Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Two Dogs and A Shotgun

The two dogs had been curled up by the door napping, but as soon as their heads went up so did Martha's. The doorbell rang.

She looked down at kay and picked him up, "Come on, lets go see who came to visit."

He gurgled and put a block in his mouth.

The two dogs trotted behind her as she walked into the hallway. Waffles was a very serious sort of dog and as a german shepherd there was soemthing inherently intimidating about he, but even she was nothing compared to her daughter, who was as large as your average wolf with black fur and glowing ice blue eyes, literally glowing due to their bioluminescence. Of course if you met the two dogs you would know just how much of a goof pancake was despite looking more intimidating.

Martha glanced at the security camera and smiled as she opened the door.

"Good afternoon Dzara, I'm afraid Sunny and Adam are out."

The small Drev was no taller than Adam, maybe a little shorter with shiny light purple carapace. Little beads of water condensed into droplets on her carapace, "Oh, I guess I should have called ahead." She shifted on her legs and Martha could hear the soft clicking of her leg braces. Dzara had taken some convincing, but had eventually rejected her old views against assistive technology and accepted the pair of braces offered to her by Adam. She had also accepted reconstructive surgery on her deformed lower hand which had originally been made unusable by her condition forcing her tendons to contract painfully, and keep her hand curled in permanently. Krill had gone in to her forearm and replaced the tendon, allowing the hand to relax. Dzara wore a brace on her hand now though with a little PT it wasn't supposed to be permanent.

"No, its alright, do you want to come in. I can make some tea or hot chocolate."

Dzara seemed pleased with that idea. Turns out Drev could drink plenty of human drinks as long as there was no dairy. Sugar and coca powder was fine enough considering that both things came from plants. You had to be careful about artificial additions, but martha knew what to look for. Juices and some alcoholic were also acceptable but not exactly healthy for Drev.

"That would be nice." She stepped inside smiling at Kay, "Hey," She held out her arms, "Will you let me hold you."

That was a almost a silly question, kay would let almost anyone hold him. Honestly you would have to take it as an insult if he didn't agree. He was just as gregarious as his father and easily went to his Aunt. He was just starting to talk now, but most of it was unintelligible. He tended to talk to fast and about things that didn't make sense to anyone other than him, but he didn't seem to mind.

Martha walked Dzara into the kitchen.

Martha propped the door open onto the covered balcony to let in a waft of rain soaked air. She set Kay down in the living room where she could keep an eye on him, and the two dogs curled up close by to assist her.

"Hos are you doing>" She asked Dzara, pulling two mugs from the cupboard.

"Ok I guess, Ive been working with Adam to set up a Council for Individuals with disabilities. You think he would have thought of it earlier." Her voice wasn't overly critical when she spoke, but full of a certain fondness from her brother in law."

Martha laughed, "You know despite having only 75% of his limbs and 50% of his own eyes, I don't think he ever saw himself as disabled. Never even crossed his mind . Even when he DID he also sort of didn't. Now I think he forgets as much as anyone else. To be fair, he didn't have to live with it for very long before he got his new leg."

Dzara nodded knowingly, "has he thought about getting the leg permanently implanted?"

"No I don't think he's mentioned it. No need. I am assuming you keep in close contact with kanan."