For a creature that felt it should be in a hurry, Branches was certainly spending a great deal of it's time dawdling. In some way, the homunculus had inherited certain characteristics from it's two contributers. Curiosity was Illiana's contribution, and it was curiosity that held it up. Branches had spent the better part of the day catching bugs and frogs in the swamp. After, that was, it had managed to cross the bridge. With the migrants moving on, there was no longer a picket on what branches thought of as it's side of the lake. It could move freely on the east and north sides of the lake, but the south branches considered Helen's and the west side, Sharlene's. It had to move disguised, and did so by wrapping a stolen blanket around it's head. It turned out that the crossing hadn't been such of a much. Those left in charge of fishing nets were still there, but they had no time for Branches. They were all busy collecting the last run of salmon before fall, and expanding their small fishery to fit the demand. Still, it had spent a long time watching the fisher folk. The amount of strength and teamwork required to haul a net seemed monumental. When Branches tried it though, the homunculus managed it easily enough. It impressed the foreman so much that he offered Branches a job.
"Waddaya say little lady? Haul fish for a couple weeks and get paid in food and shelter?"
Branches declined the offer, saying that it had only wanted to try it out. Of course, the foreman had upped the offer but by then Branches was already walking away.
The fisher folk we're a mix of strange people, most of them being either rodent featured Prictowners or normal humans from the refugee center. Pulling up nets and releasing two of every three fish they took. It was here too that Branches found the source of the pleasant smoke that had wanted across the lake, hanging over the water in the mornings like a fog bank when it looked out at the dawn from it's improvised shelter. A series of smoke houses running twenty-four seven to cure the rich fatty salmon in aromatic Maple and alder. The smoke houses, Branches learned, were a venture of the Walkerville. An industry laid on with the Walker stamp of approval. It seemed, or so the working folk said among themselves, that Catnip had come back from Pricetown with a bit more than a caravan load of immigrants.
Branches didn't know who this "Catnip" was, but it supposed that it would find out someday so long as it didn't die before then. The next thing Branches came to as the homunculus followed the line of the palisade, skirting the clearly marked pit at it's base, was farm land. To the west of the farm, the woods around it opened up again on a vast field of farm land being plowed and prepared. Here was the true source of the smoke. Not the small time plumes of the smoke houses, but the roaring bonfires of large piles of duff and scrap wood. When a pile had cooled a little, the sizable pile of ash left behind would be spread and tilled into the soil as fertilizer for the coming year. This industry wouldn't see fruit until next summer or fall. From simple roots, plants would grow. Branches had a moment to wonder what the workers had used as fill for the swamp when it was called on by an aged voice. The homunculus turned it's head, and by the gateless entrance to Walkerville was an old man with a broad brimmed hat on his head and a gun on his hip.
"How you doin' pard?" He asked, "Judgin' by your clothes I reckon you ain't one of the workers. I'm Floyd, where're your parents, Missy?"
Floyd sat in a wicker arm chair much as he had sipping a beer and watching over Catnip in the throes of mutation, and rubbed ointment into his hands. The beer was replaced with an iced tea, containing real ice. Branches was stuck with the choice to simply keep walking, or to engage the friendly old man.
"Cat gotcher tongue?" He asked, leaning forward a little. Branches took a step back but Floyd held up a hand to calm it. "It's all right, I ain't gonna hurt you. How old are you?" Any answer Branches gave, any honest answer, would out the homunculus for what it was. Or so Branches thought right up until it failed to lie.
"Branches..." It mumbled, then slapped it's hands over it's mouth. Then realized it was showing off it's skin, and stuffed them into the pockets of the stolen jeans.
"Ah," Floyd said, leaning back again. "Branches huh? You're a mutant too then? Like Catnip and some of the others? Well, nothin' to be afraid of here. Plenty like you around. Why don't you sit a spell and watch the work, talk to an old man?" Floyd didn't know who or what Branches was, and that said a little about how communicative the farm was. Surely one of those who'd been present at Sharlene's grove might have recognized it, but Floyd hadn't been there. Floyd didn't know. Branches looked around, hoping to see an escape and instead saw a jeep coming up the road towards them. Inside, the homunculus spotted the familiar mask of a mage hunter. It could have been Helen, or it could have been the other. Either way there was nowhere to go but here, and so Branches took the wicker chair next to Floyd and hoped that the mage hunter wouldn't glance over and see it.
Floyd gave a little half wave to the jeep and for a slim moment, Branches believed the jig was up. The homunculus was as as strong as a titan with it's feet planted firmly on the ground, but that didn't mean a well placed bolt from a wraithslayer couldn't harm the creature. Or a hammer blow. Or a lightning bolt. Branches suddenly felt very vulnerable, wanting to squirm and run, to sneak away. No bolt came. Neither did a lightning bolt, and the mage hunter wasn't coming at Branches with a hammer. In fact, the mage hunter had missed Floyd's wave entirely.
"So," Floyd went on as he settled back to his rubbing, "You never told me where your parents were missy."
"At the center..." Branches said, giving it some thought before answering. Technically, it was true. Illiana was at the center still and in so far as the Homunculus had a parent, it was Illiana.
"Ah, should have guessed. I suppose you're with the migrants." Floyd talked about all sorts of things for the next hour or so, Branches curiosity overriding it's need to move on keeping the homunculus anchored to the seat. Floyd offered it a glass of iced tea, taking the jug beneath the small table out along with a plastic cup and a few ice cubes from a small cooler. Branches decided that it liked iced tea, and finished off it's cup while Floyd spoke.
"Why do you rub your hands like that?" Branches asked when Floyd had finally gone silent, "Do they hurt?"
The old cowboy looked down at his hands, he had been rubbing them unconsciously her realized. It wasn't a surprise though, it seemed he did it a lot these days. "Aye," he said, "They hurt alright. Doctor over at the center says it's probably the rhumatiz. Arthritis. I'm not really surprised, my pa had it. It usually skips a generation, but I suppose it can't always be that way. Maybe it means it'll skip over sammy..." Branches watched him carefully, and measured the man. There was steel there under the pain, a keenly honed machine that was sinking in the mud. He seemed to shrug it off, but Branches could see it with the strange foresight granted by Illiana's influence. This man would sink into the mud and the machine of his body would fail as the muck clogged the works.
"I'm gettin' old Branches. I can still shoot and work, but no idea for how long. I mean, it's not going to kill me but..." He said, and Branches saw it. Saw in him a hint of something the homunculus had seen in itself. Hopelessness. This man knew that something was coming, some obsolescence, and it worried him. Weathered lines in his face, canyons that caught the light and drowned it in his countenance but which could soften. Branches saw it for itself, the softening. Floyd turned his face back to Branches and smiled. The look lit up his face and made it look young again. "Heh, you don't need me sharing any of this with you. You're still young after all. You won't have to worry about it for a long long time. Why don't you catch up with your parents?"
Branches slid from the chair uncertainly, and stood thinking. Then, the homunculus knelt and scooped up a handful of dirt.
"Watcha' doin'?" Floyd asked. It wasn't as obvious as one thought, and Floyd himself had little to no experience with the arcane. Branches took leftover ice and added it to the dirt, unsure of why it should care so much. There was an affinity between the two, that was all, and for some reason Branches couldn't stand seeing it's own uncertainty painted on the face of another. Besides, it still owed Floyd for the tea.
"Shush, hold up your hands and hold still." Branches instructed. Floyd did it and the Homunculus began painting his hands with the new mud, gently pushing the wet clay in between the old mans fingers and over his palms until he was wearing a pair of mud mitts. The effect of the Homunculus peculiar form of magic took a moment to present itself.
"What is this about? Mud therapy or something? Kiddo, this isn't- Oh. What?"
The mud dried and cracked, and as it fell away from his hands, taking the pain with it, Branches turned away and disappeared into the woods northwest of Walkerville.
It was down the the Sharlene part of itself that the Homunculus owed it's more mischievous and negative aspects. It wandered the woods in the lessening light and tried to puzzle out why it had done what it did for the old man and finding no satisfactory answer. The small magic that Branches had woven would only last a few months, a year at most, but it would stall the degeneration in the cowboys hands. When it stumbled on another person in need when the morning sun began to peek it's first rays about the tree tops, Branches reaction was entirely different.
It stood and watched the prone form of the scarred woman in the blue robe laying face down in the dirt. She was alive and seemingly healthy, but Branches didn't like the smell of her. She stank of sheared copper, human decay, fear, adrenaline, and madness. The book though smelled worse. The book smelled outright evil. That didn't stop Branches from taking it and perusing it's pages though. Branches was always interested in new books. This one though was a complete cryptic mystery to it though. The letters were wide and swooping, a language that Branches didn't understand. How the woman read it was an absolute mystery.
Branches looked the woman over, checking her for some clue. Nothing. Not a single clue. So the book was set aside, and Branches got to work replacing the stolen blanket with the woman's robes. The robe showed surprisingly little wear and tear and it seemed to bear no stains or grime that Branches could find. To top it all off, it had a hood and could hide Branches features much more easily.
"Stealing is wrong..." Branches mumbled a little guiltily, "But I suppose... hm..."
Something told Branches to leave the robe and book alone, but at the same time it couldn't really let them go. Branches wanted to study the strange new book and Branches wanted to own the fancy self cleaning robe. After a long moment of hard thought, Branches took them. The woman probably wouldn't even remember having them... Probably.