In the name of courage.

strays are stories

I waited patiently for a few minutes before I started to feel antsy and awkward, after sitting for months in a failed attempt at ending my life I felt the need to be productive, to do anything to get me back into some semblance of normality after so many years where normality was cruel and holiday enough was to get a break from the constant experiments and pain an-

I flinched when Rosy set the porridge on the table before me, I fixated on the steam, rising and wafting away from me with each labored breath in a feeble attempt at avoiding her eyes.  She sat opposite me and sighed quietly before slowly reaching a hand out and placing it on the top of my head, when I didn't move away she sighed again.

"lost her mother, lost her babies." She said quietly. 

"What?" I muttered quietly.

She gestured toward the sleeping fawn and dog.

"Madra lost all of her pups out in the cold in a village nearby, Percy found her hunkered desperately over their frost covered bodies, trying to warm them. He said he could see it in her eyes, that she knew they were gone, but refused to believe it. We didn't know if she was going to survive the grief. Luckily, not a day later, I found Dillon and Macushla wandering down the streets outside, mewling for their mothers milk. I've no idea where they came from but I figured it must've been an act of god because I brought them home and Madra immediately took to them, even nursing them, for a little while."

At the sound of their names the tabby and the calico cats raised their heads from where they sat on the ground, blinking blearily before settling back in for another nap. 

"The birds have a similar story though we found them already together in the near the stables Bive, Rook and Bran all following the lead of colur who is more of a big sister than anything." The ball of feathers cooed quietly upon hearing its name. 

"Then there is Elaine, we found her maybe two months ago I was out in search of mushrooms hoping to add a little variety to dinner in the great hall when I stumbled across her, damp with morning dew and about as small a deer can be I waited a full day up a tree, her mother never came she bleated every once in a while before quickly loosing the strength and plopping her head back down in the grass, giving up. I picked her up pretty easily and slung her over my shoulders to walk back up to the castle. I really frightened Percy for a while there but he quickly forgave me given the circumstances, thankfully with the right milk supplement and the tender love and care of not only myself and Percy but of Madra as well, we managed to get her back to health."

She chuckled slightly.

"Arthur is something else entirely he simply showed up one day scratched at the door for a few seconds and invited himself right in as soon as it was cracked open."

I contemplated all of this information for a couple of seconds. It didn't feel like a kind of opportunity a mother would simply seize to dote on her children, there had to be something more to it.

"Why did you tell me all of this?" I asked, finally meeting her green eyes for the first time since the start of this conversation.

She sighed again.

"All strays are stories, the story is what makes them strays in the first place, I've found in my vast experience of these folk that the first step of fixing up a stray in knowing their story, and them by proxy, when you're ready to tell it Percy and I are ready to learn it." She placed her hand back on my head before looking down at the no longer steaming porridge.

"Dear heavens you let it get cold, let me get you another bowl."

She pushed away from the table before snatching the bowl away to retrieve me a replacement while I sat and stared at a particularly interesting stone in the wall, contemplating the offer she just presented me with.