Angeni paid careful attention to Daryl's body language as he followed her through the painful backwards memories toward her old home. It wasn't long before she learned the sounds he made when he was tired, the look of disappointment that furrowed his brow, or the grimace that meant he was hungry. In turn she taught him the hand signals James had used over the years when he wanted her to stop, come, and go. They went on like that together for days, speaking a silent language all their own until they finally reached the outskirts of her cabin.
Daryl stopped as they approached a perimeter of walkers, all scattered at even points around the building in front of them. They were moving, but they were still; stuck in the ground as they reached out from their fixed points in space and time. He glanced at her and grunted, raising his bow before taking two of them out so they could pass through the threshold unharmed.
"We made these traps one summer." She said as they passed by them, pointing to the holes she had dug in the ground a lifetime ago. "The spikes keep them in place long enough to get them in the morning, maybe longer." She shrugged her shoulders and chopped off one of the walker's feet, freeing it from the trap to make room for the next victim.
"Smart," Daryl looked down at the trap as she tossed the foot behind her, inspecting it as he stepped over the body.
"Yeah, he was. I can't take credit for everything," she grinned, glancing up at the cabin before an unsightly message stole the smile right off her face.
COME OUT AND FACE ME, INJUN BITCH!
It was written in black spray paint, messily in a handwriting Daryl knew to be Simon's. He had seen it on other places in the woods near Alexandria, and on the cabin Cyndie used to live in with her family. He knew he didn't have to tell Angeni who had written it but took a step back to give her time to process it anyway.
She pressed her lips together, the reality of the situation weighing heavily on her shoulders as she neglected the rest of the trapped walkers. Despite the vulgarity and danger of the message, it was clear to her that she made the right decision when she went into the forest that day. To think what would have happened if she had stayed, waiting up all night for Simon's inevitable return until he caught her off guard, weak and afraid.
She shook the thought from her mind and stood up from the walker trap, heading toward her home.
"Hey, we don't have to…" Daryl collected his arrows and put them back on his crossbow, slowly approaching her.
"It's okay," she whispered, timidly walking forward.
"It's not." He wiped his nose on the back of his arm and started walking, making sure to stay a few strides behind her.
She smiled and gripped her axe in one hand, twirling her knife in the other as she crouched down to approach the bullet-ridden structure. Creeping around the nearest window, she peeked in to notice that the cabinets had been completely demolished, a few pictures and chairs torn to shreds, but the wood-burning stove had at least been spared in the gunfire. Her mattress had been grazed by a few stray bullets, but it would do for the night if she decided to stay.
"See anythin'?" Daryl nearly snuck up on her, the string of his bow vibrating in the tense air as it waited to be released.
"No," she exhaled, relaxing the grip on her weapons. "It's clear."
She glanced over at him as he studied the doorway, looking around the perimeter as he took out a few more trapped walkers. He reloaded his bow one more time before pausing and holding his breath, raising and lowering his aim. She watched as he squinted his eyes as if to make sure what he was looking at was real, forcing her to look in the same direction.
A deer. No,THE deer. The very same deer that brought them together, the one with the white spots in the shape of Michigan was standing just beyond the outside of her perimeter. It was calm, beautiful and wildly unaware of the demise of the undead just a few yards in front of it.
Angeni held her breath as Daryl followed suit, holding it until he finally exhaled just before he fired his shot. The arrow whisked through the air, the vibrating hum of the string no longer sounding as it flung the pointed spear into the animal's head, barely making a thump as it hit the ground.
—
Daryl shrugged the carcass off his shoulders and onto a table out back. Despite how small a cabin James had made for them in the past, he sure seemed to utilize the space around them to the best of his ability. There was a type of awning made of cowhide and tree branches, complete with a wooden rack for tools and weapons next to the table he stood in front of. Most of the tools had been taken, of course, but a few arrows and knives were left behind.
"Put her on her back," Angeni instructed, grabbing a rope out of a bucket he didn't even notice.
Daryl usually started hanging his deer upside down and draining them of blood right after he shot them, but he was in Angeni's house now, and she seemed to know a thing or two that he didn't. He grunted and instantly did as she told him, straightening the deer out before stepping back to let her do her work.
He watched her pray over the animal, reciting words and songs in a whispered tone as she waved her palms over its head, chest and legs. Her hair fell down past her shoulders as she leaned over their prey, brushing against its fur as she closed her eyes and twisted the rope around its ankles. She tied a few knots into the rope, tugging on it to ensure its strength before letting go and grabbing her knife with both hands.
Daryl slung his bow down across his back as he watched her, waiting to help her hang the deer onto the tree as her voice got louder, her song sounding more like a chant. To his surprise, she shoved her knife into the animal's chest, ripping a jagged line in the flesh between its ribs as the blood spilled out the sides of her incision. Her knife struggled against the thick muscle of its chest, signaling just how long she had gone without eating a hearty meal.
Instead of hanging the deer up now as Daryl would have done, she reached her hands inside the animal, breaking ribs against her arms as she shoved their contents to the side. She dug deeper past the lungs and other organs as her braids and beads dipped into the scarlet lifeblood of the animal, dying her hair as she finally found what she was looking for.
A bright red heart stood before him, no longer beating but still bleeding out its last cycle of life before it ended completely. It was bigger than he thought, more time passing between his big kills than he'd care to admit. Those rabbits and squirrels of his past paled in comparison to this; this pound of flesh that lay silent in her hands as she lifted it up to eye level. Every vein and artery expanding and contracting, shrinking with each passing second as it dripped through her fingers and down her wrists while she presented it to him.
"It's your kill," she whispered up to him. "You drink." To her this was sacred, to her this was an honor, to her this was… a gift, and the least he could do was honor that.
Daryl took a step forward and nodded, apprehensively cupping her hands as he met her half way. He felt the warmth of the blood as it spilled into his palms, the steadiness of her fingers as she finally decided to let go, and the gravity of her eyes as she watched him bring the heart up to his mouth.
He stared at her, his eyes locking onto hers as if to be sure this was what she wanted him to do. He'd heard of this before, an old hunting tradition Native Americans performed when they made their first kill, but he always chalked it up to Merle just messing with him. He brushed it off as another joke, another stupid dare his brother tried to get him to do, but now it had an entirely new meaning.
He wasted no time in spilling the blood over his lips and onto his tongue, noting how different it tasted from the blood he'd shed in fist fights before. It wasn't nearly as salty, and certainly not as thin. No, this blood was hot, thick and rich with iron; delicious in its own way as it trickled down his throat and into his stomach, immediately perking him up.
"This deer is part of you now." She closed the gap between them, her face calm and somber. "As you drink, you become one with it, become whole as it gives you the gift of life and leaves this world behind." She took his hands in hers, wrapping her fingers around his knuckles as they slowly lowered the heart together.
Daryl swallowed a few more times, ensuring he took in enough blood to satisfy her ritual as the excess dripped down the sides of his chin. He let himself connect with her, vulnerably watching as her thumbs pressed in across his cheeks, smearing blood over his face well into his hairline.
"The Hunter," she called him, bending down and mixing dirt into her fingertips. She stood back up and rubbed her hands together, coating his eyes and forehead in nature as he rested his eyelids for the very first time.
He was so tired. Tired of being strong. Tired of being smart. Tired of fighting other people's fights. He was tired of being different, of being feared and misunderstood, of being the outlier that no one ever seemed to care or worry about.
He decided to let this moment settle in; a moment where he finally felt at peace, understood, even loved. He could feel her touching him, caressing him, caring for him, and made the conscious decision to push his face in against hers. He smeared the markings she'd adorned him with and painted her cheek a dark red as he held her face, pressing his lips into hers.
He'd never kissed anyone before, not intentionally anyways, except for a few drunken mishaps that almost always involved Merle and a whole bunch of goading. He wanted to save something like that for someone like her; someone who wasn't ashamed of who she was or how she lived… someone who was like him.
He squeezed the deer's heart in his other hand as it dripped onto the soil next to his boot, finally bleeding out into nothing as he pulled back and looked at her. Blood from his face had rubbed off here and there, giving her once menacing appearance a more scattered look as she smiled and twisted a lock of his hair.
"Let's get dinner ready."