Volga never expected giving homes to orphans to be all sunshine and roses. Having grown up learning about running an island, he'd learned about the shady parts of human life. Either because of what he learned or in spite of it, it prompted him to reach out to others less fortunate. Keenly aware of his home life and the privilege of being a leader's son, he never let it control his actions as he'd seen in many others. He vowed to be different and not abandon the children under his care.

He nearly caved in on that promise with Kyle one day.

"Mister Volga, Mister Volga!"

Volga looked up from his paperwork. Three of his charges, sweet young girls, all gasped for breath. "Woah, slow down girls. What's wrong?"

"Mister Volga! It's Kyle!" said Tisha, the youngest. She clutched a stuffed animal shaped like a riverfish to her chest. "Kyle's in trouble!"

"What?"

The middle child, Relly, nodded. "We were walking along to the market with Jen 'cause you said we could 'cause we was good! And some guys started talkin' all funny wanting under the skirts."

Gods above. Jen, the eldest of the group at fourteen years of age, just stood back sniffling and rubbing her wrist. "I wasn't doing anything, honest! I didn't say anything to 'em, only that we were going to market together and they wouldn't leave me alone! One of them grabbed me so I couldn't get away."

"Then! Then Kyle got real quiet and started kicking the guy and his friends and told us to run and get help!" Tisha threw up her hands, finishing the story. "Mister Volga! They'll hurt Kyle!"

Volga kicked away the chair in his haste. He barked orders for family guards to follow him. Gods above and below, he'd honestly thought his kids would be safe in the company of a teenager. Next time, a guard with them. He'd do anything necessary to protect his kids, just as long as little Kyle turned out safe.

Panic choked his throat, imagining the poor kid being beat up by yet another adult. Dammit, this isn't fair to him! Cut him some slack already!

Volga and his men found the scene of the crime easy enough. Shopkeepers, men and women both were kicking at a group of three very bruised men. "All right, that's enough."

The crowd froze at his roar. "We'll now detain this men. Did anybody see a little blond kid somewhere in this mess?"

"I saw a kid head that way!" A woodcutter pointed down an alley. "I saw 'im chasin' a guy with one of my big ol' sticks!"

"You, you and you, stay here and arrest these men." Volga pointed at the three groaning on the ground. "I'm going after Kyle! Wait here until I tell you otherwise!"

"Sir!"

Please. Please don't let him die. Please let him be okay.

With every breath came a new prayer to the gods or anyone else listening. The alleyways twisted in this part of the island. He paused at an intersection, unsure of where to go.

A man's hoarse scream came from the right hand path. "Oh please, no moreAAAGH!"

What? Was someone else attacking this man and Kyle at the same time? Volga regretted not even strapping on a sword or grabbing a glaive in his hurry. He couldn't do anything about it now and rushed down the alleyway.

"Kyle! I'm coming for you. I'm coming....KYLE!"

His brain couldn't quite make sense of the picture in front of his face. Blood spattered on the walls. Arms held up to ward off the blows. A stick ready to crack in half. A man's eyes wide with horror. A rictus grin on a child's mouth. Utterly no mercy in a set of beautiful blue eyes.

At Volga's voice, Kyle blinked and dropped his weapon. "You're a bad man," he whispered to his victim.

"Kyle! Get over here now!"

The child scurried behind him.

"You...you keep 'im away from me! He's got a killer's eyes!"

Volga picked up the discarded club. He stared at the man, bashed around the body and face. He then stared at Kyle, who now looked confused and scared with the entire situation. "Sure he does."

Crack!

Agonized howling filled the air. Volga leaned his foot onto the rib he'd just cracked. "Me, now? You definitely have to worry about me." He drew a breath and raised his voice to a roar. "This is what you get for messing with my kids!"

All told, three guardsmen had to pull him away. The attack became the talk of the islands, with all the focus on Volga and his "explosive" temper. No one, not even his parents, blamed him for the outburst. In the interest of not promoting vigilante justice, however, Volga accepted a term of house arrest for several months. The man he'd attacked stated emphatically Volga tried to cave his head in for messing with young Jen.

The truth he'd created seemed better to him than the reality that plagued Volga's mind. He knew what he saw and he couldn't help but compare the scene to the death of Wicked Wallace. Gods, it couldn't be. There's no way.

It made sense in a sickening way. The complete desecration of Wicked Wallace wasn't some calculated attack, but rather the tantrum of a little child with no idea how to handle grown-up rage.

Kyle did have a killer's eyes.

Nothing in Volga's experience told him how to handle a child that could kill someone. Worse still, he could never reveal what he suspected about his youngest charge. Who would believe him?

I can't deal with this, he realized. He sat heavily on the edge of his bed. He belongs in an asylum.

"Son?" asked a voice behind the closed door.

"Yes, Father?"

"One of your children wants to visit with you."

Volga sighed. His world could go to hell in a hand basket, but it didn't stop his obligation to care for the kids. "All right, send 'em in."

Kyle crept around the open door and stopped a little distance away from Volga. He held out a basket. "Here. This is from all of us."

"That's very nice of all of you. Father? Can you leave me alone with Kyle for a bit?"

"All right, son. Don't stay in here too long. Come out and see everyone at least for a little while today." The door clicked shut.

The basket contained pictures and presents from the kids, even a few sweet treats he particularly enjoyed. He frowned at the inclusion of a belt. "Kyle? Why is this in here?"

Sniffling filled the air. "So...so you can hit me."

"Hit you? Why would I want to do that?"

"Because...because I did the bad thing again!" Kyle stood rooted to the spot, bawling his eyes out.

He knew where Kyle needed to be. He was not the person for this job. But his heart crumbled. Kyle might have had a killer's eyes, but he didn't have them now. Kyle was just a little child, confused. "Gods. C'mere boy."

Like any other squalling youngster, he set Kyle on his lap and patted his back. Kyle clung to him tightly. "Now. Tell me what the bad thing is and I'll figure out if I need to punish you."

Volga listened to the uncertain and confused story, more certain than ever Kyle might have killed a man. He can't remember it, though. There's no way he'd have the strength to stalk and kill a man. It must have been a freak accident and then he had a tantrum about losing his mother.

"So. When this guy tried to hurt Jen, what did you do?"

"My head hurt and and and my chest hurt and and I knew I had to make him be sorry. It's okay to hurt someone if you're avenging them."

"No. It's never okay to hurt someone."

"But I heard! I heard people say it was!" Kyle whined.

"It's not anyone's job but soldiers and guardsmen to give punishment like that."

"But you hit him too!"

"I know I did. I got really angry like you did. But I shouldn't have done that. And you see? I got punished because of what I did. Do you understand, Kyle?"

Biting his lip, Kyle nodded. "Does...does that mean I get a punishment too?"

"Yes. But not a whipping with a belt. I don't hit my kids and I'm not going to hit you." Thoughtful, Volga stroked the child's hair. He's young...I saw what happened, but he's young. Not a killer, but just confused. Maybe if I start now, I can change him.

"So what are you going to do to me?"

"Well...because I beat on that scum, I have house arrest. Since you also were beating on that man, it stands to reason that you should get the same punishment."

Kyle sniffed and sat up. "You mean I can't leave the house?"

"No. You'll have to stay here until we can work on that temper of yours. Do you understand? You're not going to do this anymore or you'll really be in trouble."

The child might have had a killer's eyes and a furious temper, but it was buried inside the soul of a scared little boy. Kyle nodded his head. "I understand."

His house arrest afforded Volga time to ponder the problem of how to tame Kyle's murderous rage. If he tried to keep him completely safe from harm, it could bubble over in the future. So he took another tack, one that raised eyebrows with his parents.

Under the watchful eye of the household guard, Kyle learned the basics of swordcraft. When he proved to be quite the quick learner, his teachings were augmented with glaive use by local masters. Volga's reasoning worked like this: if his young charge had a tendency toward violence, better to channel it into something useful while he was still young.

The plan appeared to be working. Volga never saw that rage resurface in the child's eyes. Instead, Kyle seemed to be refining his skill to the point that only men wanted to spar with him. Anyone younger than twenty could not beat him. His teachers all called the child "uncommonly gifted", "possessing a sixth sense" or "thinking seven steps ahead." The life of a city guard or the private guard of a noble seemed likely. It all seemed to be going well for Kyle.

And then he really started to pay attention to girls.

Growing up among the prostitutes of Lelcar, he'd learned how Men treated women. He vowed to be different. Surrounded by girls who were his fellow orphans, they treated him like a little brother. In turn, he always treated them right, picking flowers for the older ones and patiently reading stories to the younger ones.

In school, when most boys were busy teasing girls to show them how they liked them, Kyle's manner proved refreshing. Girls flocked to him and Kyle enjoyed the attention. Bemused islanders told Volga that he was housing a world-class flirt, never mind Kyle was not yet a teenager.

Volga, taken up more and more by ruling the eastern islet, did not keep quite as close an eye on his charge as he used to. It startled him one day to see Kyle, at 13, as not a child anymore. Although Kyle still had some growing to do, his regular training had left him lean and trim. Lord help me. He's going to be trouble. But I'll take that kind of trouble any day.

It'd been a dare. He and his friends, all hormone-driven teens, were looking for an outlet for their frustrations. One named kept coming up: Cerci. Sweet Cerci who enjoyed teaching young men the fine arts of carnal relations. No back street whore her, but a younger daughter of a low aristocrat. Who would go see if the rumor was true?

Kyle took the challenge. With his friends hiding in an alley, they saw him walk up to the young woman. They talked. She appeared amused and gave him a slip of paper and kiss on the cheek. His friends could barely contain their collective excitement.

"Oh man, Kyle, you're gonna get to do it!"

Kyle's initial bravado lasted until that night he sat in the upper storage area of a boathouse near one of the many docks. Oh man, I'm gonna do it and I'm nervous as all hell.

When he heard footsteps pace up the wooden walkway, he nearly jumped out of his skin. Cerci laughed and sat next to him on an unused canvas wrap. "No need to jump so, Kyle."

"Um...okay. It's just, um, I know I said that I...uh..."

"Oh, I know your type. A bunch of your friends dared you and now you're sitting there, wondering what's going to happen now." She laughed again. "Happens all the time."

He looked over at her. She happened to sit in a patch of moonlight, dressed in just a robe. Her grin teased at him as did the part of her cleavage he could see. Kyle swallowed, feeling his pants grow uncomfortable.

"Why...I mean, why do you do this?"

"This meaning sneaking out of my parents' house to have sex with young men?" She stared into the darkness of the boathouse. "Well, I have an older sister. My parents married her off to an older man and she's told me horrible things. So she thinks sex is this evil thing. I wanted to know if it was that evil so when I was 14, I sneaked out of my parents house to be with this boy I was with? We didn't really know what we were doing and it kinda hurt but it wasn't evil. It was wonderful." Cerci sighed.

"Of course, I wasn't smart enough then to realize there are risks with that. I was really lucky, but I'm much more careful now. I snooped around in libraries and asked questions to anybody who would let me know. It's not like anyone will come out and tell you how to be smart about it."

"Yeah, I wish they had a class on that," Kyle said. This felt so much like the talk of the ladies of Madame Hyacinth's that he began to feel more calm.

Cerci giggled. "They should! Anyway, I thought maybe if I could find other people willing to learn the right way, then sex wouldn't have to be this evil horrible thing. I know someday I'll have to give it up since my 21st birthday is coming soon. But I wanted to get to as many men as I could so they'd know how women really want to be treated."

"And...how to women really want to be treated?" he ventured.

Cerci's smile grew. "Lie down, Kyle. And I'll show you."

Over the course of a week, fumbling fingers and mistimed climaxes gave way to breathy whispers and steady rhythm. Hearing Cerci moan at the peak of her desire became the most important thing in Kyle's young life.

He learned about the practical applications as well. How to never press a woman if she wasn't interested. Even if things were going well and suddenly a woman backed out, to respect that feeling. Nothing ever went beyond the word "no." Most importantly, how to make sure to never get a girl pregnant. Certainly there were concoctions women could take, but he, also, should start ingesting his own potion to make sure he couldn't impregnate anyone.

Knowing quite well how hard a woman had to work to raise a child alone, he knew he couldn't wish that fate on anyone else. No matter how sweet the dalliance. He'd be smart about things.

This plan seemed to work as Kyle started to concentrate more on wooing women than anything involving schoolwork. The yelling of Volga didn't even phase him, as he had girls on his mind.

Then he met Rachel de Beers.

The adopted daughter of Lord de Beers attracted many an eye, but she was guarded fiercely by her father. At 16, it seemed a given she'd be quite the catch as a nobleman's wife. No one planned on a streetwise teen showing up all the nobles of Lelcar.

A few chance meetings led to more flirtation. Flirtation led to a few stolen kisses. Kisses led to a serious question by Kyle if Rachel wanted to learn other things. In his mind, it seemed perfectly reasonable that if a woman could teach him how to enjoy sex, couldn't he do the same thing to Rachel?

Driven by their shared lust, the two picked a less than secured area, out in the garden shed. Unbeknowst to them, sounds carried further than they realized in the dark.

"Oooh...it hurts..."

"Just wait. Just wait. It'll feel so much better."

"Oh...oh! OH!"

"Heh, told ya."

"Oh gods! Don't stop!"

"Never."

Drowsy and content, the two lovers were completely taken aback by the appearance of two guardsmen in the livery of Lord de Beers. "What in the Feitas is going on here? STOP THAT MAN!"

"No, don't hurt him!" Rachel yelled. "He did nothing wrong!"

Confusion ruled Kyle's head. He saw the guardsmen approaching Rachel, covered in only a blanket. "Don't touch her!" Brandishing a garden rake, he disarmed the guardsmen and with swift smacks to their heads, sent them sprawling, unconscious.

"Oh...oh Kyle. I think we're going to be in real trouble. I...I'll try to explain to my father," she said, pulling the blanket close.

"I think it's a little late for that," he said. Sobered by the attack, it began to dawn on him that this situation went a little beyond "trouble." Lights began to turn on in the de Beers household.

"Rachel. No matter what happens, don't let them push you around." Kyle began to find his clothes and yank them on in haste.

"I...I won't. Will I see you again?"

"Maybe someday. But not for a while." He smiled in the dark. "You're going to make your husband one lucky man." And with that, he fled into the night.

Three nights later, Kyle deemed it safe to return to his home to get his things. He climbed over the manor wall and into his window. A scowling Volga waited in his room.

"Do you know you're wanted for questioning by Lord de Beers? He says it's for flirting with his daughter, but I'm going to take a guess it's for a lot more than that." he hissed.

"What the...?! I didn't do anything she didn't want, too!" Kyle exclaimed, pulling clothes out of his chest of drawers.

"I kind of figured that because you're a little smart. But you were too busy of thinking with your dick instead of your head to think about what her father might think."

"I'm not going to lie. I wasn't thinking about that. And now that I am, I'm pretty much fucked." All the while, he continued packing. "I didn't do this to hurt you, Volga."

"I believe you there." He watched Kyle pack clothes, shoes and blankets. "I see you're thinking now because you know I legally can't deny Lord de Beers from taking you into custody."

"Yeah...I know." Kyle looked down at the meager pile of his possessions.

"But I can do this. Here." Volga threw a drawstring bag onto the bed. It clinked with coin. "Tomorrow morning I'm going to report to the guardsmen that a few things were stolen from my house. I'm going to tell them I don't know who did it, but people will start to draw their own conclusions about what a scoundrel you are, stealing from your adopted home."

Kyle's eyes widened. He tried to speak, but no sound emerged.

"Because Lord de Beers phrased his need for you as questioning, you haven't been officially charged with anything. A theft charge is different, but in a few years, it'll blow over." Volga placed his hand on Kyle's shoulder and squeezed. "It's the last thing I can give you. You're on your own now."

"Th...thank you."

"Hmf. I might even have a little fun yelling at the local police." He ruffled Kyle's short locks. "You might want to either grow a beard or grow your hair out before you come back." With that, Volga left the room and shut the door.

He walked back to his room and sat heavily on his bed. "Gods. Stupid kid. Damn stupid kid. Feitas and Sun, watch over him. I can't protect him any longer."