Dog On A Rope

10 - Planning

Gleaming above the trees was the sun. It shone brightly, allowing patches of streaming yellow light to touch the brown forest floor, dotted with moving shade from the bare branches above. The spring was beginning to drift in on the wind, and the ground had warmed more than it had the day before. The familiar chill of winter seemed to fade as the sun rose.

A small stream of light flooded into the shallow burrow beneath Anertha's skin. It lit the short dirt walls with bright yellow morning light.

Afore was the first to awake, the light glaring into his eyes. Eyes squinted, he yawned and turned to look at Laika, who still breathed calmly beside him, sound asleep. The morning light illuminated the black and tan of her pelt with magnificence, casting a sharp sheen on her long shining coat, and especially on the well-defined muscles of her shoulders and ribs, and the gentle waves of her long, droopy ears. Her snout was long and delicate, the underneath of her face lined with bright, glimmering orange, and yet she was not delicate in any way. In fact, she was rowdy, annoying, and way too impulsive. Afore preferred her like this, whenever she was asleep and quiet.

The morning grew on for long, silent moments, and then at last, Laika awoke as the sun glared in her eyes, too, and rather painfully. She blinked, squinted, and stood so that the ceiling overcasted a shadow across her face, protecting her from the sun's harshness. Then, she took several quiet, morning moments to readjust and wake up.

The two canines had woken up together on many mornings in the cavern that they had been prisoner to, but never had they woken up on a morning like this, the sun streaming across their furs, and in a warm, soft bed of bear pelt, in a home that Afore had dug out with his own two paws. For once, they were free of any and all responsibility, and awoke with a new, igniting hope for what the future may bring.

And still, there was much stress on their shoulders, much haze in the air, like the weight of the world itself. Now, they could focus entirely on the real problems afoot, and the biggest one was a long, dirty rope that forced a wolf and a domestic to be stuck together in this tiny dug-out den.

Laika was the first to speak that morning, breaking the tranquil silence as she stood, "How do you suppose we could get this rope off of us?"

"We'd need a tool to cut it with. It's too thick for our teeth. We've already tried that, anyways." Afore sat up himself, eyeing her.

Laika tilted her head, "Well, where do we get tools?"

"We'd have to break in to a tribe and steal them."

"Oh, great. We couldn't have thought of this last night, whenever we, you know, broke in to a tribe and stole something?"

Afore sighed, "That was never my idea."

"It kind of was."

"It really wasn't. But anyhow, now we have to travel to the next closest tribe to get a tool from. Maybe we could trade for one, as long as they don't recognise me as a wolf. Veal Tribe will be on high alert now, so we can't steal from them again, much less trade with them."

Laika shook her head, "No, I'm not leaving Veal Tribe. I'm staying right here, in my bed."

"Laika, whether you like to admit it or not, you are a criminal in the eyes of Veal Tribe now. You ran from your job and then stole from them."

Laika glared at him, lips up in a curl, "My job? To breed with you? Are you serious?"

"I didn't give you that job and I don't want anything to do with it," Afore said firmly, "But matter of the fact is that Veal Tribe is not going to welcome you back."

"They will. Veal Tribe is my home!"

"And you can say that you still want to follow The Baron after what he tried on you?"