I wake alone, under a dense, thorny bush. I don’t know where I am or why. Then I remember. My stomach gives up. I relieve myself where I am. The ache of loneliness wracks me. I have one thought - I must get back to the pups. If they are still alive. I feel like a runt-maker. I ran to hide them from the beast. But did I leave them sitting for some other predator? I have never considered what it would be like to be prey. I stumble out of the shit-covered bush and return to the swamp. I reach the edge. I hear a hoo-call. In relief, I hoo back and more voices join the one.
I race through the claggy water, over roots until I reach their nook. Inside are pups, seven pups. Tunnel First Eyes is standing guard over her littermates, like a true First Eyes. She smells sad and confused. Nosey Wild is gone. The last born of the litter, with her big nose and happy character is gone. I can’t let my grief in. It is a hyena waiting for me in the dark, but I need to get these pups away from this place. We seem to be safe in the roots of the swamp, but I couldn’t travel through this for long so the pups, with the exception of Daring, who seems to be amphibious, will definitely need solid ground.
I load up the pups again to reach the shore. Much of the precious tunnel-soil spilled in the night. I leave a patch of strange soil under a tree in a swamp. There is no comfort in this world.
Should I return to Pack, where at least I would have the support of other dogs? Or shall I commit to my new Pack and try to find some tortoises? Obedient First Eyes would do that, if I Walked into the Wild. Even in death, she outranks me.
As I cross with the cache-pouches of pups and Daring swims to shore, I try to recall the pack-images to find those footprints. Reaching to this empty pack-bond is harrowing. I have to sit suddenly and the pups trot over, to paw at me, wanting to be fed. I am not on World, I am not with Pack and there is no whelp-feed for me.
The pack-bond flickers, or it doesn’t and my ache is made real in my stomach. Then a jolt as a screamed bond-message of pain and dark and blood overwhelms my senses.
Obedient First Eyes is the greatest dog I have ever known! She is alive, somehow. She is in pain, but that will dissipate. She is not afraid, if anything she is impatient that I haven’t found her yet. My beautiful dappled Soil and World is alive and wants me. I spur forwards with Daring and Tunnel First Eyes running while the others bump against each other hanging from my neck. She is surprisingly close, obviously having followed the scent path left by my flight with the pups. She is a little along the edge of swamp.
I find her smelling and looking glorious, even in this state. She has as many stripes as spots on her back and there is dried saliva and blood in her mane. Her notched ear has been ripped in half. She is weak but rolls over to let the pups feed, revealing the pup already nursing from her. Nosey. I thank Soil and then re-consider and thank Sour-soil for preserving my Pack. Now I must preserve my Pack – provision for Obedient First Eyes. I’ll also sniff^ out for clot-weed. Pack Guider^ said the organisms here would be similar to what we are used to. I wonder if that includes clot-weed.
I am not good at providing so I thought I would raid the cache from our temporary den. I skulk back, smelling the fight that occurred last night. Here, Obedient First Eyes severely wounded the beast and they separated. She was bleeding heavily but she set off on our trail. The beast went to our temporary den where I overheard it eating. I realise before I get there, it was eating our cache. So that is something we need to be aware of, keeping a cache a fair distance from den. I eventually find a small pack of rodents that I kill as quickly as I can. Putting their limp bodies in the cache-pouch is so like filling it with our sleeping pups. I am glad Obedient First Eyes is here, I would not be able to feed us for long if something this small is so difficult.
When I get back, Obedient First Eyes is asleep again and the pups are climbing over her, fighting each other. I rouse her by grooming her head. When I reach her ear, which is hot and puffy, her lip curls. I leave it for the cent^, it will need to be groomed and soon though.
Once she has eaten and we have caught up about each other’s nights, we go to where she smelled a tortoise. We reach the spot, but the scents are old and dead plus our noses are still ringing from the blood and the swamp. I can just about feel the indents. She inclines her head South^ and we set out. We are a more broken and slow line than before.
We have been walking all day. Not at a decent pace but continuously travelling forward. Nosey has been trotting beside Obedient First Eyes in point. She sniffs the ground often, and in footprints we find. She’ll be a scent-scientist someday, if the Sour-World needs them. Tunnel First Eyes travels with me. She keeps a nose on the others. She seems very serious; Daring and Boisterous cannot rouse her into play despite frequent and vigorous attempts.
There is a patch of ferns by a fallen tree that conceal the mouth of a disused den of a small-ish equivalent of a mustelid^. This is where we will den.
I dig it out to fit us all.
I find a fungus for provision. I can’t find any prey.
I groom Obedient First Eyes to sleep. I can taste infection in Obedient First Eyes’s ear but her other wounds are all clean and the edges are together. If only I had clot-weed or infection dissipating tablets to chew. Now, each of the pups.
I hope we find tortoises soon. I hope they understand our view of Pack. I hope they can help.
They are all at last in deep-sleep.
Tonight, I will not sleep.