Post by lucius branwen / 10 — fox on Oct 13, 2023 1:53:34 GMT -5
❦
you are three hours old. you lie in the warm, damp darkness next to your mother. her hot tongue licks against your back. you cannot feed. a hand picks you up. then, a smaller pair. gentler.
you are five hours old. cradled against the continuous thump-thump of a heart. cradled in the valleys of vibration. you cannot feed. you're so tired.
you are six hours old. a rag dipped in milk is pressed to your mouth. it takes all your strength to suckle on it.
you are one day old. in their arms. warmer than the sun.
you are fourteen days old. they are the first thing you see. a child with a soft face, hazy and bright to your new eyes. their gaze like stones in a river.
you are twenty days old.
my little dog,
they call you. Sindri.
it is spring. cold outside in the mornings. the earth shivers with breath, bright with blue.
you are one year old. now, you are not so little anymore. you grew strong from days spent dappled in light, from fresh spring meat, from sweet fruit sugar in the summers.
people are funny things. two-legged and clumsy. blood-spilling and soft. blunted teeth. steel weapons. incomprehensible, but familiar.
they have that many-toned language you cannot speak. but in a year of life, you've listened and learned their names for different feelings. hunger for the delicious smell of campfire and salt. happy for the sunshine on your back as you bound through the forest. tired when the wind is cool and cradling, brushing against sleep.
and your heartbeat, your bones, the feeling of blood rushing through you. the fragileness of body and the forever of it too. there are names for that.
names for everything.
yours is Vin.
you are two years old. you know the sighing of the seasons, how the trees groan in their winter sleep beneath their downy white covers, the sweet hum of rain in the mud in spring. and you learn that your Vin has their seasons too.
when it is warm, they like to hike, drawing maps of little trails carved out by the wearing of feet, hidden groves of flowers, blue lines of ponds and creeks laughing deep in the woods. they'll chatter away to you in the stillness, collecting pretty stones, letting you sniff blooming flowers, cupping bugs in their hands to show you in tender delight.
when the leaves start to change colour, they spend the days in the structure at the edge of the commune. you are alone until sunset when they return to you, solemn and tense.
only men enter the building at the edge of the commune and leave it. but there was once.
you were still very young then. the sun had set. you searched for them, curious. the door was left cracked open. inside, rising above you, there were the antlers of a deer mounted on baskets of apples, flowers, resting on a spread of cloth. and in the dim haze, you watched Vin polish brass knives with fire, setting the high table with smoking blades. the scent of old blood still lingered in the air. you barked at the taste of rot.
the woman snarled when she saw you. Vin turned to look, startled. they dropped the knives, ran to you, and pulled you outside. you remember. how their hand trembled as they stroked your head.
you are three years old. they dream, but you do not know what of. the nights are restless, their hands knotted into your fur, taut against your curled form. the murky scent of fear clings to their limbs. sometimes they flinch at things you cannot see. sometimes they are lost to you, gone.
Vin rises from bed one night, and you stir awake at the movement. in the darkness, they sit in the corner. you come to them quietly. they are buried in their arms. you nudge gently against their side. then, more persistent when they don't relent.
from the shadows, they reach for you. they hold you. and cry.
and cry.
you are four years old. sometimes they flinch at things you cannot see, but you stand and guard them from the fear. sometimes they are lost to you, but you are patient until they come back.
you are five years old. you and Vin walk the paths less often these days, but they still have the maps they drew years ago.
in the grove of wild bluebells, they lie on their stomach and speak idly to you about things you don't understand. the sea, they say. you feel the exhale of breath. the mountains. Vin braids flowers absently.
the sun dips between the trees, fracturing into a million pieces over everything.
they holds your face between their palms. you would know them anywhere just by touch.
they press their forehead to yours, skin warmed from light. they speak again, quieter. i wish we could leave.
you are six years old. you have known the sound of their heartbeat since you were born. it quickens. it stammers. they whisper to you, voice fervent. stay, stay.
someone grabs you by the tether, tight along your neck, burning and ripping at muscle as you strain against it, snapping at the binds to be free. Vin becomes smaller and smaller as they walk through the crowd of people.
you bark. those river stone eyes turn to look at you one more time. stay, they mouth. my little dog.
people with all their language, spoken and unspoken, with their strange incomprehensibility could have been understood by those like them. and if you were a person, in that moment, you could have reached for them, could've held their hand, and told them they could not leave you. your heartbeat, your bones, your blood. your Vin.
but you are a dog.
the crowd swallows them.
the door closes. you bark. and bark and bark.
but Vin does not return.
the days pass. a woman gives you food and water in the morning. she lets you sleep in the house, and you wander during the day. you wait, in the outskirts of the woods, where you can see the outline of the city.
the sea. the mountains. why did they leave you?
you are six years old. you wait.
you are six years old. you wait.
you are six years old. you wait.
years later, the poets will write their poetry. the historians will weave their histories. and a dog will have loved someone named Vin.
