It still sounds risky. She can think of half a dozen different ways his plan still ends with her recovering for weeks after - or worse, with Hershel an orphan. But hell, they're close to starving at this point. Landing a boar means enough for everyone to eat long enough to put Alexandria back together.
"All right." It comes out in a hard little breath, and she glances over at him again. "You were gonna do the whole thing yourself, weren't you?"
And, after three increasingly feeble protests, she lets him off the hook. He really doesn't know what he's done to deserve her mercy. Nothing, probably, and by the way his attention is reshaping itself-- the curve of her jaw leaks a beautiful shadow over her shoulder-- he's about to deserve it even less.
That's just how Maggie is, though. Grace where you never expect it.
He looks up, caught in a moment of distraction. He wonders if he'll catch shit for it. He wonders if she'll notice.
"Hmm," he murmurs. "Get you a ladder, or-..."
He looks around. A rusted old pickup is abandoned in the parking lot; Maggie could jump in that. He gestures to it.
Grace might be overly generous. There comes a point when she has to weigh the odds of failing against the status quo - and right now, that means she's looking at deciding between the possibility of her death or the possibility of Hershel's. She'd rather eat glass than see those round cheeks of his go hollow, and it's clear enough that their supplies are running short.
And hell, Daryl's managed it before. She's not about to challenge him to a footrace, but she'd be surprised as hell if it turned out she was slower than someone who took up smoking in his teens and didn't manage to break the habit.
She glances at the pickup truck and back at Daryl, giving a nod. Seems like a decent possibility, if she can get on top of the cab in time - depending on how big the boar is, she's not convinced it won't be able to catch her in the truck bed. And if it doesn't work, she'd better hope he shoots quick and hard. "All right. You're gonna have to take my bow with you - it's gonna slow me down."
He wants to explain still-hunting and ambush-hunting, how to play them both off each other, how to use an animal's instincts against itself. Very suddenly and very keenly, he wants her to understand the way the world works in woodland, the way a hunter moves, the way the world moves around them. He tells himself it's for Hershel's sake, and it is, but not entirely.
Daryl takes a few steps into the denser woodland off to the side of the crumbling strip mall parking lot. Drying mud from last night's rain reveals a lucky pattern. He isn't talking, now, just pointing, and he figures Maggie is clever enough to pick up on that, pick up on the new, quiet way he walks. A tuft of hair caught in some bark, and he points to that, too, waiting for her to see it. The base of a tree has been worn down, its bark sloughed off from a hog rooting against it. Yes, they're in the right place.
Under other circumstances, she'd be likely to ask. They've got to draw the creature out, and she wants to know the details of how, what the worst chances are and the best, how they're going to manage this and both come home safe. Someday, if it's just Hershel and her again, she'd rather know what's possible than wonder at tracks.
But the opportunity to say anything evaporates when he finds tracks here. Her entire body shifts, no longer casual about movement. They've got boar bristles and fresh hoof prints here, and her weight's shifted to the balls of her feet, ready to run or shoot as needed.
Pulling the deer fat from her pocket, she nods in response to his pointing. Seems like they're about ready to grease up some arrows.
More tracks, and he points them out-- smaller, lighter indentations, clustered around the larger heel falls. A sow with piglets. This should be a good catch, if they can manage it. Daryl continues to creep along by, until stopping seemingly at random; he points to a tangled snarl of underbrush, messy and nest-like. A slow nod of his head, and he begins to walk backward, the way they came.
His voice is low. He walks closely with Maggie. From his pocket, he procures two bandannas-- not his usual, these are crisp and fresh, bright red. "Hogs can't see for shit. Tie 'em on someplace."
"On me," she asks, verifying it before she starts.
There's a sort of excitement building in her now - she can see as easily as him that they're looking at multiple boars, some of them young. Maggie doubts they can domesticate the little ones in a single generation, but with a decent pen, they might be able to keep them despite their wildness. With time and effort, they might have livestock again.
Daryl nods, though his expression has once more become pinched, guilty. "Yeah, on you."
He heaves a sigh, and holds out his hands for her bow and quiver. She was right before, they'll only slow her down, and now that they've found the sow's farrowing ground, they don't have to worry about any surprises. Maggie just has to run like daylight's on sale.
"Gonna get in position," he says. "I'll give a signal. You run toward," he points to the nests, "stomp around, and when you see the bitch, you run toward me. Straight line. Nothing fancy."
Something cold has settled in his gut. Oh, he hates this.
So she ties them on. Around each wrist, one more clenched in her hand. Her knife's in the other hand - she's not doing this totally unarmed - but Daryl carrying her stuff, she feels naked. It's unsettling, handing over her bow, even if she's the one who'd suggested it.
Daryl's unsettled, too, she suspects. It's hard not to be. "Go on then. I'll listen for you."
It's all anticipation at this point, adrenaline already coursing through her, and she looks sharp along the parking lot, taking in the obstacles she might need to dodge. That's the worst possibility, that she falls. Second-worst is that walkers get as interested in her stomping as the hog.
Daryl stops short. He forgot this part. Worrying about his pride while Maggie is about to risk her life feels vile and selfish, but he can't help squirming, not quite taking that second step away from her. Maggie is a real person, is the thing. She's never slathered herself in mud to hide her scent because mom spent all the food money on wine; she's never reached into a muddy hole up to her elbow and pulled out a catfish; she's never traded meth for still-bloody buckskin. She is going to see something from the unreality, the hills that were the world before the world broke, and she is going to laugh.
He takes a deep breath.
So what if she laughs? Get on with it. Merle is still alive, is the thing; he lives in a tiny room at the back of Daryl's mind, and he's mostly useful. Get on with it. So he gets on with it.
"The sound," he says, not looking at her, "Ah- shit. You'll know."
And he makes his way, shoulders hunched, back to the strip mall. The roof isn't hard to climb up, and it all takes far too little time. Nerves over Maggie's safety mix with nerves over his own delicate shame. (Aw, get over yourself, Darylinda-) He feels wrung-out before the chase has even begun.
Daryl takes a deep breath, and at the top of his lungs, does an uncanny impression of a squealing piglet. This was always his job on hog hunts, and it was always a thankless one. He was good, he was the best at it, because his voice was the highest even after it broke. It's a deeply useful skill, and it's one he hasn't shared with another human being since Merle died. And he really would have been fine with that.
The sound of Daryl's pig call is too startling in its volume and accuracy to be funny to her. It's the gun going off at the start of a race, and her heart's already pounding as she starts stomping, coming just a little closer to the boar's nest. It feels like she should be shouting, too, calling suey, pig pig pig, but the only noise that comes from her is her footsteps. She goes at it until she hears plant matter stirring and a grunt from the shadows.
Then she turns tail and runs, not caring if it's too early. Better they have to try it again, back into position for another attempt, than she waits too long and gets herself killed. Her boots slamming against the pavement, every step hard from the start, will have to be reason enough for the sow to chase after her.
She hazards one glance back and catches sight of the boar, galloping like a goddamn horse. After that, her heartbeat burning in her throat, she's putting on all the speed she can muster as she tears across the busted parking lot.
Daryl hears them before he sees them, crashing through the underbrush. In the seconds before he can start to aim, everything is clammy regret. He should have dug Maggie a trench to run through, clear of anything to trip on. He should have made a better blind. He should have gotten something better for her to climb up on.
And then he sees the sow, takes his aim, and everything is cold, hard and focused. Tension evaporates, and instinct takes over. Any jittery nerves, self-doubt or regret is gone, replaced by a calm that freezes all other feeling. This single moment, repeated a thousand times through his life, is why he loves to hunt.
He sees the hog. He aims. He fires once, misses. Fires again, and the arrow hits the sow's big, thick skull, skittering off and getting caught in the skin of her ear. Another shot, and- finally- the lung or the heart, somewhere in the chest.
And then Daryl sets his bow aside and reaches down, toward the truck, anything to pull Maggie up and toward safety.
There's no time to see how Daryl's doing or whether the boar's gaining on her. She runs in a straight line, straining forward, eyes on the ground in front of her. If he kills it, she doesn't know. If all his arrows miss, it doesn't matter. Either way, she runs.
She cuts her palm as she scrambles into the truck bed, leaving a streak of blood behind as she hoists herself onto the roof of the cab. The pain doesn't register, only the way her hand slips when she tries to grip Daryl's. She's breathless and sweaty, can barely hear hoofbeats over her pulse in her ears. "Shit."
Daryl doesn't swear, doesn't gasp, barely breathes. He's still in that place of total instinct, where everything is slow and calm. He grabs Maggie, and her hand slips, and he grabs her again. His hands find purchase on her upper arm, and he tugs her up, overbalancing slightly in his haste. For a moment that is an eternity, they embrace fully. He can smell her sweat, and feel the softness of her hair.
He turns away, grabbing his crossbow, taking another few shots as the sow screams and runs, trailing blood and broken branches.
For Maggie, it's an instant. Her heart's in her throat, she's slipping, and then she's on the roof, clutching Daryl to keep from landing hard, gasping like he just saved her from drowning.
And then he lets her go, and she slumps against the ledge. Everything stops for a minute or two, and all she does is breathe. When she can hear anything besides the air cutting ragged down her windpipe, the inhuman wailing of the boar comes through, and she forces herself to her feet. "We get it?"
As the feeling of perfect calm ebbs, he watches Maggie transform in his eyes. She looks wrecked, covered in obvious signs of terror and exhaustion. She was scared for her life, but the guilt is far on the horizon. All he can see is the shape of someone who overcame their own doubts.
And then feeling creeps back into him, and guilt mingles with something else. Maggie is a mess of dirt and sweat, leaves stick in her hair, blood splashes over her arm. She sticks out like a sore thumb among the ruin, incongruous with haste and pain. She's real in a way he'll never be.
He moves toward her, stops, starts again. Bandages and a water bottle are offered up from his pack. He keeps his distance.
"We will," he says. "Got her in the lungs, I think."
He looks out over the greenery, the blood dragged into the earth. He can't look Maggie in the eye. Her face shines like the sun.
"Good." She takes the bandages and the water from him, so she can clean the rust from her hand. The cut's nastier than she'd expected, and now that she can think again, it's starting to throb. "Bacon for dinner."
The last time she felt this wrung out, they'd just fended off an attack - but Maggie supposes she just did, too. The smile she gives Daryl is weary, but it's genuine.
"The piglets," she says, after a moment, wrapping the bandage around her hand. There's more to plan if they try that. "We gonna take them back with us?"
Her smile lodges a complaint in Daryl's throat, and he takes a moment to smell the earth, feel the breeze, and forget about choking.
"Yeah," he says, "I'll kill 'em for Carol. That shit always makes her-..." He raises one hand, wiggling it a little. Shaky, he means, but saying it aloud feels like a betrayal. If Maggie's read his letters, she knows her boy died; there's no point in bringing up the tangled spectres of their shared pasts. Half the time, it feels written on their foreheads.
"Could try keeping 'em." They probably can't, she knows. They'd need more than a sty for a creature that fast and mean, let alone several. But Daryl knows hunting, and she knows farming; between the two of them, she has to believe they could keep a litter of hogs under control. If not this time, sometime. "Not long, just until they're a little bigger."
They'd still have to die eventually, of course, but they wouldn't bother Carol half so much when they did.
Daryl welcomes the end of his expertise. "You're the farmer," he says, with something like cheer.
Against his better judgement, he reaches over to pat her shoulder, and is delighted to discover the touch of skin to cloth sparks no fire in him. It's the same as it ever was-- he can notice things, appreciate them, but he's never driven to action the way his brother, his uncle was. He never loses control.
Maggie's already thinking it though as she rips off the end of the gauze and tucks it in against her palm. They'll drive them toward Alexandria, pen them up as best they can, and find a way to keep them for the long haul. It'll be worth it to try.
"Now that we got that boar?" she asks, with some warmth. After she takes a swig of the water, she puts it and the bandages away. "I'm great. All we gotta do is get all the hogs home, and we're in the clear."
Her relief is his. Maggie's capacity to bounce back is something he once thought was facile, disrespecting the weight of failure. Years gone, now, and he sees it for what it is, and how hard it must be to make yourself a monument to success.
He lets himself smile. "We'll get 'em all," he says. "C'mon." He offers her a hand up.
She takes it - with her good hand this time - and pulls herself up. For a moment, they're standing in each other's space again, sweaty and tired and close enough to breathe the same air.
"Yeah," she agrees, and goes to get her bow. "Got a lotta work ahead of us."
They don't stop moving until dark, and during the summer, that's one hell of a day. But by the end of things, the sow and her ill-fated children are all back at Alexandria. The mother's butchered, the entirety of Alexandria buzzing with excitement over the thought of meat tomorrow, and Maggie's put in a word with the right people to figure out a long-term solution for the piglets.
She's swallowing a yawn as they walk back to the house together. "Gimme a couple days before we go for another boar. I haven't run like that in - I don't know how long."
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"All right." It comes out in a hard little breath, and she glances over at him again. "You were gonna do the whole thing yourself, weren't you?"
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At the strip mall, she glances around. "We wanna be up near the wall? It's one less place the hog can run."
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That's just how Maggie is, though. Grace where you never expect it.
He looks up, caught in a moment of distraction. He wonders if he'll catch shit for it. He wonders if she'll notice.
"Hmm," he murmurs. "Get you a ladder, or-..."
He looks around. A rusted old pickup is abandoned in the parking lot; Maggie could jump in that. He gestures to it.
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And hell, Daryl's managed it before. She's not about to challenge him to a footrace, but she'd be surprised as hell if it turned out she was slower than someone who took up smoking in his teens and didn't manage to break the habit.
She glances at the pickup truck and back at Daryl, giving a nod. Seems like a decent possibility, if she can get on top of the cab in time - depending on how big the boar is, she's not convinced it won't be able to catch her in the truck bed. And if it doesn't work, she'd better hope he shoots quick and hard. "All right. You're gonna have to take my bow with you - it's gonna slow me down."
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He wants to explain still-hunting and ambush-hunting, how to play them both off each other, how to use an animal's instincts against itself. Very suddenly and very keenly, he wants her to understand the way the world works in woodland, the way a hunter moves, the way the world moves around them. He tells himself it's for Hershel's sake, and it is, but not entirely.
Daryl takes a few steps into the denser woodland off to the side of the crumbling strip mall parking lot. Drying mud from last night's rain reveals a lucky pattern. He isn't talking, now, just pointing, and he figures Maggie is clever enough to pick up on that, pick up on the new, quiet way he walks. A tuft of hair caught in some bark, and he points to that, too, waiting for her to see it. The base of a tree has been worn down, its bark sloughed off from a hog rooting against it. Yes, they're in the right place.
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But the opportunity to say anything evaporates when he finds tracks here. Her entire body shifts, no longer casual about movement. They've got boar bristles and fresh hoof prints here, and her weight's shifted to the balls of her feet, ready to run or shoot as needed.
Pulling the deer fat from her pocket, she nods in response to his pointing. Seems like they're about ready to grease up some arrows.
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His voice is low. He walks closely with Maggie. From his pocket, he procures two bandannas-- not his usual, these are crisp and fresh, bright red. "Hogs can't see for shit. Tie 'em on someplace."
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There's a sort of excitement building in her now - she can see as easily as him that they're looking at multiple boars, some of them young. Maggie doubts they can domesticate the little ones in a single generation, but with a decent pen, they might be able to keep them despite their wildness. With time and effort, they might have livestock again.
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He heaves a sigh, and holds out his hands for her bow and quiver. She was right before, they'll only slow her down, and now that they've found the sow's farrowing ground, they don't have to worry about any surprises. Maggie just has to run like daylight's on sale.
"Gonna get in position," he says. "I'll give a signal. You run toward," he points to the nests, "stomp around, and when you see the bitch, you run toward me. Straight line. Nothing fancy."
Something cold has settled in his gut. Oh, he hates this.
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Daryl's unsettled, too, she suspects. It's hard not to be. "Go on then. I'll listen for you."
It's all anticipation at this point, adrenaline already coursing through her, and she looks sharp along the parking lot, taking in the obstacles she might need to dodge. That's the worst possibility, that she falls. Second-worst is that walkers get as interested in her stomping as the hog.
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He takes a deep breath.
So what if she laughs? Get on with it. Merle is still alive, is the thing; he lives in a tiny room at the back of Daryl's mind, and he's mostly useful. Get on with it. So he gets on with it.
"The sound," he says, not looking at her, "Ah- shit. You'll know."
And he makes his way, shoulders hunched, back to the strip mall. The roof isn't hard to climb up, and it all takes far too little time. Nerves over Maggie's safety mix with nerves over his own delicate shame. (Aw, get over yourself, Darylinda-) He feels wrung-out before the chase has even begun.
Daryl takes a deep breath, and at the top of his lungs, does an uncanny impression of a squealing piglet. This was always his job on hog hunts, and it was always a thankless one. He was good, he was the best at it, because his voice was the highest even after it broke. It's a deeply useful skill, and it's one he hasn't shared with another human being since Merle died. And he really would have been fine with that.
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Then she turns tail and runs, not caring if it's too early. Better they have to try it again, back into position for another attempt, than she waits too long and gets herself killed. Her boots slamming against the pavement, every step hard from the start, will have to be reason enough for the sow to chase after her.
She hazards one glance back and catches sight of the boar, galloping like a goddamn horse. After that, her heartbeat burning in her throat, she's putting on all the speed she can muster as she tears across the busted parking lot.
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And then he sees the sow, takes his aim, and everything is cold, hard and focused. Tension evaporates, and instinct takes over. Any jittery nerves, self-doubt or regret is gone, replaced by a calm that freezes all other feeling. This single moment, repeated a thousand times through his life, is why he loves to hunt.
He sees the hog. He aims. He fires once, misses. Fires again, and the arrow hits the sow's big, thick skull, skittering off and getting caught in the skin of her ear. Another shot, and- finally- the lung or the heart, somewhere in the chest.
And then Daryl sets his bow aside and reaches down, toward the truck, anything to pull Maggie up and toward safety.
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She cuts her palm as she scrambles into the truck bed, leaving a streak of blood behind as she hoists herself onto the roof of the cab. The pain doesn't register, only the way her hand slips when she tries to grip Daryl's. She's breathless and sweaty, can barely hear hoofbeats over her pulse in her ears. "Shit."
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He turns away, grabbing his crossbow, taking another few shots as the sow screams and runs, trailing blood and broken branches.
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And then he lets her go, and she slumps against the ledge. Everything stops for a minute or two, and all she does is breathe. When she can hear anything besides the air cutting ragged down her windpipe, the inhuman wailing of the boar comes through, and she forces herself to her feet. "We get it?"
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And then feeling creeps back into him, and guilt mingles with something else. Maggie is a mess of dirt and sweat, leaves stick in her hair, blood splashes over her arm. She sticks out like a sore thumb among the ruin, incongruous with haste and pain. She's real in a way he'll never be.
He moves toward her, stops, starts again. Bandages and a water bottle are offered up from his pack. He keeps his distance.
"We will," he says. "Got her in the lungs, I think."
He looks out over the greenery, the blood dragged into the earth. He can't look Maggie in the eye. Her face shines like the sun.
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The last time she felt this wrung out, they'd just fended off an attack - but Maggie supposes she just did, too. The smile she gives Daryl is weary, but it's genuine.
"The piglets," she says, after a moment, wrapping the bandage around her hand. There's more to plan if they try that. "We gonna take them back with us?"
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"Yeah," he says, "I'll kill 'em for Carol. That shit always makes her-..." He raises one hand, wiggling it a little. Shaky, he means, but saying it aloud feels like a betrayal. If Maggie's read his letters, she knows her boy died; there's no point in bringing up the tangled spectres of their shared pasts. Half the time, it feels written on their foreheads.
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They'd still have to die eventually, of course, but they wouldn't bother Carol half so much when they did.
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Against his better judgement, he reaches over to pat her shoulder, and is delighted to discover the touch of skin to cloth sparks no fire in him. It's the same as it ever was-- he can notice things, appreciate them, but he's never driven to action the way his brother, his uncle was. He never loses control.
He exhales. "You doin' alright?"
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"Now that we got that boar?" she asks, with some warmth. After she takes a swig of the water, she puts it and the bandages away. "I'm great. All we gotta do is get all the hogs home, and we're in the clear."
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He lets himself smile. "We'll get 'em all," he says. "C'mon." He offers her a hand up.
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"Yeah," she agrees, and goes to get her bow. "Got a lotta work ahead of us."
They don't stop moving until dark, and during the summer, that's one hell of a day. But by the end of things, the sow and her ill-fated children are all back at Alexandria. The mother's butchered, the entirety of Alexandria buzzing with excitement over the thought of meat tomorrow, and Maggie's put in a word with the right people to figure out a long-term solution for the piglets.
She's swallowing a yawn as they walk back to the house together. "Gimme a couple days before we go for another boar. I haven't run like that in - I don't know how long."
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