A Little Unexpected by wolfskin_ |  |
The night was falling, swiftly, coldly, and Gabiri was
no closer to a home than he was this morning. Exhausted, dragging his youthful
body forward, he stopped at the last place his little legs would carry him--the
foot of a large oak tree. He looked up into the branches with soulful blue eyes,
and met the gaze of an older female. Her emerald-green eyes blazed down coldly
at him.
"What do you want, kid?"
He stared up at her blankly, shivering a little.
His eyes were barely visible under the mop of thick, matted green hair that
had fallen in his eyes.
"What, you don't talk?" She shifted her weight,
lying on her golden belly on a low-lying branch. Golden and white stars glittered
along her silky black pelt.
He shook his head slowly, resting his forepaws
against the bark and looking balefully upwards.
"Well what are you hanging around here for,
then?" she snapped, standing, leaping with a somewhat fluid motion from the
tree. "Don't look at me, kid. I don't have anything to offer you."
He watched her as she started to walk away,
large tears welling in his eyes. As the satiny-black starry female's back was
turned, he took a deep breath and bound after her.
"What?" She turned, looking at him with a mixture
of annoyance, anger, and cold amusement. "Kid, find somebody else to bug. I
can't offer you anything."
He tilted his head, blinking, and continued
following her. His matted green fur clung to him, making him look rather roguish.
"I don't know why you're following me," she
called, walking faster; most of the anger had seeped from her voice. "I have
nothing to give you." She looked over her shoulder, maybe just a hint of a smile
on her small muzzle. "You don't care, do you?"
He shook his head, bounding to catch up. He
could keep up stride surprisingly well, in fact. And, the more she looked at
him, the more he was starting to look intensely familiar.
"You know, I looked a lot like you when I was
little. Less dirty, of course, and much more graceful," she snickered,
realising that the child probably wasn't understanding a word of this. "The
name's Starwords."
He blinked, once, large eyes closing slowly
and then opening again. Well nigh an hour had passed since he had found her,
and his feet were aching. Giving loose a final gurgling lament, he flops onto
his side and grasps a hindpaw.
"Melodramatic little brat, aren't you?" she
muttered, shaking her head. She continued walking; the kid didn't want her.
There was no way in the world that she, Starwords, would be a fit mother to
anything. With her history, she'd probably accidentally kill the brat before
he learned how to talk. No--someone else would surely come by, someone else
would surely see the adorable, scruffy little runt and take him in.
"Gabiri."
Starwords stopped, cold, in her tracks. "What?"
"Gabiri," he repeated, ceasing the rubbing
of his sore hindpaws, gazing up at her.
"Tha-that's your name, isn't it?" She took a
long, agonised gulp, not bothering to turn around to see him nod. She knew he
was. Gabiri...so much like 'Gabey'...so much like her fiancee so very, very
long ago. She looked over her shoulder at him, eyes narrowed. Yes, he had her
identical mossy-green pelt that she'd had when she was a child; yes, the shock
of wild hair in his eyes was rather like the shock of wild hair in her eyes.
But his frame, his gangly appendages, his wide crystalline blue eyes--he looked
like Gabey, too.
This child, this homeless stranger who had been
following her for close to two hours...for all purposes, might as well have
been her and Gabey's child.
"You hungry, kid?" she asked, finally, resignedly,
walking over to him. She added, under her breath I can' believe I'm doing this.
She reached out a reluctant paw, pulling him standing. He slumped against her
and hugged her aorund the waist. Not for the first time this evening, Starwords
was quite glad no one else was there to see her blush. "C'mon...let's get you
some food and a bath. You're a mess," she sighed and picked him up. "I'll go
find your parents in the morning."
As irony and fate would have it, his parents
were nowhere to be found. Whether orphaned or abandoned, Gabiri was homeless--except
for Starwords. Life for this loner was going to prove very, very different now.
She had a son. Fyora help her; she'll need it.
The End |
