34 The Kids

They seemed fairly nice, these people who had fed them last night. Rex had rigged a bit of a trap in case they attacked when he and his friends were asleep. They had not.

He had only been woken up, as per usual, at the sound of Jem singing. His voice was sweet as he sung some old song even he did not understand. A lullaby of some sort from an age forgotten, Rex was sure.

He quickly took stock of what his little family was doing. His sister was fussing over Thorn, trying to make her more presentable. He never understood the point but that was just the way Lyta was.

Sap was whittling with his knife on a piece of wood, while Jem was singing softly as he worked at patching up one of the younger boys shoes that had been falling apart. Jem was not an excellent seamstress but the fact that their clothes were not all completely fallen apart was due to his attempts.

He could not imagine not having Jem around to keep up their spirits with his tales, songs, and poetry. Though the boy could not do much if they got in an altercation, he could make them forget their troubles and that was something invaluable. Though he had also learned never to let him cook, and he would never forget that awful attempt the boy had made.

At least Lyta could cook. Lyta enjoyed attempting to mother them all. And though she was younger than both him and Jem she was pretty good with the twins. Not only that she had a pretty good eye for a good hiding place when they needed one.

Sap and Thorn, while younger than the rest of them, could also pull their own weight in their little family. The eight-year-olds both had their own set of capabilities. Sap could make tools fairly easily out of both wood and bone. Not only that he was pretty good at finding water, and if they really needed it he was good at picking pockets. They tried to keep thievery to a minimum though as it could prove rather dangerous.

Thorn's mind worked differently from her twins. Not as good as her brother at quick fingers or stealthy moving, she had a good memory and could quickly learn anything. And she was the most impressionable of all of them and wholeheartedly believed every single one of Jem's stories. But she was also fairly good with the sling her brother had crafted for her and was picking up on cooking from Rex's sister.

Rex fell into the leader role of their little family of unwanted children. The other children all tended to trust hi judgement. He was also the one in charge of providing food for the children, even though he was not all that great at hunting and relied mostly on the traps he made out of whatever he could find.

All in all, as a whole, he liked to think they were resourceful and could back up this claim with the simple fact that they were alive. And he knew that it was their ability to work together that helped them keep alive.

He peeked out of the room they had went into for their own privacy from these adults and saw two of them sitting together on one of the stone benches. The two were both being fairly quiet.

He recognized the two. One of them was that beautiful golden-haired woman who the rest seemed in deference to. The other was the blind man with the very ragged looking hair.

He had noticed it the day before, but he once again found himself looking at these two and realizing just how different they looked, especially when next to each other. It was not just that they had opposite ends of the spectrum in regards to their hair color, but their faces as well.

The woman had an almost severe expression that seemed to constantly sit on her face. Though she did occasionally smile it seemed like her face was not entirely used to it, as if she had never really done much smiling in her life.

The man, meanwhile, was the opposite. He had laugh lines around his mouth and eyes, in direct contrast to the lines from pain also sitting on his face. And he really did seem to smile a lot. Rex found himself liking that about the guy. He seemed nice, just like niceness was a part of him. Oh, the woman seemed to be trying to be nice, but it did not come as naturally.

About that time, she spotted him and waved him over. Rex could think of no reason not to go so he walked over, keeping an eye on her expression.

"Rex, right?" The woman placed that rusty smile on her face, "You are the oldest of your companions, right?"

He nodded, and then gave a verbal, "Yeah."

"If you would like…" She proceeded to lay out an argument for him coming with them, promising to keep them all safe and whatnot.

Once she finished, he frowned, "Let me talk to my friends first. See what they think about it."

With that he turned around and headed back into the presence of the rest of the kids. He especially wanted both his sister and Jem's assessment as they tended to be able to read people fairly well.