Flip Side {Daryl Dixon}

{By Tooth...}

The sounds of shoes thudding against a well worn path was the only sound to break the thick blanket of muted exhaustion. They walked in a long caravan train, Rick taking the lead as Daryl kept a close eye on the trees as the caboose. Every once in a while Lilith or Azolla would scurry off into the trunks, returning minutes later with bloodied weapons and stained skin. He was surprised Merle hadn't followed them away from the group, just to get away and do something other than trudge along like pack mules.

No Dixon could sit still long enough.

Jogging up to the head of the line, he kicked his head back to tell Rick he was going off hunting. They needed to eat, their rations were hilariously slim nowadays. The cop nodded back, the archer dropping back to let Juno know he was leaving for a little bit.

"I'm going hunting, stay with Merle or Lilith." The little brunette gnawed on her lip nervously before nodding and speeding up to keep pace with the longer strides of the adults ahead of her. Jax slid back to take his place as the tail of the train, sharp emerald eyes flicking through the scenery with cutting precision.

As the Dixon vanished into the underbrush with expert silence, the wild-eyed Lilith reached out to ruffle her long fingers through the teen's curly hair. This broke her gaze on the spot the man disappeared, Juno lightly glaring up at the woman.

"Tell me about yourself, mikrí skiá." Juno limply shrugged and scratched at the back of her neck nervously.

"Not much to tell. My dad wasn't around, my mom died a few months after the turn. I grew up in Louisiana." Lilith tapped into her chin as she cooked up another question to ask so she wouldn't get the chance to retreat into herself.

"Tell me about your mom. Was she nice?"

"Yeah, but she made sure not to be a doormat to people. Nice, but not a pushover. She was smart too. And really pretty." She was silent for a few seconds before speaking up again, stopping Lilith before she could ask another question. "Can you teach me how to make bows and arrows?"

"Why do you need to? You have a pretty good longbow to me." She tapped her fingernail against the top of the bow peeking out over her head.

"I don't have any arrows anymore, the ones that dad have are too small and cut different for crossbows. So I need arrows and I wanted to know how to make bows just in case this one breaks." Lilith wiggled her fingers in a demand to see the bow she carried, Juno slipping it off of her torso to do as she asked. The wild woman ran her hands over the curve of the belly and picked at the drawstring to test the weight and resistance. Gripping the leather in the middle, she straightened her back and pulled back on the string smoothly until her thumb brushed her cheek- her stance perfect.

"Where'd you get this one?"

"Took it from a dead guy in northern Louisiana. Didn't think he needed it anymore." Lilith chuckled and nodded as she handed the weapon back, her free hand pulling out a small bundle of sticks tied together by a strip of leather from her cape of wonders.

"Lucky for you, I have some materials with me already. Here, let's start with arrows since your bow looks in good shape." Juno took the stick she was offered, the slim birch rolling around in her fingertips. "I haven't found any good stones to use as arrowheads, but we can do most everything else.

Lilith handed her a strip of twine that had been split into its separate strands, thin enough to wrap around the shaft of an arrow without tampering with the trajectory. Feathers were scrounged up from the underbrush as they moved along the trail, the caped brunette handing her a small blade so she could be shown how to cleanly slice down the middle of the feathers they gathered.