Chapter 4
Marcus watched as pounce curled up on my stomach and fell asleep.
He wished me well and told me he'd pray to the goddess for me.
"I would rather keep your coppers." I murmured as he left. I didn't find anymore sleep, after that.
But a healer came and changed the bandage on my neck, she was a gentle healer, but seemed to be afraid of me.
Pounce was curled up at the edge of the bed by then.
"Pounce. What did you mean? This is a matter of the stars?" I asked him, when I knew that the healer was out of earshot. Pounce rolled over and looked at me up side down.
"What it sounds like." Pounce said. "A matter of the stars."
"I am a matter of the stars?" I asked.
"Yes." Was all he said, before jumping down from the bed and trotting out of sight.
I watched his tail like a flag leave. Then felt the scar on my side through the shirt.
I curled onto me side to think.
How was I a matter of the stars? I was an urchin from the cesspool. I was a child that no one had wanted. I was a puppy. I had taken the tests, I had finished what was given to me.
I had almost died.
But I was not a matter of the stars-was I?
Slowly I pulled my knees close to my chest, and wrapped my arms around it. Slowly, I was turning my life over in my head.
I had evaded the child snatchers when I was a girl. I had survived the attack that Beka had saved me from. My parents had tried to kill me. Something wasn't adding up. Something was here that I didn't see.
By the end of the day they released me, Marcus offered to walk me home, but I smiled and told him no thank you.
Meric was nowhere to be seen, I guessed he was in a bar somewhere getting drunk.
I watched Marcus walk of down the street to go to his home.
I stood there, in a cotton hospital gown and a bundle of clothes in my arms. My feet were bare. My shoes.
"Marcus." I called after him. Marcus stopped, turning to look at me.
I walked up to him.
"I can't be a Dog no longer." I mumbled.
"What?" Marcus sparked, stunned. I looked down at my bare feet. "Why Kaylee?" I licked my lips and looked up at him.
"I ain't got any shoes." I said. "Those were my only pair." Marcus's eyes softened.
"You would quite the Dogs for a pair of shoes?"
"For a lack there of." I said slowly. He looked at my bare feet.
"You have no other pair of shoes?" my face deepened a scarlet.
"These were 'da first pair of shoes 've had." I said, my voice betraying my cesspool talk. Marcus's dark eyes turned soft. "I don't have no coppers to replace 'em." I said, looked down at the stone street.
Marcus's eyes softened.
"Come on Puppy. Hows about you come to my place fore dinner?" I looked up at him, my yellow eyes shinning a dull color.
"I wont take no pity food." I said, raising my chin stubbornly.
"Will you take food from your partner Dog?" he asked. I smiled slightly-I was hungry.
"A'lright." I said.
"And stop all that cistern talk." Marcus said, slinking his arm over my shoulder. "You are much too pretty a mot to be speakin' like garbage." I smiled up at him. We walked down the road until we reached his house.
I knew it was his house because of the little ones, each with raven black hair like his.
"Dadda Dadda!" a little girl jumped at him, he grabbed her and spun her about.
"Olivie, go get the rest of my little rats wont you?" Olivie jumped from her father's arms and ran into the house.
A woman came from out back and almost ran into the two of us.
"Oh Marcus!" she cried, stepping back and sparing the eggs from falling from her arms.
Marcus leaned over her round belly and kissed her on the cheek.
"Prim, we have a guest for dinner." He said, rubbing his wife's stomach. "How is the two littlest?" he asked, looking at her tummy.
"Quite well today, they both kicked me twice. Giving me awful trouble when I was needle working today." He smiled, brushing the red hair from his wife's green eyes. "And who is this?" she said, as he leaned into kiss her.
"My companion is all love," he said, trying again to plant a kiss on her cheek. His wife pushed him aside.
"No lovin' til the guest is fed, Marcus." She stretched out his name in a mocking manner. He sighed and grabbed the basket of eggs from his wife.
"Fine be it. Wouldn't be me that would argue with the woman of the house." We were then barraged with children. I counted four in all- I think. Maybe it was five. They managed to grab my neck and swing onto my back, wrapping their arms around me, and one of the smaller wrapped themselves around my leg. I was use to the children of the cistern, they didn't do this as lovingly as these children were.
"Aaarrrgghhh! Be gone!" Cried Marcus's wife, whom I think name was Meg. Meg shooed her children away from me, and they ran into the house screeching and running.
Marcus had succeeded of planting a kiss on his wife's cheek, and continued to kiss her on the lips. She pushed him away and lead us into the house.
It was a large house, every inch used by the family in it.
The oldest of the children were five, and then they went down. I knew that they were all of Marcus and Meg's kids, each with green eyes or black, and each with black hair.
They piled around the table in eager anticipation their food. I sat down next to the oldest of the children, a girl with hazel eyes, and black hair that went down to her waste. She watched me with her eyes and studied me up and down.
"Dadda." She said looking at her father and blinked. "She looked like she has a moon on her neck." I reddened and covered it with the palm of my hand. "Why do you have a moon on your neck?" I smiled at the girl, she wouldn't understand.
"I was born with it." I said. The little girl turned back to the table.
"Dadda, she was born with it." She informed her father. He smiled as he juggled to children into their seats.
Meg came out of the kitchen and put food on the table. Then they all started to eat. I watched them all eat. Something, this was the first I had seen it.
Such a love around them it buzzed the room. I sat and watched it for a long time, marveling in its beauty.
Marcus caught my eyes and gave a small smile. I started to eat. Disturbed that I had lived my whole life without such love.
After the meal was finished Meg put the kids to bed and Marcus and I came into the den, where he opened a bottle of mead and flopped onto the couch. I sat in the chair across from it, while Meg eased into the couch with her husband.
"Meg, I was wondering if you had some shoes that would fit Kaylee here." Meg looked down at my feet and laughed.
"As soon as I sat husband." She said, standing with a grunt. She walked into the other room and produced a pair of leather shoes.
"Oh I couldn't." I said, seeing how nice they were.
"No, Kaylee, don't be daft. My wife is a peddler. She makes shoes in her spare time." I looked at Meg and smiled.
"Thank you." I said. "I promise I will pay you back."
"Pay me back by not letting my husband die on duty alright?" she said with a grin. I smiled back, knowing I would lay my life down for him-the first person I had ever thought that way about.