Pup Among the Big Dogs

"Okay," I said reluctantly. She smiled and Ian laughed at my unwillingness to know all the rules and traditions of my new life.

"Let's start at the beginning. When a baby girl is born, the parents find a mate for her. Normally this is done before the child turns three, sometimes right when she is born the parents already have him picked out. That boy chosen to be with her is for her and her alone, so even if she were to die, he would still be her mate and no one else's."

"I don't think that's fair," I told her, thinking about a poor lonely boy with no one to have to be with him and ease the pain of life.

"He is welcome to leave this settlement and find another one that has a different set of rules. Not many other tribes have this system. The others have more freedoms, but home is home. Besides, that is what you put you're mate through," she reminded me. I slunk down. "But it all turned out okay." I begged to differ. I didn't like the fact that Ian was who I was to spend my life with when I didn't even know him at all. "But girls have it the same if her mate is the one to die or disappear.

"So when the girl turns sixteen she leaves home to go live with her mate in their own house. The girl is always younger than the boy, so he has already moved out and got a house by the time she is ready to move in with him. They really don't have to get married or tied in any way, but some choose to do that. Your father and I chose to not do that for it was just a waste really, but we do share Madison as our last name because it's tradition." Whoa, whoa, whoa. I had to move out when I turned sixteen? I was fifteen already!

"So I only get to live with you for a year?" I asked.

"Yes, but honey, we'll still visit and you can, too. Besides, we've kept Ian alone and without you for sixteen years already. It wouldn't be fair to make him wait any longer than a year. Besides, knowing Ian he will probably pretty much live here until you move out. When you were gone he came by every day to help out since he was tied to this family even though he didn't have you." Her eyes shone with respect and she smiled at Ian, as if she were thinking about how proud of him she was and how proud she was of herself for helping pick him out for me.

"Alright, alright," I said. "Go on." And she did.

"Okay, so when you two decide to have children, the normal number of children is two or three. No one in this settlement has lived their life without having kids, so it's almost like a requirement. People might shame you if you don't help keep our race alive." I sighed inside my head. This was perfect.

"Is that it to the love aspect?" I asked. She smiled for some reason and nodded. I felt immediate relief.

"Well, almost." My hopes dropped. "If you have a boy it is your responsibility to make sure he is tied to someone younger than him before he is five at the latest. And if you have a girl, you should find her someone very early or she could get stuck with someone quite a ways away from her age range. And the boy has to be older, that is very important considering the house thing." She stopped talking and I looked at her hopefully. "That's it to that, then."

"What's next?" I asked as Ian smelled my hair. I ignored it the best I could but my mom and dad were smiling at the spectacle.

"Well, that's the main thing," my dad said and I sighed mentally. It just had to be the main thing: the thing I didn't like much at all. "But I suppose there are some more social aspects." He looked at his mate as if to tell her to continue.

"Okay, so we are all like a big family. You might have wondered what was wrong with Ian when he just walked in here, but everyone does that. He's not the best example since he practically lives here, but anyone can enter anyone's house because we all know each other.

"And as for school, we don't really pay much mind to education, so we don't have a school. You are welcome to enroll at human schools and many choose to do that."

"I won't be doing that," I said quickly. Ian smiled, like he knew that I would say that and my parents laughed.

"Well, now that that's taken care of," my mom started, "I suppose there are a bit more things you should know. We don't really have a currency system, but you can get a job, of course, in human towns. That's really where we go if we need anything because we can blend in with them without anyone getting suspicious."

"Okay." So that meant I could give my old caretaker a proper good-bye and stop his worrying, if he was concerned about me and my disappearance that is. I could even visit him maybe. But then again, maybe it was better to destroy my ties to my old life. I decided to say my good-byes to whomever I should and then that would be the end of it. It was better that way.

"I don't think you're a troublemaker, but we'll keep you in check until you're Ian's responsibility," my dad joked. I groaned.

"I feel so trusted."

"Hun, maybe you should get used to the house," my mom suggested and I nodded, getting up and doing just that. Of course Ian followed without me asking him to.

"I'll show you," he assured me, giving me a tour. I supposed that they weren't exaggerating about him being here so much.

After he showed me around the rest of the house, he led me by the hand into what was obviously my room, by the sign on it that read Isabel. When I walked in I could have cried. I saw tons of pictures of me as a baby and someone had recently used my bed and had been doing so. I assumed it to have been my mom.

I felt conflicting emotions: sadness for what I caused my own mother, sympathy for my poor mother in never letting go of me when I was gone, and mainly guilt for leaving. There were tissues in the trashcan and plenty of them. There were even tear stains on the pillows. Ian sat down on my bed, at home. I supposed he went in here a lot.

"I'm weak. I'll clean your pillows," he promised. I looked at him in shock. Was it him who had been crying?

"Ian, was it you?" I asked.

"Well, yeah. Your mother used to sleep in here, but she stopped when I was about fourteen and she offered me the option of sleeping here and I took it. I didn't want my parents to have to see me so down anymore." He smiled softly, but it was a pained one. "I refused to leave because your family was like my family and I couldn't leave them. You don't know how cold it can get sleeping alone and knowing you'll never have someone to sleep beside you. Or at least, to think you know that you'll never have anyone. You can't imagine how glad I was when I realized who you were." I sat beside him and let him lay his head in my lap. "That's so pleasant," he told me with a smile as I played with his hair.

"Do I have any siblings?" I asked him. He sighed.

"No. When you disappeared your mom became so sad she didn't want any more for the fear of losing another one. I mean, yes, they tried, but it was like it was impossible for her to conceive." I had no idea I put her through that much trouble.

"Oh, man. I am so horrible." I threw my face into my hands and felt Ian leave my lap to hold me to him and it was his turn to comfort me.

"No. You didn't know you had left home. You would have come back if you had known what you had left. I know it," he assured me. I cried lightly into his shirt and he let me do so, stroking my hair and kissing my head.