Busy Streets (CyclicalCycal)

[Bunbun]

"Cara, huh... I'm Juliana."

The woman raised her eyebrows as Cara began to explain her actions. What she described sounded like some sort of magic, mostly because of having to use a "vessel". Juliana briefly wondered if she was unknowingly helping a child to perform a dangerous ritual, but she quickly pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind. It was probably just the result of a young child's overactive imagination.

"Well... I know there's a market around here somewhere. You could probably find one there, as long as you're not looking for a specific one."

The girl seemed a little anxious about her surroundings, which Juliana couldn't really fault her for. To be honest, she didn't feel like sticking around for too long, either. Regardless, she didn't want to be responsible for Cara getting lost in the middle of a crowded city.

"Here, I can show you where it is if you follow me. Tell me if anything catches your eye."

Juliana motioned with her hand as she started to navigate through the crowds.

[CyclicalCycal]

"Ye! I follow!" Cara exclaimed, slightly incoherently. She grabbed at her coat, again, not wanting it to trail behind her, and she quickly took off behind Juliana. "J-just...uh...can it be made of wood? Please? It's very important. Or at least...most of it."

Cara seemed a lot more at ease now that she was, at the very least, moving away from the crowds and from the city. She seemed more upbeat, moving swifter, talking louder. Though she did still seem vaguely afraid, vaguely paranoid.

Cara paused, for a moment. Before grinning. She moved up to rub her eye, calling out. "Uh-e-excuse me. Juliana?" She asked, stifling laughter.

[Bunbun]

Thankfully, Cara was seemingly becoming more comfortable in her situation, which in turn made her more willing to provide information. Although, it did seem like what she came to look for was... oddly specific. That shouldn't be too much of a problem, considering that wood wasn't exactly a rare material.

Juliana's expression changed very little as she walked, seemingly lost in a permanent state of deep thought. This wasn't entirely inaccurate- she did need to remember which way to go- but part of her just wanted to ignore whatever was going on around her. She was a little tired, so saving some energy here and there wouldn't hurt.

"Hmm?" The woman muttered a simple response as she looked over at Cara. She clearly thought that something was pretty funny, which prompted Juliana to check over herself to make sure she hadn't done anything stupid. When that failed, she began to mentally retrace her steps in an attempt to discover what exactly Cara was giggling about.

"What? What's so... oh. C'mon, you know I didn't mean it literally."

Clever girl.

[CyclicalCycal]

Cara was in the motion of throwing her blood-spattered wooden orb when Juliana had spoke. She stopped mid throw, of course, after she said she didn't mean it literally. Cara grinned seeing nothing wrong with walking around without an empty eye socket. She moved to socket the false eye back in, still grinning like an idiot. "Well...I'm glad you didn't catch my eye." She said, rather proudly.

After this, though, the child went back to her timid nervousness, continuing her trek down the busy streets. She looked, now, for a wooden doll. "C-can you see one? Or...know where we can find one?" Cara asked, effectively repeating herself.

[Bunbun]

Juliana flinched a little, half expecting Cara to let go of the eye and send it flying at high speed through the air. She'd basically given up trying to predict what the girl was thinking, considering that she didn't have a great track record of being, well, normal. Fortunately, she came to the far more favourable decision of placing the thing back where it belonged, but not before exposing the huge gaping wound that it was held in. Of course, Juliana was no stranger to blood, but she couldn't say the same for any of the other people passing by. She decided to make this clear to Cara, speaking in a more hushed tone.

"Uh, yeah. I'm pretty glad I didn't have to catch it, too. Listen, you shouldn't do... that. It really freaks people out."

She returned to her usual composure afterwards, once again wandering through the streets. It wouldn't be long before she would have to answer another question, though this time she would continue moving while she answered.

"Didn't I just tell you? I'm taking you to the market. Shouldn't be too long, now."

Sure enough, the two would soon find themselves in an area where the streets opened up into a plaza of sorts. Merchants of all sorts energetically peddled their wares throughout the area. If what Cara was looking for could be found anywhere, this would be the place.

"Well, this is the place. Do you see one of 'em anywhere?"

[CyclicalCycal]

"What's wrong with not having an eye?" Cara asked, apparently not-at-all squeamish about being one-eyed. "How's it freak people out? Doesn't make sense." She quickly moves on from this topic, as they enter market. Cara's eye lights up. "I don't think so..." She commented, as she looks about the area. "I-I'll go look. Y-you can come too, if you want!"

Cara moves through the crowds, looking to the merchants, trying to find something. She didn't really care if Juliana followed her or not, hurriedly searching through the stalls and buildings, eagerly hunting for anything that she could find. It may have taken her a little while, but eventually Cara would wander up to a toymaker, blinking up at him blearily.

[Bunbun]

Before Juliana could even begin to form a response to the Cara's question, the girl announced her departure and immediately hurried into the market. While this did give Juliana a moment to herself, it also meant that she had to make the decision of whether to follow or not. Cara's situation wasn't really any of her business, but there didn't seem to be anyone else around at the moment to keep the kid out of trouble. She clearly wasn't very experienced when it came to busy cities.

Eventually coming to her conclusion, Juliana started to casually weave through the market. She wasn't in too much of a hurry, figuring that there wasn't that much that could go wrong in the time it took her to catch up. By the time she regained sight of Cara, the girl had already approached one of the merchants and... well, she still looked pretty lost. Admittedly, Juliana was a little curious to see how she would act in this kind of situation. As such, she decided to keep her distance to make sure she wasn't interfering with anything.

[CyclicalCycal]

"Uhh...toymaker-person!" Cara chirped up, to the toymaker. He stared down at her, raising an eyebrow. "C-can I trade some fruit for a toy?" Cara asked. He tilted his head, confused. "Go' any money, girl?" He replied.

Cara frowned. "What's money?"

"...uh...no. I don' accept...trade."

Cara blinked, surprised. This was unexpected. She thought EVERYONE traded. That's how it worked back at her home. She glanced about the area, now growing rather weary, realising that there was some strange thing called 'money' that was preventing her from obtaining what she required. It caused her some distress. This place grew worse by the second, in her opinion.

[Bunbun]

Well, it was a good thing that Juliana had decided to follow along. Apparently the concept of money was a foreign idea to Cara, due to her somewhat questionable origins of 'the forest'. Figuring that she should probably clear things up, she beckoned the girl over to where she was standing and knelt down so that they would be at eye level.

"...Look. Using money is... kinda like trading. Instead of trading for objects, you trade for money. You can't really do anything in the city if you don't have any money."

She went silent for a few seconds, before sighing and digging around in her pockets. A few more seconds later, she held out a handful of coins- the amount of money she figured Cara would need.

"Here. I'll, uh, 'trade' you some money for your fruit."

She got the feeling that she was about to grossly overpay for what she would be receiving.

[CyclicalCycal]

Cara absolutely did not understand this at all. She blinked, wearily. But then Cara nodded. "Al-alright." She said.

Now, this was where things got bizzare.

Cara popped her eye out of her socket, holding it in one hand. She waved her other hand over it. As she did so, it lifted up, floating. It then...twitched. As it did so, rapidly, various foliage began to grow outwards from it, springing into pears, apples, mangoes, grapes, bananas, oranges, and others uch exotic fruits. And they were abundant, and fresh, and ripe. Cara had a look of absolute wonder and excitement, grinning as she practised her magic.

When she was done with this, the food she had made was practically spilling out of her arms. She offered it all to Juliana. It was decidedly not a rip-off of her part, much more the part of Cara being naive and not understanding the value of fresh, out-of-season, difficult to obtain fruit.

[Bunbun]

Well, apparently this girl did know how to use magic. Seeing the wooden orb start to float and shake erratically, Juliana took a few steps back out of precaution; there was no telling what kind of magic was about to take place, or if Cara was even capable of performing it correctly. However, her concerns were soon proven to be unnecessary, as the girl summoned forth fruits of a wide variation with what appeared to be relative ease. There were fruits in the pile that Juliana had never even seen before, let alone wonder what it tasted like. Dumbfounded, the woman just stared at the pile in disbelief for a little while before finally moving forwards to accept it.

"I...uh...oooookay, then? How about you go and... y'know."

Juliana nodded in the direction of the toymaker before lifting the pile from Cara's hands, stumbling backwards a little bit as she stood up. She was clearly at a loss for words, being rather preoccupied with the fact that the little girl had created an armful of fruit, and... well, what the hell she was supposed to do with it all. She certainly couldn't eat it all herself.

[CyclicalCycal]

Cara grinned, taking the money and going over to the toymaker. They had a brief discussion, and after handing over the money, Cara was given the wooden doll.

Cara learnt a valuable lesson that day; money can be exchanged for goods and services.

She hopped on over to Juliana, grinning as she held the doll. "Th-thank you!" She said, again, not a hint of nervousness or fear in her voice. She seemed downright happy to be in the presence of Juliana, even. This was a drastic change from her before. "I-I gotta go...now. I need to make a new...eye. And now I need to do the spells on the vessel!" She replied. "W-which way is it...to the nearest forest?" She asked, turning her one-eyed gaze around the area, hunting for any sign of trees. Or bushes. Or foliage of any kind, really.

[Bunbun]

Thankfully, the girl managed to complete the transaction without any further incident. Juliana watched as Cara returned, beaming, and offered her thanks. The woman responded with a short "No problem" and attempted to give a smile of her own, which awkwardly twisted as she struggled with the weight of the fruit. Yeah, she really needed to get rid of some of it.

The fact that Cara asked for directions to the nearest forest rather than a specific one was a little mystifying, but Juliana knew better than to question the child's actions by this point. She definitely knew more about cities, but she got the feeling that she was severely outmatched when it came to knowledge of nature. Forming a mental image of Arca in her mind, she calculated the shortest route possible then walked over to one of the exits from the market.

"Just keep walking that way, you should come across a forest eventually. Don't take too long, though. Your... father is probably worried sick about you."

There was a short pause, followed by the sound of the sound of Juliana shifting around uncomfortably under the weight of the fruit.

"Hey, you should take some of this fruit with you. There's no way I can eat all of it by myself."

[CyclicalCycal]

"Oh, no, father doesn't know anything. He's been sleeping for months." She responded. Cara paused. Her demeanour shifted, her happiness being broken, briefly. "...he wont wake up." She stopped, again, before becoming distantly happier again. "O-okay. Th-thank you for the directions!"

She tilted her head, before nodding at the request to take the fruits. She moved forwards, going to attempt to relieve Juliana of a few of the fruit. Not much, but a few. Once she had done so, she chirped out, again. "Th-thank you." Before going to wander away, shoving the doll and a few of the smaller berries into her pockets, following the directions that Juliana had given her.

[Bunbun]

Juliana frowned as Cara explained her father's condition. The way she spoke about it, it sounded as if her father was put under some sort of sleeping curse, and curses that persisted for so long didn't usually wear off easily. Either that, or he was dead, and the kid hadn't fully grasped what that meant yet. Either way, Juliana didn't have the heart to bring up either option as a possibility. She just did whatever she could to be reassuring, which wasn't much.

"...Oh, I see. Well, I hope he gets better soon."

Her expression softened as Cara helped to reduce the amount of weight she was carrying, if only slightly. It did make sense that the girl would want to travel lightly, especially if she had a long way to go until she reached home. Afterwards, she nodded as the girl thanked her once again- Juliana had lost track of how many times she'd done so- and tried to think of something more to say as Cara began to walk away. Ultimately, though, she came up short, instead just watching in silence before turning around and heading back into the market. Hopefully, Cara at least had someone to take care of her, even if it wasn't her father. It wasn't as if the girl had survived for months on her own... right?

[CyclicalCycal]

Cara hurried off, to do her magic, to continue to live in solitude and loneliness, weaving out towards the border of the closest forest. That's all she needed, for now...just to remake her eye, to do with the doll whatever it is she was going to attempt. You know, it'd be really difficult for her to survive if it wasn't for the fact that the forest would help her. It was nice to her. It was the city, and the civilisation that scared her. They were unpredictable. They were anathema to everything she was.

Perhaps, Juliana would come to an epiphany. A child with ragged clothing, that looked as if she salvaged it...her coat was far, far too big for her. The fact she held magic, and not many parents wanted a child who could bend aspects of reality with their mind. The way she described living in 'the forest', implying away from towns, away from people. Perhaps, she would realise that she was, truly alone. For months, if not years.

Or, perhaps not. Cara didn't seem bothered by it.

Either way, Cara continued to hurry through the streets. Chances were very good she'd make it, after a few hours of getting lost, bumping into people, and retracing her steps. She wasn't very good at navigating streets.

[Bunbun]

Despite her best attempts to forget about the whole ordeal and move on from it, Juliana's thoughts refused to move on from the subject. They plagued her as she made her way into the market, back through the crowded streets, and even as she entered the room that she'd paid to stay in for the night. It was the same feeling that she'd gotten when she first laid eyes on Cara, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. That was, of course, until she realized that the reason she couldn't discern the truth of the matter was because she didn't want to accept the truth. Cara was alone; if she wasn't, then whoever took care of her would have accompanied her into the city. No sane parent would have allowed their child to wander around like that on their own. No matter how much she tried to deny it, that was the only conclusion she could come to.

...Screw it.

Suddenly tossing the rest of the fruit onto the ground, Juliana swiftly left the room and slammed the door shut behind her. She began to sprint through the streets, once again following the path that she'd travelled twice earlier that day. For once, she was glad that she had experience travelling through crowded cities; it certainly made dodging people left and right a hell of a lot easier. She would continue to run at top speed, earning quite a few odd looks from passers by until she finally caught up to Cara. Clearly out of breath, she spoke between coughs in a strained tone.

"Hey... wait up. Lemme take you... to the forest."

[CyclicalCycal]

Cara blinked, eyes widening as she saw Juliana. It wasn't a look of fear, no, but a look of befuddlement. She nodded, wearily. "I-I-I...o-okay. Okay." She nodded, again. "L-let's go." Cara went to continue on the path that Juliana had told her.

At best, she was taking a liberal approach to where it was. At worst, she had forgotten where it was totally and utterly.

Regardless, Cara seemed determined to find her way out of the city. Now, it would take her a good several hours to do such on her current path, but she was determined to do as such. "I th-think we need to go down...here?" Cara asked, as they approached a new street, pointing in the completely wrong direction.

[Bunbun]

Juliana said nothing at first, focusing on regaining all the energy she'd just spent getting back to where she started. She did, however, give a nod to indicate that she was prepared to start walking again. After a few minutes passed, it became abundantly clear that Cara had no idea which direction she was supposed to be going. There was no telling how long she would have wandered around for of Juliana hadn't decided to come back.

"Not that way. At least, not if you want to get to the forest sometime today."

She shook her head, starting to head in the correct direction and expecting Cara to follow. The thoughts from before slowly started to resurface in her mind, unwilling to disappear until Juliana had all the answers she was looking for.

"...You don't have a mother, do you?"

[CyclicalCycal]

The child followed after Juliana, quickly scooping up her coat so that others didn't cause her to trip, again. She knew she'd have to let Juliana guide her, understanding that she knew better in this case. It was something she had resigned herself to. She may not like the 'stupid city-dwellers' but she at least respected that they knew more about the 'stupid city' than she did. However, Cara's ears flicked when she heard Juliana's question. She opened her mouth to speak.

Cara's answer was likely unexpected. It wasn't a 'no' or a 'she is dead' or 'she left father'. No, Cara said...

"A mother? I've heard of those!"

The answer strongly implicated Cara didn't have a mother, but it was truly odd. Every child had HEARD of mother, right? Evidently, not this one.