Not having any real survival-oriented skills in a place like this was, admittedly, a setback. Lydia counted herself lucky, still, because she was smart and she caught on fast. She genuinely wanted to absorb as much as she could from the people willing to teach it to her because being beautiful and cunning would eventually plateau as a way to survive and she needed a backup plan. Lydia wanted to know how to take care of herself, how to provide for herself, and how to stand on her own two feet with the same ease that some of the others — somehow equally surprisingly and not surprisingly, like Isaac — in the environment in which she found herself.
So, Lydia started with what she knew. Lydia knew that there were fruit trees and she imagined that they would be easy enough to identify safely and confidently to collect for the group. It was a simple contribution, but probably an important one, because they couldn't all just survive on protein shared with the group by the people who knew how to hunt. They would need to balance it with natural sugars, she thought, to keep their energy up.
Lydia was moving through the jungle with her hatchet in hand and she might not know how to use it, but how hard could it be to scale a tree just enough to reach to hack off a limb that had a decent amount of fruit sprouting from it? Probably harder than it sounded, she realized, but Lydia was determined. She'd find a way to make it work.
As she moved through the brush, she noticed movement up ahead and Lydia slowed a little, watching the form of the woman as she raised a weapon and once Lydia got a better look and realized what it was, she felt a pang of sadness in her heart. Seeing a woman confidently holding up a bow reminded her of Allison. If Allison was here, Lydia probably would already be in the process of learning archery by now, she bet.
Quietly, Lydia moved closer until she thought she could be seen, keeping a distance so as not to encroach on the other woman's personal space because some people could find that to be threatening and Lydia wasn't a threat, nor did she want to be seen as one. "I had a friend who was an expert archer," she said by way of announcing her presence, a sad smile on her face that fell short of her eyes. "I always thought that was so cool, but I don't think I ever told her that. Maybe I should have."