Greetings and salutations! Welcome to the 20k megachapter of "holy fuck there was more content here than I expected". I honestly didn't think I was going to write this story past the first chapter, but it has been fun doing so for the few of you that read it. The 1 or 2 reviews I get mean the world to me since I know this story is never going to be as big as my others.

Tragic too since I'm enjoying it so much.

Enjoy our final push into canon RWBY. Let's see what ways the MC mucks it all up.

Chapter 4

Mind Your Business

You get used to blisters.

That is a horrifying fact I wish I never knew. Walk long enough to earn yourself a few of the blighters and you'll spend the night popping them, disinfecting, and patching them up with gauze and tape. Then you'll do it again the next day. And the next day… and the next day.

But I can assure you that around day five you're going to be sick of doing it. That there's no apparent benefit to doing so since you're assuredly going to make more the next day makes you question why you ever did in the first place. That immutable fact is what's caused me to abandon all hope and trudge on with naught but my preexisting bandages and two pairs of socks to absorb any seepage that might occur.

On the seventh day, I make the decision that the first thing I do when I get to Kuroyuri is buying twenty pairs of socks. Twice as many socks as clothes had been nowhere near enough. I would buy these sacred foot protectors until they outnumbered my clothes ten to one. I have no idea when that will be since we're already two days over the estimated five and this town has clearly not shown the decency of obliterating their forests as well as the last one. I've been like Red Riding Hood traveling through the woods for the past day now.

Other things I've realized is that Donna was trying to kill me with the soup. I'd thought to ignore Leo's advice about eating those as quick as I could when I first set out. By the end of the first day, I had cared less about the food I was eating and was far more concerned with getting the heaviest foods out of my pack. It wasn't only a matter of what could fit in my ruck. I'd hit the limits of my physicality. I've had to convince myself not to abandon this bulky and heavy cast-iron pot that I haven't used almost every night I've camped with it. Still haven't gotten rid of it yet.

Donna gave it to me. Throwing it away would be awfully rude… on the other hand. Cast. Iron.

"A simpering sound. It appears to serve others. But really serves you."

Flattery. I do believe that 'oneself' is more appropriate given the context. 'But it serves oneself'.

"I'm soooo sorry oh god of haikus."

He produces a rumbling hum. This title does please me. I shall permit you to address me thusly henceforth.

"And I'd give you permission to bite me if I didn't think you'd find some way to literally come around and bite me."

Whether it was self-imposed or part of some contractual genie magic didn't really make much of a difference. So far, the only things he'd done fell within the purview of our established contract. His psyche being lodged in my brain somehow fully independent of my own was a rather liberal interpretation of my added clause that 'we do this together'. That was easy enough to figure out. This world was the venue he promised to provide, also easy. There were still other things less obvious. Like-

It really is about time.

I couldn't have said it better myself. After seven very long and even more painful days, the silhouette of a town is finally forming on the horizon. We're probably only a few hours outside of the treeline, meaning this town has done significantly less to cull the surrounding forest than Leo and Donna's.

From first making out that a city exists to being able to get a real look at it takes about forty-five minutes. Unlike the previous town which was a hodgepodge of different colored buildings of all shapes and sizes, Kuroyuri looks like it was pressed out of one giant mold. Houses painted pure white with reddened roofs litter the entire town. I can't make out a single unique building at a glance. The functional and intimidating palisade of the past town has no place in Kuroyuri's pristine architecture. An ornate Japanese styled white wall encircling the smaller town that's hardly a full man tall takes its place. It being so short is why I can even make out the buildings from a distance.

Creeping ever closer does reveal one similarity between the two towns. Both Kuroyuri and the previous town have a sentry posted at the gate. What differs is that this one actually acknowledges my existence. Not much more than a once over with his eyes up and down. That simple action manages to make his level of care a whole rung higher than the previous guard. What it doesn't do is satisfy my continually growing curiosity about why these towns have sentries stationed and the entrance in the first place.

Like I said before, the town is definitely smaller than Leo and Donna's. Right after entering the gate I can see the opposite wall off in the somewhat near distance. Fair being fair, this down does have a far more square and symmetrical appearance compared to the other town's oblong dysfunction. Kuroyuri looks like it was put together with a clear plan while the scattered houses and buildings by the Rest more followed the mantra of 'if there's space, I place'.

Smaller in size, Kuroyuri doesn't lack for people wandering the streets or doing business in them. The garb the people are wearing looks far more spendy than the functional clothes I've seen thus far. Clothes sewed from various colors of silk, hats, and jewelry might be more commonplace than not on the people I can see. While the people before appeared more concerned with survival, the residents of Kuroyuri have developed a taste for living.

"Hopefully those open pockets will mean a good haul." I mutter to myself.

The only response my passenger gives me is a soft chuckle. Mildly curious what he found funny about that, I prepare to act like a Mormon on a mission and knock down some doors. Glitches beware. I am here to end you and your kind.

That hope has proven to be entirely in vain.

"Wish I could help you out. Doesn't change that I can't." The man dismisses me from his almost uniquely brown-roofed house.

"If you don't have any tech that needs looking at, I can also clean or labor."

And the door closes in my face without another word.

Zero for thirty-two. He comments dryly.

"Why thank you for the reminder," I gripe quietly. I don't want anyone in the town thinking I'm schizophrenic. I can't imagine that being good for business. "Your informing me of the tally after every failure is sure to improve my performance."

You are quite welcome.

I gnash my teeth and say nothing. Being something of an antagonist myself, I know when someone is trying to get a rise out of me. I refuse to give him any more satisfaction than I already have. I'd like to take some consolation in the fact that I'm now seeing brown roofed houses instead of strictly red-roofed ones. Sadly, the minute joy I'm able to derive from the 'varied' architecture is heavily outweighed by the detail that Kuroyuri has thus been a giant waste of time. If this keeps up I'll have to dip into my reserves to continue onward to the next town.

Instead of giving my passenger any satisfaction by taking the bait, I decide to make conversation instead. "Fancy as this place look, there doesn't appear to be much work."

This pristine and polished look they have gone through so much effort to perfect is what should have told you that. Uniform houses, decorative walls, the lack of any signs of the impoverished. Those are not the qualities a fixer-by-trade wishes to see in a town.

I'd love to disagree with him, but as I knock on another door and clearly hear someone shuffling behind it — likely looking through the peephole — and then going still as can be in the already failed hope that I won't notice him, I find it difficult to argue. I turn away and skip the house. He might be right about Kuroyuri. This place is so perfect that I can even hear the raucous laughter of children from a nearby alley… and another kid standing by the mouth of it pulling off the one-two punch of looking simultaneously nervous and guilty.

A combination of curiosity and dejectedness pulls me away from my job hunt and I walk over to the guilty kid. I think he's a boy, though the way his jet-black hair is pinned into an impressively flat bun at the back of his head gives me some pause in that assessment. His tea-green shirt isn't done justice described as such. The shoulder areas of it are maroon while the cuffs of his sleeves lighten to pale pink. A black collar trimmed with golden fabric makes me think his shirt is worth more than all my clothes combined. His loose-fitting white slacks have much less personality yet look no less expensive. His ensemble is tied up, quite literally, with some sort of black moccasin wrap around his feet and a good two inches past his ankle. He looks all of ten years old, maybe nine.

He fails to notice me as I get behind him and take a peek at what he's looking at.

It doesn't take long to understand where that fearful guilty look came from. Three boys around the same age wearing shorts, two of whom are in tanktops while the other has a simple t-shirt, are looming over someone and laughing. I can't make out the last person through the bodies of the three boys obfuscating them. Can't say the whole situation adds up to four friends shooting the shit. Not with the way this girly boy is looking at them.

"Where'd ya get that bread? I didn't see you pay for it, thief!"

Survey says; not friends shooting the shit.

"No, look! It's all moldy!" One of the other boys chimes in with a substantially more squeaky voice.

"I think she got it from the trash!" The first boy who I'm willing to bet is the leader.

"Let me see!" The third boy demands.

I don't even have time to wonder why the hell the kid wants to see moldy fucking bread before he reaches out to grab it. He retracts his hand even more quickly.

"Ow! She bit me!" The kid shouts in pain. He looks at his hand in shock. Shock which quickly transforms into disgust as he pushes the offender to the ground, her bread bouncing away from her.

Now that the person has been shoved away, I'm finally able to make her out. The girl's hair is shoulder-length with a creamy-orange color to my eyes. I specify because it's hard to tell what color her hair actually is with all the dirt matting it together. Below her rat's nest I'm liberally calling hair is an equally ratty white shirt with a pink heart in the center that's not completely covered by the black unbuttoned hoody she has on. The hoodie is so undersized that her white shirt — and that's a term I'm using very liberally as well — sticks out a good two inches past it. Pink shorts go down to her knees and dusty white socks paired with muddy pink and white shoes finish it off. Her clothes, hair, skin; everything about her is dirty.

Except for her eyes. Two pools of the richest seafoam blue I've ever seen.

The girl quickly recovers from the forced fall and immediately scrambles for the moldy bread, pouncing on it like an NFL player covering a fumble despite the red scrapes on her knees.

It's absolutely tragic.

The three bullies are still talking, it's just that I've stopped listening. I take a few seconds to half-ass a plan, primarily because that's the limit of how much more of this I can stomach before I give in to baser impulses and rabbit punch the lot of them. Beating on kids for being dumbasses is a responsibility I don't intend to deprive their parents of. It's bad for business.

Seven seconds and I've assembled something workable enough. And that plan starts with two loud claps.

Instead of shocking the kids, I shock myself when my clap makes something beside me jump. Right, I forgot there was another kid here. I look into his bizarre pink eyes, give a reassuring smile, and then turn back towards the task at hand and stride forward as I pull my pack off my back.

"Alrighty you three. Simmer down."

"... What?" The three boys respond in unison.

"It means cool it, you illiterate fudgecicles." I give a grandiose sigh as I continue rummaging through the front pouch. There's the map, there's my screwdriver. Where is it?

"I think he's being mean to us." The squeaky boy whispers loudly to the leader.

"Hey, punk! My friend thinks you're being a jerk. You're not that dumb, are you?"

"Of course I'm not," I hold one hand up in surrender as I rummage with the other. Where the hell did Donna put this thing? "Not yet at least."

"What does that mean?" Shoving kid asks.

"It means that first I'm going to ask you nicely to leave that girl alone. She obviously didn't steal that loaf of bread or it would look a lot nicer than it does. You've had your fun, now I think you should go home."

These brats are not my problem. I don't care if they keep being little shits for the rest of their life. Their parents can sort that out or they can pay the price later when they become the most obnoxious teenagers to ever punish those who birthed them. That being said, this girl isn't my problem either. I'm not helping her for brownie points or because she's a girl. I don't believe in that crap.

I'm helping her for me. I don't like what's happening so I am going to do something about it for my peace of mind.

"You trying to tell us what to do?"

"As of now, no. I'm telling you what you should do. Any chance you'll listen?"

"I think you're telling us what to do." The leader sneered.

"You kids need to clean the lint out of your ears," I tsk and shake my head. "Telling you what to do would constitute a command. I'm telling you what you should do, which is more akin to providing advice. If you can stifle your youthful desire for rebellion, I can assure you that you'll be happier in the end by making the intelligent decision and listening."

I probably used about seven words there they didn't understand despite dumbing things down considerably. That's fine. I'm more stalling for time than actually trying to convince them. If you're the type that's going to listen to sense, I don't think you make it to the point of trying to steal some poor orphan's bread. Right now, I'm groping around this front pocket trying to feel for my prize since I can't bloody find it visually. The rougher approach turns out to be the right call as the familiar firmness of metal and glass is easy enough to recognize even through a layer of mesh.

Donna put it in a subpocket of the front pocket to keep it safe. That was considerate of her.

The short daze my vocabulary had caused wears off. "I think you're asking to fight."

I find the zipper. "You're trying to fight a little girl three on one," I remind them as I undo the zipper. "I don't think you need my invitation to fight. So long as I am doing the inviting though, could you hold still for one second?"

"Huh?"

I quickly withdraw my hand from my backpack, hold it up to my face, and press a button. Nothing happens.

The important thing is that they don't know that.

"They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I've never been much of a believer in that, but boy if this isn't putting that to the test."

"What'd you do?" Squeaky asks.

"As you may have guessed by the fact that there's a scroll in my hand," I wave the very much nonfunctional device I'm holding for good measure. "I've taken a picture of three boys huddled around a poor girl they've knocked to the ground. What would your mothers say?"

The three of them immediately share some fearful glances. Never a child born that doesn't fear their mother and her dreaded wooden spoon. Though the other two continue to persist with their fear, the leader in the center recovers. "They won't say anything 'cus you're gonna give us that scroll."

I stare down the leader. "Oh, I really don't think I am."

He grins viciously and cracks his knuckles. Well, he tries to like some punk kid imitating a movie character. There's no actual popping sound. "Then we're gonna beat you up and take it."

I applaud them, scroll still in hand. The light slap of flesh on faux-glass making a hollow knock. "A genius strategy consistent with your previous values. You see no immorality in the initiation of force, after all. It wouldn't make sense for you not to try and beat me up and take the scroll."

"Wait… are you saying we should beat you up?" Shoving kid in the t-shirt asks.

"No wonder you three do this," I shake my head. "If you're not listening to me now I bet you don't listen to your parents either. What I said was that since you're terrible brats I can't see any reason why you wouldn't try to beat me up."

The leader growls. "Kick his butt."

"Yip ip ip ip," I slide backward and hold out a placating hand. "There is, however, something you're not considering."

"What?" Squeaky asks.

The leader snaps at him. "Drew!"

I pounce. "We're right next to a pretty busy part of the town. The only reason no one has come is that nobody has asked. I'd say it's nigh time we rectify that state of affairs, wouldn't you?"

And one more for the road. "Huh?"

"HELP! THREE MEN ARE ATTACKING ME!" I yell at the top of my lungs. The three boys immediately panic, and not in a good way. They can't decide between kicking the crap out of me and running away. I better take care of that. "Now I might not know your parents, but if you're still here by the time a grownup shows up I'll-"

Regrettably, I don't get the chance to explain my scheme because the three of them start booking it down an even smaller sub-alley. Probably for the best since that plan would actually require a functional scroll instead of the broken one I traded for back at the Rest.

I don't like lying. I never once said I wasn't good at it, not that these brats are a high bar to judge by.

"That's that." I wipe my hands of the affair. All that's left is cleanup. I do a quick scan before anything else. Huh. Good thing those kids bought my bluff. I can't believe no adults have shown up yet. I don't see the watching boy either. Oh well. Picking up my pack and pocketing the scroll for now, I walk towards the orphan girl still sitting on the ground and offer her a hand up. "You okay?"

Probably shouldn't have pushed my hand next to the face of a girl who just bit someone. Luck is on my side today, as the most negative thing that happens is the girl eyeing my hand warily. I wait a good fifteen seconds, holding it out the whole time. I'm about to withdraw it when she nervously starts reaching for it. After one last moment's hesitation, she grabs it and I slowly pull her up.

"T-thanks." She mumbles, looking anywhere but my eyes.

"Don't worry about it. Your bread make it through alright?"

The girl immediately takes her hand back and clutches the bread to her chest like I might steal it. I quickly take a step back and hold two open palms in front of me in the universal gesture of peace.

"I don't want your bread," I quickly assure her. "I was actually thinking you might help me out."

I hold out a calm, sure, placating hand as I remove my pack once again and open the main compartment. The girl watches me closely, her sharp and distrustful eyes demonstrating a precise contrast to the rest of her unkempt appearance. Reaching down into it, I squeeze my hand past the pot occupying most of the space and snake my hand into it. It's a bitch to pack this thing because I've got to pack the pot with goods, flip it over vertically so that it fits, and then put it back into the pack without anything spilling out of the pot.

Oh, the mundanities of travel.

Since I've been on the road for the past seven days which has cleared out quite a bit of the bulkier rations. Of course, that wasn't to say I didn't have a little bit left.

"There we are!" I find what I'm looking for and pull it out of my pack far more forcefully than carefully. My single remaining can of chunky chicken noodle. I hold it out for her to grab for a few seconds. Rolling my eyes when she doesn't, I hold out one more cautioning hand, grab her arm lightly, pull it to me just a hair, and then place the can in her hand. "Here you go."

She quickly pulls her hand back to her body, now embracing the bread and soup both. "What do you want me to do for it?"

"Eh? Nothing."

For the first time, she really looks at me. The worry that had plagued them is replaced by the starkly innocent confusion of the child she is. Those eyes of a tropical sea are something else. "You said you wanted me to do something for you."

"And you're doing it," I assure her. "That soup has been a pain in my ass since the day I got it. I've gotten so many blisters lugging cans like that around, my foot has a mind of its own whenever I see one. I can barely resist the urge to drop kick each and every one of them. So you take that soup off my hands and you'll be saving me another potential injury. I can't afford any more of those where my feet are concerned."

Her face scrunches up as she looks at me suspiciously. "I'm helping by eating your soup?"

"Yes, mam."

"You're a liar."

"Hey hey hey," I take my finger and bop her on the nose once. She blinks twice, going crosseyed as she tries to look at her nose. "That's an awful thing to say to the guy who just helped you out of a bind. How 'bout you take care of that soup for me and I'll call us even."

"You helped me… and if I eat your soup... we'll be even?

"That's about the size of it… by which I mean yes."

"... Ok…"

"Good girl," I reach my hand out and tussle her hair. It's even dirtier than I thought. I'll need to wash my hand after this. "Pull on the tab to open it up. Then you can heat it up in a pot or eat it cold. I eat it cold," I lean in to whisper it to her like it's a secret. "I'm really lazy. Don't tell anyone."

She giggles. It's the first time I've seen her smile and she quickly takes a turn towards bashful. "I won't, but I like hot food."

"That's what's great about soup," I give her one last tussle and turn away. "Eat it hot, eat it cold, still tastes like soup either way. You take care!"

Two steps. I get two steps before the girl's arm strikes out like a viper, clamping down on the sleeve of my nice shirt. I stop. Damn. I was trying to get out before this happened.

"Uh-ummm… I d-don't have a way to heat it up. Could you help me?"

No. No, I can not. That's all I need to say. This little miss here is practically waving her flag. I'm not in a position financially or emotionally to have a dependent. I need to say no. She's shy. She'll accept it. Just say the damn words you coward and you're in the clear.

"I'm busy right now," I hedge. "I've got to look for work while it's still light out. Sorry, but-"

"I can wait!" She cuts me off. Her stomach grumbles its protest as she says it and yet the girl maintains her resolve.

And this is why you commit from the start. I can't think of anything that I need less than to start a roving band of orphans and other misfit toys. Now I have to bite the bullet.

"I won't be done until it's dark out. You sure you don't want to eat it now?" One last try to weasel out of this?

She shakes her head a million miles a minute. "Nuh-uh NUH-UH! I'll wait!"

Oh, you fucking pussy. If I didn't have the balls to do it before, I sure as shit don't now. I give a silent groan of defeat and raise the flag of surrender. "Fine… I'll try and wrap up as soon as the sun goes down. I'll be heading outside the town to camp, so if you're by the main gate around then I'll look for you."

She looks at me, her eyes shimmering. "Promise?"

"Cross my heart," I give in resignedly as I slash an x over my chest with my finger.

Clearly content as can be, the girl takes off towards the gate with both her bounties squeezed tight to her chest. It looks like she's going to post herself there like a sentry so she can't miss me. Sweet kid. But it's time to-

"Hold it!" I shout right as she turns the corner. Her feet dig into the ground as she comes to a skidding stop before quickly jogging back. "What's your name?"

"Nora!" She replies without a second thought.

"Thanks." I nod and wave her off. She hesitates for a second and then plods off again, disappearing from sight.

A few seconds later she reappears, her eyes peeking around the corner of the building to make sure there was nothing else. I give her a shooing gesture and she turns tail and runs.

What a weird kid.

I heft my ruck back onto my back and make my way out of the alley. A bit curious myself I look to the left and see that no one is there. I look to my right and do see one lone adult with black hair and a like-colored beard. He's wearing a similar top to the watching kid I saw earlier, opting for a more forested green look and lacks any of the fancier hues of red and pink the child's had. He's watching me with a firm expression.

I've only done one thing worthy of attention, so either his being here is a coincidence or he is the slowest responder humanly conceivable. Since I now lack both the photo of the crime and any of the people who might testify on my behalf, I make the call that it's time to make myself scarce.

I offer the man a polite 'how do you do?' wave before fast-walking in the opposite direction. He doesn't make any moves to pursue me, though he does watch me until I turn the corner.

Once I'm out of sight and hopefully out of his mind, I slow down my pace. That was an interesting break from the drudgery of the day. Still, that drudgery remains to be done.

"Might as well get to it." I say in the hope that it will provide me with the motivation to do exactly that. Turns out to be a big fat negatory. I muscle through the lack of desire and knock on the next red door in the neighborhood.

And get ignored. Super...

In my attempt to keep a positive attitude while doing my rounds in Kuroyuri, I forced myself to remember that the job hunt wasn't going any worse than it had been previously. It wasn't going any better either…

But hey, not any worse!

My next victim is a house that looks exactly the same as every other house in this cookie-cutter Japan knockoff. This time it's the one-story model instead of the two. A simple with building with a swept red roof to wick away the rain. Of all the houses I've visited so far this is probably the most unique. Not because of anything architectural, heaven forbid. I feel the geopolitical structure of the town would crumble if any singular building was not completely uniform with the rest.

It's the adjacent garden within its boundaries that's large enough to fit another house, maybe a house and a half. I'm intuiting it's a garden from its appearance alone. Gardening tools are leaning upright against the wall of the house. I guess theft isn't a problem here. The earthy mounds of the garden don't appear to be planted… do I dare to hope?

I prepare myself for yet another favor and knock on the door. One, two, three. A triplet of knocks occupying a single second. Respectful, noninvasive, and loud. It lets them know I'm here and gives the warning that if they don't want to deal they can pretend I'm not here like so many before.

An opening door reveals that the matron here is, at the very least, more welcoming than many of her fellow folk merely by virtue of opening her door. The woman who answers gives me a smile, check, opens the door a bit wider when she sees me, check, and is nice and easy on the eyes.

Check, check, check.

"What can I help you with, young man?" She asks warmly.

After initial impressions, the first thing I notice is the dress she's wearing. As with the watching kid and the bearded man before, the primary color is a shade of green. The child's was tea, the man's was the forest-green of a fir, and hers was the vibrant green of a jade stone. What doesn't differ is the maroon cuffs and maroon trim at the bottom of her dress that matches the boy's. I'm beginning to think that's a theme of the clothes in this town until I notice her eyes. While the muted maroon color of her hair is certainly attractive, it's the light pink shine of her eyes and the twinkle they have that draws my attention.

Didn't that kid have pink eyes? Is that a normal eye color here?

Realizing I've spent a little too much time taking in the woman before me, I cough into my tiny fist. "I'm a technician passing through town and I'm looking for work. I wanted to know if you had any scrolls or other devices that may be in need of a tune-up?"

"Hmmm…" The lady hums into her hand, actually considering my question. If how pleasant she is to look at didn't put her in my top ten percent of potential customers, the effort of bothering to think about things did. "I'm sorry to say that I don't think there is."

"I'm also willing to labor. Any work you might need me to handle for you?" I ask with the tiniest twinge of desperation in my voice. Noticing her lips purse nervously, I quickly add. "I noticed your garden was unplanted. I could work that for you."

I swear to god if another adult thinks I'm propositioning them, I'm going to lose it. Then again… if she takes it that way and isn't opposed…

The lady gives me a small sad sigh. "That's kind of you to offer. However, that garden is for growing herbs. They're very particular about the way they're planted and I can't afford to take any chances with them. I'd offer to let you till the soil for me if you'd asked ten minutes ago, but my husband wants our son to do it. I hope you understand."

It's unfortunate, but I do. I'm offering skilled technical expertise and unskilled labor. What discipline she needs in skilled labor I don't possess and she already has the unskilled portion covered. Nothing I can do about that.

"I do. Thank you for your time." I bow my head and turn away.

She speaks up. "If you need food or lien, I'm sure I can find some to-"

"No thank you." I cut her off firmly. "I'm looking for work, not charity," I've had more than my fill of that to last me a lifetime. "Have a great day."

I can feel her hesitation at my back even as she begrudgingly starts closing the door behind me.

"Who was that?" I can faintly make out a masculine voice right before the door closes. I don't hear her response as I round the corner of their entryway and start walking towards the next white house.

But wow! This house has two red roofs. One halfway to the top and another capping the building off. A roof for each story! The same as every other two-story house! I feel the architect who designed these is due for an existential crisis. Hopefully it would benefit his aesthetic sense.

"This is why I was never any good at sales." I take a moment to indulge in a little self-pity. Getting told no over and over again and getting the door shut in your face is emotionally exhausting.

I'd like nothing more than to buy the supplies I need and hit the road again. This town is bumming me out. But if I leave a hundred, fifty, or even twenty lien on the table, that's coming right out of my savings. Spending a day or two hitting the pavement is the most cost-efficient thing in the long term even if I come up with nothing in Kuroyuri. Knowing that I should is doing little to persuade me to knock on this next door, even with its two roofs.

I wouldn't before I came here.

That is enough to get me knocking on the next door. I walk up, triplet knock, hold… hold... nothing. Not even the sound of someone trying to ignore me.

"Ms. Yazo is at her stall in the town square," A calm raspy voice from behind has me spinning on my heels. I am not a fan of people sneaking up on me. I don't know if my recognizing him makes me more or less comfortable. "You may be able to ask her for work there. Unfortunately for you, I doubt she'll have anything."

"That's a recurring theme in Kuroyuri. I'm learning a town can't look this nice unless every job that needs doing already has someone doing it."

"Not every job," He eyes me stoically. "If we had taken care of everything we would not have required a stranger to step in on behalf of that little girl."

I slip my right foot back the smallest of margins so that I'm no longer facing him directly and my body is at a slight angle. "Aww shucks. I didn't think anyone saw that."

I don't trust this guy. He was obviously there when those kids were bullying Nora and that means he was there when I called for help and chose to do nothing. Much as I want to, what I can't do is call him out on that. If he means me harm then doing so is a direct invitation to conflict. An honest man would likely take what I'd said and explain why it was that he didn't intervene. If he dodges the subject entirely, I'll raise my guard even higher.

"Not for the whole thing. I saw my son standing at the mouth of an alley. I went to see what he was watching and found a brave young man rescuing a damsel from three troublemakers."

I should be relieved that his response indicates he likely doesn't mean me harm. Instead, I snort a little too loudly and receive an arched black eyebrow for my transgression. "All you saw was one man acting in self-interest against three boys doing the same."

That solves the mystery of where the watching kid went. His father shows up, extricates him from the situation, and then stays to make sure it resolves itself peacefully and so he can step in if it doesn't. I don't begrudge him that.

My biggest miff is more a slight resentment towards my passenger for this seemingly endless misunderstanding of my age. Because of that, I don't expect this man to treat me like an equal, but I'm not going to lower myself by acting like a kid.

"Then perhaps I can persuade you to act in self-interest once more for both our benefits."

I acknowledge the warning signs I'm seeing in the man. His lips had tightened as he spoke. His right hand was beginning to clench before he forced himself to stop. Both are signs that he's irate. When a good part of your job is managing customer expectations and dealing with their temperament, you learn the warning signs of a volcano switching from dormant to active.

All I can do now is to play this out as politely as possible. "I am looking for work. If there's any skilled technical support you need then I might be able to help out. I can also try to do any menial labor within my capacity."

The man hums and nods, the bottom of his black beard brushing up against the collar of his clothing. His pale gold eyes look me up and down. "What I would like to ask of you is twofold. Do you think you can work in a field?"

"I should be able to." I reply. I'd offered much the same to the lady at the last house, after all.

"Do you think you could speak to my son while doing so?"

Now that's a curveball. I feel the built-up tension seep out of my body as the pieces of this strange puzzle fall into place. I should check to make sure I'm not misunderstanding. "Are you disappointed in him for not helping Nor- the girl?"

The man's neutral face falls into a frown. He nods again. "Ren is a young boy, a good boy, yet I am concerned. I did not think him capable of watching a girl his own age be tormented without doing anything. I thought I'd raised him to do better."

"I'm more than comfortable offering some philosophical perspective," I admit openly. Lord knows I've done so in the past. "It's more that I'm curious as to why you'd outsource this to someone you don't know. Teaching one's son to be a man lies firmly within the purview of a father."

"You've quite the vocabulary."

The way he says that makes my eyes want to narrow; like he sees something beyond what I've said. I smother that impulse and lee my genially blank expression. A small smile that says nothing.

"I'm well-read." I reply simply.

Control in a conversation is like control in a relationship. Whoever cares the least often has the leverage. I asked him a question that he ignored to try and learn more about me. I've technically responded to that and somewhat fulfilled his prompt to learn more about me, even if I haven't done so in a way he'll find satisfying. If he doesn't pick up the slack and continue the conversation then I'll wish him a good day and be on my way. If he lobs the ball back to my side of the court then I'll do the same for a few rounds until an excuse about getting back to work holds some water.

I admit that I'm probably overplaying things here. Can't fault a guy for being cautious.

"I have chastised my son as a father should," The man decides to give ground in the hopes of getting some. "What I can't know is if my son has taken it to heart. I work a dangerous job hunting these forests. Ren will become the man of our family. A reasonable sum is a small price to pay for any assistance to make sure he becomes that man."

I hum. Not out of any impulse. It's a considerate gesture to let the man know I'm thinking. His is… an unorthodox parenting technique to say the least. I can't say he's wrong to think as he is. Finding it strange doesn't make it wrong.

"Why have me talk to him? Exposing your child to a potentially unsafe element is something most parents would shy away from. Make sure you're not drinking poison to quench your thirst."

The man laughs a raspy chuckle. "It's hardly a wonder you've been unsuccessful finding work in our town."

I chuckle back. "I can't say I'd normally sell against myself this strongly. It's more that I've seen my fair share of parents who can't take responsibility for what their children become. I'll take you up on your offer if you're sure. I'm saying all this because you should always be sure when it comes to your kid. I don't want to shoulder any potential blame for what happens to him."

"Spoken like someone who has never had a child of their own," The man smiles and offers his hand to shake. "We parents don't know a third as much as we wish we did. Often the most we can do is make the best judgement we can about what feels right at the time. I believe that Ren looks up to me a little too much and he may listen to my words without understanding them. I believe that he might open up to someone a little less old too. And I don't believe the boy who helped that girl in the alley would mean my son harm."

I shrug my shoulders and hold up my palms in defeat. "Making the best decision we can think of with the information we have on hand. What more can you do?"

Think harder, study more, consider things from another perspective, remove yourself from the situation, and countless other things. There are hundreds of other things people can do to make a better choice than using what they have on hand and hoping for the best. However, I have no obligation to tell him that. I've fulfilled what I view as my obligation of a warning. I wouldn't let a stranger muck about in my hypothetical child's philosophy. If he wants to roll that dice, that's on him. Besides, he's right. I am going to try and help this kid as much as I can.

I step forward five paces, take his hand, and shake once.

"Then we've got a deal."

The man gives a more normal paternalistic smile which I return with a practiced service one. Guess I found myself a job. Might as well get to it while it's still day out.

"Lead the way."

After a brief moment of surprise, the man chuckles. Did I say something funny? Eh, whatever. I've learned that understanding the joke is far less important than letting your client enjoy it. Nothing kills a joke dead better than asking someone to explain it to you. So I say nothing, wait for the man to finish laughing, and then follow his lead as he takes me to his home.

…

The woman's house I'd visited minutes before.

And now I get the joke.

The man was kind enough to let me change in his house's bathroom. I've only got one pair of nicer clothes and hoeing dirt for a few hours in the sun sounds like a perfect way to ruin them. I've changed into one of the two pairs of used travel clothes, leaving the still clean pair just in case. Brown shirt, blue jeans, tan boots.

I'm leaning against the side of the house with the farming equipment on my left and my pack leaned up against the wall on my right. When I hear the door open once more and two sets of footsteps exiting I push myself off the wall and turn to face the garden's entrance.

The father and son appear together with the latter lagging slightly behind. Watching kid — I believe his father called him Ren — looks like someone killed his cat. That's a good thing to note. A child's comfortability with disappointing their parents can tell you a lot. Initial impressions are that he probably didn't intervene because he was scared.

"I thank you for your patience," The man's stiff vernacular is said with a large degree of comfort. He's very used to being polite and controlling himself. Assuming he instills similar values in his son, that again points to fear as being the boy's primary motivator. "This is my son, Lie Ren. Ren, this is the boy I hired to help prepare the garden for your mother."

Either Ren is real stranger shy or he's still hung up on leaving Nora out to dry. The kid is literally hiding behind his father's leg. Something the father disallows by putting a firm hand on his back and gently pushing him forward.

Guess I'll initiate things here. "Pleasure to meet you, Ren."

Contrary to my expectations, I don't have to wait long for a reply. "You're the boy from the alley."

Kid sounds guilty when he says it. Finding out if that guilt is from the incident or his father's disappointment will be one of the staging points of this little op.

"You got me. Ran into your dad on the road and he thought you could use a little help prepping this garden for your mother."

Ren looks to his father hopefully. I can see the amusement in his father's eyes at how transparent his son is being about having his workload lessened, but the man quickly tempers it to a stern facade. It's nice to see that the man is taking no joy in disciplining his kid. "That I did. While he is working here he is a guest of the Lie household. You should show him every courtesy a guest deserves. Is that understood, Ren?"

The boy hesitates and then nods once.

"Good. Let me explain what you're going to be doing today."

As someone who has barely managed to maintain a potted plant in his life, I listen with keen interest to what the man has to say. That turns out to be a needless effort since his explanation lasts all of ten seconds. We're to dig up the whole yard about a foot deep and mix the dry topsoil with the more loamy earth underneath. He'll be doing a manure passthrough after we've finished before his wife finally plants everything. My job is to dig things with a shovel.

And thus my grey collar becomes blue.

I do learn something new, at least. Technically it's two things. We're prepping the garden to plant right now because the best time to plant is after spring's second frost, obviously meaning that time is now. You'd probably think I would have noticed that in the literal hundreds of scrolls I handled at the Rest that assuredly all had built-in calendars, to which I'd reply that you're very much underestimating the tunnel-vision of IT. I was preoccupied with a few other details. Sue me.

After that brief explanation I grab a shovel that's got a few inches on me and settle into my new task; using my blistered as shit foot to jam this shovel into the ground as means to upheave the earth.

This is fine.

Ren has silently fallen into the work as well. Without a word, we divvied up the small plot into lengthwise halves. I'm working my half by width so that when I make it to the end of the plot, I'm done. Ren has decided to do it in two columns and wind his way back.

My method that saves twenty or so steps is clearly superior.

Twenty minutes in and we're still level with each other. An optimist would say I'm working twice as fast while a pessimist would say Ren is working twice as slow. I say that I really don't want to pick up his slack. Other than that, I haven't said a word. I've only finished around a quarter of my side and I'm not in any rush to get the conversation going.

I don't know if there's anything less effective to cram down someone's throat than philosophy. The number of times someone has read someone's Facebook rant about politics and promptly changed their political affiliation can probably be counted on one hand for the entire world. Has anyone ever been in traffic blocked by an activist group and felt the burning need to know what they stand for? Changing your beliefs and accepting new opinions is something that must be done voluntarily. It can't be forced, don't try. I can assure anyone who would think about it that it is a colossal waste of time for all parties involved.

I'll wait for the kid to come to me. He's got to want to chat eventually. Right?

More than halfway through my side of the yard and I'm starting to question that. I've worked customer service for nearly a decade. Not talking to people at a job is unequivocally a vacation, yet this lack of conversation is impeding the real reason I'm here. It's a dense conversation we need to chew through and I don't have much longer to stall. I'll lead off with something casual.

"So how 'bout them-"

"It's a very nice-"

Ren and I both speak at once, both stop ourselves, then both laugh together. He laughs with his whole body whereas I do so with my gut.

"Ha! I knew I was looking for a way to break the ice, but why were you?" I ask him.

He leans on his shovel embedded in the ground, fancy green shirt marred with dirt and his face similarly afflicted with embarrassment. "I thought you wouldn't want to talk to me… but I was getting bored."

I snort and wave that idea away. "Why the heck wouldn't I want to talk to you? This is the perfect work for a good conversation."

"Not the work," Ren's mirth wore off as his smile turned upside down. "I thought you wouldn't want to talk to me."

"I just met you. Bit early to decide whether or not I want to talk to you." I pick up my shovel and resume digging. Ren does the same.

"You didn't just meet me. We met before."

"At the alley? Think I said two words to you and didn't wait for a reply. Hard to judge you on that verbose interaction."

"I thought you would judge me on what I didn't do."

I know what he's saying but don't respond immediately. I give his words time to breathe. "You mean not helping the girl?"

Ren bopped his forehead into the handle of his shovel lightly. "I should have helped."

"Maybe," I shrug. "Why do you think so?"

The question drives away Ren's frustration so that confusion can take its place. "Why? It's what I should have done."

"And maybe that's true," I reiterate as well. "It being true doesn't explain why you should have done it. Most actions mean nothing without good reason behind them. So why should you have helped her? Because she's a girl? Because your old man would have wanted you to?"

Ren pauses the conversation and his work to think about that and I join him. Enjoying the respite on my poor abused feet, I'm not in any hurry to rush him.

"Because those boys were being bullies and she hadn't done anything wrong."

"I like that reason," My reply has Ren smiling quietly to himself. "That's about the gist of why I helped. So why didn't you."

Brief was the smile that my words kill dead. "I was scared they'd hurt me."

"Like they were hurting her? That makes sense."

"It… does?"

"Sure it does. The difference between one's intended actions at the outcomes they precipitate are-" I stop myself. I'd started to go full boar because of how articulate Ren is. I've used a few five dollars words already and he's been able to keep up fine. I simplify things in my head before starting back up. "Do you know what the difference between psychology and philosophy is?"

"No?" He answers back with a question in his voice.

I answer it. "Psychology is kind of how we explain why people do things. You didn't stop those three from bullying the girl because you thought they'd hurt you. Trying to avoid pain is probably one of the most human reasons for doing anything. It also happens to be one of the leading psychological reasons people break their philosophical codes."

I don't wait for the obvious question. "If psychology answers why people do things, philosophy tries to answer what people should do. Stopping the bullies from doing something wrong is part of your philosophy that the psychology of trying to avoid pain caused you to abandon. Now you feel crappy, right?"

"Well… yes."

"Then you're fine. You did something against your philosophy — something you think is wrong — and you feel bad about it because of that. What's the problem?"

Ren looks at me like I'm from Mars. Probably more of an achievement considering I doubt we're on Earth. I really need to look into that. "What's the problem? I didn't help her! I was scared, a coward, and I should have done something." Ren regains his calm near the end after beginning to raise his voice. He's got some impressive self-control for a kid his age.

"With your philosophy, yeah you should have. So do better next time."

"That doesn't fix things."

"Nothing ever will."

Maybe not the best piece of my personal philosophy to hit a kid with. Ren's dejected frown and drawn down eyebrows tell me that. I look for a way to explain myself a smidge more sunnily without compromising my own beliefs.

"You can't go back in time and fix things, right? No matter what you do, nothing changes the fact that you let Nor- let that girl get bullied. There's nothing you can do that changes the choice you made back then."

"But I could find her," Ren suggested. "I could apologize and tell her I'm sorry and ask her to forgive me."

It's my turn to plant my shovel in the ground and leave it there. I turn to my right to face him. "Maybe you should. Maybe that makes her feel better. Maybe you two will become friends because you were a big enough man to apologize. Honestly, that's a good idea you got there."

As much as I mean that, I can't deny I'm also using him. I'm not going to be around Kuroyuri much longer. Setting Nora up with a friend for when I'm gone will do something to ease my conscience about leaving her.

I hate to do it to him like this… just as Ren is starting to get a bit optimistic I hit him with it. "But does that change how you feel?"

"What do you mean?"

"Does her accepting your apology change anything for you? It makes you both feel better, that's true. Does that stop you from feeling bad about leaving her alone like that the first time?"

I wait out the silence as a cool breeze blows through the town. A few minutes later the refreshing wind carries his answer to me. "No."

"Yeah, that's how I feel too," I chuckle. No need to get all doom and gloom about this. "And that's a good thing in my opinion. You don't want to let go of that feeling."

"I'm pretty sure I do."

That makes me snort. Kid has some sass. "You really don't. That icky feeling is going to be the weapon of your philosophy. If you don't want to make the same mistake twice, keep it alive and well in some back corner of your mind."

Ren doesn't look at me like he's failing to understand. I wish that were the case because he's looking at me like I'm an idiot. "You want me to keep feeling bad?"

"Distantly bad," I clarify. "Not something on your mind all the time. More something that you remember if you ever see someone who needs your help again. That negative feeling will help you avoid breaking your philosophy again."

"Mother says that I shouldn't hold onto negative thoughts. I must learn to let them go."

"And that's her philosophy that she's welcome to have. Mine's really the opposite of that, actually; I don't think people hold onto enough of the right negativity."

Heaven forbid, why did I agree to this talk? I'm telling a ten-year-old that maybe he shouldn't listen to his mother. I'm going to hell for this.

"Can you explain?"

I blink owlishly. Ren is looking at me with a determination that doesn't quite look right on such a childish face. It has a maturity to it.

I can't say no to someone who honestly wants to know why I believe what I believe. "People hold onto a lot of pointless regrets that accomplish nothing. Keeping track of our pointful regrets is how we avoid repeating mistakes. Not studying history and being doomed to repeat it and all that, our own problems are the same way. Keeping track of important mistakes lets us keep an eye out for trends — underlying reasons we keep making similar mistakes. Not wanting to get hurt might have stopped you from helping that girl today, but five years from now it might stop you from going to the gym."

"So you hold onto your pain instead of letting it go."

Very much so. "Certain pains. Letting go of too many mistakes is a problem because…" I rack my brain for an explanation that will make sense to him. "Do you know what a hermit crab is?"

"A type of crab?"

"Technically true," I grin at him. He's a clever bastard. "It's a crab that doesn't have a shell around it, but finds shells to take for their own on the ocean floor. As they grow bigger they need to find a bigger shell to live in. Make sense?"

Ren nods. "A man I knew," Technically a rabbi. "Once complained about how people took too much medicine. Don't look at me like that," I jab a finger at Ren's skeptical face. "He didn't mean medicine was bad or that we shouldn't take it ever. What he was getting at was that people were taking medicine for too mundane of things. If they got a headache after staring at a screen for hours, they'd take a pill to make it go away. If their feet hurt from standing too long they'd rub something on it and make the pain go away. Daily and ordinary pains being managed by medication is what he didn't like."

"That's his philosophy."

I nod.

"Why didn't he like it?"

Straight and to the point this kid. I've met adults who can't hold a conversation this well. "That's where the hermit crab comes in. The man said that if the hermit crab medicated itself like we did, it would never change its shell. It would continue to grow and grow oblivious to the pain caused by its shell being too small because of the medicated haze until eventually the shell punctured a hole in its body and the crab died. Sort of gruesome, I know."

"And if the crab had felt pain it would have known to change its shell."

"That's the point he was trying to make," Christ, I can't get over how clever this kid is. He's growing on me pretty fast. "Seeing the doctor is a good thing. Trying to mute all your pain isn't. My feet hurting right now is my body's way of telling me I need to take it easy on them. If I want to ignore that, the man might say that pain is the price I pay. Mind you, if someone offered me a pill for that right now you can be sure I'd ask for five."

"Would that be against your philosophy?"

"Maybe," I admit. "I'm not as firm as that guy, but I'm usually the type to solve temptation by removing it. Not the best at turning it down when offered."

"Father says many things about refusing temptation."

"Oh really? Like what?"

Ren and I continue to wax philosophical while sprinkling in a few shovels of dirt here and there as we go. Like I said, removing temptation is much more my style.

Give me someone to talk philosophical shop with like this? No way am I refusing.

When all was said and done at the Lie household I'd have to say I enjoyed myself. Ren was a smart kid and soaked everything I said up like a sponge. His father had been right about putting the two of us together. Worked like a charm.

As the sun begins to set before my eyes, I move down to the next item on my list. A trap of my own making that I patently refuse to stick my foot in. No matter how cute.

The machine-gun pace of tiny footsteps clanking on the stone is my only notice that I've been spotted. By the time I gather the wherewithal to turn my head left, a girl caked in dirt is looking up at me with the purest eyes, a moldy loaf of bread in one hand and a can of soup in the other.

"Evening, Nora."

"You came…?" She asked breathily, winded from her mad sprint over. She was acting like it was something difficult to believe I was here.

I draw an x over my heart the same as before. "I promised, didn't I?"

The poor girl beams at me so radiantly I have to look away. Her euphoric happiness over such a simple promise is heartbreaking. I'm some random guy who offered to heat her up a can of soup later and then kept his word. What kind of life has she lived to look at me like I'm walking on water.

We don't converse as I lead the way out of Kuroyuri. If I thought the lone guard didn't give a shit about me arriving, he's doing his damndest to prove there is nothing but depth to his vast reserves of apathy. What's the point of having a gate guard if you're not going to screen people entering the town? A defense against raiding parties? They didn't check me for weapons, so it stands to reason any bandits could slowly filter into town and then take it from the inside. Maybe that's because I look like a kid and they normally screen adults?

The guards posted at each town mean something that I can't figure out. The best thing I can do is ask him tomorrow morning and weather whatever weird looks he might give me

Once we're outside the town, I don't wander far from the main gate. My feet are already plotting regicide against my ruling brain, though that's not the only reason. I'm going to assume the guard is here for a reason and I should be prepared to flee to the city gate if necessary.

"Hmmm… this looks nice and flat," I decide on a somewhat circular patch of dirt housed within the mainly grassy field. Less likely I'll set what little plains this town has on fire.

Having decided where we'll be having our canned soup cookout, I can finally shrug the cumbersome load off my back. Part of me wants to let it land so I can hear that satisfying thud to signal the end of the day. The part that wins is the one that catches the pack right before it touches the ground. Too many valuables. Now… time to get that fire started.

"Could you get some firewood while I set things up?" I ask Nora.

Her first instinct is to light up like a Christmas tree and immediately answer yes. That happy expression quickly turns to one of puzzlement as she looks to the soup in her left hand and her bread in the other.

I unzip the second compartment of my pack and withdraw one of my tarps. It's been folded into oblivion and zip-tied so it wouldn't explode back open. I found a stash of them packed in one of the many subpockets. From there I take out a pocket knife from the same compartment and cut the cord before tossing it to Nora. She tries to catch it even with both hands full. I hear it plop on the ground without giving it a second thought.

"Sorry…"

I roll my eyes and snort. "I'm going to assume you're not apologizing for dropping the thing that's purpose is being on the ground."

"It is?"

I'm honestly taken aback by that. Poor girl probably doesn't even know what a tarp is. Why would she? The first time I used one was camping with my father. If I'd never used it then, or learned it in school, or any of the other luxuries I'd had access to that she most certainly hasn't, where would I have learned what a tarp is?

What kind of animal would make fun of her for that? "It is," I adopt my most patient teaching tone normally reserved for that hellish time when seventy-year-olds tried to upgrade to the non-touch version of Windows Eight. "If you unfold that and place it on the ground, we'll have somewhere to sit down while we eat."

"What's wrong with the ground?"

"Bugs and dirt."

"What's wrong with bugs and dirt?" She asks, doing what I'd asked anyways.

We're going to be here forever if this keeps up. I pull a paper plate from my pack and place it on the tarp next to her. I'd thought Donna and Leo would have given me real plates, but I'm grateful they didn't. The few times I needed a plate I'd been grateful to just ditch it in the woods and let nature take its course.

"With the tarp down we can put that bread on a plate. Then you can go look for some wood."

Nora does not care for that suggestion at all. Her facial features are having a civil war as she's deciding how she's going to react. Adorable as it is, I'm bushed after a long day of walking and working after an entire week of walking and walking. I'm going to expedite this by any means necessary.

"I'm not going to steal your bread."

Her seafoam eyes narrow. "What about my soup?"

"The soup I gave you?"

"Yeah…" She continues to eye me suspiciously.

"Christ on a popsicle stick, get the firewood woman."

"Hnnnnn…" She lets out a high pitch whine. "Fine. Only if you promise not to take my stuff."

"I literally just said-"

"Promise?"

"... Fine. I promise."

This is ridiculous. And yet, somehow, she still doesn't look content. The longer I wait for her to get over her constipation or whatever else could possibly be causing her to look as she does, the more she adopts a truly ferocious pout. I'd be happy to do something about that if I knew what was causing said pout in the first place.

Looking grumpy as can be, Nora brings her finger to make a small x over the wrong side of her chest.

"Cross my heart."

The frown disappears like it had never been there in the first place. "'Kay!" Nora says as she skips off to the tree line.

My delegation of that task is not so much a factor of my laziness as is the division between mindless and slightly less mindless labor. The second pouch proves once again to be the resting place of camping supplies as I withdraw what a few metal sticks. Except they're not mere sticks of metal… they're sticks of metal that screw together!

I combine all the sticks I have into three bigger sticks, slap a doodad at the top to hold them all together, and dangle a small chain from my freshly assembled portable tripod. I've used one of these a grand total of once in my entire life. Figuring out what the hell these pieces assembled into the first time I'd taken inventory of my supplies was a longer process than I care to admit.

By the time I'm fastening each end of the chain to the pot handles, Nora has brought several armfuls of twigs and sizeable branches. Good enough to heat a can of soup if little else.

I didn't bother with the tedium of setting up a proper core for the fire. I'm heating up food, not preparing Gondor's beacon. The process of making soup turned out to be more complicated than I thought. This was primarily because opening the can and pouring it into the pot while Nora was gone has her ready to launch an inquisition. It took longer than should have been necessary to understand what the heck she was going on about. Nora has somehow thought I would heat the soup in the can itself.

"What the heck did you think the pot was for?"

"To put the can in."

Answers like that were becoming more commonplace the longer I interacted with this girl. I've given up on being surprised and have started moving straight to explaining things.

"Oooh!" Nora gasps with childish glee. She's far too close to the fire from a safety standpoint. I've already warned her about that... twice. Whatever, I'm not her dad. "I saw a bubble in the soup!"

"That means it's starting to boil." I explain more than a bit exhaustedly. Ren had really tired out my explanations for the day.

"Because of the fire? Soup boils when it gets hot?"

Moments like that make it worth explaining things to her. She's not all that clever, but she is curious. People who always have food in the fridge can get worse hunger pangs for skipping a single meal than those who have been fasting for days. She probably isn't used to having someone who will answer her questions like this.

"Is the wood boiling?"

A quick chuckle escapes without my consent. I've always been apathetic towards the homeless and here I am being played like a fiddle by Nora's earnest curiosity. "No, it's not. Wood doesn't boil."

"Why not?"

"The three states of matter refer to primarily pure elements or simple compounds. It doesn't work for wood because that's a complex compound of… you don't even know what an element is, do you?"

"Yeah-huh! That's like when a dragon breathes fire! Fire's the element!"

My need to correct that woefully wrong concept is how I dig myself the hole of explaining elements, compounds, and the three states of matter.

"So elements are the simple things." Nora starts. She's abandoned her hazardous post almost directly atop of the fire for a more contemplative stance sitting on the tarp.

"Yes…" I hold my breath.

"And compounds are some simple things smooshed together."

"Basically…" Almost there.

"And complex compounds are compounds smooshed together?"

"More or less…" Please God, let this be over.

"Then why is the soup boiling?!"

"... Huh?"

"Its got carrots and noodles and chicken and tasty water. That means soup is a comp… complicated… one of those super compounds!" Nora gives up on remembering the word.

I'm about ready to give up on life as I try once more. "But it's not the whole soup that's boiling. It's only the broth- the tasty water."

With the soup finishing up, I continue to answer whatever silly questions Nora has while I search my bag for a towel and a bowl. I only have a single plastic bowl in contrast to the twentyish paper plates. I'm guessing that's because paper bowls would lose their form in my dense pack, though I can't really say for certain. I'd have to ask Donna if I ever see her again...

"I don't get it."

I offer her a shrug as I very carefully and even more slowly tilt the pot with one hand and pour its contents into the bowl in my other. "I can't say I understand it either."

"We burned all the sticks. No more sticks," Nora held open her dirty hands to show that there was, of course, no more wood for the dying fire. "They're all gone."

"Sure, the solid form of the sticks is gone, but the compounds that made them have changed into a gas… I think. Matter can't be created or destroyed. That's a rule."

"It's a dumb rule."

"Yeah, well when you become queen you can make all the rules you want. Careful, it's hot."

Nora's eyes lit up as she leans her body forward. She accepts the silverish spoon and plastic bowl of soup. I panic as it looks like she's going to drop the hot bowl which is doing little to insulate her hand from the heat. Nora's grip holds true as she winces through the pain, setting the bowl carefully on the tarp next to her before shaking her hand off and sucking on one of her fingers.

It's incredible to see a kid cherish food like that. Pain is a more acceptable outcome than sacrificing food in Nora's world. I shouldn't be that surprised. I've seen her do it once before when the boys attacked her. Her first instinct was to protect the bread she'd dropped above her own body.

"What's a queen?" Nora reclaims my attention between her staring contest with a spoonful of soup. Her desire to devour the salty goodness in the bowl is warring with her tongue's desire to not be burnt to death.

"I'd say that depends on the queen. Loosely put, a queen is something like an absolute ruler. Everyone has to listen to all the rules she makes. No matter how dumb they are. They wear fancy dresses, live in castles, and-"

"How can I become a queen!?"

That gets a chuckle out of me. Content that the lingering embers of the fire aren't going to spark any fires, I take a seat next to Nora on the tarp. "Easiest way would be to marry a prince. Any princes in these parts?"

"I donno. If there is one I can find him and make him marry me and then I can live in a castle?"

"You got it."

Nora hums in thought, though she's not willing to stop eating her soup while doing so. The young girl makes thought bubbles into the broth in her spoon. "Any other way I can be queen?"

"Marriage or blood. Take your pick."

"I can fight a queen for her queenness?!"

"No," I flatly deny. Nora's pout is fearsome, though not enough to make me entertain her thoughts of regicide. "I mean if your parents are royalty you would be too… do you know anything about your parents, Nora?"

"No." She answers simply.

I'm not sure where to take the conversation from there. Her parents hadn't died so far as she knew or was willing to tell me. That meant she was probably abandoned. I'm not sure-

"I used to think about my parents a whole bunch," Nora continues unprompted. Her gaze lingers downward to the soup in her bowl. "I mean, everyone else has parents. Where are mine? Are they lost? Did I need to pick them up at the parent store but I never went? I donno… I don't think there is a parent store anymore," Nora sighs as she whisks the noodles around her bowl sullenly. "Then I realized that most people don't have red hair. So maybe Noras just don't have parents. Maybe Remnant has a whole bunch of parentless Noras and we need to start a clubhouse! I saw a bunch of kids making a house in a tree in one town! It was soooo cool! Maybe I need to get all the Noras with no parents and make a big house tree for us all to live in!"

My fucking feels. I've always had difficulty steeling my resolve, clearly, but this is the worst. This four-foot and change girl is sieging the gate of my will with a battering ram constructed of this ungodly combination of innocent charm and tragedy.

Curiosity appears to be my savior. Thinking about one thing to avoid another is a method tried and true by all. Nora has been blowing on the same spoonful of soup for a good minute. She was having difficulty restraining herself from eating it fresh out of the pot.

"Pretty sure that's cooled down enough to eat." I comment as she goes for yet another blow on the spoon of soup.

"Nuh-uh. It's still warm."

"What's wrong with that? I thought you liked hot food."

"I do." Nora answers matter of factly.

"Alright then. Clearly, I'm missing something he-"

I'm interrupted by a spoon being thrust into my face.

"For you." Nora says with what was becoming her signature radiant smile.

This girl is too pure for this world. "It's fine. That soup is yours."

"Because you shared it with me. Now I'm sharing back. Besides…" She gives a little cough and lowers the pitch of her voice. "I don't want this soup now that it's cold. You'll be helping me by taking it off my hands."

This cheeky brat sure knows how to melt a heart.

I eat the spoonful of soup she's presented for me and turn away from that damn smile on her face. She gets way too excited at this silliest things.

"You can leave the bowl when you finish," I tell her as she starts the arduous task of working on that loaf of bread she has. It's so stale that she hasn't managed to break a piece off yet as she continues to gnaw on it. "I'll probably set up here and buy some supplies for the road in the morning."

Her head whips towards me so fast I worry she hurt herself. "You're leaving?"

Bite. The. Bullet. You. Coward. "Early tomorrow," I confirm. I seize the momentum to prevent any potential backpedal from my id. "I'll have to wait for the markets to open up, of course. Plan is to be out of Kuroyuri and onto wherever's next before noon."

"Oh…"

I'm smothering the flames of self-resentment as fast as I can and still the inferno grows. I cannot take care of this girl. I don't have the means in any sense of the word. I don't have the money for that. I don't have the environment to raise her.

What does that matter? She can't be any worse off traveling with you than she is now. Could she be poorer than eating moldy bread? Would she truly live worse in your tent than out in the cold?

That doesn't matter. Even if I could accept those things it doesn't change that I'm not ready for anything like this! She'll be better off on her own.

You don't believe that.

I do. I must. I wouldn't be here right now if I didn't.

That argument stands strong enough to silence any further dissent from my treacherous mind. My entire stay in this strange new world has been void of any thoughts on my prior one until now. I made my deal for a reason that's more than good enough to justify keeping Nora a football field's length away from me

"Ummm…" Nora looked at me before immediately lowering her gaze in nervousness. "If you're leaving tomorrow, can we do something tonight?"

"We're already having a four-star cookout. What more could you ask for?" I reply jokingly. Humor is my best weapon against immediately capitulating to anything this ball of sunshine asks for.

"A favor?"

"Does this favor have a name?"

"Uhhh… maybe?"

Instead of responding to her non-answer, I lace my fingers together and stretch my arms above my head. I'm ready to call it for the night and if this kid wants a favor than she can do the heavy lifting of articulating it.

She eventually gets on with the word making if nothing else. "Can you promise to do it first?"

"Hell no."

Whoops. Cursed in front of a kid. Blank checks like that are for complete dumbasses and kids in love — those two being closer to mutually inclusive than exclusive. I'll have to pass on giving those out to anyone ever.

"Awww. Why not?"

"Because I'll decide if I want to do what you ask once you actually do the asking. Now spill or let me go to bed. I've got a schedule to keep."

Nora's face that had been so distrusting and frightened when I met her was now contorting into an animated pout. The way her lip jutted out and her eyes did the whole puppy dog thing really made it a full facial production to look at. Didn't mean I was going to cave in and give her whatever she wanted. She was going to have to ask for it and then maybe I'd consider it. Maybe.

Walking back to Kuroyuri in the dead of night had not been on my to-do list for the day. Find work, do work, leave town, set up camp, eat, sleep. What should have been a straightforward set of tasks has been desecrated by a small and particularly dirty little spanner thrown into its workings.

"How much further?" I ask as if I'm the stereotypical child in this scenario. "I've walked all day and I walked to get to this stupid town too. I'm tired of walking."

"I think it's around here."

"You think?"

"I'm pretty sure."

"Pretty sure?"

"Ughh! I'm pretty sure it's around here because I think this is where I met the nice old lady!"

Much as I'd like to complain that this is the kind of thing you commit to memory, I don't think my bitching would add much to the situation. I'm only entertaining the thought because I'm annoyed. At myself, not Nora. This kid is just trying to enjoy a semblance of normalcy now that she's found someone who will indulge her. I'm the one letting both of us get more attached when I know I'm going to have to abandon her in the end.

The white buildings of Kuroyuri are turned grey by the moonlit night. The vibrant red roofs are dulled to that of a dark crimson. There are so few people out that I'm wondering if the town has a curfew. Besides the guard, again, I haven't seen anyone since reentering the town.

"Have you ever done it before?" Nora's question is her way of letting me know I've been silent for too long. She's like a needy puppy that always needs more pets.

"A handful of times, sure."

"So what are we supposed to do?"

I try to think of an answer that's both honest and doesn't create another heap of work for me to do. "Normally you hang out and eat some food, have some fun, and then go to sleep when you're tired."

Nora hums with a note of disappointment. I cede to the pant of my brittle heart and hasten to add a bit more. "But that's not the best part."

"Really?" Nora asks with that same shimmer in her seafoam eyes. "What's the best part?"

"When you wake up, you're still hanging out. So instead of whatever you'd normally do in the morning, you get to have more fun instead. So it's like two hangouts in a row."

"That's amazing! Sleepovers are the best!"

I try to sternly shush her, but my back isn't in it at all. Her previously unnamed favor had been 'to have a sleepover with a friend'. My rational and emotional sides are easily taking the fight over what to do about Nora to the ninth round. I'm justifying this as my last act of kindness before I dip out to never be heard from again.

"Aha! There- there it is." Nora quiets herself down halfway through.

I assume she's referring to this small building pressed up against the outlying walls of the town. I think it's a home, though I can't be certain with Kuroyuri's nigh identical architecture for all buildings. Nora takes off towards it, her little shoes clopping against the stone walkway that turns to dirt right near the edge of the town's border. There's a little nook between the back of the house and the wall not more than four feet long.

She tries to tell me something that I can't hear since she pulled so far ahead of me and is finally being considerate of the time of night. Ten seconds later when I catch up, she tries again. "The old lady said I could sleep back here as long as no one noticed."

That wouldn't be hard to do. This space between the white building and white wall isn't being used by the owner of this place or any of the other houses adjacent. It's a small cubby of space within Kuroyuri that its inhabitants have all but forgotten about.

And they let Nora sleep there. I try not to choke on the irony.

"So what now?" Nora asks me. This girl has a talent for breaking me out of my funks. "Do we play a game? What about I spy?"

"The only game we're playing is the sleeping game. First one to fall asleep wins."

"Boooooring."

I roll my eyes, a gesture likely wasted with how dark it is beneath the shadow cast by this roof. Gently dropping my pack to the ground, I follow suit with much less concern. Practically collapsing against the wall of the house I slide down until I'm seated.

"I'll tell you what. Since you're supposed to have fun when you wake up from a sleepover, we can play some I spy in the morning."

"Ok."

Huh. I'd already started preparing to promise it to her, but Nora's taking it at face value. I mean, she should. It's not worth breaking my word over. It's more that she's accepting that at some level that surprises me.

Now that we're finally winding down, I dig through my pack for my sleeping back. This thing had been one of the bigger disasters so far. Not knowing how to tightly bind the roll properly, I'd spent most mornings trying to find a way to condense it down so I could barely fit it into the compartment of my pack. It was so bad that jimmying it out of the pack was something of an ordeal itself.

"Is that a sleeping bag?" Nora, who'd been wide-eyed the entire time asked me.

"Got it in one. I figured we could share it to keep warm."

"Like both get inside?"

"No," I reject her with haste. The FBI can politely pass me over, thank you very much. "You can unzip these and use them like a blanket."

"How?"

The war in my head picks back up as I show Nora how to unzip the bag. The two of us could be sleeping in Leo's tent right now instead of pressed up against this building like a couple of homeless orphans. That's just it though; Nora is a homeless orphan. Letting her into my tent just to kick her out the next day is irresponsible, not to mention cruel. I'm already being weak by letting both of us get more attached with this little sleepover. It's just…

How could I say no?

"Ummm… well Nora's never had any friends to have a sleepover with. Could you…?"

Philosophy often fails in the face of psychology. With philosophy standing as the platonic form of what we should do in any given situation, psychology directs its questions towards why we make the choices we do, even in spite of our philosophy. Spending time with Nora is giving her false hope that there will be more sleepovers in the future. There will not be. I refuse to take care of her because I doubt that I can even take care of myself. As I didn't blame Donna and Leo for not helping me when they needed all hands bailing out the Rest, I know that I'm bearing no philosophical blame for rejecting Nora on the same basis.

But the impact psychologically of seeing a poor wounded animal that needs your help, even when you have precious little to offer, exists in spite of those beliefs. The compulsion to help exists despite my moral imperative not to.

"Wait a second! Why this side?" Nora asks me, her small body covered by what is now a blanket.

Since I have no idea what she's talking about, I quietly assess for three seconds. Taking some time to try and understand before saying that you don't is valuable as a tool in diagnostics as well as interpersonal relations. Those three seconds let me figure out why the little miss is having a tizzy. "I'm not pointing the fuzzy side towards the dirty ground. Do you know how much of a pain sleeping bags are to wash?"

"Pleeeeaaase?"

"No."

"PLEEEEEAAAAAAASE?"

"You can be grateful for the nylon side or I can take my sleeping bag back."

Nora actually pauses to think for awhile. "... Fiiiine."

I really have been spoiling her too much. Plants grow towards the sunlight and people aren't much different. Tempering her expectations with denial now will make tomorrow easier. For now, the two of us are leaning back against the wall of the building, watching a star-filled sky beautifully shining thanks to Kuroyuri's lack of streetlight. My pack is joining us beneath the blanket and between the two of us both for theft prevention and as a barrier. The bulky bag serves as a physical wall to reinforce my barely standing mental barriers.

The sweet and gentle mistress known as sleep is benevolently enveloping me in her warmth when the precocious miss on my right promptly shoos her away. "Do you have parents?"

Nora bats me a pop fly that I've got the sneaking suspicion will find a way to magically curve into the left field. "I do and they're fine. Happily growing old together."

"Do you miss them?"

The ball is veering left. "I haven't had much time to think about that, to be honest. I probably do. Been too busy to give anything like that much of a thought."

And if I'm being honest, why would I? Deals with dream demons aren't something that content people make. This uncertainty of how I'm going to survive is pressing enough that it mutes the more existential thoughts. Is that why I turned Leo and Donna down? I don't know…

Nora turned to me, her sea-green eyes watery. "Could I come with you?"

And the pop fly has somehow zoomed over to foul ball territory. Flag on the play. Doesn't matter that I can't connect the dots of how we went from talking about my parents to this. We're here. Now I've got to give her the only answer I can.

"Sorry, Nora… you can't."

"That's okay. I figured."

What? I'd expected tears, denial, something. Her easy acceptance befuddles me.

I don't get a chance to ask why before she explains. "I've met really nice people who helped me before. Like the lady who let me sleep here or the shopping grandpa who gave me my shirt," Nora lowered the covers and pointed to the pink hearted shirt. "I told him I like pink and he gave me the same face you did. He didn't want me either…"

"It's nothing to do with you, Nora," I hasten to assure her.

"Then can I come?" She pleads with me. "I'm really helpful and good at finding stuff. I found that loaf of bread. You saw it! If I can keep finding bread and you can keep sharing soup and then we'll always have soup and bread!"

"Nora…"

"And you can make the soup hot with the pot and I can blow on all your soup to make it cold again!"

What the hell am I supposed to say? I can't take her in. I can not do it!

"And-and I c-can," I can hear the watery sounds of tears that I can't see in this darkness. "I can d-do lots of stuff and be real-"

"OI, KEEP IT DOWN OUT THERE OR YOU CAN FIND SOMEWHERE ELSE TO SLEEP!" An elderly lady screams from inside the house.

I jerk and slam the back of my head into the wall. Fucking ow! That interruption, timely as it was, scared the shit out of me. Nora too. The girl went from bawling to totally silent in a heartbeat. I had to check my own heart to see if I still had one after doing that to her. What that interruption did create was an opportunity.

Scummy as it makes me feel, I leap to seize it. "It's nothing to do with you Nora. It's my fault."

"Y-your fault?" She's calmed down a little but her voice is still choked up.

"I've got a whole heap of problems that I need to figure out for myself. I can't care for you or anyone else until I do. So it's not your fault, you see, it's mine."

"Ok…" She accepts my words with blind faith. It twists me into knots doing this to her, but I'm not lying. I'm not good for anyone right now. Not Donna, not Leo, and certainly not this precious thing. I'm thinking the battle is over when Nora launches a final and very foreseeable salvo that still manages to blindside me. "What about later? Can we be friends then?"

"Dummy. I'm already your friend," I boop her on the nose like I did when we met earlier today. "But sure. If we meet somewhere down the road then maybe we can travel together then."

"You promise?"

"Promise." And this time I truly cross my heart and hope to die if I'm lying. Nora doesn't deserve this. She's just a kid without any family. How the hell has no one stepped up?

"Ok."

With that final acceptance, Nora topples over like a puppet whose strings have been cut, her body splaying over my pack and her head resting on my arm. In that blink of an eye this ball of energy is snoring gently into my body, her orange hair likely making the clothes I've worked all day in somehow dirtier.

Sleep doesn't take long to offer up her warm embrace to me as well. I really should prop Nora up on her own… but whatever. Sleep sounds too good and I can't be bothered.

That's the only reason…

…

…

I wake up to an alarm clock and a sense of clarity washes over me. I was right that first day, wasn't I? This was all some weird lucid dream. And then I fade away, and way, and away…

And then something pulls me back. I still feel Nora's warmth on my arm. I don't recognize that alarm, either.

"We told you kids to be quiet!" A woman shouts from within the house. "That's it! I want the both of you out of here and-"

Invoking someone's ire has my brain booting up and out of sleep mode. I could faintly hear the sound of her moving through her house. Her voice cut off as soon as she opened the door. I've gently placed Nora's head on my pack as I get up to meet her, synapses still struggling to fire under the weight of my exhaustion.

It's her piercing shriek combined with some roaring sound that flips me into adrenaline-fueled panic. It's the sploshing sound of liquid combined with a squelching noise I know not the origin of that has me peering carefully around the corner.

A black beast stands over the old lady's recently made corpse. Her vocal cords along with whatever other organs are housed in the throat have been ripped from her throat and now being swallowed into the black beast's bloody maw. The distraction of devouring its kill is probably the only reason it didn't see me peeking. I've already hidden behind the wall once again.

That alarm that had woken me wasn't a clock. It was a raid siren.

I shake Nora awake while firmly cupping her mouth with my other hand. The girl stirs reluctantly at first, but her awakening is hastened when she realizes I'm smothering her.

"Be quiet. Something's happened. We need to go."

Go where? I've no clue. Somewhere less open, at least. I don't want us on the open streets right now. When wild animals attack it's better to hide than run.

Either driven by her faith in me or the obvious panic I'm showing, Nora nods and grabs my hand. I help her quietly get out from the sleeping blanket and sling the pack over my shoulder. I can buy another roll, but my money and everything else is in this pack.

"Stay low. Don't make noise. Follow me."

Nora follows my lead and we quickly move towards the other side of the building. Peering past the wall, I see the coast is clear and lightly tug her forward as I start moving. With the alley between the two houses clear, I lead us to the door to see if it'll open. A quick and quiet tug of the knob shows it's locked and I don't dare knock for fear of attracting the beast.

Except it's not just the one beast. Around the next corner, I find another one stalking through the alleys. I flatten my body against the brown wall next to me, willing myself to go inside it. A firm hand on Nora's chest ensures she does the same. Soon the beast in front of us slinks off, yet I can hear the first one stirring from the ecstasy of its kill behind us.

Escorting Nora as best I can, we try door after door to find them all locked. Finally, we reach a brown house where I spy movement through the window. The door is even slightly ajar!... That could be very good or very very bad.

The squelching of flesh I'm learning to recognize has me shepherding Nora away as quick as our tiny feet can carry us.

At this point, I'm desperate. Hyperventilating, at my wit's end, and souped up on so much adrenaline that I can't figure out if I'm thinking more clearly than I ever have or just totally lost it. Fires have somehow begun igniting throughout the town, painting the sky red while these beasts do the same to the ground. The pure white stones that once showed the town's wealth now served as the canvas for blood and viscera. Another corpse, a child, lies still down the next alley I'm scouting. We need to find somewhere to hide. Now. Before that becomes us.

A sound cuts through that thought. It cuts through the screaming and the crackling conflagrations spreading through the town. It cuts through my heart that I swear is beating inside my head. The sound isn't loud, it shouldn't even be threatening.

But it is.

Clop clop clop clop.

The soft clap of hooves on stone pierces the cacophony with quiet aplomb. The meandering pace confirms it as hostile. Any innocent mare would have fled into the night by now. This unseen creature's steps take it further into the heart of the town.

Putting a hand on Nora once more, I stop us to peep at the newest threat. The amalgamation I see is a construct of pure horror. What first looks to be a black shadowy horse carrying a similarly colored rider turns out to be one singular demon. The human torso protrudes out of the horse's back. So dominating is its visage that I almost fail to notice the people of Kuroyuri are fleeing from it as fast as they can. The creature does not move to chase them at anything more than its plodding walk.

Clop clop clop clop.

Tearing my eyes from mesmerizing horror, I look for an avenue of safe passage. I find one. A house with a vaulted floor invites me in. The passage between house and earth is so narrow that I doubt these creatures could even fit in there. It's the first time I've ever been grateful for this childish size since arriving here. The only problem is…

Clop clop clop clop.

We're close to the town square and the house is across the street the horse demon has taken for its own. Do we cross? We're dead if it sees us, I feel it in my bones. Do we stay? The growling and howling all around says that plan is destined to fail. It feels like the majority of the town has taken to the square, fleeing in the quickest path to the town gate. Do we join them?

Clop clop clop clop.

"Nora," I whisper directly into her ear so what little volume I dare give my words can be heard. "We're going to make a break for that house and hide underneath it. Get ready to run."

She's shivering so hard I think she's having a seizure. I can't tell if the movement of her head is a nod or a convulsion of fear. Seeing her like this is why I can stay focused. Always been better when someone needs me.

"Nora, I'm going to do my best to keep you safe, but you've got to trust me."

She continues to shake like a leaf in the wind. A fallen man has caught the attention of the demon. We must capitalize on the distraction.

"Nora," I stare into her terror-filled eyes and as deep into her soul as I can. "I promise you'll be okay as long as you follow me. We're going now."

I cross my heart and russle her hair. The two combined pull her mind out of the abyss of fear and she finally gives me a nod. Her trust in me outweighs her fear in that instant. I do one last scan.

Then we book it.

I haul enough ass for both of us in a mad sprint to the house. I can hear Nora gasp when we pass the dead child and run through a thin layer of his blood spread on the cobbled stone. I yank her towards the house again and I don't slow down when I reach it. Pulling off a slide that would make Jackie Robinson proud, I clear the underside of the home, my pack barely avoiding the building as I do so. Nora joins me with a face-first dive owing to me dragging her the entire way. I catch the girl against my chest and hug her close.

"We did it. You're fine."

Her tremoring body conveys its fear all the more clearly as it's pressed against me. I hear her starting to sob and cut her off.

"We're safe now so long as we stay quiet. Don't make a sound and nothing will happen. I promise."

Like I've waved a magic wand and cast a spell, Nora starts to calm down. I'm giving myself a moral waiver with my lying clause. Shutting up and hiding out is our best chance for survival, even if it's nowhere near guaranteed.

And if these monsters do make a liar out of me then I won't have to see the betrayed look on her face for very long.

Twenty seconds. That's all the time I'm given to hope before something squeezes its way underneath the house. My fight or flight doesn't even kick in as I hear it from behind because I know we're doomed.

… or not?

"Ren!?"

The small boy looks even worse than Nora did. His fear is being forced to share with the despair and disappointment he showed at the alley times a thousand.

"M-m-my father…" The wreck of a child points to where he came from.

I shimmy over to his side of the house's underbelly and look — a feat made all the more difficult by Nora categorically refusing to let go of me. What I see brings a terrible clarity to what he's feeling. His father is firing his bow at the horse demon as it slowly advances in him in a last stand that's desperation is matched only by its futility. He limps backward on an injured leg as the demon marches on him without regard to the arrows protruding from its human section.

Clop clop… clop… clop…..

The sound of its hoofsteps slows to a crawl before ceasing entirely. The demon isn't celebrating its kill. It hasn't given up or gotten distracted. It has stopped moving.

As has everything else.

Flames are frozen in place on buildings. Fleeing townspeople turned to sculptures of unmoving flesh and bone. No smoke billows and no stars twinkle. Nothing moves save my heart in my chest and the small girl tucked into it. I turn to check on her… except I don't. I continue to observe the town, almost admiring the destruction. I must say that I do find such wantonness unsavory. With his dominion over dark and shadow, he chooses to create these grotesqueries? How droll.

A single brush of this hand sends the dirt and grime on this pauper's ensemble fleeing not unlike these poor peasants. While I'm not so vain as to necessitate a complete change of ensemble, conducting my business in this state of disrepair is nothing short of unacceptable. I need not apologize for being a man of exacting standards.

I would so adore the opportunity to skip right unto business, yet present predicaments don't properly permit me. I will need to address the grimy and quivering orphan threatening to make a mess of my decently dusted duds.

"Nora. Would you be a dear and release me?"

The girl stills in my grasp and I feel her hitherto hammering heart hit home harder. The wretched girl looks into my eyes and I into hers.

She hurls herself away from me then and there.

Children are so blessedly aware in a way those with a few more years under their belts can't manage to appreciate. Rules hold no sway. They see what is for they lack the bias of knowing what couldn't be. Or, more to this particular point, the girl sees what I'm not.

"You have my gratitude." I thank her. And then I snap.

The girl falls in with the rest of the frozen scenery. She's his first failing since coming here. He should have left her content with her can of cold soup and infested bread. Neither here nor there, I suppose. None of my business.

I turn to the one who is.

Two taps on the little boy's shoulder and he joins me. Previously immobile pink eyes dart around, find their father, and begin to relay the simply stationary scenery to a mind that fails to comprehend. My ability to sustain this purgatory indefinitely does not mean I have a desire to, as he would likely say. A man of capabilities he resents yet relies on every day.

Why look at that. I'm musing with the best of them.

Taking one's sweet time does have repercussions. "W-what's going on?"

The boy's face is too busy being occupied by terror to make much room for confusion, though it does try its best. I've no desire to indulge the thousand questions a child might ask. Simply listening to the previous one was more than I could bear. I will settle for some small gratitude that the boy did not offer me a distraction, but a segue.

"Why, Little Lie, I don't want you to cry, but looking on out there is something I spy. It looks to me like your father will die."

"He told me to run…"

"Of course, Little Lie. I know I shouldn't pry, but that gash on his leg tells me he isn't so spry. Knowing his end was increasingly nigh, he let loose his son and then told him to fly."

The boy falters. "I d-don't understand what you're saying."

"I don't mean to be wry when I sigh and reply that although things have gone almost far too awry, should you wish to defy you and your father's goodbye, I can hereby decry — that is, should you rely — this state of affairs if I were your ally. For I am no mere passerby, but one who is known to mollify death when one's luck has run impossibly dry."

And so I sigh. "But should you fail to understand why, suffice it to say that one such as I can shepherd your father from death should I try. So, Little Lie, you need not be shy. Why try and justify your father's demise when I can prevent it… for a price."

"You… you can save Father?"

"Aye."

"You will?!" The boy's eyes practically pop out of his skull.

I respond with a deep bassy laugh. "Much like those boys from the alley before, the difference between can and will you don't have a mind for. For although the doorman exists to open the door, a grease for the palms is expected therefore it's time for your offer. I won't let you implore. What I require is for you now to even the score. I offer your father's life and a great many more. So what will you give me to open this door?"

"What… will I do?" The boys asks, confused.

"You're ruining my fun, Little Lie," I finally relent. I've had my fun. "I do suppose one must be direct when dealing with children. So let me ask you, Little Lie."

"Do you want to make a deal?"

This was a fun chapter to write for the most part. Rooster Teeth did a really good job capturing Nora's very believable orphan mannerisms in the brief flashbacks we saw of Kuroyuri. I don't want the story to get bogged down by too much teach-orphan-to-human distrust issues, so I've written her in such a way that she's slow to trust.

Ren was shown to be clever and a bit sassy as a kid. His canon lack of personality is probably more of a self-defense mechanism to his trauma. I look forward to playing with his character as well.

It's 7 AM and I'm tired. I'd say more otherwise, but I wanted to publish this as you guys were getting up. Hope you enjoyed. Old Fox coming on the anniversary of its last update. Notice only going out to the people who read this story and patrons because I appreciate you all. Ty ty.