Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. Vaguely thinking Henson Co. might.

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Cloves and cinnamon, a hint of peppermint.

With his eyes closed, he could have been on Earth. Marrakesh, where he'd clutched his mother's hand in the loud crush of people and animals. Tijuana, where he and DK had wandered through the corrugated tin shops, fingering cheap t-shirts and carved marble pipes. The smells on this world weren't the same: wrong spices, wrong sweat, no faint tang in the air of stale tobacco and pot. And everyone spoke nearly perfect English.

"Eyes sharp," Aeryn hissed.

Commerce planet or not, this was a marketplace for wanderers. Stalls pushed up against each other haphazardly, the best made from what were probably scavenged ship parts, most just torn blankets hung over lines to demarcate territory. He and Aeryn took their turn watching Rygel, who bartered their spoils from the Shadow Depository for food and supplies.

The trader Rygel bargained with now had two heads; the head not wheeling and dealing was asleep. John couldn't get past his suspicion that the sleeping head watched him through slitted eyes. He turned away, exaggeratedly stretching his neck in excuse. A few stalls over, Chiana fingered a bolt of crimson fabric. As he watched, the cloth disentangled itself from the roll and curled around her shoulders while she caressed it.

John looked across a splash of stalls boasting tethered, furry things with too many legs, trying to get a bead on the others, wondering what in this mad market might possibly smell like peppermint and cloves and cinnamon.

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The End
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