Gideon stayed in the village far longer than he had originally planned. Over the following days, he mended fences the winter storms had flattened, repaired two broken wagon axles with tools he had brought along almost by accident, and helped rebuild a shelter that had partly collapsed under heavy snow. He never once sought Sikya out on purpose. Whenever their paths crossed near the well or the horse pens, he gave a simple, unremarkable greeting, and returned to his work, treating her exactly the same as he treated every elder, every child, every warrior he happened to pass that day. It was precisely that evenness, that quiet refusal to single her out, which Sikya noticed most of all.
She had grown accustomed over the years to men who arrived bearing grand words, and expensive gifts, hoping to purchase her attention the way one might barter for a fine horse at market. Gideon wanted nothing from her at all, and that patient, undemanding nothing carried more weight than any speech ever could have. One warm afternoon, while helping repair the roof of an elderly widow's lodge, Gideon's axe slipped in his grip, and opened a deep gash across his palm. He kept working, wrapping the wound himself with a strip of cloth torn hastily from his own shirt sleeve, but Sikya had seen the accident happen from across the clearing. She crossed to him without a word, carrying clean linen and a small bundle of dried herbs gathered from the nearby hillside that very morning, and knelt to carefully unwrap his crude, poorly tied bandage.
Her hands were steady and sure as she worked, pressing the crushed herbs firmly against the wound before binding it tight with practiced fingers. Gideon offered a quiet thanks, wincing only a little, and something passed silently between them in that small moment. Nothing spoken aloud, but understood all the same by them both. When she finished tying off the bandage, she did not immediately let go of his hand. She turned it over once, studying the calluses built up from years of fence work and rope, curious how a man built a ranch alone with hands like these and never once complained of the weight of it.
Gideon laughed a little at that, low and easy. Complaining, he confided, had never once fixed a broken fence, so he had given up the habit early. Sikya smiled at that, a small, real smile, and let him know that his hands reminded her of her father's. Hands that had done far more work than words could ever properly account for. From that afternoon forward, their conversations grew steadily longer and easier between them.