(Image above is my Artwork of every character introduced by this chapter. This is exactly what the characters would look like in my mind's idea of their physical traits, besides scars being all over the male dogs which I chose not to draw. Left To Right, Top to Bottom: Flare, Shadow, White Dog, Jax, Grey Dog, Mocha)
Flare couldn't have been prepared for barreling into another dog head-first and colliding snouts with them- the impact jarred her skull and left her feeling light-headed with shock.
She didn't even make it to the living room or past the length of the trendil, because a tall brown dog with thin fur was standing there. As it turns out, the trendil in The Man's hand was a leash attached to a dog's neck. Before she could say anything at all towards the dog in her way, The Man turned around and booted her in the haunches- right back outside the door. The kick hadn't caused much pain; just an uncomfortable shock.
This time, The Man slammed the door shut quickly behind him after giving a sharp tug on the brown dog's leash. Flare had no choice but to step back as all of the dogs barked or snarled aggressively at the brown dog.
The same kind of welcome I received, she realized mildly as she thought about the brown dog. Grey Dog was one of the first to fly towards him, and he immediately landed a split-second bite on the upper part of Shadow's ear. The brown dog flinched but didn't stay cowered.
He was being surrounded by all of the pelts of the other dogs now, but Flare was able to see from a few paces away that he held no visible scars. His eyes were a lighter shade of brown than most dog's, and his legs were long like Flare's, so much so that he almost reached White Dog in height and surpassed both Jax and Grey Dog.
White Dog indeed seemed intimidated by this, to the point where he was now the one snapping and showing his teeth; contrary to Grey Dog who was the meanest at most times.
"Oh great, now we've got a Brown Dog!" Jax sounded snotty and sarcastic, but his tail was still wagging at the prospect of seeing a new dog. He sniffed the male all over, nudging Mocha's muzzle aside a time or two.
"He smells odd," Mocha put in with a nose-wrinkle from beside Jax's shoulder.
"He shouldn't be here!" Snarled Grey Dog, who didn't move to attack but glowered. The male's thin grey fur looked stick in the light pour.
"Stop your complaining. This is just another fight-dog The Man has brought home. And he's hardly older than Jax or Tan Dog." White Dog curled his lip and left it that way as, surprisingly, Brown Dog replied calmly without any menace in his voice whatsoever.
"Actually, my name's Shadow. Your human is a bit rough for my liking, so if you'd all tell me the way to get out of here I'll just-."
"GET OUT OF HERE?" Jax bellowed.
"Why would you want to? The humans feed us and we have females to mate with!"
At that, Shadow flicked an ear and ignored Jax just like everyone besides White Dog did. Speaking of, the dog still had the hint of a snarl on his face as he stepped dangerously close to the brown dog called Shadow.
"You only leave if The Man takes you somewhere else himself." He rolled his shoulder muscles and lifted his tail, but Shadow didn't submit. Even as The Man leaned down and slipped the rope from around his neck.
"Oh," Shadow said, a bit too cheerily as if he wasn't too bothered with that now that he'd had a vague answer. He plopped down on his haunches and stretched out his toes to begin nibbling between them. Flare realized that Shadow was being passive rather than submissive, to avoid any confrontation whatsoever. How does he do that? She wondered. Most dogs would fight, flight or submit.
"What's wrong with him?" Mocha muttered with a crinkled black nose, seemingly half to herself. She turned and padded off.
"What are your names?" For the first time, Shadow's gaze flicked towards Flare. She returned it since the brown dog seemed completely unaggressive so far.
"That's Tan Dog. Jax and I already have mating rights with her, so don't even think about it."
Shadow cleared his throat and looked away from Flare.
"Yes, well, of course I smelled her. But you needn't worry about that from me."
"Good," growled Jax. He strutted up and lifted his tail, stretching up on his toes as if he wanted to be taller than this new male dog. "I'm Jax, self-named, and the other dogs are White Dog, Grey Dog and she-dog Mocha. But really, her name makes no sense so you can call her Brindle Dog." Flare held back on the impulse to roll her eyes at Jax's extra information.
And then Shadow, who couldn't be much older than Jax, lifted an eyebrow lazily.
"Tan Dog and White Dog? Must've thought long and hard about those ones," he mused.
Flare saw White Dog's muscles stiffen before he moved to pounce on Shadow. His teeth bared as he feigned for Shadow's front legs, and then aimed for his scruff when Shadow ducked low. The soft skin on the brown dog's neck was tugged on hard as White Dog shook Shadow side to side like prey. Though Shadow's paws were still touching the ground, Flare could see that he was too shocked to do anything at first.
Although that specific attack didn't have much of a wounding effect when inflicted on a dog's scruff, Shadow seemed to grow more frantic in the seconds that followed. He clawed at the ground and tried twisting his neck out of White Dog's grip. The brown male made a yelping noise and then a small whimper before White Dog let go.
Flare realized that Jax had moved away out of his fear of White Dog; so now she and Grey Dog were the only ones left to witness Shadow being bullied. Grey Dog's tail was wagging and his eyes shone with interest as he watched.
White Dog made a sudden movement towards Shadow again. The brown male ducked away from White Dog and nearly stepped on Flare as he cowered against her.
"What a mutt!" White Dog snarled insanely, his jowels leaking spittle. He shot a glare of daggers over at Shadow, and stepped forward with one paw raised as if he wasn't done. Grey Dog must have started growing bored, because turned away from the porch.
Then Flare noticed movement from behind the dogs, the tall patch of shadow that had become nothing more than background during the fight. The Man stepped past the dogs and went inside his den with the water buckets in-tow. A brief patch of light shined onto the side of White Dog's face as he stood near the porch. It was shut off with the slamming of the door, and all of the dogs were left in the dark mist once again. Flare licked her lips nervously as she realized that The Man had done nothing to act on White Dog's savagery towards Shadow. Instead, he'd gathered the water buckets to clean and refill them.
He acted like nothing was happening! The Man brought him here! Why doesn't he protect him? Thinking hard, Flare studied the doorknob that The Man had just touched.
She could only conclude that humans had no idea of the body language of dogs, and perhaps he had stupidly thought the two dogs were playing. That must be it. Because he left so.... unconcerned...
"Pah. You two are weaklings, not worth any dog's time. Tan Dog, I wouldn't even be mating with you if Grey Dog hadn't stolen Brindle," he snarled deftly, tilting his head to catch their eyes. Flare pretended not to see because of the rain.
But the tan she-dog gave a nervous glance towards Shadow- his muzzle only inches away. He had stopped trembling against her flank now, and though his ribs poked out against her hide, his pelt felt sleek, oily, and comforting- like her mother's and litter-mates had. And despite the rain, Shadow smelled almost nothing like the other male dogs did.
"None of the others dogs know it yet, but I can tell that you've been Altered." He seemed more serious now, as if his rage were truly fading away into mock-pity.
"How sad is it for you, to not even be a male dog anymore? And to smell more like a female?" He chuckled. "Your humans before these were clearly crueler than The Man here has ever been!"
He stomped his feet to mark his territory, kicking up dirt and leaving his scent on the grass as well. Flare was thankful that he wasn't urinating here as well, since the ground was dirt instead of grass.
White Dog then turned away with a single, short bark of a laugh. While Flare was letting the wheels turn in her head, she barely registered it when Shadow spoke up. She'd been wondering what White Dog meant.
"My old humans weren't cruel," he commented. It was so quiet that she said "what?" just to hear him speak louder.
"I mean, they weren't the best- that's why I ran away. But they weren't cruel."
"You ran away from where?" Flare was a bit startled at her own voice again- it was croaky and missing syllables, as if she couldn't consistently speak. Shadow didn't seem bothered by her complete lack of confidence in the newly-struck conversation, and picked up the pace where she was lacking.
"I was born outside." This surprised Flare.
"But I remember my litter-mates and mother-dog being found, and the humans invaded our den. They took us all to a human den and seperated us, until I was taken away from there, too- by a pack of humans." His face looked like he was reminiscing, as the young male recalled the memories. The wind picked up, making the foggy night a bit cooler. The Man came out the back door with another slam, water buckets full and in-tow. But still Flare listened.
"They took care of me as I grew out of being a pup, and more into being a troublemaker." He grimaced.
"I'm not for sure why they Altered me; but my guess is it was because of the way I was acting."
At this point, Jax had begun snuffling along the edge of the fence, but he drew closer to listen to Shadow's grim tone of voice. Flare's face was still fixed on Shadow's- she'd ignored the impulse to ask what Altering was, since she knew that answer was soon coming.
"Like any male dog growing up, I was full of energy that I couldn't contain. Chewing up wires, getting in the trash, annoying the tiny dog- you name it. I would jump on the smaller humans out of excitement when they came home, or dig holes to try and pursue scents beyond the fence. I took the toys and attention from the other dog, wanted it only for myself. I stole food from the humans a lot and it was fun and tasted amazing." Shadow let himself pause, clearly caught up in the salivating thoughts of well-fed living.
"Anyways, the humans would get loud at me or smack my flank, or lock me outside for a long time. None of it really bothered me, because none of it hurt me. And when I got really bored outside, I watched through the fence. This was a fence that was wires instead of wood, so I could see through it," Shadow added. Jax had positioned himself close by and was listening with his legs splayed out.
"One day, the humans in the den next door brought home a beautiful golden dog with long fur."
Flare was a bit taken aback, knowing that this vaguely fit her description- but there was no way she was the dog Shadow had mentioned.
"She would bark at me all day long, as if she yearned to meet me. Plus, after winter passed I could smell her heat-scent." Flare flattened her ears in dismay. She had not wanted the story to make this turn of subject, but she carried on listening anyways.
"I knew I could dig a hole next to my yard's fence to get to her, so I did just that. It took me days. And even though her yard had no fence, she was tied to a human-made trendil that stretched across it." Flare had no recollection of this, but immediately assumed it had the same purpose as the chains by the dog houses.
"I didn't care that she was tied up, though." Shadow went on wistfully, as if he was fond of the memories.
"I stayed there for days so that we could mate more than once, but then..." Flare flicked an ear and felt herself becoming more and more drawn into the story.
"My humans came hustling out of our yard one day, screaming my name while I was with the golden dog. Once they saw me, I was dragged by my neck back into the house. I don't know if I ever got her pregnant because I never saw her after that."
"What a load of dung on your human's part," commented Jax. Flare wasn't ready to say anything just yet.
"It was a long few days after that. I was tied up in my own fenced-in yard, and scolded left and right by them. They started giving the tiny dog more attention." He sounded bitter now, and hunched his shoulders harder against the rain.
"Though I wouldn't figure out why at first, I came to the conclusion that they hadn't wanted me to mate with the golden dog." Flare could guess this as well, but the crazy antics of humans could most often not be explained.
"Well, after those few days of being tied up I was taken for a car-ride to this place that had sharp bad-scent oily smells, and the reek of fear from other dogs. Everything was white, including the cloaks that the humans in there would wear. My owner left me there to be Altered!" His voice rose in indignation, as if he felt betrayed by the entire thing. Flare was still confused as to what Altered meant.
"But what is that?" Jax whined curiously. He was laying down without panting, for once, and his small brown eyes were fixated on Shadow. "And why do you and White Dog make it sound so awful?" He licked his lips and looked nervous of the explanation that would soon come. Wow, Jax is actually scared of whatever that could be, Flare realized.
"It's not that awful, actually. Us dogs don't even fully understand it." He glanced over at Flare and edged away a bit, so that he was leaning towards Jax. Flare flicked her ears back, feeling a bit self-conscious. Although, of what, she wasn't sure.
"When it happens, you don't know it happens." Flare's breath was momentarily taken away. What did that even mean?
"Something happens to you when you go to sleep there, and when you wake up you don't feel like a male dog anymore." He cleared his throat and twitched a mosquito off his ear. The dying light always brought them drifting into the yard during the warm months.
"The heat-scent of a female does nothing anymore. You rarely get excited over the things you used to, like marking territory or mounting another dog, even just for dominance. Pack rank and fighting for the best food or sleeping spot? That hardly matters anymore, either." Water from the rain dripped down his whiskers.
Flare, herself, felt like that wasn't much of a loss. Sure, she had less food alongside Jax because she was the lowest ranking dog in The Yard, but other than that dominance meant nothing to her.
And yet other dogs talked about it like it was something so important. If she wasn't Altered, then how come she didn't care about those things? Because I'm not a male dog? Even though she was in heat now, even though she felt a distinct primal urge to mate buried somewhere deep inside her, she just didn't feel the urge to mate here and with these dogs. Quite the opposite, actually.
But Jax's eyes had already widened with shock, back at the start of it.
"What!? How can they do that to you? Why? Is it because you mated with the golden dog?"
Shadow did his best to answer all of Jax's questions. "It is most certainly because I mated with the she-dog next door. I suppose they didn't like the fact that I got out an mated, so they found a way of removing the urge forever."
The dogs finally lapsed into silence. Flare wondered still how Shadow had ended up in this yard.
"But they fed you there," Flare commented. Her own belly was bawling with hunger now, but she tried not to think about it.
"Tan-Dog, food isn't everything to a male dog. Mating and food is," grinned Jax with some snarky laughter. He glanced pointedly at Shadow, but the tall brown dog didn't seem to think it was funny in the least.
"Well, not to me, Jax. I wouldn't give the tip of my tail to breed again- I have no desire." For some reason, Flare felt a bit reassured by this. At least she wouldn't have to dodge Shadow because of his impulsive male-dog desires. There was enough of that with the others.
"I would. Except my tail's gone. And it must be nice for you- not." Jax got back to his paws and shook out his thin, patchy fur. He huffed and turned to sniff at the air, then disappeared into the darkness of the back fence area.
"See you tomorrow night, Tan Dog," Jax called over his shoulder as his white patches, too, faded. Flare felt an involuntary shiver creep up her neck, and it wasn't from the rain.