He was lost, alone in the woods. His mother had told them to run, and his brothers and sisters had scattered. He could still hear the growls of those dark creatures, could still see their glowing red eyes in every patch of darkness. He wasn't very old, but even he knew that something was wrong. The dark creatures shouldn't have attacked them. They never had before. He knew, to his very core, that as long as they didn't attack the dark ones, they should have been perfectly fine. The clash between his instincts and his experience was almost as terrifying as the fight he was trying to escape.
Suddenly, he sensed something moving ahead. He tried to stop, but he had been sprinting so fast that he slipped. He kept going until he smashed into something hard. Whatever he had hit felt warm, like it was the sun shining down on a beautiful day. Coming off his terrified run, it was the most soothing feeling he had ever experienced. Looking up, he saw a creature he had never seen before. As the creature bent down to grab him, he knew he should have started scrambling away. He knew nothing about this thing, and that should have scared him. But, somehow, it didn't. He felt himself being pulled up until he was staring the creature in the face.
"Hey there, little guy." He heard. "What are you doing running around in the dark?" The creature's speech was weird. He didn't talk like anything he had ever met. It was all noises, no body language to help decipher the meaning. Yet somehow he could understand everything it was saying. "Let's go see if we can find your family, okay?"
They spent most of the rest of the night looking around, but they couldn't find a trace of his family anywhere. He was upset, obviously, but he knew it should be bothering him more than it did. There was something about this creature who was helping him, who had called himself Tai, that he found incredibly comforting. He wasn't sure why, but he felt safe there, much safer than he had in the woods.
Finally, morning came. Tai stopped walking and looked straight down at him. "Well, buddy, I'm sorry we didn't have any luck. Unfortunately, I can't spend the rest of the day helping you search. I have my own family waiting at home. Although maybe..." Tai trailed off, clearly debating something. He waited silently for Tai to continue. "I mean, if you wanted, I have two little girls at home who are going through a tough time right now. They're not exactly your real family, but I'm sure they'd love to have you. What do you say, do you want to come live with us?"
The more he thought about it, the more he decided he wanted to go with Tai. He wasn't entirely sure why, but all he knew was that he felt safe with him and that he didn't want to be alone again. He gave a loud bark, and Tai looked down at him and smiled.
/
As they got closer to Tai's home, he began to feel a new feeling inside. It took him a while to identify it as nervousness. After all, he still didn't know much about Tai. Sure, his new friend was nice, but that didn't mean his children would be as well. At this point there wasn't much he could do about it, so he decided to just hope for the best and fell asleep.
He woke up to a pair of loud cries.
"Daddy, daddy, you're home!" They were shouting as they wrapped themselves around Tai's legs. They stood together like that for a moment, and he could feel the same love between them that he had felt with his own family. Suddenly the smaller one looked up. "Is that a dog? Can-we-keep-him-can-we-keep-him-can-we-keep-him? Please please please please please please pleeeeasssee?" She yelled out in a single breath as she jumped up towards him. He started to grow a little alarmed, but Tai quickly lifted him above her reach. Tai waited until the bigger child had her arms around the smaller one before lowering him again.
"Maybe, that depends on him." Tai said, placing him on the ground in front of them. "Why don't you introduce yourself and ask if he wants to stay?"
The girl practically jumped over to him. Tai grabbed her before she got close and placed her just far enough away that she would have to take several steps closer to reach him. "Go on, talk to him" Tai told her.
"Hi, I'm Ruby and this is Yang and this is my dad and you're just the cutest little thing and I love dogs and do you want to stay with us and play with me forever?" This time, the young girl managed to take a few pauses between words. She was, however, still bouncing in place.
Looking at the clearly ecstatic girl, he again felt comfort for no explicable reason. Looking at the three of them, he decided that this wouldn't be a bad place to call home. He barked assent and took a few steps forward, and both the young girls came and wrapped him up in a tight hug. He stood there with them and could feel the happiness coming from all of them. He whined happily. He may have lost his first family, but he could tell he had just gained another one.
/
He had been at his new home for a few days now. It was incredible there. He had a nice soft bed, delicious food to eat, and a pair of friends who never seemed to run out of energy to play. He loved spending time with them, and he could tell from the way their faces lit up that they felt the same. There was just one small problem. He didn't really care except they had stopped playing and were just sitting there, waiting for the girls to come up with something. It has fallen into a predictable pattern.
"What about Bones?"
"We're not naming the dog Bones, Ruby."
"What about Barks?"
"We're not naming him Barks, Ruby."
It went on and on like that. He heard Ruby suggest Spot, Buddy, Tails, Bites, and Cookie before sighing, closing his eyes, and falling asleep.
When he awoke, it was getting dark and the girls were still arguing. It was clear they had been talking about it for hours.
"For the last time Ruby, we are not naming him Barks!"
"But why? He's a dog, he barks, it's perfect!"
He was about to close his eyes again when he heard Tai approaching the house. "Hey girls, what are you doing?"
"Hi daddy! We're coming up for names for the dog. I came up with a bunch of really great ones, but Yang's being mean and shooting them down!"
"Am not! Can you please explain to her why we can't name a dog Barks?
Tai just laughed, leaning down and scooping Ruby up in his arms. He tussled her hair thoughtfully before saying "What about Zwei? I always thought that would be a great name for a dog."
He could hear Ruby sigh. "Well, it's no Barks, but I guess that's okay." She looked down at him. "What do you think? Do you like Zwei?"
Zwei was as good as anything else, and at least it would let them get back to playing. He jumped up and wagged his tail, giving a few happy barks. Ruby and Yang both started laughing with him.
He looked around for a second. Maybe it didn't really matter to him, but if this is how it made his family feel then having a name wasn't so bad.
/
He awoke with the certainty that something was very, very wrong. So instead of moving, he kept his eyes closed and listened carefully. It took him a second to realize what was different. He could hear a faint sniffling sound coming from upstairs. One of the girls was crying up there.
He immediately bolted up and raced up the stairs. The door to the girls' room was already partially open, so he burst through it, ready to attack whatever was causing his family to cry. However, when he looked around all he saw was Ruby and Yang sitting on one of the beds, looking at him with shocked expressions on their faces. Ruby had clearly been crying, and Yang was hugging her close. Zwei kept searching until he heard Yang's voice "It's okay Zwei, Ruby just had a nightmare. Do you know what that is?" Zwei shook his head. "It's like a dream of something bad happening. They're scary, but they can't really hurt us."
That didn't make any sense. Why be scared of something that wasn't real? It seemed ridiculous to him, but the tears on Ruby's face showed how upsetting it was to her. Fortunately, he didn't have to understand the problem to know how to solve it. He jumped up on the bed next to her face and started licking the tears off. Ruby let out a small laugh at his antics, and Yang managed to put a smile on her face.
"Good dog. I'm going to sleep here with Ruby, okay? You can go back downstairs if you want." Before she had even finished speaking, he had moved to the bottom of the bed and curled into a ball. This drew another laugh from Ruby, and Yang leaned over to scratch his ears a little. "Okay, we'll all stay here. Goodnight Ruby, goodnight Zwei."
Zwei closed his eyes as both the young girls drifted off to sleep. He, however, stayed up the whole night, watching over them. He still might not understand the whole "nightmare" thing, but there was something he knew for certain: nothing was going to hurt his family, not while he was around to protect them.