I'm With You [TAG: Daryl]

[Lillian Thomas]

Many people dwelled on the darkness and despair that the Walker infestation had brought. Day in and day out Lillian heard the stories, the horror, the complaints. Heck, she had seen her own parents killed in front of her! But on the outside she appeared all but unaffected which was odd, especially for a little girl. Then again she had always been odd. Being a genius was odd enough but when you had no friends when you were five all the way on up to eight when the breakout happened that could really screw with your head no matter how much information was stored in there.

At the campground in Georgia she easily settled in, sometimes it was easier for a child to adapt than an adult. She spent a lot of time wading in the water, watching the other kids play, drawing in the dirt with a stick, entertaining herself with math problems she fished out of one of the books she managed to bring along with a hardly used teddy bear. She tended to stick close to her sister Beatrix who served as her guardian (though how much of a guardian could she really be at just four years older?). That was unless a person crossed her path that peaked her interest. Lily's head was filled with questions, ones that needed answers especially with certain people: Especially Daryl Dixon whom was who she was currently tailing now and he seemed less than thrilled about it.

"Why don't you want to sit down for supper?" She inquired, ever the inquisitive mind. Truth was she had been pestering him since the campfire. Everyone else had sat down to eat and talk but she had noticed Daryl grab his food to eat on the go. She herself had taken nothing forgetting her hungry stomach and instead choosing to chase the fleeing man. "You caught it. Do you not like deer?" She kept right on going on and on insistent on not backing off about it.

"Did you know there are about a hundred types of deer in the world?" She phrased holding a book, one of the few she had managed to keep on her person since the attack happened, close to her chest. "And they can adapt to almost any habitat. Do you not care?"

[daryldixon]

Daryl was currently eating off his plate using his fingers as he wandered around the edge of the camp. He wasn't a fan of sitting in a large group singing kumbaya or some shit, or reassuring one another that they were all going to be just fine. That was bullshit and they all knew it, yet they still enjoyed feeding one another the same lies when walkers could be heading up to their camp now looking for a little feast. Ever since that last attack, Daryl had been on edge, afraid if he dared to relax for a second they would be ambushed, just like that night. Granted he wasn't a fan of these people, but being in a group was much safer then staking it out alone, like he contemplated many times.

When he heard someone speaking to him, Daryl turned on his heel to spot a young girl following him with a book in her arms. He'd be damned it was story telling time. "I don't want to listen to everyone cry about their lives," Daryl said honestly holding up his plate to show her that he was infact eating. "I would much prefer to be sensible and make sure that walkers aren't coming up the hill," he said popping another piece of meat in his mouth. What he would give for some A1 sauce, that was on his list next time they went to forage for food.

As he kept walking, she just kept falling, lord she was worse then some of the other females in this camp that was insistent that he needed to talk to 'let out his feelings'. "I really could give a rats ass about deer. All I care about is they are food, and I know how to hunt them," he said as he took a seat on a boulder on the edge of camp looking down the hill. "Most of them have shoved off out of this area though, don't blame 'em."

[Lillian Thomas]

Lilly, despite her small frame, didn't seem at all intimidated when Dale spun on his heel to face her despite his height advantage and all together 'scare factor'. It was funny how most people received him. Some were pissed at him just by looking at the man, others threw themselves at him because clearly he was a man with a dark past who needed to be fixed, while some of the others were just downright afraid of him. Lillian Thomas was none of these things in fact the little girl was just plain curious and intrigued by him. He seemed to be an outsider and prided himself on that fact, at least by her observation, in this retrospect (the being an outsider bit) she could relate to him but she was sure that the similarities halted there.

"No one is crying. Not yet anyways. Just sitting." Came her small voice as she rattled off the factual information accompanying it with a small shrug of the shoulders. Shifting her book about in her arms as the man gestured to his food, a gesture that clearly read 'leave me now I'm busy' but of course Lillian totally missed this concept, blue eyes looked bravely up at the rebel.

"Is sensible a word you often find yourself associated with?" Sensible was a large word for a child but Lillian of course knew it's meaning and felt it peculiar that this man had used it to describe himself. Judging from his looks alone that probably wasn't a word others would use, blunt as it was Lillian knew stereotypes. The eight year old had been dubbed a freak by young children many times. She was well aware of the harshness of the world.

"That's a funny word sensible." Now she gave pursuit following right behind the man like a little puppy determined to stick by his heels for whatever reason. "Did you know that the longest word in the English language that you can spell without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable?" Of course this man could probably give a rat's ass about that little tidbit but Lillian, as usual, was oblivious to this or she had just stopped caring. What was the worst that Daryl could do? Shove her down? Eh... She had been beaten to a pulp by past classmates she hardly cared about what this man would do which, honestly, was probably yell.

Nearly tripping over her own two feet several times on the incline that Daryl 'conveniently' chose to take she was all too relieved when he finally plopped down on a large boulder. He couldn't go anywhere now! "You have to care about deer. It doesn't mean that you love them it just means that you care and you have to if you know where you found them. You cared enough to learn where they lived and how to kill them and all of that!" Ah, a child's logic... And a weird child at that. Perhaps she really did deserve all the ridicule that she used to take on a daily basis.

Her eyes studied the man's which were focused on surveying the campground. Her own gaze then followed to where ever his had been looking which was, in this case, the campground. Lord, she even felt out of place there... Even with Beatrix! Making up her mind she pursed her lips stubbornly and then loudly, as she could, placed the book on the floor before sitting right on top of it. Daryl clearly had the throne advantage in this match up.

"I'm from Boston. It's really different than here." She looked up eagerly at the man as if anticipating, or rather hoping, for a response of some sort.

[daryldixon]

Daryl stared at the girl as she talked, and he wondered if she thought trying to talk big to him would make her seem more mature? Because whenever he dealt with children they always ended up being bratty if they didn't sleep long enough, or if they didn't get their way threw a temper-tantrum. He doubted she was going to be any different, and he was sure if he gave her an evil look, or told her to promptly fuck off she would run off crying to the other adults. Not that he cared, all he did was listen to their shit, but it further cemented the fact in his mind that he hated children.

"Crying was a metaphor," he said staring at her as he chewed on another piece of meat before swallowing. "Do you even know what that means?" He asked her with a bit of snark in his voice before looking out over the hill at the very low sun in the sky. He ignored her question about sensible, and just gave a sarcastic laugh about the word uncopyrightable. Who cared to be honest? He doubted there were be schools any time soon, let alone spelling bees. Her information was useless, what she needed to learn about surviving off the land.

"I know enough about deer to know what they eat, and the land they typically live in," Daryl replied. "I don't care anything else about them. I just follow them long enough to shoot 'em," he finished. So what, he may have hurt the little girls feelings, but he didn't care. The sooner she learned the only people that cared about her feelings were mommy and daddy the better off she would be.

"Yeah well I'm from the mountains," Daryl replied. "Which is very different from here as well...so don't expect sympathy from me kid."

[Lillian Thomas]

"A metaphor is a figure of speech or an expression that is used to express something that it does not literally denote." She rattled off the definition as though she was an automated serviced provided at the other end of a telephone line. Though this 'new world' didn't have much use for her type of brains which consisted of facts and data Lillian did find little instances to show her knowledge no matter how insignificant and it wasn't done for superficial reasons either. If anything instances like this one were just a way to relieve some skull stress from her mind, something she was all too relieved to have.

"I am not looking for sympathy. I just wanted to talk." Lily stated simply giving a little shrug of her shoulders before following Daryl's gaze once again toward the sun which was beginning to set. "Silence is also entirely acceptable. I'm just going to sit with you and you may not like it but you're still okay with it. If you weren't you would have shoved me, or hit me, or just plain beat me up, but you haven't, so I have to think that you don't mind, regardless of what you say." She deducted accompanying this thought with a single nod before looking back up at the man.

"Do you not have any friends?" The little girl asked rather bluntly, so honestly and without consequence in fact that it sounded much more like a statement. "I only see you off by yourself and when you're with people you don't really talk to them. You more so yell... Or you're mean. You're not a very nice man." She went on rather carelessly, seemingly digging herself a hole that kept getting bigger and bigger. But Lillian wasn't one question her motives because they were never carried out with evil or harsh intention. She was just blunt, a result of her intelligence, and nothing more.

"Do you not like people?" She went on to inquire. Her lightly colored brow actually peaked in interest as she studied the side of the man's face for some sort of reaction or tell to the answer of her question before he could even speak it, though Lillian wasn't at all talented in reading what or how people felt. She lacked that kind of common sense know how which was partially why she couldn't bond with kids her own age... Or much of anyone.