Leif turned around at the sound of his name, and startled as he came face to face with an ox. Sunlight caught on the iron cuffs around its horns as it tipped its head down, staring into Leif's face with large, round brown eyes. Horizontal pupils dilated slightly, reflecting Leif's shifty-eyed expression until his lips curled into a lop-sided grin. 

"Do we know each other, friend?" He asked, raising a hand tentatively before he gently set his fingers between the ox's eyes and stroked down its snout until the probing stare disappeared behind closed lids. 

"Stars preserve, lad. Surely ye didn't think a steer called for ye." 

Leif bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing but couldn't help the chuckles rattling in his lungs. When he leaned his head to look around the steer's horns, a grizzled, bespectacled old man perched upon the seat rest of the wooden cart attached at its back gave him a disapproving stare. Unable to hold back any longer, laughter spilled past Leif's lips as he waved his empty hand as if fanning away the tense airs. 

"It's only a jest, Mister Coltham," Leif said, slipping back when the old man's eyes narrowed behind his square frames.  The ox's eyes peered up from beneath half-drawn lids, watching him with a sort of lazy interest. He beamed in return, curling his fingers as they fell away from the ox's snout. "After all, how could I forget the most handsome steer in the Valley?"

The ox tipped its head down and stared at Leif for a few long seconds before dragging its tongue against his cheek with a crooning sound. Leif balked, staggering backward as he quickly rubbed the dampness from his cheek whilst Coltham howled with laughter. 

"Well! It seems he certainly hasn' forgotten you!" 

Leif frowned, opening his mouth to say something when the ox pressed its wet nose to the side of his head. The gold coiled beads wound about his braids clacked against one another noisily as the ox rubbed its head against him, crooning softer. He closed his eyes, letting the vibrations fill in the darkness behind his eyelids with faint impressions of a mugient steer and the ebbing rumbles of an old man's wheezing laughter.  Ozone didn't cling to the back of his throat when he breathed in, but the refreshing sweetness of grass on a balmy breeze did. He rubbed circles behind one of the ox's flicking ears and muttered a thanks before pulling away from its embrace as well as the comfort of darkness.

Blurriness cleared from his sight with a few blinks and a quick swipe of his thumb against his lower eyelashes. "Think I could catch a ride back to town?" Leif asked, clearing his throat with a toothy simper as the ox mooed back. 

"Believe it should be me you ask," Coltham murmured, and Leif tossed the ox a wink before stepping around to walk up to the cart's side. The end of his tail flicked and curled whilst he sidled up adjacent to the seat rest, smiling up at Coltham's stern mien.  

Leif flicked his eyes down to the leather reins wound around Coltham's fist while his other hand laid flat against his thigh, forefinger tapping slowly against his knee. Then, he looked up to where Coltham's eyes faced straight ahead. He hummed interestedly and kicked up one of his boot soles onto the front wheel's spokes, hearing the creek of wood and possibly the snap of Coltham's neck when he turned a furrowed brow grimace onto Leif.  

"And why would I do that?" Leif asked with a tip of his head toward the ox. "When he's doing all the hard work."

"Tsk, cheeky brat," Coltham sucked his teeth with a soured look, nodding toward the empty space upon the seat rest. "Fine, get up here before I change m' mind."

Leif bowed his head with a little snicker and pulled himself up to sit beside Coltham, tucking his arms behind his head while snuggling down into his seat. He glanced away from the apple tree and closed his eyes, pressing the soles of his feet hard against his boots when the cart lurched forward. Wood clunked and moaned against shifting stone and dirt, jostling the cart as well as its riders whilst it rumbled down the beaten path. Leif tipped his head back against the breeze, listening to the whispers on the zephyrs and let the gnawing tightness in his stomach seep out through a small sigh. 

"Now, what were ya doin' standin' in the middle of the road anyhow?" Coltham asked, and Leif could imagine the curl of his lips when he sucked his teeth harshly. "If you were thinkin' of swipin' an apple from that Yesirn, forget about it. He's likelier to take it from your gut than let bygones be bygones."

With the tart sweetness of an apple on his tongue, Leif scoffed and said, "I'd never." 

He dared not to open an eye in the old man's view, feeling the  piercing gaze twisting daggers into the side of his head. In lieu of this, Leif turned his head to the right and peered through the space between his arms at the apple tree left in the distance.  He couldn't see exactly where he'd cut from its boughs but he could have sworn that not a single one was missing. His hand rested on his stomach, fingers curled in the notches of his belt. 

"I was just a little lost in thought, that's all…"

"Uh-huh.," he heard Coltham say before something solid was shoved against his chest. Leif let out an oof, catching it in his palms with a grimace at the old man who dutifully ignored him. "Here, if you're hungry then you'll have to make do with this."

Leif sniffed, rolling his eyes until he'd no choice but to look at the hemp-wrapped parcel. It weighed enough in his palm that dropping it seemed unwise, despite how it might've enraged Coltham. A faint, nutty scent wafted from the opened folds and as he carefully unwound its bindings, they fell away to reveal a hearty loaf of sugar-dusted milk bread settled gingerly beside a hunk of buttered yellow goat cheese. Despite himself, Leif's stomach growled and his tail curled into a spring behind him when Coltham snickered. 

 "Thanks," he grumbled, taking a bite of the bread with a pleased hum at the sweet smokiness of cinnamon.  His heart fluttering when he shoved a slice of cheese afterwards, savoring the strong bitter flavor.  Gradually, the bread and cheese dwindled down to a mouse crumb and Leif's stomach bulged against the confines of his belted sash.  A long sigh of relief parted his lips whilst he shook the cloth out over the cobblestone and gravel before setting it on his thighs. Water sloshed at his left and Leif turned his head to find a waterski held out to him, tightly capped and bulging at its seams. 

"To wash it down with," Coltham said when he dropped it in Leif's open palms. 

Leif stared at it then glanced up at the man as he sank back onto his side of the seat rest, gently tugging the reins when the ox began to veer too far to one side or the other. Switching the waterskin to his right hand, Leif slipped his left into his pocket to scrounge up the leather pouch settled deep within his trousers. Just as he managed to wrap his hand around the twine strings keeping it shut, Coltham muttered reproachfully, "Put your lucre away, boy."

Leif's fingers twitched around the pouch, frozen stiff at being caught, then gradually easing out from his pocket. Coltham fixed him with a gimlet eye until he held up his hand, turning it from palm to back until the older man relented. Leif huffed, folding the cloth over his knee before he uncorked the waterskin. Droplets spilled from its mouthpiece as the cart rocked along uneven stones fallen from the dilapidated walls surrounding smaller rice paddies and vegetable fields. As the scenery went by, Leif took measured sips, shaking the waterskin occasionally to gauge how much remained. 

Once he'd drunk half, Leif corked and passed it wordlessly to Coltham who grunted a thanks before he tucked it away. The cart bounced and rolled over uneven stones and dirt-lined cobble until the wheels clunked  against paved stone, rolling with little clk-clks almost muffled by the ox's steps. Leif leaned against the backrest, his braids sliding down his shoulders from where they escaped the hastily-tied bun at the back of his head. A flicker of gold from the corner of his eye made him turn his head sharply to the right, only to find a mischievous ogień snickering at him from where it peeked behind the iron door of a lantern hanging from one of the roadside posts. 

Leif rolled his eyes and summoned a gust of wind with the flick of a finger, swinging the lantern's door shut.  The lantern's pale glass illuminated with flashes of gold, shaking violently while the cart ambled on. Leif smirked, kicking his feet until a stern look from Coltham reminded him why it was wiser to put them down.  

After a moment of silence, Leif asked, "Mister Coltham, do you believe the gods still walk among us?"

Coltham's bushy brows attempted to join at their corners, forming a deep crease between them. "Hrm?" He grunted, squinting harder at the road ahead as he hunched his shoulders. 

"The stories said that the Creator gave the Astrals the ability to walk with Creation in a form recognizable," Leif explained, "so that we might never see ourselves as lesser."

"Do you really believe that?" Coltham snorted, glancing at Leif from the crease of his crow's feet.  His lips curled as his words lilted with the jaunty bounce of an elder's tease,  "If I were a god, why would I want the likes of me and you to think we're the same?"

Leif pursed his lips, but could muster no argument. He found the gods' habit of referring to themselves as this One irritating, if only because he could never tell who One was unless following their other words. But most of all, they never deigned to give their names and always postured no matter what form they took - every encounter was the same, carefully within sight but daunting from the way they loomed.  Embarrassment crept up Leif's nape and his tail flickered irritably under the scrutiny of Coltham's amusement. Though he doubted the old farmer ever met a god's Avatar, his understanding of them was terribly accurate.

"— Least, that's how I figured they thought. How else would the Unraveling came about?"

A shiver streaked down Leif's shoulders as his body went rigid. The distant roll of thunder in the back of his mind almost caused him to turn but he forced himself to remain still. Coltham was still at his side, he confirmed with a quick sidelong glance. There wasn't a head severed from shoulders without the body's awareness, or skin bleached white and blistering red from a harsh strike of blinding light. Just Coltham, peppered grey in his thick hair and wispy beard, staring at the world from behind glass lenses reflecting deep brown eyes set in a weathered brown face.  

Coltham glanced in Leif's direction when he noticed the stare, clicking his tongue with a roll of the eyes before he drew a hand back and scratched at his head. 

"Listen, I'll tell you the same as I'd little Alan and his friends. Creation thought it was like the Astrals, and Stars above were we wrong…" He huffed, holding the reins again with a miserly scowl. "They've watched us from their lofty palaces in the sky far beyond your time or mine; why would they care to come down unless we got too much for their liking?"

Leif blinked owlishly at him, lips puckered and drawn into a thin line from those words' bitterness. "I… wouldn't expect one of the Bowlord's Children to think of Him that way."

Coltham's eyes shuttered then, and Leif almost kicked himself for a step taken too far. The relationship between Yun-Fe's patron and Her kin weren't any of his concern but it was a delicate issue, and after his earlier warning, likely one that didn't need addressing. But quietly, as if summoned through a fog, Coltham said, "Between your ilk and that yapping songbird, the youngins've been smiling more as of late. No god laid a hand on their heads when they were weepin', and none kept their bellies filled before they went off to sleep…"

He took his eyes off the road fully, and turned to look at a wide-eyed Leif.  "Don't get me wrong,  we owe it to the Bowlord for teaching our ancestors how to live off the land and the Hinterlady for giving us these boughs, but if the youngins are feeling life's burden - then us old folks have to do somethin' bout it…" 

He shrugged carelessly, heaving a sigh as if a great burden had been lifted off him. Then, with a wistful look toward the road ahead, Coltham said, 'Way I see it, the line was drawn in the sand a long time and the world you and yours are gettin' is gonna be a tough one. .. Sorry about that."

Leif blinked slowly before his eyes softened. He nudged his elbow against Coltham's side, and said with a small smile, "Don't worry about it. After all, lines drawn in sand can be moved, so long as one's careful about it."

Coltham took a deep breath, chuckling hoarsely as he nudged Leif back. "Keep that up, and you'll see Tolle Armida before this old-timer."