I appreciate everyone's enthusiasm about this. It's very encouraging to me, and I want to thank you. =)

I have also discovered that the chapters are not going to be as long as I thought; splitting them is going to be an interesting occupation of my time, but the length will be normal. :) Ex...cept for perhaps one. But that's beside the point. o.o

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Chapter Four

Pulta's eyes followed Winthrop's eager movements as he hurried around the room - pointing things out to her and dropping little hints on things for her to pick up and look over. Yet all she could seem to focus on was the enormous pile of books on the floor by the desk. They were the size of the ones she had, had - and/or had - when she was going to Biology class, or bigger. They were no size for a elementary student, and no way for a three-year-old to do anything.

A paper on the desk caught her eye and she meandered over, ignoring Winthrop's wild begging to go and see his snake-skin collection in the top drawer of his bureau. It was a paper of the ten times table, obviously written in Winthrop's rather squiggly handwriting. The tens? She struggled to remember whether she learned that in fourth, or fifth grade. At three? Granted, he was almost four, but four-year-olds were supposed to be suffing blocks into equally-shaped holes, not discussing the proper position of pronouns in a conjugated Latin sentence.

Pulta bit her lip and tried to forget that he was Luke's son, brushing down her emerald green skirt and the full-length apron as she turned around and examined the dead garter snake being thrust into her face. Yet she could see Winthrop's flurry of excitement. No wonder he'd practically fallen over at the realization they would 'learn outdoors' that day; nobody had ever bothered with him enough to care about his wants, or his needs. Who truly wanted to be cooped up in a room for an entire day; for an entire life? It was what he'd been stuck with though, ever since he'd been born.

Not quite a load of sorrow, but a passel of empathy leveled on her mind. She patted the bed, motioning for Winthrop to sit with her. He did - grinning. "Do you know your tens?" she whispered quietly.

Winthrop's smile faded with his answer. "Sort- sort of... kinda."

"Have you learned anything else above that?"

He fidgeted and didn't answer.

Pulta wrapped her arms around him, allowing herself the privilege to place a gentle kiss on his forehead. "I just want to know, Winnie. It's not a bad thing if you haven't - at all."

"No... not really. Monsieur was trying to get me to learn the twelves and memorize the elevens after nine, but it's so..." he strugged for the word. "So... boring..."

She pulled him onto her lap. "Do you think you'd like them if I tried to make them interesting?"

He tightened. "No."

"I understand." Pulta picked him up and placed him back gently on the floor as she stood. "They're awful, aren't they; and the sevens and sixes are the worst."

He nodded in agreement.

She peeled down the quilt on the bed and patted it lightly for him to get in. He did, yawning. "What about your nines? Were they easier?"

"I liked the twos..." He yawned once more and pulled the covers slowly up over his head where there was a sigh and a comfortable settling into the bed.

Pulta held her breath so she wouldn't laugh, then leaned over and blew out the light. There was a whispered 'good night', and then a quiet creak of the door as she shut it.

Now, for a conversation.

Luke's door was four away from Winnie's after a left. She stopped just outside the door, taking a deep breath and brushing down her skirt again before opening it without knocking.

There was a short entranceway when she walked in where a pile of boots were happily sitting. The room itself was long, rather than wide; it had a balcony with a wooden door leading out to it and a window just above his desk where he was sitting. Glancing quickly to the right after she was out of the entranceway, she saw a bit of a sitting room with a few couches. They were so pristine that the room seemed practically a foreign place where he never went. A bedroom was probably the door farther on there by the wall.

His pen stopped scratching when she reached about the middle of the room and she paused to wait. Luke firmly set it down and then leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and looking at a shadow next to the balcony door rather than her. "Did your mother teach you not to knock as well as not to dress?"

"I'm not in the wall," she corrected frugally, remembering something her mother had taught her. "Talk to me, please. What was that?"

She could feel his snapping eyes although he didn't turn around. "You are rude."

"You're cruel," she barked. "Stuffing multiplication tables down Winnie's throat at three? What father does that?"

A fist slammed down on the table and he stood up, eyes now blazing. "My son's name is Winthrop, and you will not tell me how to deal with him!"

"The hell I won't," Pulta hissed. "He needs love; love nobody's giving him. He's starving for it; he'll do anything. And you give him people who care absolutely nothing about him to suffice-?"

"I give him what he needs to succeed. Everything he has, he needs."

"No," Pulta took a step forward. "No. Everything he has, except you; except-"

"Shut up." Luke turned around and headed into the sitting room. "I have work to do."

"Shut up on what you need to hear?" She followed him, detouring around the couch in the center of the room to contront him in his escape route. "No. You need to listen to me. He needs you now. And if you don't do it now, he will never, ever see you in the light you ought to be seen as."

"That time is past."

"The hell it isn't." Pulta grabbed his tunic and spun him around, causing his eyes to flash dangerously. "Now get up there, and tuck him in for bed."

"That," he snarled. "Is your job, isn't it?"

"No, it's not. He doesn't have a mother, and you're going to ditch him?"

Luke took a deep breath, so obviously trying to keep his temper in when his face was practically turning into a tomato. She tried hard not to think of how dashing he looked that way.

"Get out."

"Not until you see reason. And that doesn't look like it's happening anytime soon."

Luke clenched his teeth. "You are dismissed."

"I dismiss myself. Perhaps you missed that."

"What's your name?"

She found herself raising an eyebrow. "Pulta- Pulta Ragwrine."

"Well, Pulta Ragwrine," he hissed. "Get out. Now. And don't let me ever see you in my room again. Is that clear?"

She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Hm... no?"

"OUT!" Luke roared.

Pulta stayed there for a long moment, eyeing him. It was almost ridiculous, she judged, that she was here with her usual red-hot temper as cool as a cucumber while he was steaming up over nothing. Yet it hurt - his anmosity towards her - and it didn't seem quite fair. But... all was well. Perhaps.

"Tomorrow night, then."

"Never."

She shrugged helplessly, turning around without a curtsey like she knew she was supposed to do and glanced at her shoulder to deliver a parting blow. "He needs you."