Anika

The girl had brilliant orange hair, bound back in two braids, and blue eyes that looked at once sleepy and completely awake. She couldn't have been older than maybe ten. She'd been wandering around the market talking to people seemingly at random, but she had claimed to know the way home when asked where her parents were, pointing at a large, noble-looking house a fair distance away. She'd looked about to fall asleep standing up, so Eugene had let her sit down on a stool behind the counter while he arranged his crates of fruit in preparation for the day.

The girl had fallen asleep in an awkward position, leaning forward with her crossed arms resting on her knees. Or so Eugene thought, anyway, until he heard her yawn behind him. "Did I wake you up?" He looked over his shoulder to see the girl rubbing her eyes and shaking her head. "What's your name, anyway?" "...Odovacar, Anika." The fruit vendor wasn't familiar with the name, but the rumors around that semi-wealthy clan of kooky artistes called Odovacar explained a few things about the girl's behavior. Such as what Anika asked next.

"Do you dream?" The words were slurred slightly because she stifled a yawn while she spoke them, and Eugene looked at her with a bemused expression. "Well... sometimes. Doesn't everyone?" "Nn. Of what? Recently." The crates were all set up now, but no customers were coming yet, so he stopped to think. Why not? "There was something a few nights ago... let me see, I think I was walking, and got a thorn in my foot, or something like that. The foot actually swelled so much that my boot ripped and fell off, that was scary."

"Mm. Thorn in the boot, rot at the root..." Anika tilted her head to the side with an expression that was surely supposed to be pensive, but Eugene found more cute than anything. "Don't sell those." "What?" She pointed to the crate in the middle of the counter, with the imported fruit from near the Tangle, and pouted. The vendor raised an eyebrow skeptically and smiled. "Don't you like foreign fruit?" With a completely serious expression, Anika answered, "A thorn in your boot. Rot at the root. A pest of soot." Her voice sounded like she was talking in her sleep, but she looked as awake as she had been.

Something nagged at the back of Eugene's mind, so he rummaged in the crate, frowning. He was just about to shake his head and return to what he was doing when he saw the thing, and started back with a shout.

A pitch black beetle that had to be the size of his hand looked at him with faceted eyes, its head poking out of a small melon. The rind of the melon was blackened around the point where the bug must have eaten its way out of the fruit, and gave off a foul smell. Startled, Eugene tossed the whole crate to the ground, sending the melon with the bug rolling, and stomped at the thing.

Anika remained sitting on her stool, staring at the ruckus absently, though she wrinkled her nose at the ill-smelling remains of the bug and melon once Eugene was done with them. Eugene looked at the dead beetle, then at the spilled crate, then at Anika, and back to the bug. Finding a vermin of that size in the crate while trying to sell might well have ruined business for the whole day.

"...I think you just saved my sales for today, Anika." The girl responded with a broad smile that revealed two missing milk teeth. After quizzing him some more on his dreams and seeming dissatisfied, Anika stood up from the stool, curtsied, and turned to leave just as Eugene was finished cleaning up and customers began stopping at his counter. He stopped her briefly and gave her a sugar melon that had survived the ordeal untouched as thanks. She smiled again in response and trotted away with a half-asleep gait.