Yo! New chapter and junk. Have fun or something and thank you very much for the reviews! This is my first time posting a story so the support is great. Ok go enjoy!
Chapter 2: Comings and Goings.
She had been truly afraid just then, when a shadow fell across her. For a brief moment between surprise and panic, she wondered if any of this would have happened if she didn't stand out so much. This thought was displaced by an inelegant quack. Looking up, Duck saw the dark silhouette above her, blocking the sun and felt her apprehension building so much that she was sure her spit could be tainted with it. Duck braced herself, preparing for the worst.
"Hey." the conversation became less terrifying and more idiotic from there. The man appeared increasingly annoyed and Duck felt increasingly stupid. She wondered why the stranger had even bothered with her in the first place as she examined him. He was much taller than her and he looked down with an almost concealed contempt. Boldly, she met his sharp, green eyes as she told him about punching that big man's nose and maybe Duck had imagined it, but she was sure he almost grinned then.
"My name's Duck! What's yours?" he blinked at the sudden introduction
"Fakir." Duck was astounded that Fakir didn't question the oddness of her name; she smiled and stepped away from the wall
" Pleased to meet you Fakir!" the strained look on his tanned face softened at this and Duck felt instantly at ease. Fakir began walking back into the bustling market and she followed, asking questions along the way.
"Are you here for the market Fakir?"
"No."
"Do you live here?"
"Hell no."
"Aww you don't like Abd-Al-Rashid? Why not?" she nearly bumped into him when she realized he had stopped.
"Look. Duck," she marveled at how un-foreign he made her name sound "I came over to help you not to make friends. If you have no problems then I'll just leave." Duck's grin fell a fraction but she was not one to be easily deterred. She had just found a possible friend and she was not about to lose the opportunity.
"Actually..." faltering, Duck racked her brain for something Fakir could help her with "You could... help me pack up my cart! I have a problem lifting all the heavy crates." he looked back at her, slightly disbelieving but complied anyway. Smiling wider, Duck stepped ahead and began leading him through the market to her stall.
"Sooo... Why'd you want to help me so bad? Most people just don't care."
"I'm a faqr."
"I know you're Fakir!" Duck rolled her eyes and caught her new companion pinching the bridge of his nose out of the corner of her vision.
"No. I am actually a faqr my name just happens to be the same as my role." Fakir countered, obviously irritated. Duck thought long about this, trying to recall, with all her might, if she actually knew what a faqr was
"...What's a faqr?"
"We're like gurus or holy men."
"So you're like a monk?" it was Fakir's turn to ponder, but he knew his answer and did not make a fool of himself.
"More like a traveling monk."
"Huh. So you help people?" Duck asked
"Yes."
"Is it fun?"
"No."
Fakir was not a conversationalist. Duck briefly considered if she were to shut up then the likelihood of becoming his friend would increase tenfold. This was immediately dismissed by the notion that friends were friends because they knew each other. How was Duck supposed to get to know Fakir if she didn't ask him anything? She was about to open her mouth to question where he was from when mister talkative himself decided to ask her something
"Wait. If you're here and your cart is in the market then who is watching it? I don't care if you come from someplace where people won't even steal loaves- what were you thinking?" Duck took a few moments to acclimate herself to the sudden shift in discussion. She acknowledged this with an:
"Oh. My cart." this seemed to anger Fakir who had now stopped following her and was looking at her back with an incredulous fury.
"You're kidding right? You have to be kidding. I mean, no one can be that stupid."
"My cart, I left it-"
" In the name of everything that is holy- you really are that much of an idiot!"
"-I left it with Uzura."
"Oh." Fakir looked abashed and attempted to compose himself by walking up ahead of Duck. She snickered when he stopped again and asked her where they were going.
"It's just on the west edge of the market. We're almost there."
They traveled a little longer before Duck heard Fakir speak again. It came quietly and far less forceful than the rest of his speech and it made her smile wider.
"Sorry about getting angry at you."
"That's fine! Apology accepted."
Fakir was about as good at apologies as he was at conversation which meant he was horribly and inexplicably useless at both. This meant that his sorry came as a surprise. The Brahmans preached forgiveness and if they knew the odd girl named Duck then they would be proud.
Duck was a small, thin thing with far too much arms and legs. Her wide blue eyes seemed to take up more than the appropriate amount of face and her mouth was small, loud and possibly the perfect shape for smiling. She walked a few feet in front of him with a jaunty stumbling gait that suggested her enthusiasm regularly over-rode her coordination. Agreeing with his most early impressions, Fakir reiterated that she was one of the strangest things he had ever seen to himself.
The small covered cart that Duck ended their short journey in front of, however, could contend in the title of oddity. It was a gaudy, ornate thing with too much wood carving and even more color. A slightly tattered-looking banner hung haphazardly over ill-concealed German lettering. Bold, crooked Arabic was scrawled across its length by an obviously inexperienced hand. Geflügel's Animal Skin Bound Books. Fakir frowned. That was probably one of the least appealing stand names he had ever read and that included some very creative food stall names. Duck turned to him, saw his confusion and followed his eyes to the sign.
"Oh! My father-well he's not really my father, but anyway- my father didn't know the Arabic word for leather so he just used animal skin instead. We found out later but it was too much of a hassle to fix." she finished lamely and looked at the banner for a few seconds
"Maybe we should fix-"
"Ducks back 'zura!" Fakir blinked at the green haired blur that had launched itself from somewhere within the cart and then latched onto Duck. Now stationary, the figure was now identifiable as a young girl with round, pale features. Her attire was so obnoxious that if she were to stand up against the wagon, one would barely be able to tell the difference between clothes and paint. Fakir considered that to be a reason why he had missed her in the first place. Still slightly dazed, he only then noticed that the mint-haired projectile was a child no more than six years old.
"You left a child in charge of your wares." he dead-panned, resisting the urge to roll his eyes skyward and pray to Shiva to 'kill me now.'
"Aww don't be mean Fakir! Uzura had everything under contr-"
"I caught a snake 'zura!"
"What?" Duck squawked frantically looking left and right for signs of the reptile.
"Yup! I caught it and put it in a jar 'zura!"
"Oh! Um do you maybe think you could tell me which jar it is?"
Fakir was caught between laughing and groaning. To remedy the situation he asked about moving crates and Duck quickly put him to work.
It was a disorganized ordeal and many boxes were put down, picked up and put down again in an oversized book-laden puzzle. Duck seemed oblivious to the annoyance Fakir slowly amassed from her constant mistakes and continued smiling a dopey smile at each container he moved. The crates themselves were filled with a spectrum of books, finely bound in leather and gilded with glittering accents. Fakir felt drawn to the pages, they begged him to mar them with his driven, hasty scrawl but he restrained himself. A faqr did not need worldly possessions.
The young Uzura and Duck bantered inconsequential words around him. It was soon discovered that the child had put the snake in another merchant's pot who, much to Duck's distress, had rode off without realizing his new serpentine passenger. The atmosphere around them was strange and the faqr felt oddly as if he had nothing to prove and that Duck and her little assistant didn't expect anything from him other than a bit of heavy lifting. It was strangely relieving. After a while, Duck's disorganization became less and less bothersome and the placement of the last crate came much sooner than he expected. Placing the final load on the cart, Fakir turned to see Duck standing with a small book in her hands. It was palm- sized, indigo, unassuming and made from what appeared to be a sort of suede. He raised an eyebrow.
"I wanted to thank you for helping me, 'cause you know, there aren't enough helpful people these days." Duck paused and rocked back on her heels. Fakir resisted the urge to interrupt with an 'it's my job I don't need payment'. "I saw you looking at them so I figured you wouldn't mind having one, and I know it's not much but there aren't many that aren't cow or pig leather and I don't know if you're Hindu or Muslim so I just went with sheep skin and I hope you like it..." her rambling faded away and she looked up, gift still cradled in her hands. Fakir was about to reject it with the argument of his type and their lack of possessions, but something stopped him. Maybe it was the old call of ink on paper; maybe the heat had clouded his judgment, maybe her eyes held such an untainted hope, such a desire to give, that the customary denial would surely be a sin against humanity, so he took it.
Holding the book in his weathered hand, Fakir locked eyes with Duck and let out a true smile
" It's perfect."
And he thought she couldn't have grinned any wider.
It was sad to part ways so early on. Fakir was Duck's first friend in those foreign lands- despite what he said about not making friends- and the sands felt less endless and less daunting now that she knew there were helpful and somewhat friendly people there. He told her he was walking north and she said she was heading east to the coastal kingdoms where trade flourished.
"Maybe our paths will cross again."
"Maybe."
"Well… Thanks again Fakir!"
"Yeah! Thanks 'zura!" he nodded in acknowledgement and set off in one direction, the dark fabric of his robes whipping back in the wind as if reluctant to part with the bright cart. Duck felt a pang of sadness, watching him leave. Suddenly he turned and called back.
"Oh and Duck? Change your sign or no one will want to buy your books. It had better be fixed when I see you again." Duck immediately brightened and raised a hand to wave while Uzura gave a sort of half salute.
"I will! Bye Fakir!"
"Good bye Duck."
They both stood on the sandy ground of the market, the world moving around them, and watched as his tall figure faded into the dust and din. Duck felt a tug on her yellow tunic and looked down to meet Uzura's inquisitive, violet eyes.
"We'll see him again, won't we 'zura?"
"Yes. I'm sure we will."
And with that the two hitched up their camel and headed east.
AN: Here's a drawing I did of Duck and Fakir in some pretty Arabic looking clothes: .com/#/d4xp6yp Yup. Gonna go make a chair now/finish my AP art portfolio.