Lydia
"Do you really think that will be useful, Lydia?" Asked Ellie, humour evident in her tone.
The dark-haired woman eyed Ellie with a lifted brow and a soft smirk before casting her eyes at the item precariously tied to her backpack. It was an acoustic guitar she had found in a music store not far from the barbershop she had inspected with Caesar earlier that day.
"Maybe not, but certainly entertaining!" Lydia replied almost cheerily as she made her way with the group along the trail.
The fires dotting the colony's new home all crackled merrily, fed by the drafts coming from the caves deeper inside the cliffs, as well as the wood provided with even intervals. It was the first time Lydia was seeing it, and she had to admit that Rocket and Blue Eyes had chosen well. It was big enough to house the entire colony, with the largest cave located behind a gushing waterfall, acting as the inner sanctum of the entire thing. All around, the apes had already begun placing the sharpened stakes needed for further defending this new base, and nests had already been built in most of the caves – including Lydia and Orion's, curtesy of Tinker, the darling soul she was.
"So, you're actually going to use it for its intended purpose? Not going to turn it into a… paddle or something?" Malcolm drawled teasingly, his clear, blue eyes twinkling with mirth.
Lydia scoffed at that.
"It's a fine instrument, Malcolm, not a piece of fabric or driftwood to be ripped apart and reused. Have you no culture?" She jabbed right back, taking on a snobby tone of mock-bewilderment before eyeing him somewhat suggestively, adding: "But if you want to, I could give you a paddling with it. Goodness knows you could use it."
Alex snickered behind Orion at the exchange, the young chimp soon joining in with an amused huff. They were sitting on a horse together, the adolescent chimp leading the horse along while the human teen held on tight. It was quite sweet to watch, actually.
Lydia had to admit, she felt quite good at the moment – the ache of losing Roy was no less prominent than before, but after her talk with Caesar, she made sure to try and actually be in the moment more, rather than letting her mind return to the tragedy over and over again – if for nothing else, then at least to ease his worry for her. In the end, she realised that she was suddenly having a semblance of fun for the rest of the day and now, she felt more relaxed than she had done for over a week. It felt good to laugh again.
She also noticed that her improved mood had seemed to rub off on the rest of the group, Maurice and Luca especially huffing out laughter from time to time by now. In addition to that, Malcolm and her seemed to have developed some kind of game of the wits as the day had progressed, throwing humours jabs at each other whenever possible, which seemed to amuse the younger occupants of the group in particular.
Really, to think that when they first met, Malcolm had seemed to be scared shitless of her.
How things have changed, Lydia mused as she strolled beside the horse she had chosen for herself - a beautiful black-and-white-spotted stallion of the breed American Paint. It was something Lydia only knew because of her sister's unhealthy obsession with horses back in the days before the Simian Flu. She was quite surprised to discover that some of the endless ramblings about equines her sister spewed had actually stuck to her memory – it had certainly never been in Lydia's interest to learn about them.
"Touché…" Was all Malcolm said in reply to her words, looking for all the world like he thought she might actually be true to her words about giving him a paddling. Perhaps he hadn't quite gotten over his initial anxiety around her.
Lydia could only chuckle at the thought as she handed the crude reins of her steed to one of the apes in charge of the stables – which still only consisted of a couple of posts to which they tied the horses, placed under a makeshift roof near the new colony's main entrance. The others did the same, Malcolm and Ellie sliding down from the back of their shared horse, borrowed for the trip to the city – cars just wouldn't do this deep into the forest, where the terrain was more hilly and treacherous.
Everything they had found had been bundled into hides and backpacks, though Lydia's couldn't contain much more with all her usual supplies in it. She had to admit they had found quite some useful items, such as knives, thread and an amount of canned food that Lydia estimated would keep the family going for quite some time if they played their cards right. However, she was especially pleased about finding some shoes she could cut up to replace the soles on her own boots – they could really use some refurbishing by now – as well as some shirts and linen she could utilize in the future.
Something to keep my mind occupied, that's exactly what I need, she thought, though her expression betrayed nothing.
Once the horses had all been handed over, Caesar, who had surveyed the sight with Rocket before deciding to move the colony there, lead the way to the main cave. A lot still had to be done before the place would be perfectly safe to traverse, as the pathways made by the apes were still too rickety and slippery, but overall, Lydia was pleasantly surprised with how much they had actually managed to set it up in the time her group had been gone. Basic structures for huts and watchtowers had already been erected in many places, as well as some rudimentary defence-measurements along the trails leading to the colony's inner sanctum. Even now, as twilight was beginning to descent over the forest, some apes were still hard at work, making the most out of the waning light.
Soon, the steady rumble of a waterfall caught Lydia's attention, and as she exited the archway which marked the entry to the innermost parts of the fortress, she and the rest of the group was met with the sight of rushing water roaring down a sheer cliffside, behind which Lydia could only just make out a large cave. Defensive spikes and torches had already been set in their permanent position along the path leading there, and the logs creating the walkways weaving in and out of the cliff looked as sturdy as they had in the old village.
"You guys work quickly…" Malcolm spoke in quiet awe as his eyes darted around the place, taking in the grandeur of it all. No one deigned the statement with a reply.
Though impressed with the progress, Lydia wasn't quite as awestruck about the sight as the other humans – it looked very much like the old village, which also had been placed around cliffs and a waterfall. If anything, to her, this felt homey.
Once they entered the cavern behind the waterfall, however, Lydia soon found herself at a loss for words. It was not only large… it was huge! The ceiling arched up far higher than Lydia would have been able to guess from just looking at the outside, and at the very top daylight (what was left of it by now, anyway) filtered in through a crevice in the cliff. All around on the levelled plateaus were different ape families already sitting around cookfires, all of which cast a warm, pleasant glow against the walls of the cave. In the middle of it all was a large boulder on which Lydia spotted Rocket and Blue Eyes, seemingly discussing something very animatedly. She could already see how Caesar would hold meetings with his council there, as it bore a stark resemblance to the old Law-Stone.
"You chose well…" Lydia managed to say as she stood beside Caesar, who looked beyond satisfied with what he was seeing. The Ape King only nodded in agreement, releasing a deep huff as he did so.
This would do very well as their new home.
Maurice
The meal that night was probably the most satisfying Maurice had had in days – freshly caught fish roasted over a cookfire, served together with roots, mushrooms and berries from the surrounding forest. He was not much of a meat-eater, given his species, but the day had been long and the trek through the forest had been hard, even when going on horseback. He had barely eaten anything since they had set out at dawn and had swallowed the meal with much enthusiasm, quite like the other members of the group, most of whom were now sitting around the fire in front of him.
Lydia sat at the old orangutan's right with Orion placed on her other side, followed by Alex, who seemed to have found a great friend in the adolescent ape. Beside the teenage boy sat his father and stepmother (as Maurice had learned it was called when the biological parent had found a new mate), who then sat beside Blue Eyes, Cornelia and Caesar. To Maurice's left sat Tinker and Rocket, who had elected to join in after the evening meal had finished and most had gone to be with their family groups.
It had been some time now since they had all finished, and Malcolm was currently in the middle of telling a story about Alex from when the boy was younger, making the adolescent in question look rather peeved, noticeably so when his eyes darted between Lydia and Ellie. Orion and Blue Eyes shared sympathetic looks with him from time to time, but otherwise seemed very amused with Malcolm's animated recount as well – right until their own parents began sharing stories about their own childhood mishaps, that is.
Maurice cast an occasional look at Tinker throughout those stories, seeing as most of them also featured Ash – in fact, most of the youngsters' misadventures had been Ash's doing. While she did go slightly glossy-eyed from time to time at the mention of her son, Tinker seemed to take it all in stride and huff along in laughter all the same.
Maurice had honestly thought that the female ape wouldn't be up for a get-together like this, and especially not with Malcolm and his family serving as a fresh reminder of what exactly had led to her child's death. She had surprised the old ape, however, sitting down with her mate and listening intently to the stories from humans and apes alike. It was good to see her enjoying herself again – she had, quite understandably, been miserable for days.
"…and I tell you, I just felt so bad for shouting that we immediately went for ice cream after that and even then, he still told his mom I had lost him at the mall when we got home!" Malcolm spoke, with a mixture of humour and exasperation in his voice.
Laughter and amused huffs erupted around the fire, and though Maurice had to admit he hadn't paid attention to the entirety of the story, he caught just enough information to grasp what it had been about and joined in with the others' laughter, his deep rumble reverberating through his chest.
"So, Lydia," Ellie spoke once the laughter had died down, turning to Lydia with an expectant look on her face. "Were you gonna entertain us with some music or what? I suppose you didn't carry that thing all the way here for nothing?"
Her tone was amused and teasing, but there was also an underlying curiosity which Maurice had to admit he shared with the woman. Lydia had stumbled by an old store on their way back through the city, filled with instruments in varying states of disrepair. In general, most had been structurally intact, though dusty and with missing strings and rust on them, although others had been eaten away by time and humidity due to the smashed windows of the shop.
When the aging orangutan had inquired about why so many of these seemingly valuable items had been left behind to decay, Lydia had shrugged and stared around the place disapprovingly.
"When the world falls into chaos, I suppose the joy of music is one of the first things people tend to forget." She had said before proceeding to search the place and coming out with a dirty, albeit intact instrument. She had explained to Maurice that it was an acoustic guitar, as opposed to an electric one (one of which she had pointed at to show the difference). Most of the apes on their little expedition had seemed intrigued by the instrument and tested out the strings, hooting excitedly at the sounds they made.
"I guess I can give it a try." Lydia spoke now, reaching behind her to grab the guitar which had been placed beside her backpack. It made a hollow, gentle bumping sound as it scraped slightly against the cave's floor. "But I'll warn you, it has been years since I have as much as touched a guitar – it might be a bit awful. Just talk amongst yourselves while I fix it up a bit here."
Lydia winked at the woman in front of her and then proceeded to twist and turn the nuts which seemed to keep the strings in place, trying them out and moving on to the next one once she was satisfied with the sound it made. Maurice had a hard time making sense of what she was doing, and looking at the other apes, he figured that they were just as puzzled by this as he was.
"There, that should do it." She nodded, more to herself than to the group, if Maurice was to guess, and began playing.
It seemed as if she was trying very hard to remember the technique required for the instrument, as the first few tunes Lydia attempted seemed stumped and a few notes were clearly out of tune with whatever song she was playing should sound like – that was clear even to Maurice. Lydia seemed to be quite aware of this herself too, grimacing and cursing under her breath whenever she made a mistake.
Soon, however, it looked like she was getting the hang of it, muscle-memory seemingly kicking in as her fingers moved more smoothly up and down the neck of the instrument in her hands, caressing the strings and rocking her foot in gentle rhythm with the beat of the song.
Maurice was, in all honesty, truly amazed with how she managed to position her fingers – many of the grips she had to twist her hand into looked quite uncomfortable, unnatural even, but Lydia made it look like it was no big deal at all and even employed her other hand to pick at the strings with all her fingers rather than simply strumming them with her thumb. There were still mistakes being made, which were all the more obvious by the crease of her brow when they happened, but as she continued on, they became less and less frequent until, at last, it was hard to make them out at all.
"Hey… Isn't that…?" Came Malcolm's voice as Lydia began another melody, his expression changing from simple enjoyment into one of recognition.
The woman beside Maurice smiled knowingly as she continued to play.
"Good to see you do have some musical taste. Remember the lyrics too?" Lydia asked, eyes shifting between Ellie and Malcolm, who briefly looked at each other with soft smiles before nodding in unison.
And suddenly, the three adult humans began singing, stunning the apes and the teenaged human beside them into complete silence.
~Well I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah~
~Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah~
Their voices were relatively quiet, barely overshadowing the sound of the guitar as Lydia continued to play. None of them seemed to stumble over the words or forget a line, seemingly knowing the song by heart. Halfway through the it, Ellie reached over and grabbed Malcolm's hand, earning herself a soft smile from the man beside her.
Maurice wouldn't pretend to know what the song was about, though he noted that it seemed to contain elements concerning love and pain.
What he did know was that he had never heard Lydia sing before, and while he could tell she wasn't exactly accustomed to the task, he thought that it sounded rather nice – soft and clear, if a little unsteady in some places.
A smirk pulled at the elderly orangutan's lips when his eyes fell on Orion, who was currently looking at his mother like he was seeing her for the very first time, eyes widened and mouth slightly agape, the corner of his lips quirking upwards in what Maurice could only guess was the beginning of an approving grin.
The rest of the apes gathered around the fire seemed to be similarly surprised at this discovery, a few of them tapping their fingers subconsciously in time with the music. Blue Eyes and Cornelius, who were born after the rebellion against the humans, had never even seen a guitar before, much less heard one being played on. And certainly not accompanied by singing – the apes didn't do that with their strained, at times even non-existent voices. Because of this fact, the young apes seemed especially captivated by the show, much to their parents' amusement.
"Damn, I'd nearly forgotten that song." Malcolm spoke with a soft grin on his face once it had ended. "You played it pretty well too. You took classes or something?"
Lydia smiled a bit bashfully at his praise – a look rarely seen on her face – and absent-mindedly fingered the strings as she replied.
"Actually no, I-... My sister taught me how to play. She practiced for hours every day and played in a band too. She would sometimes sit with me and teach me how to play different songs – if I agreed to do her chores around the house, that is." A fond smile graced Lydia's features. "She was all around the place with hobbies: Music, horses, dancing… Only she didn't like to sing, so she always asked me to come into her room and do it while she played instead. That's how I began to get interested in playing myself too, though I only did it a couple of hours a week."
Looking briefly at Orion, Maurice noted that the young ape seemed to be sucking up the information like a sponge, and the old orangutan deduced that Lydia probably hadn't spoken much about her human family to her adoptive son.
"You had a sister?" Came Alex's rather quiet voice, full of curiosity.
Lydia nodded at the teen.
"One older sister and two younger brothers." She answered matter-of-factly.
Alex's eyes widened slightly, and Maurice imagined it was because he was an only child (at least he assumed he was, not knowing if the boy had had siblings who died when the humans got sick).
"That's a lot of playmates." Malcolm stated, reaching a hand towards Lydia. "Can I try? I used to play when I was in high school."
Lydia smiled and handed him the guitar.
"To be completely honest with you, it wasn't always by choice I became their playmate." She spoke, rolling her blue eyes in what seemed like slight exasperation.
"Oh, how so?" Ellie chimed in with her eyebrows softly creasing upwards in wonder at Lydia's words.
The woman beside Maurice shrugged before she began explaining.
"Well, sometimes I was kinda forced to do things with them. One of my brothers was deaf, you see, so I had to act as a translator for him sometimes, especially during his jiu-jitsu classes and at family dinners. I didn't mind it that much because he obviously needed it and we got really close because of it. But, you know, it didn't really leave much time for me to do my own thing. Develop my own interests."
"So that's how you know sign language!" Ellie exclaimed, almost like she had uncovered a great mystery, which made Maurice rumble with a soft laugh. Caesar, Cornelia, Rocket and Tinker did much the same, observing the exchange with eyes full of mirth.
"Well, it's part of it, I guess." Lydia chuckled. "I mean, I would probably have learned it anyway, eventually, from being with the apes all the time, but it sure did help to know it from the start."
Orion huffed then, drawing Alex's attention.
"No. Brother. Or Sister?" The young ape spoke in a raspy voice, pointing at the teenage boy to underline his question.
"No, I'm an only child." The human teen shook his head. "I never minded, though. It was nice being just the three of us when I was little. Just me, Dad and… and Mom."
Alex faltered towards the end as his eyes quickly shifted towards his father, seemingly to make sure he wasn't crossing some sort of line. Malcolm didn't seem to mind, however, as he removed his hand from the neck of the guitar to pat his son's shoulder in a comforting manner.
Maurice grunted then, gaining the attention of the group.
"In your book. The picture is your mother, correct?" The old orangutan signed, Lydia immediately acting as translator by speaking the words Maurice could not make so fluently.
Alex didn't seem phased by the question – didn't seem surprised or irritated that Maurice had seen something that must be a very personal object to him without permission.
"Yeah. Here, I'll show you." He nodded at the ape and turned to pull out the sketchbook from his satchel. Then, he leafed through to the page with the picture and pulled it out to show the group around the fire. "It's the only picture I have of her."
"Good to have. Memory. Like that. To remember by." Orion spoke sympathetically as he nodded at the young human, who inclined his head in agreement as he put the picture back where it belonged.
Maurice noticed how Lydia had gone quiet during this exchange, a thoughtful look on her face as she regarded her son and his new human friend. Then, her head tilted in that special way of hers, her eyes narrowing somewhat as her gaze shifted to the ground.
"I wonder…" She mumbled in a barely intelligible manner, seemingly to no one in particular, before she turned around to grab her own backpack and began digging through it.
Maurice shared a wondering look with Caesar and Cornelia at this behavior while Orion hooted confusedly at his mother. The humans seemed just as confused until Lydia pulled out an old picture frame from her backpack – the same one that Maurice had pulled out years ago when he had been asked to search her things after the strange family's arrival.
"Here it is." The blue-eyed woman spoke, blowing a stray lock of dark hair out of her face.
"Is that your family?" Ellie spoke softly as she looked at the photograph in Lydia's hands, craning her neck to see it properly until Lydia turned it around to show them.
"Yeah, well, my first family, anyway." She answered with a fond smile on her face as she eyed Orion beside her.
"How old were you when this was taken?" Malcolm asked curiously. Maurice had to admit he had wondered that too when he first saw it all those years ago.
"Oh, I think I was about… eleven or twelve? Maybe… I honestly don't remember." She shrugged before lifting her finger to point at each individual within the frame. "That's my older sister, Olivia. She was about four years older than me. This here is my oldest brother, Matthew, who was two years younger than me. He was the one who was born deaf."
Maurice was pleased with how well he had been able to determine the age of the people in the picture – he often found it difficult to do so with humans. It was easy to tell a child from a teen and a teen from an adult, but to be able to guess the more approximate age of an individual was way harder.
"This is my youngest brother, Henry, who was three and a half years younger than me. Then there's my mom, Clara, and my dad, Thomas." She finished describing the people on the picture, turning the frame back to lay it across one of her legs.
That's when Cornelia hooted softly at the woman, her expression a mixture of surprise and mock-disappointment as she let go of Cornelius to sign.
"You never told me this." The Ape Queen chided, lifting a finger and wiggling it at the dark-haired woman once she had finished signing.
"Did not tell me either." Tinker chimed in with a lifted eyebrow. The two females were followed up by their mates, who nodded in agreement to their statement – Lydia, seemingly, had told no one about her human family.
No one but her son, it would seem, who eyed his mother with a soft smile before rolling his eyes at her.
Lydia looked sheepishly from one ape to the other, fidgeting with the frame in her hands.
"Well, none of you asked, did you, now?" She spoke before she turned to face Maurice with a mock-accusing stare. "You're actually the only one here besides Orion who ever saw this and you never asked me either. What am I to make of that, Maurice?"
There was no real venom behind her words, the old orangutan knew, and still he felt slightly bad for it. He should have asked – it was only sensible – and yet he was ashamed to admit that it had never occurred to him to do so. Lydia had never spoken about it on her own accord and quite honestly, Maurice sometimes forgot that she used to have a life before she came to the colony. She was one of the apes now, after all.
He huffed out a deep laugh at her jab all the same, quickly followed by Caesar and the others – even the humans, who must have figured out what the conversation was about by listening to Lydia's answer.
"Anyway, there was actually something else I wanted to do with this thing." Lydia spoke once the chuckling at her expense had died down.
She turned the picture to face downwards, exposing the back of the frame where a board was held in place by eight pieces of metal, which she began to bend backwards to remove the board itself.
To say Maurice's curiosity was piqued at this point was quite an understatement and as he looked over to the Ape King, he knew the same could be said for him. What exactly was the meaning of this?
"I think you'll find this quite interesting, Orion – I just hope nothing is damaged." Lydia spoke as she continued to fiddle with the metal pieces, having undone half of them by now. Her son's face scrunched up in confusion as his vibrantly green eyes darted from his mother's hands to her face and back again.
"But Mother. I have seen. The picture." He spoke in his raspy voice. "Many times. Now."
Lydia undid the last piece of metal and removed the back of the frame at last, smiling triumphantly as she placed it on the cave floor in front of her.
"Not these ones, you haven't." She answered, revealing a few small stacks of shiny, white paper placed behind the picture of her family. Maurice guessed it was the back of the pictures she was referring to.
Lydia quickly gathered them up in a single stack and turned them around to show her adoptive son.
The look on Orion's face had Maurice seriously worried for a couple of seconds until the adolescent ape grabbed one of the pictures, tracing two of his fingers reverently across it with his other hand.
"That is. Father." He spoke softly, eyes glued to the photo. Lydia nodded, spreading out the the stack in her hands to show the rest of the group.
"Yep, and you and me, too." She answered with a smile.
There were about ten in total and looking at them, Maurice cooed softly in recognition. It was indeed Roy in most of the pictures, posing together with Orion or Lydia – sometimes both.
The elderly orangutan picked up one and held it gently between his large fingers to inspect it. This one was a close-up showing Roy sitting with a sleeping Orion on his chest, the ape child's small fingers clearly digging into the large male ape's fur. Roy was looking down at his son with a barely-there smile on his rugged lips, one hand resting on the child's back in comfort.
"I love that one." Lydia commented, leaning towards Maurice. "We had just found a cabin we could stay at for the night and Orion was so tired he just passed out on Roy. He didn't move for hours because he was scared of waking him."
The pictures were soon shared amongst the group's members, and Lydia gladly explained the background to each of them in detail.
"Why. I never. Saw these?" Orion asked, though his tone didn't seem to be accusatory as he turned to Lydia for answers. He only seemed curious, raising a brow at his human mother while holding yet another photo – this one showing a younger version of himself sitting atop her shoulders, clumsily playing with Lydia's thick, dark locks as the woman laughed heartily. Maurice guessed that it was Roy behind the camera.
"I should have showed them to you, I know, I just… I quite forgot I even had them, Sweetie." Lydia replied with a tender look at her son. "With the daily routine we've had in the colony these last couple of years, I haven't really taken them out to look at. It was only now that I remembered I even had them."
Orion nodded, picking up another photo. It showed Roy with his arms around Lydia's midsection, his head resting on her shoulder. The human woman was reaching one hand outside the picture towards the viewer, telling Maurice that she was the one holding the camera.
"How did you even take these?" Alex asked as he handed one to his father for him to see.
"Well, we stayed for a couple of days at an abandoned house and I found a polaroid camera in a closet somewhere on the second day. It was still working and there was enough paper for about ten pictures, so I just thought I'd create some memories." Lydia explained.
Maurice had no idea what a polaroid camera was as opposed to a normal camera but decided not to question it – it didn't seem like it was important and besides, he most likely would never use that knowledge for anything. Still, such things always intrigued him – humans and their inventions.
Cornelia hooted adoringly at one of the photos and turned it towards Tinker for her to see. It was one showing Orion hanging on to Lydia's chest, turning around to look at the camera behind him with huge, sparkling emerald eyes, his mouth pushed into a pouty o-shape. Behind him, the woman was laughing toothily and grabbing gently at one of the chimp's small hands, which was clutching at her breast through her shirt.
The other female ape tittered amusedly at it before the Ape Queen showed the picture to her husband and eldest son, the latter struggling hard to suppress his huffs of laughter once he realized how sheepish his friend sitting across from him looked at having his baby pictures shown.
"Cute, wasn't he?" Lydia grinned as it was passed on to Ellie.
"Absolutely adorable." The other human woman agreed, smiling with eyes full of adoration.
What is it about small children than makes females be like that, Maurice wondered briefly to himself.
"Mhmm, I like to think he takes after me in that regard." Lydia said jokingly, making Malcolm snort with suppressed laughter.
"Without a doubt." The human male replied as he handed her the picture after Ellie had passed it to him.
Soon, all the photos were stacked back in order and Lydia was putting them into the frame once again, only to stop mid-action and pull one of them back out. Leaning over, Maurice noticed that it is the one showing all of them, Lydia, Roy, Orion and the dogs, sitting on an old bench, the paint almost completely flaked off its wooden surface. It looked very much like the picture Lydia kept of her human family – all smiles and arms slung around one another. It is a good picture.
"Mother?" Orion asked curiously as the general small talk amongst the group quieted down. Maurice almost chuckled out loud at the way the young ape tilted his head to the side, much like his adoptive mother would do. Some things had clearly rubbed off there.
Lydia only smiled softly as she picked out the photo of her first family from the frame, placing the group-picture of her second one against the glass before moving the original back in place. Then, she stacked the remaining photos the way they had been before, put the back of the frame on and bended the metal pieces closed once more before showcasing the front to the group again.
"Should have done that years ago. Much better, don't you think?" Lydia tapped the side of the frame with a slender finger, drawing everyone's attention to the change she had made to it.
It now showed two happy families instead of one, with Lydia being the link between them. The new addition to the old frame was smaller than the original photo, allowing for it to be placed in the bottom in such a way that one could still see the faces of Lydia's human family.
The symbolism of this action was not lost on Maurice and by the look on Orion's face, he understood it perfectly as well. His bright, green eyes widened a fraction before he put his arm around his mother's shoulders, pressing his forehead to her temple.
This was Lydia putting her ape family on the same level as her human one – showing that she loved them all equally and would remember them as such. It didn't matter that one consisted of her own kind, her own flesh and blood, while the other was of a different species, brought together by mere circumstance.
They were the same to her, and in his heart, Maurice knew that if she had been able to, she would probably also put quite a few members of the colony into that little frame.
The huge ape nodded his massive head in response to her question with a soft grin on his dark muzzle. The rest of the group seemed to be of the same mind, regarding mother and son with soft eyes – Tinker in particular.
"Very much." He signed as Lydia turned to place the item gently into her backpack again.
"So," She turned to the group, now looking expectantly at Malcolm, a teasing smirk on her features. "You think you can still play that thing?"
