My hands are dirty and my hair's half down and I'm breathing hard from the cart and his eye stays on me one beat too long before it drops to what I've brought back.
His face cracks. Mouth opening, eye going wide—just a second before he catches it, everything slamming shut. He stares at me.
"We got everything!" I grab the side of the cart. "Market was great. Very productive. Lots of—"
He looks at the cart.
He looks at me.
"No."
"No what?"
"I am NOT pulling that."
"You haven't even—"
"No."
"Keer. You're the strongest person here. The cart weighs more than I do. Kestria was stabbed—"
"Find another way."
"There isn't another way. Unless you want the goats to pull it, which I considered, but the male keeps trying to eat the—"
"I said no."
I look at Kestria. She's pressed her lips together hard, chin trembling with the effort of keeping it in.
I look back at Keer. Arms crossed. Jaw set. And the rooster is screaming directly at him.
"What's his name?" He drops his arms.
I open my mouth.
Kestria exhales sharply through her nose.
"Don't answer that."
"Keer Jr."
Silence.
His eye closes. Opens. He looks at the rooster—scarred, furious, cage shaking—and then at me, standing there with wild hair and dirt on my face and my chin up.
"You named it after me."
"The resemblance is uncanny."
"Change it."
"Can't. It's done. You can't rename a rooster—it confuses them."
"That's not true."
"How would you know? Raised a lot of roosters?"
He stares at the cart. At the rooster. At me.
