and oh, that devil's got a hold of me now

[schnapp]

Who| beth greene and bayard sartoris
What| what do you mean the confederate army lost the civil war???????
Where| the woods
When| week 5
Warnings/Notes| none



Daryl and Rick are gone, and there are people here who might tell her that death doesn't mean much when people come right back, but she knows that isn't true. They don't always come back. All you can do is hope against hope that they will, and even then the pain isn't worth it. She didn't see Rick die - she only saw his reanimated corpse stumbling around outside of the caves. But she watched the life fade from Daryl's eyes, she was there. She watched him get torn apart, and knows that no promise of life back in the Capitol would make that pain worth it. Especially not for the price it was paid for. Not for the entertainment of people too detached to care.

Beth wants to rend the Capitol apart, and she knows that she doesn't have to power to. And the anger can only last for so long until it's replaced by exhaustion, until the sadness kicks right back in.

It's so quiet with the both of them gone. And she has more food than she can eat on her own, especially given how much she's been rationing everything. Beth knows what it's like to maintain a level of hunger that still allows her to be productive, and that's exactly what she does. And given that, she finds herself sitting on a fallen tree with a blanket wrapped tight around her, a gift from Nill. Not wanting to risk a fire just in case it attracted the wrong kind of attention. She keeps her knife close by her side, and her father's bible in her hands.

She finds more comfort in knowing that her dad held this for years than anything else. She can read his neat script in the margins, his underlines and the pages he dog-eared.

But there's a twig breaking somewhere close, and her hand closes around her knife, under the blanket. "Hello? Who's there?"

Comments

[yoknapatawpha]

The least he can do, if Maxwell and his friends are willing to let him share in their heat and comforts, is to help them to keep their fire going. As such, all day when he isn't warming himself or eating only so much as to not be an imposition, he's bringing in firewood, upper lip too stiff to open up to ask for someone to accompany him in the scary wilderness, full of murderers and deadly traps.

He drops the firewood he's holding and grabs one of the smaller pieces in case he needs to hit someone with it. The wood's clunky and awkwardly-weighted in his hands, and his wrist falls at a strange ankle as he holds it, making his image of readiness look comical and forced.

"Bayard Sartoris," he calls into the woods. His voice is young, chittery with cold. "I'm only collecting firewood."

[schnapp]

He sounds so young, and Beth immediately lets go of the knife's hilt, standing up and closing the bible in her hand. He's young, and scared and far too small to be out here alone. Not that she'd ever say that to his face. She's spent enough time around Carl and the other kids at the prison to know that children grow up fast, and they're proud of it.

"Hi, Bayard. I'm Beth," she doesn't want to scare him off, and she doesn't want him to be wandering without any protection either. "Sorry, I just didn't expect anyone to be around these parts. Are you cold? I've got an extra jacket here. It'll be too big for you, but it's warm."

Her voice catches a little, because that jacket was Daryl's. But he looks like he's freezing half to death, and it's the warmest thing she's got aside from her own jacket.

[yoknapatawpha]

Something about her accent reminds Bayard of home in a way no one he's spoken to yet has managed, and with his free hand he reaches into his pocket and feels that wooden box of earth he was allowed to keep.

"I wouldn't deprive you, Miss Beth." He approaches slowly, less walking than seemingly shifting weight foot to foot, still holding that big piece of wood. "I can make do, and this cold ain't any kinder on you than it is on me, I reckon."

Something about how all these encounters go down strikes Bayard as wrong, as completely against the rules of combat he was told before coming here. Everything's so cordial, everyone's so kind. He can almost imagine the daily cannons are thunderclaps.

[schnapp]

She's almost instantly charmed. It's hard not to be, especially because his accent sounds so familiar, and he's such a good approximation of a perfect southern gentleman. Which is admittedly a little incongruous for a boy his age, which just makes it even more endearing.

"Well, I got one on already, and I can't wear two at once. I don't think I'd be able to move very well," she's rummaging through the pile of clothes that used to be Daryl's before he shed them. Beth holds up the parka and motions for him to come forward.

"C'mon. Why don't you just try it on?"

[yoknapatawpha]

"As long as you're sure. I can make do on cold nights. Granny's taught me all sorts of techniques to keep a body warm."

He sets that piece of wood down, not because he's sure Beth means her kindness but because it seems to unusual that a woman would be violent to a child. It goes against nature, he thinks. You hear about it in stories but you never really think it's true.

He takes the parka and slips into it - it goes well past his knees and his face and hands disappear in the hoods and sleeves. The white bob of his chin, visible even under the furred hood, flattens with a grin.

"I reckon this weren't made for someone my size."

[schnapp]

The parks slips on him and he nearly drowns in it by the looks of things, but it's sure to keep him warm. And Beth is stepping forward despite herself, before she knows what she's doing. She's clasping the buttons, smoothing them down like a mother would do for her child, an effortlessly maternal gesture that she doesn't particularly dwell on despite the fact that he's a stranger.

"You're right, it wasn't. But you look good. And more importantly, you look like you're a little bit warmer," his grinning face pokes out of the huge fur hood, and it's frankly adorable.

[yoknapatawpha]

"Thank you, Miss Beth. It's a kindness." He reaches up and pushes the parka back just enough that he can see. He picks a little bit at the strange, smooth and brightly-colored fabric of the parka. "Do you know what this material is? I've never seen it before, but I suppose it might be from up North. We don't see much that ain't cotton where I am, except sometimes wool."

Now that he's feeling safer, he seems entirely eager to learn everything about this strangeness around him, and about this strange girl so willing to dress him with the same care and more warmth than Granny showed him.