Riu was distracted talking to the young woman, so he was startled by the seemingly sudden appearance of a rather large dark-skinned man. He started when the man spoke, but seeing that he seemed docile, the boy managed to maintain an impressive level of composure; he only gripped the woman's skirt in fear for a second or two.<br/><br/>But, then... At the mention of his parents, the light seemed to dull in his eyes. "My dad was..." he started, then shook his head. "We ran away from him. But, mom, she..." He shivered involuntarily and hugged his arms. It had only been a week since then. It seemed he couldn't bring himself to talk about it yet. "I'm alone now."<br/><br/>The caravan that had found them was too late. Seeing the tragic situation, they allowed the boy to work for passage to the nearest town on their route--despite him being too young. So far, this town hadn't given him the same kindness, even if work in the caravan had nearly done in his young body. If he could tell people what happened, they might pity him enough to give him a job--just like the caravan leader--but it seemed it was still too hard for him to talk about. He was going to run out of tears at this rate. It was good that he was such a quiet cryer.