The Boy and the Animal

Part I | Two

I tried to chase after the boy, stumbling onto my feet, but by the time I reached my door, he was gone.

I sighed and turned back to my family, who stood from their corner holding each other. My mother stepped toward me, peeking around to make sure the boy was gone, and put her hand on my chest. I placed my arm over her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

"Don't worry, Ma," I assured her. "He's gone."

"What in the world was it?" She asked me, her fragile voice trembling. I shook my head. Not once had I ever seen anything like him in my life, and I had seen many sights. "Well, I need to start on cleaning up this mess. You should get to work. I fear the landlord really will demand her way with you if you're skimpy on the bills this time."

Rubbing the back of my neck with a drip of sweat falling from the side of my face from the same inner fear, I kissed my mother and sister goodbye and headed back out. I really did want to help clean up, but, uh, I was the man of the house- and I had more manly, important things to do, as such. Of course.

That thought in mind, I trekked back to the city; we were the only house that hugged the walls, being that the house of LaBane was indelible, so I didn't bother asking our nonexistent neighbors if they had seen the boy. It worried me, though, to think that my family had been so easily ransacked. There were guards along the towers of the wall, but it was no doubt that the feral creature merely blended with his surroundings.

I didn't want to think about what would have happened had I not scared the boy off. Instead, I pushed through the gates and hugged the ally between the wall and the blacksmith's shop until I found the guard's main tower. Within its ancient, shadowy walls, I followed the dim torches' lights that perched themselves on each side of me to the end of the narrow passage until I reached a much lighter and open room.

"There's that milk drinker," the captain of the city guard greeted me as I entered. The woman pulled off her helmet, messy cropped hair spiking around her sweating head. "You take care of them bounties?"

I snorted and propped myself on one of the chairs around a model of the city set on a rickety wooden table. Other guards passed between their quarters, the main room and the exit, patting me on the back on their way, but I stayed focused on the captain. She pulled a seat up on the other side of the table and folded her hands, leaning forward with those sparkling wicked eyes of hers.

"I think you should ask my brother that question instead," I laughed. The captain gave a hardy snort and banged her fist on the table.

"Left them in a mess again in that poor sod's inn, huh?" She chuckled. "You bastard. One of these days he's gonna tear you a new one."

"It's not my fault it's the easiest place to lure them!" I replied, pouring myself some of my brother's complementary ale into a tankard laying around. The captain chuckled and tossed a coinpurse full of gold, 500 to be exact with a hundred per bounty, onto the table before motioning for the loose guards to round up the perps I had left in the inn. "Ah, but," I continued, "I had a weird run-in today."

"What's that?" The captain asked.

"Well, I went home after the job to check on my girls, as usual, but when I got there..." I took a sip from the tankard and looked straight into the captain's eye. I lowered my voice, as if what I was saying was a conspiracy to the emperor. "It was strange. There was this boy in my house, eating everything I had like a savage."

Rather than recoil in surprise, as I had expected, the woman nodded slowly and leaned back in her chair with her boots propped up beside the model. I raised a brow at her. It seemed as though this information didn't faze her at all, almost as if she expected me to see what I had. She turned back and grabbed a scroll from her desk. Pulling it open, she cleared her throat.

"Captain Guardred, please be advised that a creature has been spotted in this province and may be moving in your direction. It is highly dangerous and wanted by the Royal Research Department. If spotted, please call the colonel directly."

When the captain finished reading, she wrapped the scroll again and set it on the desk behind her once again. She turned back to me, raising her brow to keep her point. I was stunned.

Highly dangerous creature? I couldn't believe what I had heard. The boy seemed wild, and I could see the animalistic aptitude that he had, but when I looked into those eyes, I saw something very human in him. He wasn't an animal. He wasn't a savage. In the ephemeral moment that our eyes had locked, the boy only appeared to me as a hungry, lonely boy. He could have attacked me, or my mother or sister, but he didn't. He ran away.

"I'm supposed to call that colonel in, but since you have already encountered him I suppose I can send you instead," she began. I opened my mouth to turn her down, but the captain interrupted me. "I'll pay you good for it, of course. It's a HDT, so... Its bounty is 20,000 pieces."

My eyes nearly popped out of my sockets. 20,000 gold for one job? It seemed like a fantasy. Normally, I scraped by with small bounties to keep my family afloat. But 20,000? I couldn't breathe, pulling on the chainmail underneath my armor. With that much gold, I could hire my mother a maid so that she didn't make so much strain on her bad bones, or pay for an education for my younger sister.

I didn't want to turn the boy in, knowing fully well what they would do with him once he was in custody, but the money... That amount of money didn't come along too often.

In the end, all I could do was agree.

"Holy Royal Knight, at your service again, Captain," I finally grinned.

"Once-was," Captain Guardred snorted. I winced. Regardless. I was in.