no_thief | (no subject)

Another faintly blank look. "Bus?"

"...I'll explain on the way there."

(That faint dryness to his voice will become very, very well-honed in another seventeen years.)

It's not too far a walk to the bus stop -- five minutes, maybe, and less to put them level with the roadway. Cars and people alike bustle past; Felix makes sure to keep pace with Kaya, uncertain how she'll react to everything.

The cars were terrifying at first; now she sees that they're enclosed carts, that's all, with people inside them. And somehow moving with no horses, and faster than any horse could run -- but she can accept that. The empty cars standing still at the side of the road are unnerving, until she realizes that they won't go without people in them.

The people don't all wear the same kind of clothes that Felix does -- but they're all the same kind of strange, and she's slowly getting used to them, especially after all the kinds of people she's seen at Milliways. They're looking askance at her clothes, though, or maybe she's imagining that.

Picon's a comfortably middle-class colony: not the hub of prestige that marks Caprica, but not a poor and disenfranchised planet like Aerilon, either. Kaya's ragged clothes are just out of place enough to garner a second look; it's the sort of second look that's followed by a shrug and prompt dismissal, though.

Felix doesn't notice any of that for at least a minute. When he finally does, he steps a little closer to Kaya, as if to say, It's okay -- both to her and to the people on the street.

"We're gonna turn left up here," he says as he takes a break from his explanation. Felix points to the corner just ahead.

She nods.

"Everybody's so rich here," she mutters uneasily, just barely above a whisper.

"We're -- "

He intends to finish that sentence with not that rich, but it's cut off by another rising thought: you are to somebody like Kaya.

Confronted with the embarrassment of something he's never thought about before, Felix falls silent, hands finding his pockets again.

It's not the wealth that's striking her, really; it's the ubiquity of it. There don't seem to be any poor people at all.

Maybe they're just somewhere else.

"So when the bus gets here," she says, going back to where the explanation left off. "How do we make it stop?"

Relieved, Felix jumps back on topic. "It'll stop automatically," he says. "Unless it's too full to take anybody else -- then we've just gotta wait for the next one. All we have to do is stand under the sign that says it's a bus stop and -- "

Abruptly, he stops in his tracks.

"What?"

Her eyes jump from his face to the direction he was looking, to behind them, before coming back to him.

"What is it?"

"Did you hear that?"

He's got his head tilted to one side as he frowns, slightly.

A moment's silence.

There's a lot of unfamiliar noise: the cars going by, a distant humming like insects but not insects, other sounds that sound familiar but she's not sure they're what she thinks --

"Hear what," she asks, a little grudgingly.

"I thought I heard..." Felix trails off again, still poised and listening, before he turns to a line of cars parked on the side of the road.

Squeak. Squeak-squeak.

"That!" he hisses.

This time she hears it, and frowns.

In a whisper: "Is that an animal? It sounds like...."

It sounds like a very young animal.

"I don't know," he whispers back.

Squeeeeak.

Whatever it is, though, it sounds like it's coming from underneath a car just ahead of them. Felix begins to drift that way, mumbling a quick, "'Scuse me," as he crosses paths with another pedestrian; once he's there, he wipes off his hands on his knees, squats down, then realizes that's not going to work and rocks forward to kneel on the curb.

Kaya, meanwhile, glances around warily -- once -- and then crouches next to him.

"Do you see it?"

Felix practically has to turn his entire head upside-down, curls of hair threatening to dangle in the gutter, to get a good look under the car. What he sees isn't anything definitive: just a clear straight line of light divided in two by some kind of small, blobby shadow.

The shadow shifts. A car goes by, erasing the line of light for a split-second; Felix frowns, trying to scoot a little closer.

"I think so," he says --

And then he jumps back in surprise as two pairs of small, amber eyes reappear inches from his face, both of them blinking curiously.

"Move over," Kaya says, and flattens herself against the pavement to peer under the car.

There's another squeaking sound from the shadows. Kaya makes the sound back.

Obediently, Felix scoots aside. Once Kaya's settled, he leans his head around again -- albeit with a lot more caution than before -- to peer into the shadows.

They hold his attention until Kaya mimics the squeaks they've been hearing. He twists around enough to stare at her.

"You can understand them?"

...What? Magic exists in her world. Maybe that includes talking to animals.

"Not really," Kaya says, "but --"

The squeaking has redoubled, and the tiny shapes making the sound are moving forward to the edge of the car. She makes the noise back at them again.

"They're scared," she murmurs, "and lonely."

"I think..."

He's squinting again, reaching out with one hand to brace himself on the side of the car. Light catches on a patch of fur as the shapes move closer -- bright, orangeish-red.

With dawning awe, Felix whispers, "I think they're foxes."

He's never seen wild ones before; just photographs, or pictures in storybooks.

"Fox cubs," she agrees in a whisper, and leans closer.

"Hey," low and warm, "don't cry. Hey." The squeaking sound again, and then a coaxing tongue-click: tik-tik-tik. "Come on. Come out."

One of the fox cubs, braver than the other, puts its nose out into the daylight and whines at them insistently.

With dogs, Felix knows you're supposed to offer them your hand to smell. Should he do the same thing to a fox, or will it bite him?

Uncertain: "Should we call someone?"

They have people around here who take care of injured wild animals. But...the foxes aren't acting like they're injured. Just scared, like Kaya said.

Kaya gives him a blank look.

"Call someone?"

The words make sense, but she has no idea what he means.

"Yeah."

He'll skip the telephone explanation for now.

"They've got people who take care of wild animals if they're hurt, or if, um." Felix, mindful of the cubs, peeks under the car again. "You didn't see their mom or dad, did you?"

She shakes her head silently, and holds out a hand to the first cub; it sniffs her fingertips, and squeaks plaintively again. The second cub is inching out behind its litter-mate, young enough to be unsteady on its legs.