The dog was there when he woke up, curled in its usual spot at the foot of the bed. For a few seconds, everything felt normal.
Soren blinked residual sleep from his eyes, sat up, and faced reality: cold sheets, the empty air at his side. Nothing was normal after all. He grumbled short words along with a swift gesture of his hand.
"Go away."
The dog padded out of the room. Soren stood, stretched for a moment, and shut the door behind it, as he had intended the night before. He frowned to himself, contemplating the dog's nonsensical blind obedience. In the past he had never trained the dog, fed the dog, walked, disciplined, or played with the dog, or had much of anything to do with it at all, other than coexisting with it and occasionally complaining about its presence in general and its bad habits in particular.
Yet it always did as he said.
(She's just a dog, Soren. An affectionate laugh, an aged hand in his hair. That's what they do.)
For as long as they had lived in the same house it had always been there when he awoke, in the space between his feet and the end of the bed. The most important detail of both of their lives may have changed the day before, but the dog had slept at the foot of the bed as it always had, and Soren went about preparing himself for his day as he always would. A short trip to the washroom, carefully unfolded clothes, a simple breakfast. (Not thinking. Not feeling. Not looking at the empty chair across the kitchen table.)
As an afterthought, he placed some of last night's leftovers in a dish on the floor, next to a half-empty bowl of water.
(He wondered, briefly, if it knew. If it realized.)
Soren prepared for his day as he always would, but to do something he thankfully would only have to do once.
xxxxx
"S'a nice lil box there. Sturdy. Good finish," the shopkeeper commented, holding it up to inspect the bottom corners. "If y'don't mind me askin'... why're y'lookin to sell it?"
Soren did mind. Ages ago he would have snapped that it was none of the man's concern. Now he only pressed his mouth in a tight line and thought of a simple excuse. Time hadn't given him perfect manners, but it had calmed him somewhat. "I have no place for it," he lied, chilly and businesslike but not quite rude. "I prefer to live simply. The less the better."
"Hmm. You're awful young to think in such a way." The shopkeeper was a middle-aged man, going a bit gray, wearing moderately heavy glasses. A little more than half my age, most likely, Soren thought to himself idly. The man opened the lid one more time and wrinkled his nose. "S'a bit musty though, innit. What were you keeping in 'ere? Dust?"
Something inside of Soren twisted uncomfortably. He told the man he couldn't recall but that was untrue as well. It was vivid in his mind and he knew it would remain so as long as he lived.
(A field dotted with occasional late-blooming flowers and a clear sky, the crunch of dead leaves and the first touches of the colors of autumn. Handfuls of tiny gray particles he tried not to think about scattered by the wind. That very same smell, and a greatly magnified instance of that same twisting, unpleasant, unnerving feeling.)
He'd thought about leaving the box itself there too (under that blue sky, among the flowers and grass), but even then he couldn't help but think it would have been wasteful. He refused to take it home, but he thought he could bear to take it back into town.
(Ever the pragmatist.
He scoffed. You only know what that means because I taught you.
True. Arms suddenly enfolding his waist, warm breath grazing his cheek. But I like to think I've taught you a few things as well.)
The offer of a mere handful of gold pieces was less than Soren had hoped, but he suddenly found himself uninterested in haggling. It seemed a fair price for being rid of the thing as soon as possible, and so he went on his way with slightly heavier pockets.
It was early in the evening when he finally returned home. The dog met him at the door, as always, wagging its tail and panting happily. Soren walked in alone, shut the door behind him, and the wagging stopped. The dog lay down right where it had stood. Soren disappeared down the hallway, neither of them bothering to acknowledge the other's presence.
xxxxx
The following day was easier. The previous day's cloudless sky and mild breezes had given way to a cold, damp grayness, but upon awaking Soren felt a heady sort of clarity. The dog wasn't at the foot of the bed, for one, as he'd remembered to close the bedroom door this time. (He found it later lying – waiting - in the front entryway, large brown eyes fixed ahead.) After he went about his morning routine, Soren pressed his lips in a tight line and set about packing away personal effects, more thankful than ever that they had always traveled lightly and held a shared respect for practicality.
The objects were reasonable in number and mostly easy to bear in sight and memory. Clothes, of course. A jar of silver polish, a small whetting stone. A few small presents - a dried flower, a spinning toy - given by the children from the house down the street back when they'd first settled in town. A long, thin scrap of green fabric, worn to the point of being threadbare. Despite their familiarity Soren handled each one carefully, fondly, almost reverentially.
He even allowed himself to remember. The neighbor kids crying because their cat had climbed a tree. A bustling market, three months' journey away, and a time when that scrap of green fabric held back blue locks rather than being held in a drawer. Promises he had made: a weapon he could barely lift, a girl from his past who was certainly no longer a girl. (Soren tried to picture her as an old woman. Light auburn hair lost to age, ocean eyes set in wrinkled skin.) The countless years (decades, centuries) that he'd sworn to let pass him by unperturbed.
He heard the dog in the next room over, four clumsy paws and nails that needed trimming rapping upon the wooden floor.
(You'll take care of her, right?
I have been for the past week, haven't I? Not that it appreciates-
Soren.
I know. Voice softened, fingertips brushing. Don't worry about that now.)
Soren shook his head and scowled to himself. The animal ate entirely too much for his liking – he would have to go to town before long for food and rawhide, since he knew from experience it would choose instead to chew upon table legs and shoelaces, if left to its own devices. And in addition to needing its nails trimmed it also needed brushing, lest its coat begin to mat. It needed too much. Walking. Feeding. Supervision. Care.
(And now that all fell to him.)
As if sensing his displeasure, the dog chose then to enter the room, giving a high-pitched bark, and then sitting, watching, looking for all the world like it had something to guard, something to protect. Soren's frown deepened but he continued on. He starting gathering a small tabletop's worth of various medicines and curatives that were no longer of immediate use. Suddenly it barked again, and again. It left the room to scratch at the back door only to shortly return, ran to and from the entryway where its lead hung on a nail, trying to convey its message the only way it knew how.
Soren ignored it. His mind was busied with categories: this one for the cabinet, this one for the kitchen. This one to sell. This one to empty. He wished the medicine bottles to be objects waiting for organization, rather than mementos imbued with meaning.
(It was easier that way. Hadn't it always been? He remembered a short lifetime ago, sending numbers and statistics into uncertain peril.)
The dog dared to come closer, tilting its head, whimpering, barking once more in vain. "Not now," Soren snapped, looking up to glare at it over an armful of small bottles, homemade remedies he knew by scent and color. Cassia. Wolfberry. Pagoda. Lovage. Astragalus. Camphor.
(This smells awful, Soren.
It'll help though.
A deep sigh, predictably followed by a short fit of coughing. If you say so.)
Bergamot (for fever). Goldenseal (for pain).
(But there was no use in dwelling, was there? He had been expecting this for a while now, after all.)
The dog paced, whimpered, scratched, and Soren organized bottles.
xxxxx
It pranced and scampered excitedly as he walked to the front door at long last. Soren thought about raising his voice and instead bit the inside of his lip. He didn't even bother reaching for its lead, choosing to simply open the door and let it run.
He watched with disinterest as the dog did what it had been waiting to do, sharp wind cutting through fabric and whipping hair against skin, yet barely leaving an impression. His mind was back in that room, surrounded by objects that encompassed a lifetime.
The dog started trotting back toward the house, through all the dying overgrown grass and fragile, papery leaves. Soren thought of waking up to find it in bed, the same as every day for the past five years (even though it wasn't the same at all). He thought of it watching him earlier, and the unnerving feeling it had left him with as he went about gathering the medicine bottles, and suddenly he was struck by an idea.
"Stay," he ordered as it approached. The dog listened all too easily, sitting down as though waiting for its next command. Soren walked into the house and shut the heavy front door behind him. He heard a few barks at his back, and then silence. He hoped it would stay that way.
xxxxx
The final drawer was filled mostly with things that had been shut away for so long they bore little significance. A handful of pebbles and seashells in a paper box that Soren didn't recognize. A book that had been a gift, with a spine that had never been cracked (so very typical that Soren couldn't help but roll his eyes). A few articles of clothing, so underused that they were unfamiliar.
Though upon picking up the last shirt, something light fell to the floor, fluttering to rest near his feet. Soren bent to pick it up, and it was like flipping a switch that had rusted over ages ago.
It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened sooner. Later.
Nearer. Farther.
It happened not to you.
He recognized it without a second thought.
You survived because you were the first.
You survived because you were the last.
(A library, two continents and five decades away. One quietly enthralled, one waiting impassively, somewhere between amused by and tolerant of the other's fascination. Words on a page that made something inside of him stir, scrambling to find a quill and a bit of paper.
A slender hand on a broad shoulder.
Soren? What's this?
Awkward shrug, eyes averted. Just read it.)
The paper had yellowed and the ink had faded, but his writing was as crisp as it had been on that day fifty-two years before.
Thanks to, because, and yet, in spite of.
What would have happened had not a hand, a foot,
by a step, a hairsbreadth
by sheer coincidence.
He took in those same words, and just as the first time he read them, the same feeling welled in his chest.
So you're here? Straight from a moment ajar?
The net had one eyehole, and you got through it?
There's no end to my wonder, my silence.
Listen
how fast your heart beats in me.
(Fifty-two years, he kept it...)
Soren left the box (hands trembling, mind shaken) partly filled on the bedroom floor, and told himself it was getting late. He fell into bed gratefully, suddenly exhausted. The sun clung to the horizon.
xxxxx
(Cold, so much cold, and a familiar gnawing ache throughout his body that he knew all too well. The forest threatened to swallow him whole, with its thick darkness and tangled brambles and countless dead ends with no way back out. But they were chasing him again, with their rocks and sticks, with their angry curses and hard-set eyes, so he had to run, fast, fast, faster-)
Soren sat halfway up with a start. Heart racing, limbs freezing, eyes opened too wide and lashes sticky with sleep, he reached to his side. The sheets were cold to his touch. The bed was empty.
(Of course the bed was empty.)
He stretched his legs, expecting to feel warm fur, and felt nothing but cool fabric there as well. His memory came back to him; the dog sitting, the very picture of obedience, while he entered the house alone. He wondered if it was still where he'd left it, waiting for something (someone) that wouldn't be coming.
Blankets retrieved from where they had fallen, he wrapped himself up (as tightly as a warm embrace) and waited restlessly for dawn to arrive.
xxxxx
As soon as Soren opened the door the following morning, the dog was waiting. It rushed past, nearly knocking him off balance, into the relative warmth of the house.
He chose to let it go for the moment, settling for a frustrated sigh and tightening his grip on the crate in his hands; full of some of the spare medicinals and the few items of clothing he could bear to part with, all bound for the secondhand store.
The entire day quickly turned into one in which probability seemed unbalanced. The day's weather was even more miserable than the last, with a biting wind that smelled of rain to come. Soren hurried into town, crate in his arms, only to be told that the shop wasn't interested in mysterious liquids housed in unlabeled containers. He narrowed his eyes and glared at the sign in the window on his way out, as if it were somehow to blame.
Despite his increased pace, the overcast skies decided to up when he was a little over halfway home. The rain quickly turned heavy, and by the time Soren had rushed back to the house his hair and robes were soaked through. The crate felt twice its weight from his exertion. Struggling for breath and anxious to just put the damn thing down, get changed, and spend a little time by the fireplace with a hot cup of tea, he turned the doorknob, took a few steps into the darkened entryway, and promptly caught his boot on something unexpectedly large.
The dog yelped, Soren fell flat on his face and the crate fell to the floor on its side, little glass bottles escaping one way or another – some rolling away, some shattering on impact.
Soren stood and stared at the debris dumbly for a few moments, letting it all seep into his dulled awareness. He was soaked to the bone. There were shards of glass everywhere. The dog, gratingly ever present, was eyeing the mess with sudden curiosity.
But most of all, the odor of spilled camphor overwhelmed his senses.
(This smells awful, Soren.)
Something else seemed to come crashing down as well. His knees gave out from under him for the second time in hardly more than a minute, meeting the floor too suddenly, too sharply.
(It didn't help, it didn't, it didn't make a difference at all-)
Some wall that had been slowly eroding for days instantly disintegrated. The sting in Soren's eyes and the ache in his throat turned into ugly, harsh, body-wracking sobs, and trying not to think about how long he had kept them at bay. They turned into flushed skin and broken capillaries, into mucus and saliva and saltwater, streaming down his face and blending seamlessly with the rainwater that soaked his sleeves.
(Cassia and wolfberry and bergamot and camphor and none of it helped none of it anditsnotfair)
The dog padded over to lick furiously at one of the spilled liquids, a weak elixir flavored with honey. Had Soren treated it differently in the past it might have approached slowly, licked his face, lay at his feet or curled up by his side in an attempt to repair something it didn't understand. But even the dog had learned better of its second owner, and thus Soren's condition merely translated into a rare opportunity for something sweet. That is, until Soren noticed.
(itsnotfairitsnotfair it's not fair)
The pain in his chest and the unbearable sounds of his own sobbing in his ears magnified the severity of the situation a thousand times over. Soren screamed at the animal, cursing in base, inelegant language he hardly ever used, and threw any of the larger glass chunks within his reach. He had never been particularly skilled in either practice and at first the dog simply cocked its head, confused. But in its ineffectiveness his screaming only became more frantic, and three sharp pieces connected with their target in rapid succession.
It ran, whimpering, from the room.
Soren only wept harder. He hated the illogicality of it, hated every resonant gasp that escaped his body, hated his inability to stop. He had no idea how much time passed while he hunched over on the dirty floor in soaked clothing, doing something he had been avoiding for too long.
xxxxx
It was past midnight when Soren returned to the entryway, with a candle in one hand, broom and dustpan in the other. The dog was still there, lying on the cold wooden floor amongst the evaporating tinctures and shattered glass. As he approached shards broke with sickening crunches under the heels of his boots and the animal whined.
With the benefit of a calmer mind the mess didn't seem quite so distressing. Once the crate was righted and the few bottles that had remained intact were picked up, Soren went about sweeping, long shadows dancing on bare walls as he moved about. He cleaned around the dog (still lying in the same spot, eyes still trained to the back of the door), gathering what glass he could see by the firelight, deciding to find the rest once the sun rose.
Soren left once more, but this time he came back in a matter of minutes with a bowl of warm water, bandaging materials tucked under his arm. The dog started to shrink away as he dropped to his knees and drew closer, but a few sharp words made it stay in its place. He cleaned the cuts, soaking a rag in the water, turning it rose with dried blood. The dog whimpered again under his touch, though as he raised his voice once more it immediately stilled.
(You'll take care of her, right?)
The caked blood and matted fur were misleading. Soren quickly realized that the cuts weren't deep enough to warrant the bandages after all. He applied a medicinal ointment, said a few soft words in another language, ensuring healing within a matter of days, and stood to leave without ever touching the dog more than was necessary, or speaking any more than it took to keep it quiet.
xxxxx
By the time he began preparing for bed Soren felt numb, as though he was so drained by the day's events that he was beyond feeling at all. He went through the motions – teeth brushed, clothes changed, hair neatly bound – like it wasn't his own feet moving across the floor or his own hands folding back the sheets, like he was directing the actions of a stranger.
Sleep didn't come easily. He thought about everything that had happened (everything he'd done) with the cold detachment of an analyst, a bystander (a tactician). The rain, the store, the crying, the broken glass.
The dog.
A vague sense of regret lingered over his half-formed, exhaustion-laced thoughts. He had seen the storm clouds, looming heavy and foreboding, from the bedroom window as soon as he had awakened that morning, had smelled rain on the air as soon as he had opened the front door, but he chose to go out anyway. He should have wrapped the bottles in paper first. He shouldn't have even bothered to take them to the secondhand shop in the first place. He should have ducked under the edge of a roof along the way home. He should have been more careful, he should have looked when he walked in the entryway. Should have, shouldn't have, should have-
He shouldn't have lost control.
He shouldn't have-
(You'll take care of her, right?)
He had tried. The washing, the unneeded bandages, the healing incantation. He had done what he could.
(Don't worry about that now.)
He had done what he could. He had...
(Sleep was setting in, but the numbness was wearing away, and what would he have thought? Soren couldn't keep the question from his wearied mind. Shock? he wondered. Anger? He turned the thought over and over and finally settled upon disappointment.)
xxxxx
(Soren, she needs a home.
That may be so, but I fail to see why it has to be our home.
His reasoning seemed to fall on deaf ears. And isn't she adorable?
'Adorable?' Soren was fairly certain he'd never heard that word come out of the other man's mouth in any other circumstance. He regarded the little bundle of fur at his feet with some mixture of disdain and distaste. Flatly, It's licking itself.
Amusement, laughter, blue eyes as bright as they'd been sixty years past crinkling around the edges. Soren watched as the animal was scooped off of the floor and into arms stronger than they still had a right to be, watched tiny brown eyes half-lidded as fingernails scratched behind floppy little ears. It looked perfectly content.
Give her a chance, Soren. I think you two have a lot in common.
What is that supposed to mean?)
xxxxx
(Cold again, and the same twisting hunger as always. Shouldn't he be used to it by now? It was the beasts this time. He moved among them like a ghost, grabbing at hands, shirt hems, screaming voicelessly for food water attention acknowledgment anything. They all walked by.)
Soren woke with a gasp, and turned to his side without thought once again only to be reminded, the name in his head dying on his lips. He didn't care to recall how many times, by that point, it had happened.
After blinking the sleep from his eyes, letting them adjust to the dark, listening to the rain fall against the windows for a few moments, he felt something warm at his feet. The dog. It picked its head up to momentarily look at Soren as if noticing him for the first time before resting again. It was no different from its spot in the entryway; clinging desperately to an empty space.
Soren scowled, irrationally irritated.
"Stupid animal. You know he's not coming back-"
He stopped, remembering his dream, remembering that familiar, sinking feeling as he turned to find an empty bed, again and again and again.
(You know he's not coming back.)
As much as Soren wanted to dog to leave, he told himself he was too tired to move.
xxxxx
The weather was slightly improved – the sky was still overcast but the wind had died down and the ground had mostly dried. After his morning meal Soren went to the entryway with cleaning supplies in hand once more, intent on cleaning up what remained of yesterday's spills.
He saw the dog there as he walked in, waiting, just as it had been for the past three days.
(He saw a child, thin as a rail and clothes in tatters, waiting, daring to hope that a boy with blue eyes and a warm smile would remember he existed. He saw another child – a man of seventy-five years in mind yet still a child in body – waking, reaching out, only to be left aching once more.)
"Come on," said Soren, resting the broom against the wall and reaching for the lead where it hung on its nail. His voice was brusque but without scorn or malice. "Let's go for a walk."