He looked at the sky, it was clear but a few clouds could be seen around, not weak clouds that are see-through, puffy white clouds like the ones seen in children drawings, the sight transported him to that day two months ago, the sky was fully clear and the sun was relentless, Luca had been working all day, and his skin was gonna start burning soon, he could feel it burning and the sweat accumuting on his lower back sticking to his clothes, he then proceed to lower himself in order to continue carrying the big buckets of water to the customer, but as he was lowering himself a loud noise snapped him back, he incorporated himself and looked around, not seeing anything, but in the distance he could hear yelling, panicked yelling. Luca wouldn’t be able to ter describe what happened in the next minute or so, he knew he ran towards the screams, he had to in order to get from point A to B, but that moment wasn’t in his memory. What he did remember was the scene, a carriage like he had never seen with two drivers and a huge cabin, missing a wheel and about to tip over, people on one side, some armored and some in fancy clothes, trying to keep the cabin from dropping and trying to scare off a huge bull and in the other side the bull, sered focused on them.

  Luca recognised the bull, the scar on it’s side was left when the farmer that owned him stabbed him with a firepce poker when it was much younger, it had gotten into the home and broken the farmer’s wife’s leg, it had quite a temper and the pain caused by the piercing made him focus on the farmer who then drove it away. The story had become kind of an urban legend, people started calling him Pierre, just because it sounded like pierce, or so people said. Those were the kind of thoughts that ran through Luca’s mind as he saw the beast, he had seen it from afar, but nearby it made sense it gained the urban legend status, it truly, truly was huge, Luca never thought himself too tall but seeing a bull bigger than him by a head, it made him freeze. He shifted his eyes over to the people, they were trying their damndest to scare it away yelling and moving their arms, they probably thought that if it works on bears… Luca saw a device atop the cabin, which was smoking and looked like a tube, he thought that was probably what a cannon looked like, based on the descriptions he had heard. Slowly but surely Luca pieced the puzzle together, the bull might have escaped and just so happened to see this carriage, he got angry, attacked them, they shot at it, they missed but diverged it’s path enough for it to just break a wheel and then this, at least Luca hoped they missed it, if it survived a cannonball and was still standing…

  The bull scratched the floor with it’s hoof and lowered it’s head, not difficult to know where this was going, nervously Luca grabbed a nearby rock and threw it at Pierre, it bumped on him and fell on the ground as it revved up, Luca considered running, but he saw the people of the carriage still doing their unknown provoking and with a sigh, a quick curse and a quick prayer he charged towards the beast, picked up a rock as he ran past it and threw it at the animal’s privates.

  From then on it was a blur, Luca remembered running towards the nearby “forest”, which referred to a patch of trees that stood really nearby eachother, he didn’t remember when he got the pn but he did, and it wasn’t a bad one. He ran faster than he thought he could, he felt like he was gonna run faster than his legs at one point, but he kept going, the trotting of the beast crushing the green grass behind him and it’s strong breathing made sure to keep him motivated to keep running, when he reached the small forest he zig-zagged through the trees, he had pyed there with his sister countless times, he knew exactly how to avoid falling, as he looked back desperate for a rest, he was startled by a couple trees breaking, Pierre was stopped though which allowed him to breathe and feel his heart pumping strongly, only he couldn’t, because a couple more trees broke when Pierre ran into them again, pursuing him further, as he saw the animal back up only to charge again with zero intention of letting trees stand in it’s way, Luca thought that this animal might a hungry carnivore and that he lived a good life, but as it broke another tree, he thought that this thing could break the entire forest, and he didn’t want a pce of nice memories with pying hide and seek with his mother and sister to be turned into sticks by an angry bull, so, in a bravery episode equal to those of a hero or a stupidity episode equal to those who believe they can beat a bull taller than themselves he decided to act.

  Luca had ran enough in one day for a lifetime, he couldn’t keep going in a straight line, because it would catch up, but he also couldn’t zig-zag, because he would risk tripping, he had to turn in order for the pn to work, so as he saw the carriage ruins in the distance, he tried to juke Pierre, he ran to the left, but then he pushed himself with the ground in the other direction, keeping close to the ground to avoid the horns, which he felt brushing his hair, the pn wasn’t perfect however, as he felt the beast’s muscur leg hit him on the side, which knocked the wind out of him, the beast fell as did Luca. It fell on the side and started to get up again as Luca struggled to stand, but somehow he did and began running towards the carriage, or most specifically the path it used to be driving on.

  The memories were blurry since then, except the interaction with the man in the cabin of course, the whole reason he was going to the trip, Luca’s sky gazing and reminiscing was broken when his mother spoke, looking in the other direction, down the train tracks.

  “Do you remember when Lana got sick?” she said not looking back at him and with an almost ck of emotion in her voice “It was way before the house, she got sick and the town didn’t have a good doctor yet, or a doctor at all I should say” she then looked back at him and smiled “not that we could have afforded it anyway but, you know” then she directed the sight back at the horizon.

  “Yeah… it was flower season, lots of rain wasn’t it?” he thought he remembered, but only a distant memory.

  “Yeah, she was still a baby and yet she was always so cheery, but she wouldn’t stop crying with the disease” she sighed “You wouldn’t stop trying to make her smile, telling funny stories, doing tricks best you could… telling her bad jokes that I told you over and over…”.

  “Your fault for showing me the jokes” he teased, trying to add some joy to the situation.

  “Haha… fair enough” she giggled and it seemed genuine, but Luca didn’t know if he could believe it fully. “Anyways, one day, I think it was a week ter, I heard you talking to her, she was very weak, and her cries were quieter than ever, and you were talking to her in the middle of the night”.

  “I… I don’t remember that” he confessed.

  “Hmm… you were very young, barely new to speaking”

  "I guess... so you remember it?"Luca didn’t know where this was going, she probably was just reminiscing because of the situation, which was fair enough.

  “I remember it, I remember it perfectly” she said, still no emotion in her voice “I’m paraphrasing a bit but, you said Lana, please be okay, I want you to be okay, and so does mommy… if you get good we’ll go somewhere nice, somewhere beautiful and full of adventure and, the three of us, will live awesome adventures” she put a slightly higher pitch, which brought a smile to Luca, then she continued “you went quiet for a second, until you said… if you can’t… you have to, no, you just have to, please be okay, okay? I’ll be okay but mommy isn’t sleeping much, she worries you know? Like I do, so please, if not for me, for mommy, heal Lana, I want us to be together… please… and then you kissed her on the forehead, and stayed up all night watching her, until tiredness got to you” Luca was surprised he couldn’t remember, it seemed like a situation one would want to forget but still it surprised him.

  The wind blew, bringing hot air around from where the train would come from, unching her blond hair to wave in the wind, the bow atop her diadem flowing with it, her hair was always clean and just slightly longer than Lana’s but not by a lot, and she seemed to put less effort into it than she would want to, even though she put much effort into always using the same cleaning product for it, the one that smelled like oats and lics. A moment of silence transpired between the two, Luca thought of saying something, but her mother beat him to it.

  “I thought of running away” she confessed with the same stoic tone “or, ending it, if needed, i would find some house, leave you two there and just… disappear.” Luca looked wide eyed at his mother, at the back of her head at least, he went to say something again but she continued before he could “I didn’t see myself able to raise you Luca, I was young and dumb and the academy didn’t let me stay… and when I found out I was pregnant with you, from a night of dumb decisions and alcohol… I begged them to let me stay, I begged hard and loud and… it was the second hardest time that I’ve cried in my life” an emotion showed, her voice hitched as she ended the sentence, she carried her hand to her faced and cleared her throat, before continuing “After having you, they kicked me out again, they let me stay there while pregnant and help you be born, but that’s all they’d do, so now I was a twenty-something year old girl with a child that had no house, no family and no idea what to do. In short, I was screwed, but... something about you… something about the way you looked at me, something about the way you grabbed my finger with your tiny little hands” She giggled and sniffed “I couldn’t give you to the orphanage, I couldn’t let you go, and so I started to look for your father, you know the stories by now, we never found him, the duke came to town, that happened, Lana was born, they kicked us out …“

  “We found the old house” he added, feeling tears come up but denying them passage.

  “Ruins… it wasn’t a house, there wasn’t a roof, and only three walls stood, we had to cover ourselves under what was left of the second floor’s floor to cover from the rain” she breathed deeply, after having a bit of a frustrated rant, she continued, calm and stoic again “but yes, we got there, spent like a year, you started to walk and talk better… and she got sick… and I thought I couldn’t take it, and I thought of just leaving, whatever else could happen couldn’t be worse than losing her, I-I couldn’t have, i-it was-” Her voice was going faster, and Luca could almost hear the knot in her stomach as she recalled the events, he put a hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s good ma… it’s gone, nothing happened…” he tried to bring her back from the memory pace. She patted his hand as it rested on her shoulder and breathed before continuing.

  “And then you talked to her, you said those words with such… desperation in your voice, you were a toddler and yet… and yet you understood, I could feel that you could… I felt my heart break that night, clenched so tight that breathing was hard… and when you fell asleep I stood up and moved a bit, far away enough that you couldn’t hear me cry'' she chuckled “And I did, mother in the soil, I cried till the sun came up I cried and wailed and sobbed, harder than I’ve ever cried in my life… you know why dear?” She turned and to Luca’s surprise there wasn’t one tear on her face.

  “...” he wanted to ask but he thought she would say it anyway.

  “Because I almost ran away” now he could see tears, few and slow but there they were, wetting her amber eyes, she turned her body and reached her hands up to touch his face “I almost left you alone, my boy, the sweetest boy and the strongest that I’ve ever met, who would stay a whole night looking for your baby sister, despite being barely two…”

  “I thought I fell asleep.”

  “But you tried… you always tried to make all better, to find a fix for every problem” she smiled warmly at him, which made him smile back reflectively “and you kept doing it… for every day you’ve been making our life better, even in your rebel years when you didn’t even speak to us and didn’t come home till dinner, I found the payment of a whole day on the table by the door…” she then rubbed his cheek with her thumb before releasing his face, and turning her head back to look at the train tracks again, her body still facing him. “Your sister woke up two days ter ughing, cured completely” she then looked back at him, as Luca handed her a handkerchief, which she rejected, she simply looked down, sniffled and looked back up smiling. “And then we were okay… and then suddenly things started working out.”

  “You started working mom, you started taking every little odd job and taking as little money as they’d give you” he encouraged her, but she shook her head.

  “While I worked in deliveries or cooking or cleaning, you took care of Lana, rocking her and telling her stories, learning to change the cloth we used instead of diapers, though it took you a while.”

  “I’m sensitive to smells and she wasn’t exactly helping much” he joked, which to his pleasure, brought a little ugh out of her mother, who then looked at him and sighed.

  “And now we have a house, a proper house, and money to spare, because my two babies grew up and started working themselves, and now… one is leaving.”

  “Ma, I-I don’t want-” she put her finger near his lips and then mimicked closing her closed lips with a key.

  “My point is honey… you’ve lived all your life trying to help, every job you did you asked the old folks first, everytime I tried to do something around the house you helped, everytime Lana had trouble with her homework you helped…” she then opened her arms for a hug, which Luca leaned into slowly.

  “I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want to do” he said as he leaned into the hug, his mother put her hand on his hair and pulled him closer, pulling him inside near his hair, he smelled the oats and lics on her.

  “It’s not dear, but it’s over… you’ve helped us enough… focus on yourself, make it enjoyable, you’ll need the help” he closed his eyes taking in the scent, embracing her more as he felt himself rexing.

  “I’ll help you still… I swore to Lana and I swear it to you… I’ll never stop trying to give you a better life” he said, with the determination he showed earlier still unwavering.

  “I know honey” she said hugging him tighter “I know… and I love you.”

  “I love you too Ma.”

  As soon as he finished the sentence, he felt the air push past them and the loud train stopping at their empty station, where only the two of them were. Luca didn’t pull from the hug until he heard the train fully stop, and ter when he boarded the train, he still thought about how he didn’t hear the train coming when it did and how he could still smell oats and lics.