Wet. Cold. Drip. Another drip. I stumble out of deep-sleep in confusion. Why did I deep-sleep? How did I deep-sleep? I feel the warmth of Pack around me. I feel my head resting so snugly on someone’s head. This smells wrong. Damp Hyena? Vicious. That shouldn’t be any more comforting. I remember the booms, the strange impact they had on Vicious and Late First Eyes Runt making Pack. I realise what my head is snug on. The dent in his skull, that I made, is the exact shape to cradle my jaw if I rest over his shoulder and place my head on his. I feel violated. By yourself. I jump away and try to groom some alertness into my limbs.

I focus on each stroke of my tongue. The massage of my skin. The taste of my coat. I take long calm licks. I let myself feel myself, smell myself, be myself. Some part of me notices that the others are stirring, stretching and grooming. Not Vicious. Yet. The weight of what happened last night. We need to get away from here to be safe. Pack won’t follow; we don’t exist to them any more except as a tale to tell pups on the teat. But the human technology seems… curious about us. Eager to find us. Whether to eliminate or consume or study us is unclear. I have no interest in letting any of Pack, even Vicious (the largest contributor to my rejection from Pack), fall into the jaws of a species who saw made a whole other species runt because they could.

I start to gather Pack to me, gently disturbing Vicious hoping he’ll be awake by the time we are ready to move. The sun is as high as it gets in the dreary days that have fallen. We would be most visible if we set off now. But this wood seems to stretch for a while, maybe half a day^. We will be under the cover of darkness by the time we must leave it. I chit the Pack while I organise cache-pouches. I smell long-eared rodents^ nearby and my stomach growls at me. Pointy’s ears are forward and Bouncy senses the imminent hunt. Late First Eyes Runt sits over Vicious, who still seems in deep-sleep.

( Sure, you can stay here. ) I take the cache-pouches, even if it adds burden to our hunt. I don’t want him to wake and take all our resources if he feels like a chuck! All-Spot decides to join us, obviously not happy being around Vicious. Intuitive dog.

We take the sleeping rodents without much difficulty, even with two of us encumbered with cache-pouches. I put one in my cache-pouch under everything else for consumption later and throw the rest on top.

We approach the spot we left Late First Eyes Runt^. Late First Eyes Runt is grooming Vicious, who appears to still be sleeping. She seems to be attached. This day will be hard if he doesn’t wake up soon. I distribute rodents and leave one by sleeping Vicious.

We have eaten and groomed. I ki call. The Pack except for Late First Eyes Runt falls in. I had been worried that this might happen. I reach out to her, hoping she understands,

( We have left him food. He has been following us. He will be able to find us. ) She does not move. ( He is bigger than us, he will catch up easily. He might not want to come. ) Each time I change approach I become more worried. Why did I do this? Because you thought she was getting better. You thought maybe you hadn’t ruined her so thoroughly. But you have. ( Spotless needs to get far away for safety. ) That made her stop herself from impulsively following. Or maybe she just moved then. You are so desperate you are attributing her thoughts she couldn’t possibly have. Thanks to you.

“Why don’t you try words?” She and I jump as Vicious mutters. “She might learn language if you tried it with her”

“I am using Pack-words which she seems to be more interested in.” My voice sounds strange to me. Other than calls to Pack I have barely used my voice at all.

“Fair enough.” I feel confused, he has never been so prepared to let me be right before. “Where are we going?” He swallows the rodent left for him without having to rip it apart.

“Away” I reply tersely. I have not had to explain my decisions to any-dog for so long. It makes me feel uncertain needing to justify my decisions.

“That’s it, away? I was right you are just chasing scent shadows.”

“The human-technology seems capable of maintained pursuit. We need to get far away from them and Monu-ment^. There is water this way which is definitely away from Monu-ment. When we are sufficiently far away, we can review.” I am not sure where the confidence came from to say those things. Denial. But I turn towards the fresh-water.

The ever-pups run ahead. I wait for Vicious to join. He doesn’t. I take up First Eyes and focus on getting the ever-pups away from that which made them runts before their whelper’s, whelper’s were whelped. A few steps over a ridge, I can smell the gully that will guide us to the big fresh-water. I hear Vicious start to follow. Not so far back that he is using any kind of stealth. He is close enough to seem like he is in First Eyes. Isn’t he?