Dreaming of Fireflies *rewrites*

10 | Breakfast

The next morning...

   "One family sized jar of peanut butter, eight eggs, and four sweet potatoes, lovely." My frustration is plain when I snap my backpack closed, it's full of stolen goods from the grocery store. My old stuffed toy cat hangs delicately out of Rhine's mouth, she doesn't bother to notice my grumbling stomach. Riverh tears apart another stuff toy leaving fluffy little bits floating in the air.

   "Riverh, enough, no more ruining my old toys," I tell her. She looks at me with puppy dog eyes. "No," I repeat to her firmly. "The few things I know about Hellhounds calls you two terrifying. I don't think attacking stuffed toys is terrifying unless you're going for terrifyingly cute."

   Riverh's mouth turns with a lopsided grin. Her ear flops forward blocking just one of her gray eyes. She turns over on her back rolling around in the remains of the stuffed toy sending more fluff flying through the air.

   "Ok, you win. You're the most terrifyingly cute Hellhound," snorting the last part of the words in complete giggles. I drop to my knees running my fingers through the delicate short hairs of her exposed fat puppy belly. The snow fluff flurry is like a winter wonderland. My laugh feels so creaky with disuse but it's unstoppable in the face of Riverh's joy.

   Out of breath with laughter, I roll around in the mess of destroyed stuffed animals. My hands grab handfuls of fluff sending it airborne adding to the small-scale mayhem. A tiny flash of rainbow color light catches my attention from the corner of my vision.

   A small hand flashes from the light. The hand turns into an arm, then extends into a shoulder, and the head becomes clear. The rest of the body flashes in and out like a TV set on the fritz. The hand reaches out to touch the fluffy cotton hanging out of the corner of my shocked mouth. The little hand goes right through the fluff.

A flash of messy curls.

Wait curls?

   "Eh, hello?" A petite hand reaches out cupping the side of my face. The rainbow light becomes solid dark honey brown skin. A current of warmth tingles across my skin as more of the rainbow light becomes solid.

A girl?

   Her eyes have a multicolored light just behind the deep black irises. She's naked with bruises and burns marks on her face. The burns are healing while I watch them at an accelerated rate.

So young, who is she?

***

   A loud pop from the wood fire cooking stove knocks me out of my staring at the little girl sitting at my kitchen table. My batman t-shirt doesn't fit her body and hangs well past her feet. Inside the t-shirt, she swings her legs back and forth swishing the t-shirt around like an oversized dress.

   Rhine lugs over the toy cat she was delicately playing with to the little girl at the table. Her hand reaches down bringing the cat stuff toy to her hugging it close. She looks so young my guess would be five or, six but she sure as hell isn't human, so who knows.

   The smell of peanut butter cookies finishing off in the oven fills the barn. It's not exactly the best food for me, or the hellhounds. With the supplies I had, I made what I had work. Leftover sugar that kept and sealed tight storage grain. Grind the grain in the hand mill and mix the peanut butter, sugar, eggs, and hope for the best. Not my best creation but it will do.

   I open the oven door setting the cookies to cool. My eyes go right back to the silent girl sitting at my table. I break a cookie in half and set it in front of the little girl. She turns her head to the side looking at the object in front of her around her oversized stuffed toy cat.