𝐇𝐀𝐙𝐀𝐑𝐃 │ 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐋 𝐃𝐈𝐗𝐎𝐍 ¹ [✔]

[49]: tired

Daryl liked his solitude. He didn't love it, but he did like it.

It was a constant - one of the only constants in his life. It was always there, and it seemed he had made a friend with solitude in the strangest ways.

When he needed it, it was most likely there.

So something that would come between him and his lone wolf status wouldn't be met with the kindest eyes or the most welcoming arms. It would take a while for it to be accepted in his relationship with solitude.

Solitude was always going to be there, no matter what. Daryl would rather choose solitude than cold kisses; if it wasn't love, it was poison.

A bottle of bloody liquor wasn't very tempting when one couldn't tell if it was the blood of the heart or blood of the mind. One tasting vibrant and warm, feeling like stars were being born in your stomach and brain, lighting up every nerve you could think of.

But the blood of the mind was cold, it was ashy. It was built from smoke and dark crystals mixed with dragon fire and fallen snow.

The mind was a cold dark place and it was freezing in there, by yourself. It was nothing but mechanisms unless paired with a soul, thus making a heart.

And it seemed that Marley was all mind at the moment.

Daryl really didn't know if Marley had a heart anymore. But he understood. You can't just come out the other side and always have a heart. You can't keep it when you want to do what she wants to do.

Daryl knew Marley better than anyone else at the farm, maybe even anyone else ever, and he knew that she wanted to kill Randall. And he was going to let her do it, after everything she's being through he was going to let her have that "win". She hadn't won a lot, but he was going to give her it.

But giving her that would have had disastrous consequences that could possibly get her exiled.

He didn't want her to get exiled.

So after all the times he had protected her from walkers and people, he decided it was time that she maybe needed to be protected from herself.

He knew her, so he knew what she was capable of.

And he knew that people should be scared.

Dare Daryl think that he wasn't scared of her?

Maybe it was because he knew her too well. But in reality, Daryl didn't know her at all. There were things he didn't know about her. Things she's done. Things that have happened to her.

He knew enough to know that what Marley was doing, it was all plausible. Everyone thought she had done a "one-eighty" and her actions came out of nowhere.

They didn't.

Her mind and body were sick of being the victim, and Marley was sick of looking at her hands and seeing none other than her own blood. She wanted control, she never had it, and now she did.

Daryl fiddled with the arrows that lay across the log in front of him, hearing approaching footsteps and sighing when his eyes caught Dale coming towards him.

"The whole point of me coming up here's to get away from you people," he kept his gaze on the work in front of, working faster so he wouldn't have to speak to the old man. He would give it to Dale, that he was determined.

"Gonna take a lot more than that," Dale replied, throwing a stray thin branch to the side.

Daryl racked his brain, remembering the way Carol suddenly had become quite invested in seeing Daryl. "Carol send you?"