The soft breeze that traveled through the sky, tried it's best to break through the thick Georgian humidity that plagued the early summer, but its efforts were futile. The sun beamed high above the gravel trail her feet carried her along, and she could barely feel the lost breeze blowing through her recently cut hair. And although her feet stung with blisters from the sandals that rubbed harshly against her ankles, the person waiting for her at the destination she was traveling towards, kept her going.
She would walk that same dusty trail leading towards an old and worn looking house, through anything. A hailstorm, blistering heat, even her own physical pain. Nothing could stop her from making that few mile journey to the little house on the other side of the small town.
The house, with shingles missing along the roof and dead grass yellowing the front lawn, soon came into view. And although the sight wasn't exactly on the prettier side, the person waiting for her made her heart swell with anticipation.
"Thought them damn shoes made your feet hurt."
His voice rang out into the thick afternoon heat before his face appeared, and even as she couldn't see him, she smiled. His voice, a gruff southern twang that somehow rolled over her like warm honey, made her feet pick up their pace. She could picture the look on his face, a slight playful smirk playing at the corners of his lips. His brow raised as he eyed her shoe choice with amusement. Sometimes it felt like she knew him better than she even knew herself.
"I'd only suffer through the pain for you." She called back to him with a soft tease, and as she rounded the trail leading up towards their cramped driveway, her smile grew as Daryl Dixon came into view.
The tank top he wore was soaked around the neck with sweat from the dense temperatures, and she wondered how long he had been waiting outside for her. His short hair was messy as it always was, but there was something about the untamedness of his warm brown hair that made him seem more youthful.
They were only separated by a year in age, and yet Daryl always seemed to be ages above his years. She knew that his life, the things he had experienced in his barely gotten started life, had shaped him into the person who stood in front of her right now. It was by his father's harsh hand that caused him to grow up in a blink of an eye. A rude awakening to the cruelty that existed in the world, and he got a front row show to the damage. It was by his mother's death, in a house fire, that caused Daryl to see the unfairness life had to offer. The way someone could be torn from this Earth and from him in an instant, no matter how badly he still needed them. It tore away his childhood and left the young boy with a hollow heart for most of his adolescence.
That's when she met him.
The only peice of nature that wasn't dead by the burning sun or tarnished by the poor rality of the house Daryl lived in, was the large oak tree that grew a ways from their driveway. It was tall and shaded and beautiful. It was a relief from the heat, a place to escape and to think, a place to simply be. And Daryl had since shared it with her.
Lending her his calloused hand, as he sat perched on the large branch shaded by the thick green leaves, she accepted it without hesitation. She used to fear heights, and climbing a tall tree that looked down upon the ground feet below her, used to shake her very core. But after that first time that Daryl took her hand and guided her up to the first branch, she realized when she was with Daryl Dixon, she felt no fear.
