Growing Up Kitty

Eating Dinner

  I sit in my usual chair at the outside table the Smaten's keep in their back yard and Mr Doug gives me a look, he had been in the garage most of the time we had been back, probably tinkering with one of his experimental engines. He had started taking engineering classes at the community college in the last few years, I think he might be trying for a doctorate. With his knowledge of cars it really would not surprise me if he chose to go that route.

I hear Divante's voice drift through the air as the girls made it to the first floor. "Well come on, you are hungry and anyone who can hear your mind voice can tell that. Now remember we told you that you should not just rush the food and eat without thought." My mom's head turns toward the door and she says, "now young one you need to learn about being human because the wolverine is only part of you and we don't eat like wolverines."

As the girls file outside I notice the girl who had a light brown hair did look much better clean than she did covered in dirt, underbrush and twigs. The girl stops when she steps out of the house still with that wild look on her face. She spies the table laden with food and I see it in her eyes that she is fighting with herself and Gale stands next to her and takes her hand. "Come on now, if you sit on a chair Mrs Hills can give you some foods to eat." I look over the food choices with an eye trained by Mr Lee in feeding shifters. The roasted pork would be a good idea for her, as well as maybe the mashed potatoes. While her human body will need some of the vegetables she won't understand she needs to eat them.

Granddad told me once that wild luck born tend to have issues when first living with regular people if they were not found at the infant stage. Their human sides generally missing important nutrition. So getting the girl to eat the correct foods might be an issue I knew my mom had some knowledge in what to give to any shifter. Amusingly the magic users also have type based food requirements as well. Locklan for example eats more proteins than Gale does. I know that during this meal she might eat a single piece of meat so she has some protein in her, but she'll focus on the assortment of vegetables instead.

Gale and Divante slowly lead the girl forward, gently pushing her into the chair. I got the feeling that this meal was not going to be the fun filled meal everyone was hoping it would be. The women sit on either side of the girl and I could tell Divante was ready to do anything if it was needed while we ate.

Mom stands and carefully reaches to the platter of meat taking three of the thickest slices and places them on the girl's plate then a single piece of bread and a heaping scoop of potatoes and a scoop of cooked spinach. I thought a moment on the idea of the spinach, I had not thought of that vegetable, but it might be something more familiar as it is just a 'green' item to someone who has no idea what vegetables are.

The rest of us fill our plates and I see the girl is attempting to keep herself still and I see my mom nod at her and say, "alright then sweety go ahead and eat slowly. You don't want to have any problems like chocking while eating." The girl then very slowly grabs the meat in her hands and Gale calmly raches over to touch the girl who growls and Divante freezes the girl without stopping her own eating.

Gale shakes her head, "it's alright I wasn't going to take your food but you need to learn to use the utensils. Humans do not eat with their paws, so take the item I have in my hand it's called a 'fork' and use it to take pieces of the meat with the pointy end and use it to bring the food again in small pieces to your mouth." The girl gives Gale an incredulous look but stops growling and Divante unfreezes the girl.

When Divante finishes her mouthful she says, "growl at my sister again and you'll be frozen again." The girl nods her head and clumsily try's picking up the fork. I guess she will need to learn how to develop some fine motor skills over time. Eating is going to be a process for a while, it was a good thing the younger children had blanket permission to leave the table as soon as they were done eating their food. They know their mother's will call them back for dessert, and seeing as how Mrs Brenda had made a giant layered strawberry short cake, cake. All of the children will want a bite. It's odd but strawberries are one of the fruits that all shifters tended to enjoy eating no matter what type. I start eating my food glancing back at the girl as she attempted to eat her own food using something that required her to think before using.

I might suggest Mrs Brenda have the girl play some video games to develop more fine motor skills if the girl can grasp the concepts of a two dimensional image. I wasn't sure if a wild born luck born understood what that was as they would have never seen anything that was only in two dimensions. I had seen one of Mrs Heather's nieces from her witch family talk tot heir dog on a phone and the dog couldn't understand their 'person' wasn't where the phone was at. So because regular animals cannot understand two dimensions a luck born might not either.

Once mom finishes eating she pulls out her phone and starts texting, most likely to Mr Simon to inform him of the new shifter and their status. I imagine the next morning the poor girl was going to have a rough time. They have to do a full medical work up on her including a genetic panel to see if she might have any distant relatives that came from other luck born.

In the last few years I have learned that they are more common than I would have originally guessed. Especially in areas where there isn't much genetic diversity in the species. Almost as if the Goddess was trying to ensure her people were the healthiest they could be. I see the twins finish their food and go to stand when mom's head shoots up. " If you are planning to be foolish go into the woods but mind the fey." I see a disappointed look on their faces and I shake my head, I wonder if twins were always trouble.

After carefully finishing his own plate Locklan sits back in his chair reaching for the glass of wine he was allowed once he was done eating. An odd thing for the esoteric sorcerer types, they actually need to regularly ingest small quantities of alcohol. Something about how unstable their energies are, and in a teen who is still having instability it's probably best to keep a lid on his powers the best we can. So in the evening he is allowed up to two glasses of wine after he finishes his meal. I do notice after he drinks one his face tends to look a little calmer, as if the strain is lifted from him. Locklan reaches for the refilled glass, that dad filled along with his own and mom's and asks Divante.

"So can you tell us anything about what you are heading towards right now?" I knew why Locklan was concerned, in the last five years there has been some turmoil in our country and the western side of it was effectively a war zone. The humans had been gathering there in large groups and killing non humans indiscriminately. Though I imagine a large amount of changelings aren't mostly because most humans just think they are mentally disturbed people.

There is a lot less crazy in the human species than humans realize, most of the 'crazies' are merely changeling children that need proper care to be stable. One of the things these humans had done in the cites in the west was first shut down all of the care facilities for the changelings. One the statement that is was crewel to lock people away who have minds built differently. Those cities started going down the tubes after that, with a rash of murders committed by the changelings. Then because the humans had to find a reason for the increase that could not be explained by their own stupidity said it was the fault of uncontrolled shifters.

Most shifters have now fled those areas and there is open fighting between two factions of humans. Oddly ones who understand that the 'old system' was working well were on one side and the other was the group of anti 'supers'.

Divante shakes her head, "all I can say is that I am suppose to help prevent the fighting factions from moving through the buffer zone." The 'buffer zone' was a strip of land on the edge of the contested area that the government has been holding the fighting factions inside of. I could be a messy assignment, she might have to intentionally kill humans.

By now the girl had managed to slowly finish her plate of food, probably a lot slower than she would have wanted considering how hungrily she had looked at the food on the table when she had fist sat down.

Mrs Brenda smiles to the girl, "good so now after we move the plates away we can have the dessert." I knew she was referring to us younger people clearing the table as did apparently her children and Mrs Heather's who all rushed the table from who knows where and cleared it quickly. I guess using the magic word 'dessert' took care of clearing the table. The large multi layer cake is brought out by a couple of the older young children and placed before their mother with a stack of small plates and they all line up waiting for their mom to cut pieces from the cake.

The first slice went to our new wild child who was looking at it with big eyes and she was randomly sniffing it. As the plates are passed out and dad brings out a bottle of peach brand for the adults to have with their cake. I see the girl carefully, now that she had eaten a whole meal it appeared she had figured out the basics of fork holding. Was cutting piece of the cake and after looking at it dubiously eats it. Then we finally hear a raspy, probably from never having used it before; voice say "Yum!"