The child seemed to be fascinated by most things, to be honest. He was an attentive observer and because of this, a very fast learner, his already well-developed sign language a testament to this fact.
Lydia got up with Orion cradled in her left arm, walked down from their hut towards the Law-Stone where Maurice was already waiting for the children to gather, dropping off her son at school for the day. It was then Caesar realised how late it had become. He must have been staring for quite some time.
He raised himself from his sitting position and made his way down the wooden walkway from his home towards the centre of the village where his hunters were gathering with their spears. Roy had already joined the group and nodded respectfully to Caesar as he approached.
Caesar liked this ape. He was calm and respectful, good at following orders and, like his… uhm, mate, a good hunter.
When everyone had gathered and were ready to head out for the day, they met up with Lydia at the gate, as per usual.
In the beginning of their stay, she had gone out alone with her dogs to hunt. Though she was a decent climber, she would never be able to keep up with the apes in the trees. Besides, her hunting method differed greatly from Caesar's hunting party. The apes relied on surprise attacks, making the prey run into a carefully set trap consisting of a wall of hunters with spears.
Lydia's approach relied on stealth, moving swiftly through the undergrowth with her bow strung, sneaking up on prey and making quick work of it before moving on to the next target while her dogs guarded the kills or startled birds and rabbits out of hiding for her.
So, she hunted alone at the opposite end side of the forest from Caesar's hunting party and when food was plentiful, she was usually the only one out hunting. There was only one problem with that, however. While she could bring down more than one stag or doe on a trip like that, she had no way of bringing it back herself. She could only carry one big kill at the time, and that wasn't nearly enough to feed the whole colony.
Therefore, it was soon agreed that one ape would accompany her on these trips to help her carry any extra kills back. Usually, it was one of the gorillas who got tasked with this, since they were among the strongest and could easily carry two deer at the same time. Also, the gorillas were usually charged with protecting the village and only few of them joined the hunting party. To them, it was a rare opportunity to get out of the village, so quite a few readily jumped at the chance to get out and catch a break while Lydia worked. Today it was Luca who would accompany her, while another gorilla was left in charge of the guards. The arrangement had resulted in the gorillas being quite friendly with Lydia, as she usually would strike up a conversation before and after the hunt with whoever was assigned to help her.
Caesar had to smirk slightly at this thought. She seemed to get along with most of the apes nowadays, be it young, old, male, female, chimp, orangutan or gorilla.
Luca and Lydia were already at the gate, waiting to plan their route with Caesar and his hunting party before heading out for the day, so the two groups wouldn't cross each other and spoil their chances.
Right, Caesar thought, enough of these wandering thoughts, it is time to go hunting.
Lydia
The sun had only just begun to paint the sky in orange hues when Lydia made her first kill. An unfortunate doe had chosen the wrong trail on her way down to the river and that had been her doom. The arrow flew through the air without a sound and hit the animal square in the neck. She had then fallen gracelessly into the vegetation under the formidable redwood trees. Luca made his way to the kill and tied the does legs together with a crude rope before throwing it across his back with a slight grunt.
Lydia approached the gorilla with a smile and padded his arm.
"Looks like luck is on our side today, huh, Luca?"
He smirked slightly at her before replying.
"Do not get ahead of yourself. There is a limit to how much I can carry, remember?"
She laughed heartily at his comment, thinking of the time she had brought down a bull elk, a doe, four rabbits and three ducks. Luca had had to reach out and make her lower her bow when she had spotted another deer, the bull elk on his back and the rabbits hanging in a crude string around his neck weighing him down immensely.
Even if Caesar's hunting party had taken a break that day, the colony had eaten well.
"Don't worry, my friend, I'll go easy on you today." She smiled teasingly and turned to move up the trail the doe had come from. If they were lucky, she'd have a few friends not far off who were none the wiser about what had happened. The colony could use some meat to dry, and Lydia was always looking for skins to make clothes of.
She had all but grinded her old jeans into tatters by now, holes appearing in new places every day. The two shirts she owned for everyday-wear weren't faring much better. The fabric was worn thin and threads were beginning to come loose at the seams.
So, she had begun to attempt fashioning her own clothes from scratch the moment she had arrived at the colony to stay. At first, it had been a disaster. Pressing one of the thick needles though layers of rough animal hide was difficult, and the homemade thread was rough and irritated her skin. Also, her measuring hadn't been quite accurate to begin with. She didn't even want to think about all the pelts that had gone to waste because of her miserable attempts at tailoring. Good thing the apes didn't exactly need the pelts, using them only as primitive doors or padding for nests.
Now, though, she was happy to say that her clothes weren't only wearable. They actually looked quite nice on her, if she said so herself.
She had fashioned herself a new pair of pants of doeskin leather. They fit like a glove and she had even managed to fit beltloops and pockets on them. She had also seen fit to make herself a coat of the same material, equipped with both pockets and a large hood. It was one of her favourite creations. She had managed to sew it to fit her shape rather well and it was warm enough to easily get her through winter if she wore one of her thick shirts of leather made from rabbit skin underneath it.
Today, however, it was a rather warm day, considering it was in the middle of spring, and she had elected to just wear her chest guard, which she had made with the leather from the bull elk and belt buckles she had scavenged, underneath her coat. The design had been occupying her mind since she realised that her bra was practically beginning to disintegrate. She'd had to come up with something versatile and comfortable, and the chest guard she was currently wearing had been the best she could manage. Sure, it showed more skin than what she would normally have been comfortable with, but she didn't want to sweat like a pig and the apes didn't seem to be bothered by the extra skin. Truthfully, they seemed more intrigued by her clothes than what they covered.
Lydia's cheeks flushed slightly as she remembered one particular incident, when she had been sitting with Cornelia, Tinker and most of the other females preparing animal hides. She had just finished her new pants and Tinker was amazed with her handiwork, but also confused as to why Lydia was wearing the garments at all. It had been a rather warm day for the season not so long ago, and Tinker had argued that there was no point in wearing the extra layers when it wasn't that cold anymore.
It had led to a rather embarrassing conversation, on Lydia's part, about humans and their sense of modesty. She had explained that for humans, some bodily areas were considered intimate and, therefore, were kept concealed. The apes seemed to get the idea, nodding along while she had explained, but still seemed amused by the notion.
Lydia shook her head with a smirk, ridding herself of the memory. Roy had also been curious about this when they had first met, so it's not like she had never had to explain the phenomenon before. It was just that… Everything was different with Roy.
Her blush deepened further and she was glad Luca was behind her, unable to see it.
At first, when she had saved Orion and Roy, the large male chimp had been wary of her, having previously only bad experiences with humans. He had, however, warmed up to her quickly and formed a strong bond with her, which soon evolved into a rather… intimate relationship that Lydia couldn't quite define.
There was no doubt they loved each other dearly, Lydia was certain of that, and they had no problem being physically affectionate with one another in the privacy of their hut. She had no idea when this mutual infatuation had begun, really. She just knew that she didn't want to be without it.
Lydia's head snapped to the left as movement caught her eye, pulling her away from her thoughts. It was another deer, a stag this time, clueless of their presence. She held her hand up to sign for Luca to be still behind her. Blaze and Storm had their eyes trained on the beast, bodies tense and ready to heed Lydia's command.
She quietly strung her bow, every muscle in her body ready to release the arrow.
Lydia exhaled calmly to prepare herself, steadying her aim.
She had a feeling that today's hunt was going to be very successful.
Blue Eyes
"Come on, Blue Eyes!" Ash signed enthusiastically at his best friend before turning and running towards the back of one of the many huts in the village.
Maurice had let them and the other students go for the day, and the two four-year-olds had decided to show their three-year-old friend, Orion, something amazing. The outside of the village.
Now, normally, the adults did not allow the children to go unsupervised outside of the village's walls, considering the many dangers that lurked in the forest. Ash and Blue Eyes had, however, found a way around that restriction about a month ago. They had discovered a gap in the outer wall behind one of the huts, just big enough to fit a young ape through after they had dug the dirt away a bit. Today Ash had decided that Orion just had to come and explore with them, as opposed to playing with Lake and the other girls, as Orion usually did when his two friends disappeared to go adventuring on their own.
Blue Eyes was running after his friend with Orion hot at his heels, eager to show the younger ape the amazing sights outside the village. He was particularly looking forward to showing Orion the river where Caesar and Rocket had so often taken them to fish.
His father had told him that the little chimp had seen much of the world, but had not had any ape friends his age to play with, which had prompted Blue Eyes and Ash to want to show him all the fun things there was to do in and around their home. Also, Orion had not spent much time outside the village since he arrived a year and a half ago, since his mother didn't forage with the ape females. She was a bit of a special case, mother had told Blue Eyes. Well, he would have to agree with that.
The human woman had scared him a bit at first with her strange appearance. Long legs, hairless skin, protruding nose and strange eyes. They were blue like his own, though a few shades darker than his pale ones. His mother seemed to like her, though, and after Blue Eyes had spent more time with her, he could understand why. She was fun and always had time for the ape children of the village who dared venture near her. Her smile was kind and her hand movements were nice and fluent when she signed. Ash seemed to be very fond of her, though he would never admit it to Blue Eyes and Orion. The two had once caught him handing the human woman a flower, which she had gingerly taken and proceeded to pat Ash on his shoulder, thanking him while lodging it behind her ear. Their teasing had been relentless after that.
Blue Eyes was pulled from his thoughts when Ash hooted for him again, softly pounding the dirt with his knuckles while giving his friends an impatient look. Blue Eyes turned to look at Orion, who had come to a stop beside him and was now looking slightly apprehensive.
At first, Orion had been hesitant about leaving the village, especially in such a sneaky manner. Although he did have a fun-loving nature, he also had an annoying habit of wanting to ask his parents for permission all the time, which had prompted Ash to call him a Mommy's Boy and tease him relentlessly until he had agreed to come with them.
Blue Eyes gave the younger ape an encouraging grin and a hoot, patting his back and telling him that they'd look out for him.
"Do not worry, Orion, it will be fun. We know the forest well, so we will not get lost." The Prince signed to the younger chimp. Ash immediately backed him up.
"Exactly, we have lived here all our lives. Just do what we do."
Orion still looked sceptical, casting a backwards glance towards his hut before turning around with a resolute expression on his face, chin jutting out.
"Okay, I will come," Orion replied before quickly adding, "just promise we will be home for dinner."
Blue Eyes nearly rolled his eyes at his younger friend. He really was a Mommy's Boy.
"Sure, we will be home before they even notice we were gone! Blue Eyes and I have done this many times before." Ash signed before turning towards the hole in the outer wall. Blue Eyes smiled reassuringly at Orion again before gesturing for him to go first.
There was nothing to worry about.
The three children squeezed out of the narrow gap between the trunks that made up the village's protective wall, and sprinted as fast as they could into the bushes, careful not to get spotted by the gorillas on guard duty. When they were sure that they had made it without raising the alarm, Blue Eyes and Ash nudged Orion to get his attention and signed for him to follow as quickly as he could. Orion only nodded in anticipation before following his two friends as they shot across the forest floor with all the speed the little chimp could muster.
It didn't take long for them to be completely out of earshot from the village and the trio relaxed their pace and began to goof around, throwing twigs at each other and knocking one another over in their playfights. They tumbled for a long time while trailing down the paths the animals of the forest had left in their search for food, hooting and gibbering all the while.
Blue Eyes could hardly contain his excitement when they could suddenly hear the river and looked over at Orion with a smile.
"The river is not far now! You are going to love it! Ash and I go here all the time with our fathers. One time a fish almost jumped into my hands when we were fishing!"
Ash let out a snort and huffed in laughter at his friend.
"Jumped into hands? It hit Blue Eyes' head!" Ash nudged Orion with his elbow and pant-laughed, Orion only smiled and looked at Blue Eyes for confirmation with an amused glint in his eye.
The Prince huffed annoyedly at Ash, but before he could even think of a snarky reply, a rustle in the bushes a few yards away caught the trio's attention.
They all froze when they heard a low growl, fear finding its way across their features as they realised what exactly it was creeping towards them.
Blue Eyes felt a stone sink to the bottom of his stomach as he saw a glimpse of the predator between the leaves.
There was no way he and Ash could protect Orion from that…
