A/N: In Changes, Lea asks how Harry managed to win Mouse. Mouse replies, rather indignantly, that he won Harry, not the other way around. This is me just going a bit further with it. I'm calling Mouse Sonam since I figured he would have a proper Tibetan name prior to meeting Harry. It means "Fortunate One," which I thought was rather appropriate. Many thanks to Shadewolf7 for beta-ing!
If another dog ever asked the temple dog Sonam, also known as Mouse, how he acquired his exceptionally trained human, Sonam always answered with a faint wag of his tail. "I was simply lucky," he would bark.
In reality, the story was much more complicated than that. It was also of dubious moral quality, and not something that someone as sensible as Mouse would share unless he absolutely had to.
The acquisition of Harry Dresden had it's roots in a sunny spring day. Of course, it was heaven, and in heaven, it is always a sunny spring day. Sonam was lazing in the grass next to his best friend, Nima. The two were chewing a pair of ox bones when Sonam looked up and declared quite suddenly, "I wish I had a human."
Nima blinked. "What?"
"A human," Sonam replied impatiently. "Like the guardian angels have."
"But you get to look after temples, and they have lots of humans in them."
"Monks." Sonam sneezed. "They don't count."
Nima couldn't think of much to say to that. He returned to gnawing on his bone, while entertaining vague daydreams about squirrels.
"Master Yeshe!" Sonam suddenly howled.
Nima blinked. "What?"
"Master Yeshe could get me a human, I bet." The other dog exclaimed. "He's the oldest temple dog around. And in his past lives, he fought demons!" Sonam's eyes bulged at the idea. "I'll go see him now!"
Nima stared as Sonam ran off, and fretted that his friend was in fact quite mad.
"Master Yeshe, why can't I have a human?" Sonam asked. He made a conscious effort to widen his eyes so they were as large as possible.
Yeshe scratched his ruff for a moment before answering. "You're a temple dog, Sonam. You aren't a guardian angel. Your job is to guard temples."
Sonam whined and pawed at the ground. "But I want a human. I would take excellent care of him, Yeshe, I would train him very well. He would come, and sit, and it would be wonderful!"
"I should like to think you can do all that with the monks in your temple, Sonam," Yeshe answered with a tinge of severity. "You've done excellently in all of your past lives, I see no reason that you should feel the need to steal the job of one of the guardian angels now."
Sonam sighed. He would never tell Yeshe, but quite simply, monks were boring. They meditated and ate rice and barely ever fought demons, or threw sticks, or did anything interesting. "But Yeshe, some of the guardian angels are horrible at their jobs!"
Yeshe's whiskers twitched. "Really Sonam. Enlighten me."
"Well, Sachiel for one." Mouse rolled his eyes. "He was in charge of his human for three minutes before said human was run over by a bus. If I was in charge, I would never let that happen."
"Indeed." Yeshe said. "In any case I can't do anything about it. If you want a human you'll have to take it up with the guardian angels themselves."
Sonam's tail wagged furiously. "Does that mean if they say I can have one you'll let me?"
"Well, yes," Yeshe replied. "But I don't see how…" He stopped. Sonam was already bounding away.
He sneezed and began to roll in the grass. Pups these days.
The guardian angels weren't hard to find at all, Sonam gleefully thought. You just had to head towards the harp music. He found a herd of them, including the dunderhead Sachiel, strumming melodies by the side of a babbling brook.
"Hello Blessed Sachiel," he yipped in greeting.
The angel smiled vapidly. "Greetings, most esteemed temple guardian Sonam. How may I make your day more blessed?"
Angels, thought Sonam, always sounded like some kind of strange department store clerk. "Well… Do you remember in the theology seminar yesterday, when Blessed Bezaliel said that we must recognize and dispel temptation before it can harm our charges?"
Sachiel nodded and strummed his harp vigorously. "Indeed I do! So glorious is our calling, Blessed Sonam!" The angel's eyes glazed over momentarily in heavenly rapture.
Sonam batted his ear. "Well, how are we to know temptation when we see it? We don't know anything about it!"
The group of angels all looked puzzled. "Blessed Sonam, I figured you just… know?" murmured one named Nelchael.
Sonam could feel he was within paw's reach of his very own human. "But what if we don't? This is important, the souls of our charges are at stake."
"What do you propose we do, Blessed Sonam?" asked Sachiel while biting his lip.
"Well," he began, making sure everyone was listening. "If we experience temptation just a little bit, here, where it's safe, then we can recognize and understand it when we get out into the real world!"
"Hmm," replied Nelchael thoughtfully.
"Nima! Nima!" yipped Sonam as he scampered up to his friend with a large bag, "I just got the guardian angels to agree to play poker with me!"
Nima looked up from his bone and nervously licked his muzzle. "You're going to play poker with the Guardian angels."
Sonam nodded. "And more importantly, I'm going to win."
"How are you going to do that? You can't even hold cards, Sonam. You don't have opposable thumbs."
"First off, I certainly have a better poker face than any of them. Second off," He stretched, "I intend to cheat liberally. And when it's all over I will finally have a human!"
"You can't honestly think that the guardian angels will just bet their charges away?" Nima yipped, with a tinge of hysterical desperation in his voice.
"Of course not," replied Sonam. He put his snout back into the bag and pulled out a jug. "That's what the alcohol is for."
Yeshe frowned at the paper under his paw. Then he looked up and frowned at Sonam, whose tongue was lolling in a most jovial manner.
"Let me get this straight. Sachiel just gave you his human."
Sonam nodded enthusiastically. "That's what it says, right? I guess he just felt like I would do a better job." Sonam beamed at his mentor. "And I will! I also told him all about working in a temple and he sounded most fascinated."
"Ah." Yeshe raised his eyebrows. "Why is the handwriting so crooked?"
Sonam blinked. "Well, Sachiel was very tired when he wrote it. We were talking for a very long time."
"I see. Well, if Sachiel is all right with it…" Yeshe sniffed the note dubiously.
Sonam began chasing his tail. "Oh thank you Yeshe! I promise I won't disappoint you!"
"Fine, Sonam." Yeshe turned to go, musing on the oddities of Angels. He paused for a minute, and looked back at his ecstatic charge. "Oh, Sonam, is there any reason you were cozying up to Dionysus yesterday?"
The puppy grinned. "No reason. No reason at all."
Some years later, Harry Dresden sat, giving Mouse a good neck scratch.
"Good Boy." His fingers itched a particularly sensitive spot and Mouse let out a euphoric sigh. "How did I ever manage to get such a good dog?"
Silly Human, Mouse thought dreamily. I got you.