A muffled voice brought Kira back to consciousness. She blinked a few times, disoriented, moving her head to make sense of the darkness around her trying to understand what was going on...
...Before she went very still. She remembered.
The monster, the running, the barn...
The cart jostled from another pebble on the uneven road, not that it really mattered with the bumpy dirt road.
"...ow you are awake. Where are you from?" Kira's heart beat wildly in her chest as she sat there, with a large box over her torso and legs. There was someone here with her.
No one was supposed to be in the cart with her.
"...I can see your feet, miss." Kira momentarily blanked before she mentally slapped herself as she realised her feet were out in the open, having somehow escaped the folded blanket she had tucked them under.
"I have no one to talk to, you see. Would you like to talk to me, miss?" She tried to make out the voice muffled through her cover. It was a child.
Trepidious, Kira lifted the box on her head, the daylight impeding her vision for a few seconds before it adjusted to reveal a small boy, sitting on his haunches in front of her in the carriage.
The toothy grin he was sporting widened even further when he saw her.
"Hello, there!" He raised a hand to wave at her.
A smile curled Kira's lips as she raised a hand in greeting.
The boy let out a delighted chuckle and in a flurry of movements was sitting cross legged in front of her, his small frame reaching only to her shoulders even as she leaned back at the suddenness.
"I'm Rick. But my friends call me Ricky! You can call me Ricky! I am eleven, well not yet, but soon! Right now I'm ten!" He held up his hands, fingers apart to show the number to her.
Her grin was more carefree as she calmed her heart down from the scare she had been in.
With a quick check outside to see that they had cleared the village and were in a nondescript area, she turned back to the boy. "Hey Ricky! It is nice to meet you, I am Kira."
"Ricky! Don't bother the lady!" Called the coachman from the front of the cart.
The impact was instant.
Kira saw Rick's face fall at the words even as he lowered his eyes, and drew in on himself. His hands started fiddling with an open patch of the wooden floorboard, scratching away at the edge.
"No, it's no bother, really." She hurried to reply as she saw Rick's face rise slowly, "I would like to talk to Ricky, if it's alright with you..."
She directed the open question at the man, waiting for his reply.
It was another few seconds before he muttered out, "Suit yourself."
She saw Rick's face bloom in happiness. He shuffled closer to Kira until their knees were almost touching, and started recounting his tales of travel, and the fabrics they would buy, they coin purses, the small hairpins, and sometimes fruits.
He told her of the different types of people they would meet, and what their trades were. He told her of how he would sometimes exchange the tiny baubles he collected for other things.
"See! Like this one! Did you know this was the nose ring that Prince Ezra made for his mother when he was very young? It is copper! And this- this is a Sera," He was holding a small bead of some sort, "It is said that it was last used in the time of the late King Oliver! Here, hold it in your hand!"
His eyes sparkled as he talked and showed her the things he had collected.
The time passed quickly as they talked about nothing and everything. The Sun travelling through the sky was the only indicator they had to tell that it wsa getting closer to the start of the evening by the time they saw another settlement.
"Look, we're here!" Ricky moved a cloth covering the side and peeked out, Kira followed suit.
The town they had reached- for it was a town, definitely bigger than a village- was bustling with activity.
Wooden stalls lined the wide cobbled street they entered through, vendors either sitting on small stools, or standing and talking with the customers. They could see houses in the distance, bigger than the ones she had seen in the village, and more decorated, and people wearing varied and stylish outfits.
She focused back on the stalls at Ricky's urging.
The other side of the road was mostly reserved for pedestrians and carts, althought a few peddlers were standing there in the midst, trying to sell the goods they were carrying to the passer-bys.
The onset of evening made the vendors hasten to light small lamps and hang them on the small poles interspersed between the carts that Kira had failed to notice.
First there was one, then more and more, until finally the whole street was lined with twinkling lights and lively chatter.
It was beautiful.
Kira looked with wide eyes around her, her head now fully hanging out of the cart which soon came to a stop.
"Come on!" Rick tapped her insistently on the shoulders and jumped out of the cart, eagerly pulling a roll of fabric from the back and pulling it down with the help of the coachman who had rounded to the back.
It seemed that the hours of talking had not dimmed Ricky's energy at all.
Kira shook her head fondly as she too stepped down from the cart, far more carefully.
She smoothed her skirt as she straightened up. Ricky and the yet unnamed coachman were unloading a few more items from the cart, and would probably need some time.
Kira chose to look around instead.
Her steps led her to the stalls at the side. They sold everything you could thing of- from fabrics to fruits to utensils to wooden toys and jewellery and makeup, tools and other necessities.
Her hands skimmed the items as she passed- small deocrative pieces kept in baskets, mirrors, blankets, combs.
She stopped in front of a non-descript stall, where she saw small animal masks placed neatly around, from the smallest the size of her index fingers to the biggest that would probably need to be hung on a wall- too big for a human head.
"What's this?" She picked one up, noticing a small string at the top instead of one around the back to be tied on the head.
Strange.
The vendor looked at her pecularly, "You don't know what that is?"
She looked up at the question.
She put back the mask in her hand, which were all wolf heads she noticed, and looked back up.
"They are...masks?" She asked more than she stated. He looked at her for another moment in bewilderment before shaking his head, sighing and resuming his task.
"Yes, the're masks." He went quiet.
She waited. He didn't look up again, busy with another customer.
Seemed she would not be getting anything out of him.
Kira strolled, to the next cart.
"Don't mind Louis. That's just how he is with everyone." She followed the sound to a frowning old woman, who was sitting with one leg folded beneath her on a chair nearby.
She said something sharply in another language, probably a rebuke if the tone and Louis' similar response was anything to go by, before she turned back to Kira.
"This is a wolf-mask. A talisman of old." She abruptly picked up the one Kira had been looking at, and dropped it in her hand. "Here."
Kira scrambled to not let the item fall, and upon succeeding looked down at it.
"A talisman?" Hearing the woman's hum, she looked back up at her. She was looking at any passing potential customers as she rubbed her folded knee.
"Yes. To please the spirit of our creators, and keep the wolfs and Wolf-Men away."
That certainly gave Kira a lot to think about. She remembered seeing these, hanging on the doors of houses back in the village.
She nodded in gratitude to the old lady, and putting back the mask down turned, going back to the cart...
...A loud boom resounded in the distance.