Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 5)

"The place with the monkey people?"

"Yes, that's right. The whole of Southern Orthos is an expanse of humid forests--tropics. The Inaki pride themselves on their creative ways of trapping and killing these serpents."

That seemed sad -- she liked snakes. But she imagined they were probably problematic if they went around eating peoples' goats. "That sounds like such a massive pain to bring a 12-foot-snake that far and keep it alive in the cold on the way up to your house."

She caught herself a moment after she said it. Keep. Right. He had a Keep, not a house. But it felt weirder to correct herself, so she decided to let it lie.

Gaius nodded. "He did it for publicity more than anything, I think. Every House has an animal on their sigil, and every house thinks it's unique to have one of those animals brought in to be a mascot. It's not worth it to me; the thing would just be miserable down here in the snow and stone."

"It does seem all the sigils would be rather inconvenient to keep." Ky nodded. Why were men always so focused on their theatrics and pissing contests. "Wolves, caracals, giant snakes in the snow -- not such great pets, in my opinion."

Uh oh. Here she was, stating an opinion. Recognizing that she was stating an opinion. Hopefully that was okay.

"I fully agree. Imagine the Barrasters with a bear lumbering about in their Keep." Gaius shook his head. "It's an easy way to get your head bitten off, certainly."

Her brain got stuck for a moment on the mental image of Michael turning a mountain cat loose in his Keep with the explicit intent of it biting people's heads off. Ripping out their throats. Shredding their backs.

But she shook the thought off quickly. She didn't want Gaius reading it off her mind. It seemed keeping topics as far away from Michael as humanly possible was the safest bet. "Well, I'm sure the kids would be delighted. They seem to like Petrir."

(I love that she's still convinced he's psychic)

"Oh, certainly. The twins have been begging me for a cat since they learned to talk, and Regulus is following their example." Gaius smiled slightly. "There's a pregnant barn cat they're obsessed with, but I told them to leave her be. She's feral."

(haha Ky: "there is clearly no other explanation")

"Ah, yeah." Ky cringed, remembering her run-in with a feral cat. It'd only taken her once to learn her lesson. She'd learned it even before Papa lectured her about it as he was bandaging up her arms and face. "Feral cats are... oof... but the kittens aren't terribly hard to tame if you get them young."

She still considered that her victory. The cat may have shredded her arms, but she got a kitten out of it, so who really won here?

"I'll think about letting them pick out a kitten," Gaius mused. "I've never been overly fond of many small animals running underfoot, but I could make an exception for the children, I suppose. Their hearts are set on a cat, after all."

“I definitely understand that,” Ky said with a nod. “My father put up with a lot of nonsense on my behalf.”

Calling him Papa felt juvenile, except it slipped out a lot before she could catch herself. But now that she tried calling him her father, that also felt wrong. He wasn’t her father, he was her papa, and she didn’t know what she was supposed to do about that at this point. Did adults have papas? She didn’t know.

"Children are allowed to subject their parents to nonsense," Gaius pointed out. "It's part of growing up, is it not?" It hadn't been part of his own childhood, but it was something that was certainly important, and he'd known that from an early age.

“I guess it is,” Ky agreed with a nod. “My p-father was very patient with me. I can’t imagine I knew a single thing he didn’t, but he still pretended to be interested when I ‘taught’ him new things I’d learned.”

"That's the mark of a very good parent." Gaius nodded approvingly. "I'd have liked to meet this fellow."

“You would have loved him,” she said with certainty, nodding and smiling a bit as she thought about Papa. “Everyone loved him. And asked his opinions on a lot of stuff and did what he said even though they didn’t have to and he even told them they didn’t have to but they still did.”