Moonlight. He had never really paid much attention to it until tonight, until this very moment as it crept in through the vines that guarded the entryway to the cave. He watched as it swayed slowly, casting the rocky refuge in a bluish calming hue as the plants mimicked the movement of seaweed in the deepest parts of the ocean. Drops of water echoed loudly in his aching ears as they hit the ancient floor of his temporary shelter.
He wasn't exactly sure how he ended up here, why he followed this person through the forest and up the mountain, but here he was. The forest seemed to be the only place left to escape the pain that lay so heavily on his heart, the only place left to think about something different, something new. He couldn't look at Michonne without thinking about Rick, Judith without Carl, or Maggie without Beth, Hershel and Glenn. Every loss over the years had taken their toll, but this… this just might be the last straw.
"Here," she drew him back to the present, her black eyes forcing him to stare. She handed him a piece of bread, an over-processed wheat square that she'd broken in half to share with him. "Eat," she whispered, showing him the other half as she took a bite.
He took the cardboard bread from her, grunting in gratitude as he glanced at her face. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, noticing the mud on her eyes as it dried and cracked, falling onto high cheekbones that sunk in just enough to tell the tale of her struggle. Black hair fell past her shoulders tied with feather and bone, braided at the top to keep it out of her eyes.
She was unlike anyone he had ever seen before; strange but familiar, ancient yet new. When he looked at her he forgot about the guilt he carried with him, the burden of leadership and the uncertainty of tomorrow. All that mattered with her was survival, and that's all he felt he had room for anymore.
He took a bite of the bread, noticing a slight sweetness to it as he slowly chewed it up. "So what, you Cherokee or something?" He'd met plenty of hunters out there in the forest, but none quite like her.
She smiled for the first time, taking a bite of her bread before sitting down next to him. "Or something." She chewed her food and looked him over. "What are you, some kind of Discovery Channel bike mechanic?"
"Ha ha, very funny," he replied dryly. He couldn't imagine someone like her having a life before all this, let alone sitting down on a couch in front of a TV. "I just kinda thought this cave was gonna be filled with all of yer people waiting to ambush me."
"Well, I hate to disappoint you, Daryl, but it really is just me." She sighed at the realization of her loneliness again, thinking about how much James would have loved this cave. "I'm Angeni, by the way."
"Angeni?" He furrowed his brow, even though he'd already met people with names as crazy as Negan and Saddiq.
"You can call me Angie if it's easier. James said it meant 'spirit', that I was always a spirited child."
"You call your dad by his first name?"
"He wasn't my father, exactly." She took in a deep breath. "More like a mentor in all of this. He taught me how to hunt, how to skin and cook, how to treat wounds with plants, how to make things." She pointed around the room at various dishes and utensils; a backpack made of deerskin and several furs on the ground.
"Yeah, my mentor's gone, too." He looked at his feet, wondering if Rick would be upset with him now that he left their people behind. The hilltop had Maggie, Alexandria had Michonne; they didn't need him anymore. Not like this, anyways.
"Is that why you followed me up here?" She rose an eyebrow.
"I guess." He shrugged his shoulders, looking down at his hands as he picked at his fingernails. It wasn't just the loss of Rick that drew him to someone new, to her in particular. She could take care of herself, and that constant worry of when she was going to die, how she was going to die, never even crossed his mind. She had been doing just fine without him up until now, and that was the most comforting feeling.
He glanced over at her, wondering what her reason was for taking him in. "Why didn't you shoot me on sight?"
She smiled. "I needed help getting that deer," she lied, patting him on the shoulder.
He smiled back, as much as he could in his current state, and let her keep her hand on his shoulder. He didn't pull away or brush her off. Instead he let the feeling of her hand warm up the sore muscles in his back that carried his crossbow all day. He let himself pause and slow down, to feel the emptiness that lay inside both of them as they sat there together mourning their teachers.
"Yeah," he whispered, pushing himself up off the bench. He sniffed up some tears that threatened to break free before bending down and grabbing his crossbow. He looked it over, inspecting each of his arrows before stopping in front of the entrance. "I'll take first watch."
"You don't need to do that up here, we're so far up…" she started.
He pointed his bow outside. "I'll take first watch."