Sonora stretched her legs and looked over to the stream, walking to it and bending to see into its depths. No fish, that she could see, ah well, it was probably better that way. She stood upright and turned back to the horse, it was standing beside the tree she had tied it to and had taken to nibbling at the greenery sprouting around the roots.
Sonora shook her head and then her whole body, getting herself out of her own thoughts. She needed to take a short walk around the clearing she'd stopped at, get her legs used to bearing weight again because damn it she'd been on that fucking horse for three days and if she wasn't going to feel it here in a little while she might just do cartwheels.
She sighed, grumbling as she took a look around while she walked; it was a nice clearing, no thick trees obscuring any views, a few flowers blooming here and there. That wasn't so unusual, it was getting into summer and flowers had blooming here and there for days. Sonora stopped walking and turned to look at the black horse, it had stopped it's eating to itch at a spot on its leg.
She walked back over to the animal and untied it from the tree, flipping the reigns over the horn of the saddle and then placing her booted foot in the stirrup, hauling herself up. She was getting better at riding the horse, after spending all winter either on it or near it, and since the horse was her only companion she easily attuned herself to its instincts. The black horse knew when there were walkers about when Sonora didn't. After a couple of weeks of the animal suddenly bolting, and nearly throwing her at the same time, she finally learned the signs of when the gelding sensed the walkers.
"Should be reaching something today, passed that downed fence earlier, maybe it's another farm or something. Hell, I hope someone's there, maybe we can scrounge for a little while." Sonora said, rubbing a hand down the horse's neck as it walked through trees. She clucked her tongue and relaxed a little as she cantered the horse through the rest of the woods. The trees getting more and more sparse until they were finally free of them and in a clearing surrounding a house, barn, and a pond.
A slight feeling of déjà vu hit her as she saw a few people working around in the fields. She slowed the horse and rose in her seat, watching the strangers closely. Noticing no stumbling or growling she moved the horse forward. "Hello! I'm friendly, and tired!" she called when one of the people looked up and had started yelling.
Sonora made the horse trot up to the people and then stopped it, leaning back in her saddle and placing her hands, one on top of the other, on the horn of it. "Hi, my name's Sonora, and I'm tired, and hungry, can I set up camp out here for a little while?" she asked the woman at the foremost of the small crowd.
The rest of them, a vaguely small collection of people, all glanced at the slightly elderly woman in front of them.
Sonora raised a hand and rubbed at her mouth, her eyes sweeping over the woman as well. Her hair was peppered with grey, and lines ran around her face. She had a kind look in her eyes, however, and after surveying Sonora for a moment she nodded.
"Stay here however long you need, the horse can be put in with the others. Jonathon can look after it. Lunch is in a few hours. I suspect you'll be setting up a tent?" she asked, her hand rising to shield her eyes from the sun peeking over Sonora's left shoulder.
"Yea, I haven't had much use for it till now, mostly been sleeping on the horse's back, a rope tied on to keep me from falling off. It'll be nice to sleep lying down for once." Sonora dismounted and swung her reigns over the horses head. "But if you don't mind I'll take care of him myself. We've turned into something like friends over those long months. Just help me to the barn and I'll set him up. No doubt ya'll have a lot on your hands as it is."
The woman nodded. "My name's Anne, this here is Jonathon, and you'll meet the rest of them throughout the day. Seeing as you're going to be staying for a piece you'll need to keep yourself busy. We're getting our vegetables ready for the harvest. Planted them early, so we wouldn't be without." The woman smiled. "But I'm keeping you too long, see to your horse and then come find me; I'll show you where you can put your tent." She stated.
Sonora nodded and looked around for the Jonathon guy. He waved a little to get her attention and then they both turned and he led her to the barn. Sonora stayed silent through the entire walk, as did Jonathon, her eyes moving around and taking in the scenery as they neared the structure that smelled of hay and horses.
The black horse lifted his head and whinnied a little as the wind shifted, a little while later a few more knickers and whinny's split the air.
"Sounds like quite a few horses… how are ya'll feeding them? Hay and grass? Or do ya'll have some secret stock pile of feed somewhere?" Sonora questioned, looking over at Jonathon as they reached the barn doors and he rolled them opened.
Jonathon shrugged. "We make a go into town every couple of weeks. First few times, though, we got all of the horse feed from the store. It'll probably ruin before he can feed it all to them but at least we're making an effort." He said, leading her to an empty stall before climbing up a ladder and forking down some hay into the stall as Sonora took her equipment off the horse. "How far have you ridden? Where you coming from and where are you going?" he asked in return to her questions.
Sonora looked up at him, her black hat covering most of her face. "I don't exactly know how far I've gone; just that I know I'm trying to get to Texas. I came from Georgia, so how far have I ridden? I had a map until one day I didn't." she stated, placing the saddle from the horses back onto the floor of the barn.
Jonathon climbed down from the loft, swinging around a beam to stare at her. "Well… you might not like this. You're in Juliette, Georgia." He stated.
Sonora frowned. "Son of a bitch." She muttered, turning to the horse and smacking its side a little. "You were supposed to take me to Texas!" she snapped, shaking her head at the animal as it stared at her, what seemed to be a bored light entering its eyes.
Jonathon gaped at the black haired woman who talked to the horse in front of her. Maybe she was just a little crazy, he thought, discreetly giving her a once over as she berated the horse and began to rub it down. "How old are you?" he finally asked, looking back up and finding that she had slipped the bridle from the horse's mouth and had it walking inside the stall.
"Twenty, my birthday passed at least a month ago, had a nutty bar as the cake." Sonora grinned slightly. "No ice cream though, or presents… unless you count getting a new pair of knives from a Bass Pro shop in Alabama…" she paused, a frown covering her face for a moment. "I think it was near Birmingham…"
Jonathon shrugged. "If you're thinking of the one that's in the middle of that state then yea, it was near Birmingham. Leeds was the town. I used to live there." He stated, seeing the look of mistrust on her face. "I came here after everything went to hell. This is my grandmother's place. It's really only me and her left, the others are survivors that stumbled across our place and never left." He explained.
Sonora nodded, glancing at the horse in the stall before letting her eyes roam. There were probably three other horses, in all, in this barn. Two of them were rather large, and looked strong. Work horses, no doubt. The people here probably used them to dig trenches into the ground, for the crops. The last horse was smaller than the other two, but still held the look of a giant. No doubt a foal, probably a three year old.
Sonora had stopped by a bookstore once or twice, reading up on horses and answering a lot of questions for herself.
"So how long are you going to stay here?" Jonathon asked, drawing Sonora from her thoughts, he had seen the distant look in her eyes, and he wondered what she had been thinking.
Sonora looked over at him. "I don't know, long enough to get sorted out, and maybe hunt a little bit. My father showed me how to, so I'll get started on that in a couple of days. Fresh meat is always better than jerky." She smiled a little and then looked down at her saddle. "Anywhere I can store this?" she asked.
Jonathon nodded, gesturing for her to follow, Sonora stooped and untied her duffle bag from the back of the saddle and then picked both up on either arm, walking after him towards a door at the end of the barn. "We keep the tack here; it's dry and has a few empty stands. Pick where you want to place your equipment and then we'll head back to my grannies, she'll be able to tell you where to set up by now." He stated, leaning against the door and watching as Sonora dropped her duffle bag and threw the saddle onto a stand. She dropped the bridle onto the horn and then turned to Jonathon, picking the duffle back up and nodding to him. "Well come on then." He said, turning and leading the way out of the barn.
…..
Sonora sat at her campfire a few days later, slowly turning a small stick in her hands over and over. She glanced up and looked around the clearing, but nothing showed itself, a cow lowed from the pasture in front of the house, and a horse neighed from the barn. But aside from that all was silent, Sonora looked back down at her stick and sighed a little before throwing it into the fire.
She didn't really need a fire, the hot summer days had melted into hot summer nights, but she felt a little better with it.
A twig breaking under something had her standing, sword slipping out of its scabbard, and staring into the surrounding darkness. She whirled around a few times, trying to pinpoint where the noise had come from but she neither heard nor saw anything. She remained tense, however, and remained standing for a few moments more.
"It's just me." A small voice said, Sonora instantly shifted into a casual stance, her sword going back into its home and the tenseness bleeding out of her frame.
A dark head of hair popped out from around a tree, Sonora turned her head and stared at the figure. "Shouldn't you be… inside?" she asked, sitting back down and picking up another stick. She twirled it in her hands and looked over at the woman who came to sit next to her.
"Well it is really hot in the house, no air conditioning, so I decided to come outside. You looked lonely all the way over here, and so I thought you would like some company." The woman stated, looking into the fir.
Sonora shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me if I'm lonely, been traveling alone all these months, in fact, I think I like being alone. People are loud, and being alone means you don't have to constantly be on the lookout because the person you're traveling with decided to yell or something."
The woman frowned. "But being alone means you have to constantly look over your shoulder, and sleep with one eye open. You don't have anyone to talk to, or share your thoughts with. That would be totally sad for me. I could never be alone in this world." She said.
"Alone means alone, I like being alone Alice, besides, the horse is company enough for me. He looks over his shoulder, and runs when there is danger." Sonora stated, throwing a look over her shoulder at the horse barn.
As if called the deep throated neigh of her horse pierced the night air.
"When are you going to name him? He can't go on being called 'the horse' for the rest of his life." Alice picked up a stick, playing with it like Sonora was.
"Oh, I've been thinking of naming him Thor, but that's stupid. Another name is Famine, which I do like." Sonora looked back over at Alice.
The older woman frowned. "What a horrid name." she said, wrinkling her nose a little.
Sonora smiled. "Famine it is, oh he will be so delighted to hear his new name. The old one was getting a bit boring." She stated, laughing a little.
Sonora felt that she had made great bounds with getting control over her slightly maniacal laughing fits. She hardly laughed like that at all anymore, unless she was killing the walkers, then she laughed until a stitch developed in her side and she had to kick the horse to get him to race away from the nightmarish scene of walkers coming after them with their bloody limbs outstretched and their hungry eyes and moans following her and the horse for miles. Sometimes she would stay awake at night, shivering at the memories of the walkers reaching for her.
But still, she was making great progress in her effort to appear normal… or so she hoped.
Alice remained silent, watching Sonora with distant eyes. "Sonora, you seem like a decent person. Don't you have a few friends or family in this hell of a world?" she asked.
Sonora blinked, her mind instantly bringing forth images of her father, and of the people he stayed with. She frowned a little. "My father is with some people, they're somewhere here in Georgia. My mother is dead." She said simply.
Alice frowned as well. "How come you don't stay with your father and his group?" she queried.
Sonora snorted. "I don't like big groups, plus there was some tension between me and the leader's wife… she's a bitch ya know? Well, I may cross them again, trying to head back west. I'll probably pick up a few more maps when I leave, having only one is a bit… detrimental to my trying to head west." She laughed a little, however there was hardly any mirth in it.
Alice shook her head. "Well, when you do leave, make sure to say good-bye, I'm sure a few others in this group will be sad to see you go, you've been a big help around here. Especially on that horse when we bring in the cattle for milking. How long have you known how to ride?"
Sonora did laugh humorously then. "Since last year, one of the things my father did for me. I actually saved that horse, in a way. I didn't know it at the time but the farm we were staying on was overrun with walkers, it was this big horde ya know? Well I had already kicked rocks with the place by then, met up with my dad and his group the next day, they burnt down a barn and left. No doubt those other horses are either dead or running around somewhere." She stated, throwing her stick in the fire. She picked another one up and began picking at it with a thumb nail.
Alice shook her head and looked up at the sky. "I'm going to go back to the house, it's getting late and we have a lot of things to do tomorrow. Maybe you should go to bed as well." She said, standing and throwing the stick she had been playing with in the fire.
Sonora nodded, staying seated and watching the older woman leave. She waited at least another hour before getting up and, instead of going in her tent and sleeping, started taking her stuff out of it and placing it by the log she had been sitting on.
She folded the bedroll and then stuffed her small items into the duffel bag. She then left the tent and zipped the front of it up, glancing at it before picking her things up and walking towards the barn. She reached the large tan structure and opened the door, she squeezed in and then shut the door again, and turning the barn lights on when she was sure the door was fully shut.
One of the horses nickered and Sonora dropped her things by the door to the tack room. She walked over to Famine's temporary stall and opened the door to it, grabbing his halter when he walked over to her. Sonora placed her hand on his head, between his eyes, and slid it down. He snorted quietly, Sonora smiled and took the lead rope from the wall beside her shoulder and clipped it to the bottom of the halter.
"We're leaving tonight Famine, too long and I won't want to. These people aren't at all like what dad's group was like." She whispered to the horse. Famine nickered and Sonora led him to the tack room, tying him up outside of it and then going to the tack room for her stuff. She put his saddle and other tack on him, making sure everything was tight, before pulling her duffel bag over and pushing it up onto the saddle, tying it off and then putting the bedroll on top of it, she was just tying that off when the barn door rolled open and two dark figures appeared in its shadow.
"I thought you would be leaving soon, you had a restless look in your eyes." The old woman said, coming into the light and lowering her lamp.
Sonora glanced over to her, her hands falling to her sides. "I'm sorry about leaving without a good-bye ma'am, but I don't think they're my forte." She stated, picking the bridle up from the hook in the wall and pulling it over Famine's head. He took the bit without complaint and she buckled it.
"It's no matter, I just want to ask you something…" the second figure stepped out of the shadows of the door, Sonora frowned when she saw the dark looking man, who still had yet to introduce himself, come up behind Anne. "Take Conner with you, he's got a restless spirit himself, and maybe you'll be able to keep him safe with you." Anne smiled a little.
Conner stared at Sonora, his dark eyes seemed bottomless. Sonora frowned and glanced at Famine. "Ma'am, I don't think that would be a good idea, Famine here can only take so much weight at a time, and I would rather not burden him with anymore of it." She said, patting her horse's neck and then sliding her hand under his mane to scratch him.
Anne glanced back Conner. "Get Moon out boy, you'll be taking him." She ordered.
Sonora stepped forward as Conner walked to one of the stalls. "Now wait, I won't have you one horse less, you have a farm to work with that animal, and if Conner takes him then you won't have a team to work the field." She stated.
Anne shook her head. "The three year old is halfway trained, and Molly is in foal to Moon again. We'll have three horses again soon, so this won't matter." She told Sonora, watching as the younger woman turned to see Conner leading a pale stallion from the stall.
"I still don't think this is a good idea." Sonora said, turning back to Anne. "What does he use as a weapon? A gun? Can't have anything like that, too loud, draws walkers from all over the place." She turned back to Conner as he tied the slightly larger horse next to Famine.
"I use a silencer." Conner stated, looking over to Sonora before moving into the tack room.
"Well, what about when you run out of ammo? I don't know where a lot of outdoor's places are." She said, turning back to Anne. "I don't know why you want me to take him, I get that he wants to leave. But sending him out with me might get him killed."
Anne shook her head. "It was either this or wake up one morning and finding him gone, no I think he'll last longer with you than on his own." She told Sonora, both of the women watching as Conner tacked up the other horse swiftly and with an obvious air of having done this before.
Sonora sighed, shaking her head. "I can't believe I'm doing this." She muttered. "Well, do you have anything with you? How old are you anyway?" she suddenly asked.
Conner rolled his eyes. "I'm fecking twenty three." He said, pushing the bridle up onto Moon's face.
Anne sighed. "I'll get his things, they're right outside the door." She told Sonora, turning and walking back to the entrance of the barn and grabbing a large green pack and then walking back over to the two. Conner walked over and took it from her, giving the elderly grandmother a hug before going back to Moon and hauling his butt into the saddle.
Sonora turned back to Anne, she walked towards her and held out her hand, Anne ignored her hand and gave her a hug instead. "If we ever see you again you'll be welcome for as long as you like." She told the young woman.
Sonora sighed and nodded. "If I ever see my dad and his group again, and they're going in this direction, I'll point them here." She stated.
Anne nodded and then watched as Sonora mounted her own horse and then looked over at Conner. "Stay safe you two." She said.
Sonora nodded, reaching behind her and grabbing the hat on her bedroll, she'd put it there after grabbing it from the saddle when she'd grabbed the tack. She placed the hat on her head, put the trench coat on, and then clucked to her horse.
"Bye Anne." Conner said, waving at her as he followed after Sonora. He had a bit of a hard time locating Sonora after they left the light of the barn, but then he noticed that her saddle had a small light on it.
He moved his horse up so he was riding along beside her. "So why horses?" he asked as they cantered across the yard and made for the front gate.
Sonora looked over at him. "Don't run out of gas after twenty miles do they?" She answered.
….
Weeks later they were a bit more companionable.
"So what country are you from again? I know the accent; I just can't place it…" Sonora finally said after hours of contemplating the question. She'd given up trying to figure out where he was from when her thoughts were simply filled with where they were going to sleep that night, to how they were going to eat.
Conner looked over at her, a small smirk playing on his lips. "Ireland." He says; which makes his collection of one word answers go up to ninety nine. She'd been counting since the Tuesday before last.
"Ah, well in any case, it's a cool accent." Sonora stated, looking around as they rode out into a clearing. Famine stumbled a bit and Sonora looked down to see that they were now riding down a railroad track.
Conner looked around as well and then suddenly drew his horse up. "Ey, look at that will ye?" he said, pointing to the right.
Sonora stopped her horse as well and looked in the direction he was pointing. She narrowed her eyes and reached around for the backpack she kept on her right shoulder. She dug around in it before bringing out a pair of binoculars. She lifted them up to her eyes and then looked at the prison again.
After a minute she brought them down.
"We'll I'll be damned." She said softly, handing the binoculars to Conner and waiting as he looked through them.
"You know any of dem?" he asked, looking over at her.
"'Course I do, that man with the crossbow on his back is my father. Looks like they've gotten themselves a whole damn prison. Let's go see what they're up to." Sonora reined Famine around and started off down the hill at a slow walk. Once she made it to flat ground she kicked the horse and held on as he broke into a gallop.
Conner's whoop came from behind her, making her grin a little as tears from the wind streaked down her ruddy cheeks.
When they got alongside the outside of the fence she slowed down so Conner could get up beside her. "Race ya to the gate." She said, pointing to the gate around the corner.
Ye're on!" he said, spurring his horse faster, Sonora shot after him on Famine, both of the horses stretching out as they rounded the turn and then leveling with each other. Sonora heard shouts as they were spotted, but she kept her attention on the gate. Her horse's head was a little more in front than his, and she wanted to win this little competition.
But then Conner kicked Moon again and the stallion shot forward, winning their race by three inches.
They slowed the horses and came back around just as Rick, Glenn, and Daryl made it to the gate.
"I shoulda known it was you." Daryl said, glowering at her.
Sonora shrugged. "I'm the only one stupid enough to stage a horse race just outside a prison." She told her father.
Rick sighed. "How you doin Sonora?" he asked as she and Conner slid from their horses.
"Good, hey dad meet my husband." She threw an arm around Conner's shoulder as Daryl turned his eyes to the dark haired Irishman and gave him a glare.
….
~A/N: This is probably how long I'll try to make the rest of the chapters from here on out. If you don't like it then tell me. If you want them longer then suck it up.
Anyway, hi I'm back!