I am not sure what color Scipio's eyes actually are, so if you do, and the answer is different than the color I've put, please tell me.

-Layana


So cold.

Dear God, please...

A brisk, powerful wind swept Venice late one night, and a storm followed on it's heels. Lightning ripped at the black sky like jagged claws reaching for the ground that was too far away to reach. Thunder scolded from the heavens.Mice skittered into wide cracks in the buildings and into wooden crates left to rot. A girl huddled in an alleyway, resting her head against the door-frame of an abandoned house.

P-please send someone.. Before I freeze..

The girl pulled her long gray coat around her slender body, thankful that the castoff was a size too big for her.She curled up her toes inside her too-tight shoes, willing them not to ache so, at least the shoes keep her feet warm. She bit her blue lips together and raised her face up toward the sky as the first drops of icy rain began to fall.

The girl bent her head, her long, dark red hair falling all around her. The rain pattered lightly on the cobblestones at first, then it hammered on them as if it wished to beat all sense of whatever happened to be out of doors that night. Lightning, reflected in the girl's eyes, split the sky again, and thunder bellowed at it almost instantly. What was it Mother used to tell me about Thunder and Lightning?

"Mamma, Mamma!" A five year old ran to her mother's bedside. Outside, a great storm raging.

The girl's mother shot up in bed, her blue eyes sleepy and her black hair all in a tangle. "Felicita, my child, what is it that calls you to my bed at this hour?"

"Mamma.. The storm," Felicita buried her face in her mother's ghost-white nightgown.

The woman reached for her blue robe at the side of the bed and took her daughter's hand. "Come, Lissa. To the kitchen with me."

"Is it dark like this in the kitchen?"

"Be it dark, or be it not, come with me," Her mother tied the strings of her robe tight and led her daughter out of the room and into a tiny kitchen with a small stove, a few cabinets and a little table to sit at. She sat her daughter down in one of the wooden chairs and reached for a mug that was hanging on a hook on the wall. She poured the last bit of milk into the mug and heated it carefully. When it was blood-warm, she handed it to the little girl.

"Lissa," he mother started and the little girl looked at her, "did you know that the Lightning is really a little boy, trying to reach the ground so that he can pick up his plaything?" Lissa looked at her in wonderment, and her mother nodded. "The problem is, he almost always hits a tree or the water, instead of the ground, and then his mother, the Thunder, scolds him cruelly. He waits until he thinks her back is turned, and then he tries again, but she always knows when he reaches for the earth again. Her language is not for us to understand, so it can be frightening." Lissa's mother stared hard at her, "be you afraid of her?"

"No, Mamma. Leastways, not anymore..."

A splashing interrupted Lissa's memories. Something was moving through the deep puddles, approaching her. It must be a rat, Lissa thought, no human 'sides me would be crazy enough to venture out this night. Even so, she peered through the rain, hoping to see a friendly face.

The splashing on the cobblestones halted, and Lissa felt a stab of abandonment, but when they started up again, her heart leapt with joy. Why, she did not know. Not until a man's shadow loomed out of the darkness. He was tall, surely, and his frame was that of a grown man, but as he grew closer, she could see that his face was young, like that of a boy of sixteen or so, which was only a year older than herself. Oh, it had the manly stubble that so many young men sported, but the skin was smooth, no wrinkles or smile or frown marks had worn their way onto the young man's face. And the eyes.. The eyes danced like a boy's eyes.

The young man approached her, smiling a soft, beautiful smile. She looked up at him in awe, wondering at his height and wondering if she should stay or run away as fast as her legs would carry her. Something told her to stay, and to that voice she listened. The young man reached out his hand, smooth and tanned, and grasped her own.

"What are you doing out so late?" English words spilled from his lips, and Lissa was grateful. She had never spoken much Italian, for her mother was an English woman and her father she had never known.

"I-I'm- I mean, I don't have anywhere to go to," Lissa stammered, blushing at the touch of his cold fingers.

"Nowhere to go?" His dark eyes swept the alley. "Are you an orphan?"

Lissa fixed her eyes sternly on the young man's face, "I am." She had an urge to add, "what's it to you?" but she didn't.

"Come with me, I know the perfect place for you to stay," He said, squeezing her hand and helping her up.

Lissa pulled away, "how do I know I can trust you? What if you take me somewhere and-" She stopped there, not even wanting to imagine what could happen to her if-

"You have my word," the young man said. "I know a woman, her name is Ida, and she'll take care of you. She already has five children in her home."

"Oh, but then I must not burden her!"

"Oh dear, no. You will be no bother. I didn't mean it that way. She's just crazy about children, and she's got more than enough room," the young man explained quickly.

Lissa shrugged, mostly convinced. "Nothing could be worse than sitting here in the rain. And I'm not a child!" She exclaimed huffily.

The young man smiled a crooked smile, like maybe he had a secret to tell. "Of course, Miss. Shall we go?"

-----

"Where'd you find her, Scip?" Boniface, a six year old scampster with blond curls, tugged on Scipio Massimo's sleeve, and looked up at him with his large eyes.

"Same place I found you and Prosper, Bo," the young man patiently replied, watching Prosper, Bo's older brother, Catarina "Hornet" Grimani, and Mosca, a young Black boy with a brilliant smile, murmur to each other as they sat in front of the fireplace. Ricco, a boy with spiky reddish hair, stood leaning against the wall with a frown setting on his brow.

"Really? The same place?" Bo asked, petting his kitten. When Scipio did not answer, he put the kitten in Scipio's arms, "Scip? Scip!"

"Yes, Bo," Scipio answered, patting the kitten and handing it back to Bo. "And she needs us just as much as You and Prosper needed Ricco, Hornet, Mosca and I."

"Except she needs Prop and me, too, right?"

"Yes, Bo."

Bo slid down from the chair he was sitting in, letting his kitten wander off to explore the house, and walked over to he closed door of Ida's bedroom where Ida was getting some of Hornet's clothes that would fit the new girl. Hornet didn't have as many clothes as she would have liked, but she had eagerly agreed to let the new girl share with her, so glad was she to have a girl near her age about the house.

"Are you done in there?" Bo called. He was eager to meet the new girl, and get to know her. He hoped she'd be as nice as Hornet.

"Yes!" Chirped Ida from inside, "wait just a minute!"

Bo heard a few murmurs and then the door creaked open slowly.