A t E: Session 05+ - Epilogue

General Summary

I am let slip. The one named 'Mystr' lets me out of the metal box we have been in for days. I can’t help a whine of pure excitement at being freed to run once again!     So many new smells enter my nose. These are wonderful in their strangeness. More sniffs and I am still confused by what my senses tell me. The background scents are familiar. Happily so. My tail moves as it often does, despite my not willing it. This is the place I was born. Not quite exactly where my mother reared me but it would be somewhere around here. The foreground smells though… these were very odd. Not anything of this or the other place we traveled about in the metal box. Even its base scent was something… beyond. It came from the many people held inside the stones piled up around them. A man-den. At two places there were openings that let the people out, like a den has an opening and another. I could smell a redness in all of it. This red was tinged somewhat oddly, that I had never smelled. Even in my sires’ memories of scents, I could not find this red colour... I remember it for my descendant pups… And I could smell females nearby. My tail did its job again.     'Kade' was near as well but much as he had taken to doing, I knew he would head into this large human-den, or worse into another metal box. For now, I would explore. It was what I liked to do – born to do. I would keep an ear out for Kade should he call. He rarely does. That is why I am his follower. He lets me be free. He stayed inside the city walls the first night so I went walking. Caught a scent. Caught a bird. Ate the bird... Sometimes Kade would feed me from his food. This tasted different than my caught food. Sometimes better. Sometimes ruined. Didn’t matter to me. I eat when I can. That’s our way.     The next day he heads out of the city on a horse. He is with another rider… Men have names I don’t understand. Names of sound like mine or ‘Kade’. These are a nonsense. My ‘Kade’ is not this sound. His sound is more complicated than this ‘Kade’ sound. I call him ‘Brimstone-wanderer’ but I can’t make ‘Kade’ understand this. I decide to call this big, new pack-member, ‘Orangemane-tusker’. He rides an orange horse too. I call out to it that I have called it ‘Dawnhoof’ and its ears signal that it hears and likes this name. I want to run to Brimstone and Orangemane but they don’t whistle for me or call me my name. I often wonder why ‘Kade’ says my name so much when he and I know it is my name already. Men always do this. They aren’t very smart. It must help them to remember it, so use they use it a lot. I listen closely. He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t tell me to ‘STAY’ either, so I follow him and the others. This is easy. I don’t have to see them. The horses are great friends to have. They let me know they know I’m following by waving their ears toward me from time to time. They leave strong scents and markings everywhere. It’s like they want us dogs to follow them whenever we want. Too bad wolves can do the same. Horses aren’t very smart either. Too friendly to dogs you end up wolf meat. I don’t like wolves. I avoid them. Horses that belong to men can’t always avoid them.     I watch as the man and the strange one whose smell I don’t know and Kade come to a village. I can see Kade’s shape from where I sit outside the village on a slope near some trees. Dogs don’t see well at a distance like this but I know Kade’s form and the way it moves. Even at distance, I can tell it’s him. He goes into a den. While I wait for him to come out, I sniff the air. Near me in a wooden cage is a Cat-man. More cat than human, my nose tells me. He stands -- on two legs. Good thing for him too, as I can scent that he bleeds from wounds where his forepaws should be. No standing on these! He is dirty. That would be okay for me but he is a cat, so that is not good. He could at least lick his wounds. He doesn’t. Death is near then. My tongue drips on the grass. It’s an instinct! Don’t call me a bad dog… Hunger tells me to hunt. I do. When I return I hear Kade – still in the den -- making noises with a woman. He does this sometimes. I like this. Mornings after, he usually cooks and eats extra and he seems happy. I always get more food from his plate than usual on those mornings. My tongue hangs out of my mouth as I think of it. It might drip some more. I sleep some. I get up a few times. Make a circle. Lie again. Sleep.     Dawn wakes me. I feel aware. The people in their dens are still asleep. Men make much noise when they sleep. Dogs do too but not as loud. Men are careless and loud because their dens can be closed. Men like dens and boxes to live and sleep in. Dogs don’t like these things as much.       Kade and the other and the other man come outside. They are joined by the villager who owns the den. They head toward me so I move into the nearby trees. They approach and examine the Cat-man. Men need to see things. That’s their way. Kade is angered. So too is the tall man while the other one is puzzled and disturbed. The villager is not. He smells of blood. Cat-man and something else – Cleftyck. I haven’t smelled one of these in a long while. I’m not good at time. It feels like a lot of sunrises since I smelled one…     Then they ride the horses away from the village. They are joined by two other horses that have agreed to pull a strange wagon. Standing on the wagon and trying to not fall over by holding long leashes are two humans. This is great fun to watch. Humans insist on two feet on the ground, not four and it is often that they are close to falling. I follow.     It is good to be loping on the ground. I am enjoying this so much that I run past where the men stop. My nose has led me to where other Cat-men have camped. I take in their odd scents until my ears tell me of trouble. When I get back to where they are, there is colour about to be sensed and death on the slopes’ sides. Cat-men too and two strange beings. These are like the one in the city of the many ill people. That was the only other place I have scented such but not so intriguing as these two. These seem much more strong smelling. I would like to sniff them up close but something warns me to stay back and hidden in case Kade needs me to help him.     These strangers leave via one of the circles of sound I have heard in a few places. Somehow when I hear this type of noise, a fizzing-catterwauling, people appear or disappear. They are there and then they are gone. Their noises suddenly stop. Their smell lingers but there is nowhere that they can be found. I get upset at this. I am never at a loss with my senses except on these occasions...     Then the men with Kade go to the Cat-men’s den site and stay the evening. Men and Cat-men like to make their noise to each other. I try to listen to hear my name but it is not made by any. No food is left for me. I fall asleep waiting for either food or command.     The next day as I am out hunting, they leave and after my eating a ground runner, I follow along, out of sight and scent and ear. My pads are sore. I have not walked much for a while. I need to rest more this day than the last day. When I sense they have stopped they have returned to the place of many people inside the stones. I can smell something else in the large man-den. It is like a wild dog. My nose confuses me. My ears tell me that this wild dog is coloured in black and beneath the ground but my nose says he is near -- even right next to me! I whirl about, teeth barred as my sire taught me to. This warns a decent dog to be careful and think again. No wild dog is there. My tail drops. It is worried at this event. I think this wild dog is like a smoke-walker or one of these circle-movers… Kade is there somewhere. I can smell him faint on the breeze. His pack-runners are there too. I need to be closer, to hear. I slip into the man-den at night. One of the men who ‘STAY’ at the opening shout “DOG!” at me but I run inside past him. I bare my teeth over my shoulder at him briefly. He is well trained by his sire. He does not try to run after me.     My nose leads me. I come to grass and trees on my way toward Kade. Some smaller man-dens are close by. I mark the trees and after thinking about it, I mark some grass as well. I may not be back. Other dogs may want to know how fit I am – especially those females.     I come to a set of dead trees too close together to slip between. I can smell past them though. Kade is inside this. I run around the outside of this dead-tree-den. This takes some lopes before I return to where I started. Then the trees to my left move! Trees don’t do this. Maybe dead ones do? In the opening they make, I see a child. My nose tells me this is a strange boy. He has grown heavy fur over his mouth. Some dogs do this but they can’t be trusted. It is hard to see their teeth. Well-sired dogs leave their teeth showing. This strange boy also smells of the leaf that men carry until truly dead and then set alight inside a stick. They put these leaf-sticks in their mouths and chew on them and let the fire and smoke go up their noses. This makes them even less aware of their place. I like regular sticks. I don’t like these leaf-sticks. They fill my nose and block my sight… I have not before seen a boy that chews these leaf-sticks... I found a leaf-stick once and when I showed it to Kade he made his funny howl and did not stop until I got angry and threw the stick up into the air. It landed in the light on the roof of his den and this made him howl some more so I joined in… The strange boy looked around. He smelled like a buried bone I have re-discovered on the sunrise. Like a thing of the ground and soil. He had a big stick in his hand. It had two shiny ends that looked like large teeth pointing away from each other. He put this against the dead-tree-den and went back inside. I race over to the stick with shiny teeth. It smells of the dirt on it. The strange boy must like to dig. I sniff the other end of the stick. The strange boy’s scent is very strong. It is a red smell too! Different but somewhat like this whole man-den place. There is also a colour of violet intertwined in this red tint. What does this mean? I like this strange boy’s strong smell. He would be easy to follow, even with some sunrises in-between us. I scent that he is marking the dead-tree-den with his water nearby, so I run inside.     Here I can hear Kade and the other man of his pack and some others too. There is one who is like the strange boy. His face is even more hidden by fur. He looks like an Ape-man. He smells older and redder than the strange boy, who I decide must be a younger Ape-man. This one is scarred as some dogs are after a fight of the teeth and claw. One dog will be dead and the other will bear the marks of this victory. This Ape-man’s eye is white-scarred and pale and dead to sight. I name him ‘Mooneye-thrustjaw’. He seems to stick out his jaw a lot. Like he wants people to pet his face-fur? I don’t know what this means. I must learn.     There is another who has many good scents on him. Loam-soil, wet-leaf, bent-grass, fur-blood, skin-boot-knife, sleep-dew and leaf-blood. Many more too. He must spend all his time in the wilds. Lucky for my Brimstone-wanderer, that he has decided to lope again, I would easily follow this one somewhere and share his food. I call him, ‘Woodloper-smallglance’.     They make their meaningless noises at each other. I grow sleepy. Then I hear a circle coming. It pops and hums in my ears. The Humans and Ape-men do not hear it. I feel tired. I sleep. I am roused by nose. It tells me to smell this new-come Human. He is all blue! He must be the one who made the circle of sound. He is making noises at my Humans. They are displeased. Kade is at odds within himself. I smell it on him. He smells this way sometimes. I pant for him. I don’t whine. I fear this blue tinged Human. He is ill-eased and odd. He bares his teeth too much and he tries to make a bark that I find insulting. I call him, ‘Soundcircle-barker’. They do make noises with him for a bit and some of the strong smell fades. ‘Barker’s’ circle appears again and I wish to leap at his throat and tear it with my teeth but fear the circle may take me. I decide to wait near the Human-pack. My feet are sore. I lick them for a while and sleep again.

Character(s) interacted with

Renaissance   Kade   Hamfist   Sreigorn   Jerran Ghostly