POV - Chaos
On the morning of the full moon, as soon as Elias and I reached the dining hall, I went on an apple search. I checked the tables, but nothing had been served yet, so I had to wait.
I impatiently watched the dishes coming from the kitchen, but no apples. Wait... I sniffed the air. Luna! Luna has sliced apples on her plate!
I skittered from my usual place between Alpha and Elias and shamelessly watched her eat. She wasn't usually one to drop me table food, but I was hoping I could get her to drop at least one.
She casually chatted with Alpha and other pack members at the table, paying me no mind. As she raised an apple slice to her mouth, I gave a loud yip, and she stopped. She lowered the slice, and I tracked it with my eyes and head. She went to eat it again and I yipped again. She stopped.
Luna smiled. "You want my apple, Blaze?"
I barked affirmative.
"Ok," she said. "Roll over."
What? What's this? I cocked my head at her.
"Oh, you don't know that one, huh?" She said.
I still tracked that apple.
"I'll show him, Mama!" Elias said.
"Elias," Papa said. "Dogs don't learn like that. All he's going to see is a human on the floor doing something odd. He's more likely to kiss your face off for being on the floor than learn the command."
Alpha said it, but he was too late. Elias was on the floor. Alpha was almost right, I was sorely tempted to wash his face off since he was in my domain, but...apple.
"Watch, Blaze!" Elias said. "Roll over. Roll over."
He got down on his hands and knees and mimicked an animal lying down and rolling, like in mud. Alpha and Luna laughed. I copied him. They stopped laughing. Uh oh.
I yipped, trying to bring attention back to the apple, and Luna gave it to me. YES! Elias sat up, looking around, bewildered. Oh, right... they were looking at me funny. Alpha had a very hard stare at me. I forgot... dogs really don't copy people. For the first time, I think they actually suspected I was more than a dog.
I was torn. Part of me really wanted to tell them what I was, to show them, but that could lead to Kyas, who wasn't yet sure he was who I thought he was. I decided to wait, Kyas was going to try to find out tonight.
I got down on my belly and crawled over to Elias, finally slobbering all over his face. He giggled, and that seemed to break the weirdness of the moment. I had to be more careful, at least until we knew.
"Mama," Elias said, "I think he just really likes apples."
"Here, Blaze," Luna said, "have another."
I went right over and took it gently. Bonus!
Kyas whooped in my mind. We were going to shift tonight! Kyas' blue aura intensified brightly with happiness, and I saw Elias, still sitting on the floor, flinch like he had been blasted. This time, HE gave me a hard look. He had felt that, and he knew it came from us.
"Whoa." He said and grinned.
'I think it's time we go outside now.' Kyas said.
Still happy, I bolted out the door, followed shortly by Elias. We did some running around to burn off some energy, but soon had to return. Full moon or not, it was still a school day.
We grabbed our lunch, and out of the blue, Alpha asked Elias for a hug. He happily launched himself into his father's arms.
On the path to Ember's house, he kept looking at me oddly, like he wanted to say something, but he didn't. I left him at the usual spot, a fallen tree just out of sight around a bend.
I barked as usual to tell her to come out. Instead, the Grandma came out. "She's not going today, Chaos! She's got bigger problems than school today!"
I was shocked. I mean, it had only been a few weeks, but this was the first time she hadn't come. Worried, I picked up her lunch and returned to Elias. He was confused too, about why I was alone. I whined, but neither of us knew what to do except go to school.
I was beside myself, unsure what to do. What I even could do. I found myself back at her house, quiet though inside the tree line. I watched the house intently for any sign of her. I decided to circle the house, but before I got far, I found her scent, leading away from her house, into the trees.
I found her by the pond, sitting in the grass, her knees up to her chest, crying. As I got closer, I couldn't believe what I saw. She had bruises everywhere. Clear hand prints around her wrists and upper arms, dark purple ones on her legs where her dress didn't cover. There were...claw marks across her back, her dress shredded by them.
An involuntary whine escaped my throat, alerting her that I was there. Her head popped up to look at me, and I caught my breath. She had a black eye and a busted lip, both swollen. There were slap marks on both her cheeks and a round cut over one of her temples, the exact shape of the bottom of a drink can.
"It was my fault, Blaze." She said sadly. "I kept a bread roll from lunch yesterday and tried to eat it at supper. He caught me and thought I was stealing for you. He said he would beat me for that. He did."
I approached her quietly, and softly cleaned her face. She tensed at my touch, expecting it to hurt, but I knew. I knew how to be gentle, I knew how much it hurt. From Kyas' memories to my own beatings by Alpha Silas and the Cedar River dog pack, I knew exactly what this felt like, but I didn't have anyone who cared. Ember does. She has me and Kyas.
I didn't understand how they could hurt her like that, pack slave or not. She was just a little girl. I moved around and softly started cleaning the claw marks on her back. She sucked in a sharp breath but didn't ask me to stop.
When finished, I curled around her and encouraged her to lie back against me. Take my warmth, my soft fur, my protection. She sighed against me and, after a few minutes, relaxed, then fell asleep. I just stayed with her. I didn't meet Elias for lunch or walk him home from school. She needed me more today.
She woke up around mid-afternoon, and panicked a bit, saying she had to get home. I walked with her, stopping at the boundary line. She hugged me tight, lost in her own thoughts. "Thank you, Chaos." She said, startling me, and walked away.
Grandma came out to the porch, and the sight of her ignited an anger in me stronger than anything I'd ever felt before. Kyas' aura turned from weak blue to red hot in an instant. She looked at me, and I bared my teeth and growled a deep, threatening growl, snarling with pure menace. I had never felt this angry in my whole life. Kyas intensified, from fire red to white. It took everything I had not to cross that boundary line and rip her throat out.
Grandma's eyes went wide. "It wasn't me!" She called across the space between us. She said nothing else and followed Ember inside. I didn't want to leave, but there was nothing left to do. It took the entire walk home to calm down.