Villa looked around her with the eyes of a suspicious child trying to pick out the contradictions behind a gift. Her dress was dusty in the creases of its frills and rubbed soft in some spots, and the curves of her calves were cold with overuse. Beside her was the quiet towering accompaniment of Jack, looking along with deliberate neutrality. His arms hung loosely at his sides and his near hand was half curled, enticing Villa to take it in her own like some kind of lure, which she ignored.

Homuncret. Villa had heard of the town in an old book before when it was still an undergrowth of tree stumps and some hired labor. The place had picked up and grown into a brown, blistering collection of store fronts and dirt roads connecting the residential grottos with the central business vein. Everything slopped out of the boundaries of the district and lapped at the uncultivated land surrounding Homuncret, eager to take root and expand. Simple plywood stands and established glass shop windows stood shoulder to shoulder in crooked rows. The people who visited both were a conglomeration wearing cheap, sensible clothes and long-strapped bags to hold their goods as they made their rounds. Most kicked up the dust from the ground with heavy-duty sandals.

Villa looked up at Jack. The sun was well overhead now and blotted out his face, which was still turned towards the town. He wasn’t volunteering any information. It was always this way. Villa may have bound herself under his custody but it didn’t mean he fit the role of a guardian very well. She chewed on a lip and gave some insistent yanks on his sleeve. Jack’s head switched and turned down towards her, bent low enough to suggest a smile in the glare of the light.

“Are we really going in there?” she asked, nose scrunching. Even on the outskirts the chalky scent of the dust and business was thick enough to coat the sinuses. Jack inclined his head again in confirmation. “I thought we were supposed to be avoiding people?”

“For the most part,” Jack conceded softly. They were always avoiding people but for the select few who Jack sought out, seemingly at random. His pilgrimage had taken them places Villa had never imagined before. Paying visits to old friends, he joked once with a sad face. Villa hadn’t understood it.

His attention seemed diffracted by the noise coming out of the town. “We’re only passing through here, to pick up some things. Unless you want to go without the necessities? I know I could manage it, but I don’t know how you would...” His eyes focused for the first time on Villa and the silence that bloomed was louder than he was. Kids are always complaining about something, aren’t they?

Villa shook her shoulders out and her back went rigid. “I need a new dress,” she proclaimed loudly with an accentuated glare that made her round face sharp. One hand snatched at her hip and wrinkled the ruffles of her dress further. The texture that had at one time been light and gauzy was now stiff and crusty. “More than one, even. And soap.”

“We’ll get everything we need,” Jack said, the soothing tone warped by his spreading grin. He started walking towards the town and flicked his hand back at her in a small gesture. “Stay close.” A burst of heat independent from the midday sun piqued Villa’s skin a rosy tint and pushed her forward in a stomp-march. Her shoes, once smooth and black, were tan and scuffed with dust. The traces of a hole were gnawing at one heel. It looked like she would need some new shoes, too.

All the town provided as an official welcome into its boundaries was a low archway made out of flaking wood. Villa temporarily forgot her annoyances and looked around her at the people and the stores. Everything was moving quickly; it was almost as if the shop fronts themselves were falling all over each other to get her attention and invite her in for a look. That lingered in the background in comparison to the confusing channels of shoppers who slipped around Villa on their way to get errands done. The traffic was free to overflow in any direction and amass in clots of standing demonstrations or the occasional sit-down eatery, small and modest but packed to the maximum capacity. Posters with strong advertisements lingered on the walls like tattered streamers and would drift into the flow of walking legs when a strong enough breeze got hold of them.

She found herself hurrying to stay in the wake of Jack’s procession before the space around him filled with people. Jack walked with the protective hand of familiarity leading him. The anonymous human crush skimmed off his sides and gave him no more hindrance than could be expected. His pace seemed recklessly fast in such crowded conditions, but he hadn’t collided with anyone yet.

They meandered down the road until the flow of the traffic left them standing in front of a large stall. Its frame was draped in a cloth that had running letters left behind from its original message. While Villa tried to put together the fragmented symbols Jack leaned over the display and got a word with the stall’s operator. By the time she had given up deciphering, Jack was hefting a small cotton bag in his hands.

“What’s that?” she asked. Jack weighed it a few more times and glanced down at her. He shook open the bag and plucked out a lumpy yellow block, modeled it for her a moment, then slipped it back in. The bag went into his rucksack.

“It would be the soap you so grievously desire.”

Villa’s mouth pinched, then slowly opened, while her forehead wrinkled into a dark and vindictive mask.

“That’s soap?”

“Long lasting, odorless, and edible in a pinch. You’ll come to live by it.”

“I am not eating soap!”

“Let’s move on, we’re holding up business.” Before Villa could insist Jack had sauntered back into the masses and was quickly getting separated. She only had time for one outraged squawk before she had to hustle after him.

In this way the pair navigated Homuncret’s shopping district. Jack moved quickly; his transactions were rapid affairs that ended with him stuffing another parcel into his pack before Villa could comment on its quality, and then they floundered back into the middle of the road to cross over to another stand or overcrowded store. He had an innate ability to lead them towards a seller with items of relevance to their journey. When Villa asked him if he’d been to the town before he put a measuring tape around her neck, ending the discussion in favor of finding a fitting dress. Villa picked out her wardrobe among a cluster of outdoor racks after that while Jack waited on the wing, adjusting the rucksack on his shoulder repeatedly.

The man knew nothing about dressing a little girl. The process was apparently so mystifying that Villa found him watching her with a close eye the entire time, probably committing to memory the patterns and cuts that Villa frowned on or paused over in consideration. It should have put her off the activity but she’d grown used to Jack’s behavior over the few weeks that they’d been traveling together. He often watched her while they walked the roads and she tied knots in the stems of flowers or kicked a rock along in front of her. Her perpetual commentary on the state of things — how the sun was too hot, the hill too steep, the water too grainy, the bandits too numerous — would intrigue Jack more than aggravate him like it should. “You don’t like sleeping on the ground?” he would say, eyebrows raised by sheer surprise, “I guess a mat would be a little better.” If she reminded him of the existence of beds, he would think it over at great length and lose the conversation altogether in the fog of his thoughts.

A soft blue dress grazed her fingers and caught her eye. She pulled it out from the sandwich of garments and pressed it to her throat, smoothing it down. The material was more durable than what she had on now, and probably breathed better, too. She fretted over it for a moment while looking over the rack she’d been browsing. There was another one of similar make with a few alterations, a sash around the waist and a couple pockets on the front. With her face pointed down she looked up through her lashes and bangs to see what Jack was up to. He was still recording her process with a slightly glossed expression, and didn’t seem to notice her attention on him. Her eyes flicked over the dress she was holding again, and the one on the rack. There was a moment of consideration, then she took hold of both and brought them over to Jack.

She suppressed a satisfied grin over the distressed expression panning across Jack’s face at her approach. Standing just short of his toes she looked up at him and held up the dresses with wide, unblinking eyes.

“Which one should I get?” she asked. Jack stared back down with his mouth slightly open.

“What?”

“Which dress,” she raised one to the height of Jack’s chest, then the other, “would be better?” Her mouth was tightening every second with the effort not to smile. Jack’s eyes jumped between the two dresses and stopped on her.

“You’re getting more than one anyway, aren’t you?”

“But these are almost the same, don’t you think?”

“That’s okay,” he said quickly. The dresses were plucked from Villa’s hands and carried over to the table where the seller was waiting. Villa watched him shove a handful of coins at the woman and wave away the change. He then proceeded to cram the dresses into the rucksack. They had been folded as a courtesy, but the gesture was meaningless now. Villa filed the minor incident away. Apparently there were some things that even Jack, in all his geniality, couldn’t endure.

They hurried along. What had appeared to be the midday rush was evolving into a frenzied, pulsing turmoil of bags and bodies sweeping by and hitting shoulders without a backward glance. Villa let go of her subtle victory in favor of keeping up with Jack, who was having a better time of wading through the rapid lines than she was. Her nose stuffing from the permeable blanket of dust that was being constantly kicked up into the air, and her eyes watered persistently no matter how many times she rubbed them dry. She didn’t think that Jack was annoyed with her for putting him on the spot before. Rather, he had picked up the pace in order to get finished with the restocking quickly and get out of the town as soon as possible. It wasn’t a bad idea either, she thought. As pleasant as it was to be surrounded by normal people in a bustling setting, a lot could be said for the calm and quiet of a slow walk along the road with only one person to put up with. Having to sidestep so many people loaded down with packages was getting tiresome, and it was all the more hectic for Villa to thread a frantic way between all the swinging legs and arms. As a matter of fact, it was downright exhausting…

Her eyes had dropped to knee level in order to better evade the drones who didn’t see her for themselves, so she wasn’t immediately aware of Jack observing her in an occasional over-the-shoulder glance. She took a deep breath once they’d slowed to a stop again by a large glass shop front displaying straw brooms and woven decorations. At the passing of a few uneventful seconds she looked up at Jack, crossing her arms and huffing.

“What are we here for?” She sniffed and patted some dust out of her dress. Jack was looking at her strangely, or so she thought by his standards. His hand was in between the rucksack’s strap and his shoulder, gripping loosely. Slowly he crouched down and got at eye-level with her. Villa shifted back a few inches.

“Do you want me to carry you? You were looking worn out,” he explained evenly. Villa’s mouth was sealed but it felt as though a hole had been blown through her head. In that moment the sounds of scuffing feet and gruff haggling were muted. Once before Jack had taken it upon himself to carry Villa, and the circumstances around it had been far more compelling than merely being “worn out.” Villa stared at him with a glower suffusing her mouth and eyes. His head tilted and he opened his mouth to speak again. Villa’s hand flashed up in his face before he could trigger any more unpleasant memories.

“Don’t you have enough to carry?” she wasped. Jack stirred and shifted one leg to keep his balance.

“It’s not that bad. I would only be taking you out of town. This way we wouldn’t lose each other, either.” Another familiar line. Villa hadn’t trusted Jack the first time he used it. Then he had managed to protect her from their pursuers, all in the name of repossessing a lousy knife, he’d said. But he hadn’t argued much when Villa demanded that he take her with him. The partnership had sprouted out of a grudge... Villa’s brow wrinkled and she mumbled through a gripping frown, “You sure obsess over sticking together, don’t you?” Jack didn’t respond to the comment — he had most likely heard it, but was declining to acknowledge the truth — and started straightening up.

“Well, if you don’t want to that’s okay. The crowds only get thicker from here, though.” His hands were bracing bent knees. Villa fixed him with her deepest glare that day, face reddening, and shook out her arms.

“All right,” she said. The two words had come as easily as pushing a block of wood through a cheese grater. Jack could have his way, but she wasn’t going to help him.

The sole time that Jack had carried Villa before had been a moment of urgency. He had swept her off her feet in the most unceremonious of ways and held her like a bundle of sticks, too hurried to ensure her comfort, too rushed to adjust his grip under her legs. Now they were standing unhurried in the middle of town, and Jack’s hands were floating vaguely in Villa’s direction with no inkling as to how to pick her up the proper way. He looked away from the stony face that Villa was favoring him with to watch the people go by. In time he could observe other people carrying children in their arms. To his credit Jack was a quick learner, and after seeing two or three mothers and fathers with passengers he crouched down again with new resolve.

When Jack’s hands slipped between Villa’s arms she was careful not to fidget away. He paused, looked at her with an analytical eye, and withdrew momentarily to inch closer to her. This time an arm was curving under Villa’s legs and gently bumping into the backs of her knees. The other arm went around her back. She recognized the motions. It was a slowed down reenactment of that previous time. Jack bent towards her until she could see over his shoulder. He scooped her up, lifting her just above his knees and against his chest, before slowly rising.

Jack was looking around for an opening to get back into the surging street. From her new vantage point Villa could see from the tilt of his eyebrows that he was thinking about something else entirely. Who knew carrying a kid could be so complicated?

When he entered the tide Villa’s arm linked behind his neck to keep from being jostled. His skin was hot and the hem of his shirt was twisted by the rucksack’s strap. Villa plucked at the strap ineffectually, not really trying to dislodge it. She kept her legs folded closely over Jack’s arm so as not to kick anybody who passed too close by. It was a relief to stop moving and her muscles were tingling as they wound down.

As Jack’s face flicked over to see how Villa was doing she made a show of looking around. It wouldn’t do at all to give him even the slimmest insinuation that Villa was enjoying herself. Enjoying was too strong of a word, anyway. While she could appreciate a break from walking, there was still the fact that it was Jack carrying her, and that put an awkward tilt on the picture. Awkward, and novel.

This… wasn’t so bad. Normally Villa was adamant about handling herself while in Jack’s company. He had been a little put off by her independence in the beginning of their acquaintanceship but, like everything else they encountered, he was quick to adapt. She walked alongside him every day from dawn to dusk no matter the conditions. If they were crossing a marsh she half swam, half slushed, and swatted the mosquitoes for herself. If they were hiking up a steep incline she ran ahead of him and looked back constantly, and if he dared to suggest taking a sit-down she would run faster even if her lungs were seizing. The occasional suggestion of holding hands was beaten down by reminders that Jack was a creep.

Villa had worked diligently in arranging the prickly shell around her that constantly scraped Jack clean of his misconceptions. If she had wanted to she could have yelled at him until he withdrew his offer to pick her up with the usual apologies. No matter how many times it happened though, it seemed his skin was too thick for the harsh prongs to penetrate and stick. Maybe the next time he rubbed her the wrong way they would prick him deeper for this day’s exception.

She snuck covert glances at Jack while he walked. With his arms occupied by Villa he couldn’t keep a hand pressed against the rucksack, so it was bumping against his side with the mutter of its packages inside as protest. For all the bouncing and weaving, forced stops to wait for outlets and hurried paces to avoid being walked into, Villa was having a smooth ride. The arm pressing her back was a steady anchor to keep her from falling out of his hold. There were no outward signs she could see that Jack was having a hard time handling two pieces of carry-on. Maybe afterwards he would rub his muscles and wince, commenting on how heavy Villa was before he thought to censor himself. Her hand that had been resting along Jack’s wrist pinched a fold of his skin and she didn’t hear his inquiring hum. That seemed likely. For all his concern about her comfort, Jack was an idiot when it came to etiquette.

That was how it always happened. They would be going along, exchanging a few words on and off. Then Jack would turn to Villa and make a proposal, something to “ease her burden” as he put it, stemming from a sincere desire to do a good deed. Sometimes she humored him — not often, but often enough — and that was when he would make the mistake. It wasn’t just being unknowledgeable about children. Jack didn’t know the first thing about tact.

A face hovering on the edge of Villa’s attention came into focus. Her eyes had been wandering but came to rest on the stranger walking beside Jack. The two men happened to share the same stride at that moment, making his existence more perceptible. He was carrying a large straw bag full of wrapped up items on one arm, and he was looking across Jack’s frame at Villa. Their observations glanced off each other. Villa’s face was void of its usual pinch, caught unexpected. The man’s face was tan and red. It folded into countless smiling creases while his eyes melted, gleaming, before his tempo exceeded Jack’s. The man was gone to the crowd. Villa didn’t blink for a while. Jack hadn’t noticed a thing.

Something turned over in her stomach, mild but bothersome. It wasn’t hard to infer what the man had been thinking: What a sweet father-and-daughter moment.

She wanted to go after him and tell him the truth. Not for any noble reason. Let a person believe what they want if it isn’t going to hurt them. No, her scalp was burning because the fact that they could look like that was an idea she had never wanted realized, and now she couldn’t fight it off. Was it really any less believable than a vagabond and a truant collaborating?

Here was Jack, always trying to be the gentleman, trying to be discreet about adjusting his habits so that it would accommodate the abilities of a young charge. He had taken Villa everywhere she wanted and gotten everything she demanded without question. When she got particularly uppish he even smiled in that way that said he was finding it amusing. Amusing, and cute to the unwary. The scowls that Jack had come to recognize as potently venomous were naive pouts to the uninitiated, turning their tense disagreements into moments of difficult parenting. And at the day’s end, the bonds that tie parent and child could never be damaged by something as trivial as the quality of a bag of soap.

He was too much like a father figure even without those basic instincts that explained how to act around a child. Villa didn’t know where he got it from. What little she knew about Jack told her that he wasn’t normally the sort to care about another person. She hadn’t started traveling with him to be coddled. Yet here he was now, and there he was in the past, always with those futile attempts to make a semblance of something beyond professionalism. Time and again she’d told him not to bother about her. He always did it anyway.

What had that man seen in the brief moment he and Villa looked at each other? A little girl in a dirty and roughened dress, looking around at the town as if she’d never seen civilization before or the people that inhabited it. Probably overwhelmed by all of the activity going on, and even a little intimidated, but stubborn enough to walk without holding hands just to show that she wasn’t .And then it had finally gotten to be too much and her “father” took the cue to offer her his services, with utmost respect for her abilities of course.

He’d seen a little girl exhausted from shopping for groceries and a couple new dresses, exhausted by the physical exertion and the excitement as well. She was done with the day and reclaiming her vitality in the arms of the man who would always take care that she didn’t get trampled in the streets. While she kept vigil and soaked up as much of the surroundings as she could her father would take them both home, passing a warm look over his precious parcel to make sure she was content. And if she were to begin dozing off in his arms that would be okay too. Her father’s gentle, steady grip would rock her while she was most vulnerable and unable to make those pouting faces that amused him so much.

“Is something wrong?” Jack had been startled by the sudden jerk of Villa’s body. Had he pinched her somehow, to make her recoil like that? Her hand on his shoulder was clutching the rucksack’s strap and some of Jack’s sleeve tightly, mangling it. Villa huffed and kept her face turned away from him.

“Nothing more than usual,” she said loudly. “It’s hot and dusty even off the ground. My mouth is so dry, I think I’m going to start coughing up tumbleweeds.” She glimpsed Jack out of the corner of her eye to see he was nodding thoughtfully and looking ahead, still cutting through the endless waves of shoppers. Not too far there was a noticeable thinning. The outskirts were coming up.

“Some types of tumbleweed are edible.”

Villa didn’t have a readily available retort to that tidbit. They were quiet the rest of the way to the outer reaches of Homuncret, where Jack crouched down and let Villa slide out of his arms. She brushed herself off and smoothed her dress deliberately. Jack looked brightly down on her, adjusting the rucksack.

“It’ll be some time before we’re near another town again. Is there anything else that you want before we go?”

The smell of the dust had long been blocked out by Villa’s nose. She felt a little unsteady on her feet and the undersides of her legs were clammy. Jack was the agreeable type; anything Villa asked of him, he’d probably do. Shaking out her shoulders and stiffening her back, Villa glared up at Jack with a tinge of color in her cheeks.

“Don’t carry me anymore.”

6