"What I did to deserve ungrateful sons, I'll never know." An older woman with tied white hair stood at the door of her menagerie, a shop for exotic animals bought and sold for furs and entertainment. Her name was Zosime, and she had a fiery spirit and a strict intolerance for foolery and scams. Her two sons were quite the pair, both peculiar with greedy eyes. The firstborn was Heron, long-legged with a slouch, untamed hair, and a tunic stained with fish oil. "Mother, don't you think it's time you retired? Let your oldest take over the shop." Heron rubbed his hands together, as though he was about to be handed a delicious pie.

Suddenly, the thwack of bristles landed on top of the man's head, and he groaned, rubbing the top. Zosime, holding a broom, had an angry expression on her face. "You think you can rob me, boy?" She was unimpressed by the charade and set her broom close by and crossed her arms. The second son, namely Aeschylus, was her greatest shame in life. Zosime had hoped for a girl when she was pregnant with him, and that resentment settled deep in her heart as the brawny second son opened his mouth. "If I may, we need drachmae to fuel our...uhm...endeavors." Aeschylus had a stupid grin on his face with the smugness of a manor lord. "You owe us money; after father passed, he said we would get a share-" He began, and then like clockwork, a deafening THWACK landed on the side of his head.

"Out! Get out, I say! Nothing but sorry beggars for sons." She pinched both their ears and shoved them out the front door. "AND STAY OUT!" Zosime huffed and slammed the shop door closed, locking it, as her two sons scrambled to their feet and banged on the door, yelling profanities and words of entitlement. She muttered to herself as she busied herself with work, "Two able-bodied sons begging their mother for scraps. Pfft!" She continued sweeping, hearing a lion cub in its cage growl.

"Quiet!" She yelled, banging the cage with her broom as the cub backed away immediately. For Zosime, life wasn't always like this when her husband was alive. She would take care of the finances, and her husband would take care of the boys and the animals in the shop. It was a perfect balance that kept their pockets and bellies full. She leaned against her broom and looked up at the wall, a painting of her husband by the counter. "Oh, Filemon. I wish you were here." Her eyes wandered at the painting in yearning. Hearing a peacock caw in its birdcage, she sighed. Reaching her hand into a pot of seeds and opening the cage, letting it peck the food from her hand, humming to herself. She used to love singing throughout the day when times were better and less lonely.

She would wake up in their family home by the river, singing melodies as she cooked and cleaned, making sweet cherry tarts for herself. Now, she had no song left in her, and over the years, she had become cold and bitter, especially towards beggars, boys, and men. To her, she had had enough of this testosterone-filled world that seemed frustratingly so self-righteous. Taking a breath, she set the broom aside, fiddling in the storage closet, trying to find cleaning agents.

Meanwhile, the prince that had leaped from the shattered window with Zafeiri in his arms had a rough landing, feeling the hurt in his ankles as he staggered. He could hear the little dog barking, and he panicked to look at the garden wall. "Hush, Zafie!" He whispered, running up to the wall and throwing his bag over, and without any experience, running on adrenaline alone, he had scaled the wall and fallen off the other side, landing in a shrubbery bush and banging his head on the wall behind him. He sucked the pain through his teeth and clumsily ran down the hillside until he reached the city.

Guards patrolled the streets, and he went into an alleyway that smelled damp and fishy. Kalliás was worried, but he had a determined look on his face when he saw a rotting wooden door, swung it open, and rushed inside, tripping over a lion paw that was outside of the cage, and a loud roar made him scuffle back on the ground.

THWACK!

Zosime was infuriated, having left the storage closet, hearing the commotion, and immediately struck the young man. "Filthy mongrel!" Zosime clutched her chest and grabbed him by the arm. He was a slender thing and usually appeared well taken care of, but from falling into a bush and getting his clothes tattered by branches, he appeared like any other thief or miscreant in Zosime's eyes. "You city boys never learn!" In a fit of rage, she opened an empty cage and threw Kalliás inside of it, who without preparation was knocked out cold from hitting his head first on the garden wall, then the broomstick, and now the rusted iron bars of the cage. Zafeiri, however, had fallen from the prince's arms, and Zosime spotted him almost immediately.

She held the puppy up from the fat of his neck and studied him for a moment. "What a lovely coat of fur- OH! and those eyes! Never see a dog like you, just dirty sewer mutts. You'll do nicely." She hummed and put him in a small cage on a shelf, placing a few chicken bones inside. "I'll have to fatten you up before I can sell you, little dog." She chuckled and left the room and shut and locked the door behind her.

Poor Vasilios inside the puppy body felt helpless for the first time in his life. Whining as he saw his beloved lying at the bottom of a dusty cage, beginning to bark in hopes of waking him up. Unfortunately, from here on out, things would get more and more challenging for Kalliás and his dear Zafeiri.