Howl
So long ago, they'd lived alone, and then in herds with others of their kind, and then they bonded with the two legged one, became companions and friends but never - he would never use that degrading word -pets.
They were happy, so happy. Carefree and active, able to change shape and living with their two legged friends (not masters, he himself was evidence enough that the chimaera were in fact intelligent life forms; he was in no way inferior to them. Not by a long shot) - and then the bad two legged ones came down from the sky in fire, the pale ones with black eyes, and the giant unnatural ones.
His family, his comrades, almost the entirety of his species had died that day, along with the two legged ones. He himself should have been struck down, if it had not been for the two legged one who made the earth itself shake and saved him, handed his injured form to a man who rushed him into the ship, small and cramped, but a ship all the same.
He doesn't know why he was chosen, why he survived as his brothers and sisters fought to the death as he flew away - I must be a coward. He remembers thinking that as he stared at the fading planet from the window, still injured from his fighting.
There had been others around him. A dozen other chimaera and the two legged ones, one of the two legs was one of the powerless ones, the protectors, and the small one, the child, the pup, was a powerful one. He and his kind could sense these things.
On the other planet - not his home, it wasn't his home, it never would be - they were left alone when the ship crash landed in some sandy waste land. From that moment he took charge of his brethren, all barely out of pup-hood. They were all shaken and confused, did not understand what was happening, how important they were. To an extent, neither did he. But he could sense the two legged people of his home planet were out there somewhere.
There weren't many, but they were there all the same - and another chimaera. His body itched and he fought the instinct to run away and find his equal, but he did not. He had to put the others first.
They travel the world in wait for one of the two legged people to find them, barely finding enough food at times. That's when the boyfinds them.
As soon as the boy approached, his heart soared and he yipped in happiness (his family at this time were dogs) and his family followed his example in following the boy. A mistake he regretted deeply.
The boy led his family to a clearing. From which he saw the two legged people with the pale skin and the black eyes who had fallen from the sky and slaughtered the world he knew. He stopped then, wary and called out a warning to hi brothers, but none were paying attention, to in awe of the vibe the boy gave off.
He watches in horror and rage as his family is once again taken away, his children, carted into black vans and stunned into submission, nothing more than a group of terrified animals who don't know what's happening.
He's knows then that the boy called Five cannot be trusted.
Five. Do not trust Five. Five is bad. Five cannot be trusted. Five is working with the pale ones. Do not trust Five.
With this thought, he picks up the signal of his own two legged people which has been there since he arrived on the planet - since then many had faded. He had a hunch on what that meant, and it was not good.
He decides then he has to reach them before the two legged one known as Five did, or, if he could not do that, then rescue his family. So heads towards the two legged ones. Swims across the Ocean from the land which he occupied, Jamaica, he heard the planets two legged people call it. When he reaches shore, he turns into a bird, but much faster, and he lands eventually in a desert where the signals were strong.
The two legged people were gone, headed off somewhere else, but there was another signal. Faint, and different to the others, though he did not know why.
He sits in the dust, his emotion and anger causing him to transform his shape into something appropriate, a large kind of dog. He paws at the sand, when a noise catches his attention.
A pale and blacked eyed one. His body flares with rage and he growls, lurches - and then. And then the ground shook. His mind was sent reeling back to a day when he left his home, the one who had saved his life, and his anger dropped away.
He realises the signal is coming from the pale and black eyed one. He is different from his kind somehow, and somehow he was in tune to his homes heart. He shows the pale one he means no harm, and the two legged one in question gives him a name. Something which he thought he had lost the right to a long time ago, as a coward to his species.
Yet still, the name rings in his ears and he likes it. It makes him feel safe, warm, wanted.
Dust.
Like the colour of his fur. Like the desert he was born in on his home planet. Dust. He is Dust now, and he has a purpose. He looks up at the night sky, at the stars where his home lies far away, and he does something instinctual. Something symbolic to signify his journey. Change from his nomadic life to reunion with two legged ones he could trust. To mourn the lost and the those who yet still were to be lost. To his surviving kin who he will do anything to help.
He howls.