The Boy and the Animal

Part I | One

"Cyrus LaBane- if you don't clean up this mess I swear I'll shove this boot so far up your ass your kids will be made of rubber!"

I flinched. That voice that boomed across the city like a matador's loose bull on stampede after me belonged to only one person: my brother Dark, and he was in the best of moods.

With a wink and a wolfish grin, I bid the swooned maidens gathered around me farewell and darted down the cobblestone road for an exit- just as my brother burst out of his inn. He must have caught me running, for I hadn't yet turned the corner of the street before he launch a bottle of ale at me. I felt it coming, however, as I twirled around, catching it with a single hand, and raised it to him.

Those who would look out their windows or beyond their market stalls would yet again see another tale of the two brothers on opposite sides of the street- the elder, a heartthrob mercenary with the ability to swindle and seduce with only his manly charm, and the younger, a responsible innkeeper who acted more of a tyrant that the prince of Redlake. I was the elder, of course, and I had just secured myself drink for the road.

"Ah!" I called to Dark as my feet backed behind the wall of the next street. "Thank you for the ale, Brother! How considerate like a mother you are! You spoil me! Make sure you get that mess cleaned, too, before the next inspection!" I was gone before he had the chance to retort.

With an ale cheaper than water, yet more expensive than blood in this life, fixed in my hand, I headed down a road of mercantile purgatory, avoiding cutpurses and terrible bargains on the way. Such was my dangerous life as the prince's personal knight, such were my strifes and my perils. Slings and arrows, and all that.

I made my way through the city, my adoring ladies calling good mornings to me as I passed their swooning figures, and their fathers cursed my name. It was yet another breezy Summer day, yet another daring dash from the city's resident sexy knight, yet another swig of my brother's cheap mead.

But when I scampered outside the city gates to the house I shared with my sister and mother I knew that was where the 'yet another' ended.

The moment I padded along the small rocks of the garden leading to our home, I knew something was amiss. My mother wasn't waiting for me as usual, and the door that I raised hell to keep closed and locked for my number one ladies was open ajar. My footsteps wavered, my teeth clenched, and my hand found its way to the hilt of the sword fastened to my waist. I approached the door.

For the first time that day, my grin wavered. Brows furrowed and steps softened, I nudged the door wider with the back of my hand, peering in like a cheetah through the grasslands. I was met by a sight I never imagined I could see.

The place was a mess.

Furniture was cast around in carelessness, turned over and inside-out. Stuffing lay strewn across the floors- whose wooden boards held scratches that could have only been made by an animal. Our leisure shoes were thrown about. My heart immediately fled its cage, for my mother would only allow her household to be disheveled if she were dead.

I left my precariousness behind and darted into the house, finding the next available room: a stone kitchen in equal disarray. There, to my relief, I found my mother and sister huddled together in the corner, untouched. I kneeled in front of them and took their hands in mine. They were flurry white, and just as cold; perhaps they were unharmed, but something had scared them wide-eyed.

More peculiarly, however, neither woman would look at me, despite me having come to their aid. They were looking passed me, at something behind in the stove area. I followed their eyes, only to find the object of their fear.

At first, I thought it some kind of animal. I nearly leaped at the creature and carved it with the blade that never made it too far from my wary hand, but just before my feet could move my heart froze it in place with a warmth. It was not an animal, I found. It was a boy.

The boy was stark naked, saturated from the morning rain that had passed some time ago, and shivering. He had the knowing eyes and form of an adolescent around my brother's age, but he was underweight with bones exposed like shapely pottery; he looked just as fragile, as well, scrawny and obviously starving.

In this starvation, the boy had ripped through our home, it seemed, and tore open the pantry, devouring every bit of food that he could find. He took chunks out of lettuce and raw eggs, shoved soup into his mouth with his hands, swallowed whole bits of raw meat. What didn't go into his mouth smeared across his body. He was ravenous, wild- feral.

I had never seen anything so innocent in my life.

Here was boy wrought from nature itself, the purest form of man in animal form, fulfilling his carnal needs to eat and sustain himself. He didn't care about us, who stared and watched him, and he didn't care what we thought. The only thing in those vicious eyes was survival.

With that thought, I smiled and lowered myself to slowly crawl toward the boy. His eyes darted over to me. A growl left his supple lips. I raised a calm hand in front of me, muttering coos to him in hopes that he would lower his guard. He did not. Instead, he snarled at me and bared his teeth. I swallowed.

"Don't worry. I'm not gonna hurt y-" Before I could finish my sentence, the boy leapt at me and used my chest to jump over me. I wheezed, looking back as I gasped for the air fleeing from my lungs to see the boy darting out of my door. I sunk my head.

There he goes.