Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
As night wears on, day begins to creep around the edges of the world. I sit on the edge of a small hillock and smell the sunrise. The world is made fresh and I breathe in clean air and the calm presence of the present.
“TESSIE!”
I’m faintly aware of someone shouting for me. The sound is distant, but it is carried on the wind and my ears catch it easily. I recognize the voice after a moment or two, once it has time to wind its way through my mind and reach the place that recognizes things.
My master is calling me.
Master.
The word feels different than it did before. It feels more essential. More real. There’re no human objections in the way.
It’s Order’s voice, and to my surprise, it means something. I feel strength in it. I feel warmth. I feel belonging. Hearing him call me creates a need in me to rush toward him as fast as I can. I come to a sliding halt on the wet grass and turn back toward the den I am no longer allowed to be in.
I didn’t realize how far I’d run from him. It takes quite some time to return at a full bolt, but I run at top speed the whole way, my back legs reaching forward and even in front of my front at the apex of my motion. This feels so natural, and yet I’ve never done it before. I am like the wind. I am the air and the soil. I am nothing at all, and I am everything. It feels so good to have lost the burden of a sense of self. All I know is that I have to do what he says, because doing what he says makes him happy, and making him happy makes me happy.
I see him now, standing with all three sets of arms perched on the sides of his body. A flash of worry makes me think he might possibly be angry at me. I couldn’t stand it if he was angry at me.
I run straight at him, slamming on my foot brakes at the last moment, skidding to not quite a halt as I leap up against him, my paws big and muddy against his chest. He reaches out with all six arms and hands and gives me the best cuddle ever. Every place his hands touch, I feel sheer happiness emanating throughout my body.
“Good girl!” he praises. I hear warmth with a touch of surprise in his voice. I can sense that he thought I’d run and run and never come back. I feel him now in a new way. I feel how strong he is, and how much he loves me. I feel his possession and his care. I feel my belonging to him, and a new, deeper yearning for his approval. I pant happily as I lick his face, narrowly avoiding licking several of his eyes. My master smells like power and safety, love and concern.
“Good girl,” he repeats, driving me into an even more intense frenzy of excitement. When he verbally approves of me, I feel my entire body charge with happy energy. It’s like a shot of a drug I’ve rarely experienced before.
“Alright,” he says. “Now how about you change back into your human form.”
I have no idea how to do that, and even less desire to. My human form was always in pain, one way or another. It was difficult and broken, and I was always confused as to how I felt and why I felt it, and whether or not I should feel that way. I was conflicted, and managing my brain was a full time job all of its own. I don’t feel that way at all in my wolf form. Everything is clear right now. I know exactly who I am and exactly what I want.
There’s no way to communicate any of that to him, besides in a soft whine.
“Alright,” he says. “If you can’t do that right now, we need to go.”
He opens the car door. My car door, though it doesn’t feel like mine anymore. Everything must belong to master now. I couldn’t drive a car anyway with these paws. Or could I? Obigor is asleep on the front seat. I am supposed to go in the back, I guess.
“We need to leave,” he says as he watches me hesitate, working these things out in my slightly simpler wolf mind. “I organized a distraction with Justice to keep Stealth out of the way, but we don’t have much time. Come on. Get in.”
I do as I am told, leaping into the back seat. Obigor wakes up, eyes wide and starts yapping at me, standing up in the front seat and shrieking at me until I lean my head over and lick him. He tastes like Obigor.