August 31: Bambi
Title: Bambi
Author: 3am_moonlight (MirroredIllusions on TtH)
Crossover: BtVS / The Walking Dead
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 768
Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chosen & TWD: Early seasons.
Disclaimer: Nothing copyrighted belongs to yours truly.
Summary: Daryl tries to teach Buffy how to hunt.
Author's Note: Written for Day 31 of the 2022 August Fic-A-Day.
A/N 2: This day did not go as planned, and it didn't help that the staff meeting I had to attened ran an hour past the time it was supposed to. So, yeah. This isn't exactly what I'd had in mind.
They were all dirty and hungry. Before this, she had lived in small, temporary apartments while traveling from place to place. Mostly she had been by herself, but occasionally she'd been traveling with others. She had always thought the apartments were inconvenient, and that the Defender's Coalition could've sprung for something more dignified, but now that no one really lived anywhere just the thought of them sounded like a luxury.
Personal space, even if it was only for a few weeks at the most, her own kitchen with real food, a real bed, a shower, and, perhaps more importantly, she knew she was safe there. Even if the survivors temporarily lived in a house or apartment or anywhere, really, there was always a chance that walkers, vampires, or unfriendly living people might try to eat them. Literally.
In the beginning, she had mostly traveled by herself, just as she had done before the world collapsed into anarchy, but after a while, she had realized how unequipped she was to survive on her own in this new world. As a Slayer, she also craved to protect people. Which meant she joined several groups of survivors, and either got kicked out or left because she just couldn't agree with whoever was in charge.
"Buffy!" the whisper-shout came from her left and she turned to see what Daryl wanted since she had apparently spaced out for a little too long. A quick survey of their immediate area using both her eyes and enhanced senses told her she hadn't missed any of the undead, or any living people.
"What?" she whispered back.
Daryl pointed toward an animal she had both seen and heard but automatically dismissed because it didn't pose a threat to them. He gave her an annoyed look, "You wanted to learn how to hunt, so you need to pay attention. That's a deer. Shoot it with your bow."
She tried to not look sheepish but probably failed. She had hunted vampires for a decade and was quite adept at knowing where they were lurking at this point, and something similar could be easily be applied to hunting and/or avoiding walkers, but animals weren't something she had ever considered prey. Yes, they were beneath her in the pecking order, but they had sort of just been there. Food was something she bought, not hunted. Or that's the way things had been, before. Learning to hunt could mean the difference between life and death because canned food and other pre-packed foodstuffs with an expiration date would only be edible for so long, and eventually, they would all need to be able to get or make their own.
So, she was in the middle of a random forest with a hunter and trying to learn how to kill wild animals and feed herself. Hence the deer. Except it was Bambi, and she was flashing back to her childhood and watching cartoons. The animal was half-grown, and she was certain that if it had noticed them it would've looked at her with its huge brown Bambi eyes and silently ask her why she'd killed his mother.
The man beside her was getting impatient and her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten in a couple of days. Buffy steeled herself and resolutely blanked her mind, this was about survival, not an imaginary animal created to make children more sympathetic.
Buffy raised her collapsable bow, placed an arrow carefully, closed one eye, and aimed for the unsuspecting animal. She gave herself a few seconds to account for the light breeze and other factors before she let the arrow fly. It hit the deer on the side of the head and it went down.
It didn't feel right, but... "Good job," Daryl praised her before he headed towards the deer to check on it. She quickly followed and carefully watched him field strip it.
The deer still looked kind of like Bambi, but the more Daryl worked on in it the more it began looking like something that would soon become a delicious dinner. Buffy decided to focus on that, because she couldn't afford to be distracted.
When he was done, he handed her the carcass and instructed her on how to carry it safely. A part of her, the very girly part, wanted to back away, but the adult she had become followed the instructions instead. After all, the quicker she was able to bring it back to the camp the quicker someone could make it into the group's next meal.
Her stomach rumbled and she walked just a little bit faster.
Author: 3am_moonlight (MirroredIllusions on TtH)
Crossover: BtVS / The Walking Dead
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 768
Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chosen & TWD: Early seasons.
Disclaimer: Nothing copyrighted belongs to yours truly.
Summary: Daryl tries to teach Buffy how to hunt.
Author's Note: Written for Day 31 of the 2022 August Fic-A-Day.
A/N 2: This day did not go as planned, and it didn't help that the staff meeting I had to attened ran an hour past the time it was supposed to. So, yeah. This isn't exactly what I'd had in mind.
They were all dirty and hungry. Before this, she had lived in small, temporary apartments while traveling from place to place. Mostly she had been by herself, but occasionally she'd been traveling with others. She had always thought the apartments were inconvenient, and that the Defender's Coalition could've sprung for something more dignified, but now that no one really lived anywhere just the thought of them sounded like a luxury.
Personal space, even if it was only for a few weeks at the most, her own kitchen with real food, a real bed, a shower, and, perhaps more importantly, she knew she was safe there. Even if the survivors temporarily lived in a house or apartment or anywhere, really, there was always a chance that walkers, vampires, or unfriendly living people might try to eat them. Literally.
In the beginning, she had mostly traveled by herself, just as she had done before the world collapsed into anarchy, but after a while, she had realized how unequipped she was to survive on her own in this new world. As a Slayer, she also craved to protect people. Which meant she joined several groups of survivors, and either got kicked out or left because she just couldn't agree with whoever was in charge.
"Buffy!" the whisper-shout came from her left and she turned to see what Daryl wanted since she had apparently spaced out for a little too long. A quick survey of their immediate area using both her eyes and enhanced senses told her she hadn't missed any of the undead, or any living people.
"What?" she whispered back.
Daryl pointed toward an animal she had both seen and heard but automatically dismissed because it didn't pose a threat to them. He gave her an annoyed look, "You wanted to learn how to hunt, so you need to pay attention. That's a deer. Shoot it with your bow."
She tried to not look sheepish but probably failed. She had hunted vampires for a decade and was quite adept at knowing where they were lurking at this point, and something similar could be easily be applied to hunting and/or avoiding walkers, but animals weren't something she had ever considered prey. Yes, they were beneath her in the pecking order, but they had sort of just been there. Food was something she bought, not hunted. Or that's the way things had been, before. Learning to hunt could mean the difference between life and death because canned food and other pre-packed foodstuffs with an expiration date would only be edible for so long, and eventually, they would all need to be able to get or make their own.
So, she was in the middle of a random forest with a hunter and trying to learn how to kill wild animals and feed herself. Hence the deer. Except it was Bambi, and she was flashing back to her childhood and watching cartoons. The animal was half-grown, and she was certain that if it had noticed them it would've looked at her with its huge brown Bambi eyes and silently ask her why she'd killed his mother.
The man beside her was getting impatient and her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten in a couple of days. Buffy steeled herself and resolutely blanked her mind, this was about survival, not an imaginary animal created to make children more sympathetic.
Buffy raised her collapsable bow, placed an arrow carefully, closed one eye, and aimed for the unsuspecting animal. She gave herself a few seconds to account for the light breeze and other factors before she let the arrow fly. It hit the deer on the side of the head and it went down.
It didn't feel right, but... "Good job," Daryl praised her before he headed towards the deer to check on it. She quickly followed and carefully watched him field strip it.
The deer still looked kind of like Bambi, but the more Daryl worked on in it the more it began looking like something that would soon become a delicious dinner. Buffy decided to focus on that, because she couldn't afford to be distracted.
When he was done, he handed her the carcass and instructed her on how to carry it safely. A part of her, the very girly part, wanted to back away, but the adult she had become followed the instructions instead. After all, the quicker she was able to bring it back to the camp the quicker someone could make it into the group's next meal.
Her stomach rumbled and she walked just a little bit faster.