Maurice

Maurice was sitting casually with Caesar and Cornelia, making small-talk. It was one of the days where the King and Queen had not arranged their respective hunting and foraging-trips and Maurice had finished teaching the children early today. The weather was pleasant and a lazy kind of feeling had settled over the village. Not long after they had settled, Roy had come over with his family to join them, obviously having pulled Lydia from one of her clothes-making tasks, if the look on her face was anything to go by.

Maurice huffed amusedly at her slightly annoyed glances towards Roy. Whenever she wasn't hunting, skinning her kills or fishing, she could most often be found sitting at the walkway in front of their hut, practicing her sewing skills and making new clothes for herself.

And she hated being pulled away from her work. It broke her focus, she said. Slowed her progress.

Her expression went from annoyed to bright and inviting as Cornelia smiled at her and patted a spot beside her. It was an honour sitting beside the Ape Queen, but it was something Lydia had earned long ago now, so no one made any mention of it.

Lydia sat cross-legged with Roy on her other side and Orion placed comfortably in her lap as she joined the conversation. It didn't take long for Rocket, Tinker, Koba and a few others to join. Koba still kept his distance from the human woman, but he had stopped sending her his scathing looks and seemed to listen intently to what she said now.

It was a development that eased Caesar's worries greatly, Maurice knew. It was just a pity that it had taken such a dangerous situation to bring it about.

The orangutan's gaze landed on where Lydia's injuries were. It had been a little over three weeks since the incident with the mountain lion, and they were all healed up now. All that remained were angry, pinkish scars where her skin had been sliced, starkly visible against her otherwise pale skin. She would probably never get rid of those scars, Maurice noted. They would fade with time, but never leave her skin, remaining as a badge of honour and proof that she deserved her place among the apes.

The conversation continued as Maurice let his eyes scan the village. Everyone was settling into groups of their own, old and young, relaxing and conversing peacefully as thin clouds calmly passed in front of the sun. That's when he noticed Blue Eyes and Ash running towards them, only slowing down when they were about to collide with the adults.

The Prince was greeted by his mother's waiting arms and he didn't hesitate for a moment to jump into them and turn to Orion, waving his hand in a vigorous greeting. Orion reached over and the two bumped fists clumsily. Ash, having briefly greeted his own mother with an embrace, came over and repeated the gesture to the younger chimp.

Then, Ash's eyes found Lydia's and the child immediately beamed at her. It was obvious to everyone that Ash was fascinated with her, if not downright infatuated, and Maurice saw the child's parents share amused looks.

The old orangutan couldn't quite help himself either and let a small smile pass his lips. Especially when Blue Eyes rolled his eyes at his friend and honorary cousin.

Ash's eyes soon found Lydia's angry-looing scars on her hip, visible just above her pants, seeing as she was only wearing a leather chest-guard with metal buckles due to the warm weather, leaving her stomach bare.

A frown marred the young chimps features and he looked apologetically up at the human woman.

"They still hurt?" he asked timidly. He had felt very responsible for the whole thing and had apologised to her several times.

Lydia took it in stride, though.

"Nah, not anymore, Ash. They just pinch a bit from time to time." She smiled good-naturedly. "But I'm tough, remember?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him and he pant-laughed at her silliness. Maurice had to give it to her, she knew how to diffuse any tense situation as well as make others feel better when they were sad. She'd make a good teacher, he mused.

"Just promise to invite me next time you decide to go on an adventure, eh?" She said as she held out one of her hands in a clenched fist, extending her pinkie towards the child with a meaningful look.

Ash looked at the outstretched pinkie confusedly and turned to Orion for an explanation to his mother's weird gesture. He clearly had no idea what it was supposed to signify or if he was supposed to somehow reciprocate it.

Neither did Maurice, to be honest. He had never seen anyone do this before and judging from the looks of the other apes, neither did they. Caesar seemed especially interested in the gesture and his eyebrows knitted together in thought.

"It's a pinkie promise." Lydia clarified with a playful smile, "Once made, you have to keep it."

Ash still looked questioningly at the offered limb, until Orion huffed in exasperation and jumped forward, out of his mother's lap and towards his friend.

"Like this." He signed, grabbing Ash's hand and shaping it in the same manner as Lydia held her own, pulling it forward and linking the two's pinkies together before letting go.

Lydia smiled and shook Ash's hand gently, like a normal handshake, one time before letting go of his pinkie.

"Now, it's a promise, Ash." She said as Orion hopped back into her lap.

The child looked at his pinkie momentarily before turning his gaze to the human in wonder. He was oblivious to the amused looks of the adults around him and Maurice had to admit it was a sweet gesture. There was no doubt in the orangutan's mind that Ash would honour that promise.

What he signed next surprised Maurice, though.

"Soft touch." Ash said, scooting forward and tentatively grabbing Lydia's hand for further inspection.

Most of the adults, including Maurice himself, huffed out laughs at the youth's curiosity and obvious lack of subtlety. He would surely get teased with this by his mother when he got older, Maurice had no doubts about that.

"No hair." Ash elaborated as he inspected the back of Lydia's hand, where the apes' coarse hair would start to appear, running his fingers along the skin.

"I do too have hair." Lydia protested amusedly. Maurice noted how Roy, sitting beside her, eyed her with obvious fondness.

Ash looked up at her with a scrunched-up face as if she was taking him for a fool.

"Did not mean on head. Lydia has lot of hair on head."

She laughed out loud at that and Maurice saw both Orion and Blue Eyes share a look of bewilderment at the exchange.

"I didn't mean on my head, Ash. I have hairs on my whole body, just like you do. See?"

She showed him her forearm before he could protest her statement and he leaned close to inspect it further. Blue Eyes leaned closer too from his position in his mother's lap. Orion seemed unbothered by the whole deal and Maurice suspected that he revelled in, for once, knowing something his older friends didn't.

"That not hair." Blue Eyes signed at the human. "That… fuzz." He struggled to remember the sign. Caesar, who Maurice noticed had restrained his reactions to a degree throughout the exchange, couldn't hold back a full-out pant-laugh at his son's observation.

Lydia laughed too, answering the two children with poorly acted, false indignation.

"Fuzz? I'm not some peach, you two! This is hair!" She huffed slightly before continuing. "Actually, humans have just as many hairs on their bodies as apes do!"

Now, the adults looked as sceptical as the children did.

"That cannot be true, surely?" Caesar signed with raised eyebrows. Maurice had to agree with his king. Humans couldn't possibly be as hairy as apes. They looked so different. So… bare…

"It is true, I promise you." Lydia turned to Caesar with a look that left no room for arguing. "Hair for hair, we have the same amount. Humans just have way smaller hairs because we don't need them the same way apes do. Trust me, some human scholars actually took the time to count it."

Caesar's face scrunched up in disbelief, as did many of the other apes'.

"Why would they do that?" Maurice inquired. He just had to ask.

"I suppose they had more time on their hands than most." Came her reply as she shrugged.

Well, Maurice could definitely imagine that some humans might spend their time doing something so mundane and seemingly meaningless as that.

"Well, it is probably because apes and humans are supposed to have a common ancestor, long, long ago, like, millions of years ago, so I guess they wanted to see if we had something in common." She added more elaborately.

"Common ancestor? How so?" Maurice was intrigued, to say the least.

While he could see the similarities in terms of their hands, ears and general posture (at least for chimps), as well as some behavioural patterns, he really had a hard time picturing how humans and apes could have ever come from the same creature, once upon a time.

Judging from the looks of the others around them, so did they.

"A common ape ancestor species. They are believed to, at some point, have separated into several groups and come down from the trees and evolve to walk on two legs, branching into several species of humans who were sometimes just as different in appearance from each other as chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas are today. They all ended up dying out later for one reason or another, leaving only one species of humans alive today." She explained. "Others of this common ancestor evolved differently due to their different lifestyle and has evolved into today's apes. Mind you, this is something humans call the theory of evolution, but it's supported by many findings humans have done throughout the world, not only concerning humans and apes, but also, for example, wolves and dogs." She finished.

It was a lot to take in, even for Maurice, but looking at Lydia's hand compared to Cornelia's, as the Ape Queen sat beside her, five fingers, the same number of joints, blunted fingernails, no claws and the intricate patterns on the palms.

Yeah, based on this alone, the old orangutan could see the sense of her explanation.

Also, Lydia seemed to be very knowledgeable, so Maurice continued the conversation by asking her another question that had stuck to his mind while she talked.

"Why do human not need as big hairs as ape?"

Lydia smiled at the inquisitive question and Maurice briefly felt like one of his own students. He didn't mind, though.

This was interesting.

"Well, it is believed that it is because humans used to hunt based on stamina. When you guys hunt today, you go by ambush. But humans, back in the early days, lived almost exclusively on the ground and often had to venture out into open terrain to find prey."

Caesar seemed just as interested in this as Maurice himself was, and even the children around Lydia seemed to hang on to every word, even if there were probably many things that they didn't understand.

"Humans back then had to rely on another method and evolved to run after the prey until it got tired and had to rest to cool down. Humans could do that because we sweat. A lot. Whereas other animals, such as deer, get overheated after some time and must stop and pant to get cool again, just like Blaze and Storm do when the weather is hot." She pointed towards her dogs lying not far from where the group was sitting, taking a nap.

"That way, the prey can be hunted over long distances, either tiering it enough for the humans to catch up, or the prey simply dies from exhaustion." Lydia then gestured to her own arm.

"If humans had hair like apes do, the heat would get trapped under the layer of hair and we wouldn't be able to get rid of the excess heat, meaning we would not be able to hunt efficiently."

Unexpectedly, Koba spoke up then.

"Humans. Do. Not. Hunt. Like that." He seemed to challenge, though perhaps it was just because Maurice was used to Koba always disregarding what Lydia had said for the past year-and-a-half. The bonobo did, however, seem interested in the conversation.

Lydia nodded towards him in acknowledgement.

"Not anymore, we don't. That was a loooong time ago. Faster and less exhausting ways have been figured out since then. Like bows for example, which don't require running for hours on end. But for thousands of years, that was the only way humans could hunt and so, we had to adapt. That is also believed to be the reason why we have so long legs and straight posture when standing. It seems to be more energy-efficient when running." She finished explaining.

Maurice nodded in understanding at that. Lydia was a good runner. Though the apes, on all fours, could outrun her fairly quickly, they struggled to keep up over longer distances, while Lydia could go at it much, much longer. The old orangutan had no doubt that she could probably keep that up for at least an hour. Maybe even two.

"You know many things." Maurice remarked, "Many strange things too." He added amusedly.

Lydia scratched her shoulder absent-mindedly and looked slightly bashful at his praise.

"Well, before the outbreak, I watched a lot of tv and read tons of books. I like learning new things, so I watched a lot of documentaries about different topics. Like nature, history and many other subjects."

Maurice nodded in understanding once more and, for the second time that day, the thought that she would make a good teacher struck him.

Her gaze jerked down suddenly when Blue Eyes' hand gently grazed over the hairs on her forearm, barely touching it and making her arm twitch in response.

"That tickles, Blue." She said with a grin.

He looked up at her briefly before inspecting her arm again, repeating the action and once again making her arm twitch involuntarily. The Prince kept his eyes trained on the jumping muscle on Lydia's forearm before turning back to her and signing.

"I still think it is fuzz."

To which all the adults chuckled, save for Lydia, who sighed in defeat.