Daryl keeps an eye out as well. What he really wants is to run into some financial park, or maybe an office building, but there aren't a ton of those in rural Georgia. It'd be a fine thing, though, to set people up in the cubicle rooms, set guardposts up on the corner offices. You could see for miles.
If only they could find one.
"I just get angry," he says, shaking his head. "All the Dixon men-- too much booze, everything's fighting words. Rather sing."
More tree, more buildings, a walker that does at it is called, walks and walks and walks. Towards them, towards something else that will take their interest. Forward, forward, forward. Come to think, she'd never seen them step backwards. Perhaps that was gone from their minds too, a way back.
"Oh, Dixon men is it? I shall be wary then." Her head turns back briefly to him, a brief smile. Wondering what the others of his family would be like. "My papa-ji always warned of it. Didn't turn out to be my disposition, thankfully." Been a long time, granted, since she'd drunk anything. Turns back to him, a crinkle turning up in the corner of her eyes. "I am sure you would sing beautifully."
"Don't worry none. Only one left ain't a big drinker." He gives her a wry little lop-sided smile.
He turns the corner down a road that looks somewhat promising. For one thing, it's got tarmac rather than dirt paving it. "Means you ain't gonna hear me singing anytime soon, neither."
"A shame, I am sure it would liven the evenings some." Hovers, almost, like she means to poke at him, prod him some. But she looks forward instead, adjusting herself again, the need to always be moving that comes subconsciously.
"Though apparently we don't have the same taste in music, from what you said." She never even what kind of music she likes, Daryl, rude.
The road widens into what looks like a mall. There don't seem to be too many walkers in the parking lot, which is either a really good sign or a bad one. But if they could make it work, with people sleeping in shops... Daryl parks the car.
She opens her door, poking her head out, staring out over the building in its entirety. What on earth was it? Well, shops, she knew that.
The world had changed, and sometimes it takes her off her guard - not the big things, the small things. This life, what had they lost? One that wasn't hers, that much was easy to say. One in which losing a mother in childbirth stilled them utterly, one where even where they still counted the things they lost and found the temporal difficult, no comfort to them in death when it was time for one to go. These things, certainly, but buildings like this - just taken for granted as normal to them. A place where food could be stored and reached easily. Things that they could have from countries away with little trouble to themselves to obtain. A world fully realised that was not hers and she feels - invasive, almost, when she looks in on it. Like the walls knew she was not supposed to be there. Like she was not supposed to be with there group.
Thoughts for later. She snaps from her thoughts back to him with a uptilt of her face. Her laughter is high and bright, as she meets his gaze, unsheathing the long knife from her back in the soft hiss of a promise. "And I am not even wearing my receiving clothes." Her humour is tinted, shade by shade. "Shall we? It's been a long time since I've held court and I am in a generous mood."
Edited (gets all poetic n shit x2) 2016-11-22 13:27 (UTC)
"Never been to court," Daryl says, getting out of the car. He loads his crossbow, getting ready for something to slither out of one of the cars. They should check those, he decides. They've got to be in better condition than the ones they came up in. "That like being on a council?"
Oh - he just couldn't resist, could he? Her eyes roll her jaw sets and - damn it all if she doesn't feel bad for how sharply she reacted the night before. Usually tried to give an explanation as to why, at least in her own way. Which granted, she'd been informed that her usual approach of 'I'm nearly 200 years old and know better than you', didn't always work as ... diplomatically as it could.
So she swallows it and begins to move with him, not far, a little ahead and a dropped low as she scanned the cars surrounding for walkers. Blade at the ready and her movements steady. "A little, from how I've seen you all make your decisions so far." Admits it, if begrudgingly. "You are thinking of it quite wrongly, I imagine. Not a law court." How had it worked in this country after they had thrown out their King? She struggles to remember it's particulars, other than a complicated system of elections and laws, held in place of the divinity of a ruler's word.
"It was... perhaps like a great chamber of commerce. All men and women poured into the receiving area, to petition or to seek my or my husband's ear, perhaps simply to ask for advice. I dealt with matters usually pertaining to women, up until my husband died, then I oversaw all. There was often a great deal of discussion, though ultimately every decision was my own. My husband and I had the final word on everything that occurred, allowing for certain religious and social moors of course." She comes to a car, and there's a Walker trapped inside. It goes quick, stabbing it sharp in the temple, the wet sound of slicing meat, brain matter soft and rotten, the crunch of bone. Hears it groan, hears its breath ease out in true death.
Daryl watches her take down the walker without a second thought. She's quick, she's a sure bet more than half the time, a damn shining beacon among all this bullshit. And she's learned fast as quicksilver. Maybe Daryl can't win this little argument, but damned if he's not gonna make his point.
"Sounds like a pain in the ass. Why'd you do it?"
Another small gaggle of walkers wanders out between the cars. Only three or four of them, nothing two people reasonably well equipt can't handle. Daryl shoots the first in the head, aims for the second.
"They were my people. Could I do otherwise?" It comes quick, the response that it had always mean and all that had meant. They were her people, it was her Jhansi and they would never take them from her. There had never been anything else.
They had, anyway. She had never seen her home again. She couldn't bare to go back, she could not bare those memories.
Then she ducks, and she liked - watching him. Watching him fight, watching his precision. The surety he presented when she had not had it for so long. He was steady in way that she had craved so long, that she had not had since - Galahad, since Devi. Swallows, lets him line up the second shot before she darts around the back of the cars, letting him draw their attention before she circles around their back, the one at the far back taken down when she throws the blade, running forward, in the same moment as it hits the ground to yank it free and tackle the one beside it, blade into its head. Pulling herself up as the - woman, it looks like, perhaps she was out shopping.
They work well as a team, he'll give her that. Something in him likes going on runs with her. It's like working with Rick or Merle or Glenn, people he knows will always have his back. Except with her, he knows she's always coming back.
She walks back to him, the blade cleaned off against her leg in swipes. Shakes her head in response, then carries on past him towards the building. "Being born there doesn't have anything to do with it. It's about a responsibility I had. Whether I liked it or not those people looked to me, a choice I did not get to make freely, either, I was married to the Raj when I was thirteen, and by the time I understood what it meant, I could not walk away from them."
Pauses, as she finishes, and realises where he's lead her back again. Shouldn't have indulged him. A displeased look. Which - shit, she walked right into it, didn't she? A sigh, a little worn at its edges. "Dixon..."
Daryl slings his crossbow back over his shoulder, and crosses his arms over his chest. Yep, walked right into that one. To his credit, he won't push the issue past a breaking point, won't be a sore winner.
"You are... you are not..." But that would mean admitting something, anything, and she is in such a habit. Something hurting and raw and smothered down.
Bites it back, sharp and - one of these centuries, she really should have learned to hold her tongue, or to learn to temper her tone. But she hadn't learned it yet, and time didn't seem to do her any favours. Pushes on forward, and frustration with it all means the next walker she finds in the dark dies with more force than she really needs to exert. Furious, bitter, she is too strong and she cleaves it with ease. Splatters it's pieces against her face, her hands, red and thick on her knuckles.
"You have no idea what it is, what they are asking."
Daryl watches, not commenting, not moving, just letting her take it out on a corpse. Better it than him. Daryl watches her back, letting her have her time with the knife and the blood, until she's settled, until she can speak.
She stares at it, she stares at it, she stares at it. It's not moving, it's never going to move again, she's made sure. They need to be burnt, make like the ancient conquerors did like the British did to her people. Burn all behind them so it can never reach them again. She's all fire, all blistering skin.
"For one thing, don't ever ask me such questions in front of others. For another, how do you suppose it looks? A immortal queen being elected. How long before someone accuses me of usurping power? Looking to build a kingdom anew?"
It's pushing back, the many, many things she'd gone over the night before to give him in a list. Which would be much easier if she really was a queen and she could just issue the commands and he'd have to accept them because she'd said so.
Daryl just kind of... stares at that. He doesn't know how else to respond. "You're shitting me, right? That ain't the world no more."
No one accuses people of shit. They go in knives first and take what they want. And if things have gotten that bad, no one gives a shit about kingdoms and empires.
"That is how the world has always worked. When no man can be King, everyone tries." Bites it ugly, giving him a look like he's a fool. "This is a hairsbreadth away from the world I grew up and was made to rule. Where who got what was decided by guns and blades."
But - fair. "My point is - it's hardly ... it's not something I should be doing. There's a reason the knights were held away from society, from political sway." She laughs, because in it's way, it's hilarious. "Here I am, from a time that's gone, a queen, in a country that spilled their blood to get rid of them, being elected. It's ridiculous, Daryl."
Daryl shifts from one foot to the other, cocking his head to the side. His expression is skeptical at best. "So you're saying you can't help our people, 'cause it'd be silly."
He's not tapping his foot waiting for an answer, but it's a near thing.
"I am helping our people, is that not enough for you?" It's desperate, pushing, getting her the space she wants for him to leave it well enough alone. Wary, twitching, she's expecting something, a walker - Lord, she wishes for a Lycan, right about now. Anything to end this when he's - looking at her like he has a right to. Like she has to answer him.
Because the rest of them didn't. She's better a fairy story than a person. Better bleeding and not dying than she is having regrets. But he, he never could accept that role from her, could he? Had to push and get in where she never wanted anyone to be again because it was safer.
"That's bullshit, and you know it." He takes a step forward and shoots a walker coming toward her, depriving her of a kill. It's small-minded and childish, but he does it anyway, to drive his point home. "Ain't nobody gets to sit out. You can do better, so why ain't you?"
Her head snaps, where he shoots past her and there's an irritated noise for that too. Watching it fall, turning back to him with a scowl on her face. Skittish, skittish animal, waiting for the nearest thing to run from. "Because I have lost every group of people I have dared to call my own, dared to stand for. What makes you think yours will be better served than the ones I was married into, sworn to the gods to protect?"
It's spat out - nothing less than furious that he's gotten the words out. She doesn't care what's waiting for her, bitter and angry and the bile of regrets that is trying to heave out of her. So she ends the conversation the only way she knows how, she seeks out a fight. Easier to walk away from him, to march to that door and let all hell break loose than look at him. Got what he wanted, so now they could be done with it.
It's not what Daryl was expecting to hear, but it has the ring of truth he's been waiting for. She's afraid of leading and loosing again. It's... a kinder reason than he was expecting.
"Not asking you to do it alone, Rani." He keeps walking through the parking lot, in case she doesn't want to look him in the eye. "Nobody does anything alone no more. Nothing worth doing."
She marches on, without consideration to what he's saying. "Fall in, we're wasting daylight. Between today and tomorrow we can get three rooms clear, I don't want Judith sleeping outdoors again." Barks it over her shoulder, the conversation is over. She's at the door, hands on it and ready to pull it free. Takes nothing to tug at the door to get it free. "I'll draw them in, you can pick them off."
She waits for whatever response he's going to give, probably curse her for being pigheaded and stubborn.
Daryl rolls his eyes, and jogs a few paces to catch up with her. He's shaking his head the whole time. "This what you wanna do? Pick off walkers and keep your head down?"
It's such an abyssal waste, he can't even begin to describe it. He never thought he'd find himself critiquing someone else for a lack of ambition. "Some goddamn example you are."
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If only they could find one.
"I just get angry," he says, shaking his head. "All the Dixon men-- too much booze, everything's fighting words. Rather sing."
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"Oh, Dixon men is it? I shall be wary then." Her head turns back briefly to him, a brief smile. Wondering what the others of his family would be like. "My papa-ji always warned of it. Didn't turn out to be my disposition, thankfully." Been a long time, granted, since she'd drunk anything. Turns back to him, a crinkle turning up in the corner of her eyes. "I am sure you would sing beautifully."
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He turns the corner down a road that looks somewhat promising. For one thing, it's got tarmac rather than dirt paving it. "Means you ain't gonna hear me singing anytime soon, neither."
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"Though apparently we don't have the same taste in music, from what you said." She never even what kind of music she likes, Daryl, rude.
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The road widens into what looks like a mall. There don't seem to be too many walkers in the parking lot, which is either a really good sign or a bad one. But if they could make it work, with people sleeping in shops... Daryl parks the car.
"Looks like you got a captive audience, Rani."
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The world had changed, and sometimes it takes her off her guard - not the big things, the small things. This life, what had they lost? One that wasn't hers, that much was easy to say. One in which losing a mother in childbirth stilled them utterly, one where even where they still counted the things they lost and found the temporal difficult, no comfort to them in death when it was time for one to go. These things, certainly, but buildings like this - just taken for granted as normal to them. A place where food could be stored and reached easily. Things that they could have from countries away with little trouble to themselves to obtain. A world fully realised that was not hers and she feels - invasive, almost, when she looks in on it. Like the walls knew she was not supposed to be there. Like she was not supposed to be with there group.
Thoughts for later. She snaps from her thoughts back to him with a uptilt of her face. Her laughter is high and bright, as she meets his gaze, unsheathing the long knife from her back in the soft hiss of a promise. "And I am not even wearing my receiving clothes." Her humour is tinted, shade by shade. "Shall we? It's been a long time since I've held court and I am in a generous mood."
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Nope, sorry, not letting that go, Rani.
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So she swallows it and begins to move with him, not far, a little ahead and a dropped low as she scanned the cars surrounding for walkers. Blade at the ready and her movements steady. "A little, from how I've seen you all make your decisions so far." Admits it, if begrudgingly. "You are thinking of it quite wrongly, I imagine. Not a law court." How had it worked in this country after they had thrown out their King? She struggles to remember it's particulars, other than a complicated system of elections and laws, held in place of the divinity of a ruler's word.
"It was... perhaps like a great chamber of commerce. All men and women poured into the receiving area, to petition or to seek my or my husband's ear, perhaps simply to ask for advice. I dealt with matters usually pertaining to women, up until my husband died, then I oversaw all. There was often a great deal of discussion, though ultimately every decision was my own. My husband and I had the final word on everything that occurred, allowing for certain religious and social moors of course." She comes to a car, and there's a Walker trapped inside. It goes quick, stabbing it sharp in the temple, the wet sound of slicing meat, brain matter soft and rotten, the crunch of bone. Hears it groan, hears its breath ease out in true death.
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"Sounds like a pain in the ass. Why'd you do it?"
Another small gaggle of walkers wanders out between the cars. Only three or four of them, nothing two people reasonably well equipt can't handle. Daryl shoots the first in the head, aims for the second.
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They had, anyway. She had never seen her home again. She couldn't bare to go back, she could not bare those memories.
Then she ducks, and she liked - watching him. Watching him fight, watching his precision. The surety he presented when she had not had it for so long. He was steady in way that she had craved so long, that she had not had since - Galahad, since Devi. Swallows, lets him line up the second shot before she darts around the back of the cars, letting him draw their attention before she circles around their back, the one at the far back taken down when she throws the blade, running forward, in the same moment as it hits the ground to yank it free and tackle the one beside it, blade into its head. Pulling herself up as the - woman, it looks like, perhaps she was out shopping.
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"So you only give orders if you're born there?"
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Pauses, as she finishes, and realises where he's lead her back again. Shouldn't have indulged him. A displeased look. Which - shit, she walked right into it, didn't she? A sigh, a little worn at its edges. "Dixon..."
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"Oh, I'm 'Dixon', now?"
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Bites it back, sharp and - one of these centuries, she really should have learned to hold her tongue, or to learn to temper her tone. But she hadn't learned it yet, and time didn't seem to do her any favours. Pushes on forward, and frustration with it all means the next walker she finds in the dark dies with more force than she really needs to exert. Furious, bitter, she is too strong and she cleaves it with ease. Splatters it's pieces against her face, her hands, red and thick on her knuckles.
"You have no idea what it is, what they are asking."
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"No, I don't," he says, "so tell me."
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"For one thing, don't ever ask me such questions in front of others. For another, how do you suppose it looks? A immortal queen being elected. How long before someone accuses me of usurping power? Looking to build a kingdom anew?"
It's pushing back, the many, many things she'd gone over the night before to give him in a list. Which would be much easier if she really was a queen and she could just issue the commands and he'd have to accept them because she'd said so.
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No one accuses people of shit. They go in knives first and take what they want. And if things have gotten that bad, no one gives a shit about kingdoms and empires.
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But - fair. "My point is - it's hardly ... it's not something I should be doing. There's a reason the knights were held away from society, from political sway." She laughs, because in it's way, it's hilarious. "Here I am, from a time that's gone, a queen, in a country that spilled their blood to get rid of them, being elected. It's ridiculous, Daryl."
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He's not tapping his foot waiting for an answer, but it's a near thing.
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Because the rest of them didn't. She's better a fairy story than a person. Better bleeding and not dying than she is having regrets. But he, he never could accept that role from her, could he? Had to push and get in where she never wanted anyone to be again because it was safer.
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It's spat out - nothing less than furious that he's gotten the words out. She doesn't care what's waiting for her, bitter and angry and the bile of regrets that is trying to heave out of her. So she ends the conversation the only way she knows how, she seeks out a fight. Easier to walk away from him, to march to that door and let all hell break loose than look at him. Got what he wanted, so now they could be done with it.
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"Not asking you to do it alone, Rani." He keeps walking through the parking lot, in case she doesn't want to look him in the eye. "Nobody does anything alone no more. Nothing worth doing."
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She waits for whatever response he's going to give, probably curse her for being pigheaded and stubborn.
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It's such an abyssal waste, he can't even begin to describe it. He never thought he'd find himself critiquing someone else for a lack of ambition. "Some goddamn example you are."
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