AUTHOR'S NOTES: First off, as always, I have to thank you for bothering to take a look at this. If I could trouble you a bit more to comment, that would be marvelous! This is the first in a series of two drabbles, this one being from Padfoot's point of view, meaning Sirius-as-a-dog. I got started thinking about how Animagus transformations would affect the human mind, which of course got me started comparing it to the dementia Remus faces during every full moon, and _then_... well, you know how muses can be. It's also supposed to take place either just before the Marauders graduate, or just after, when things are starting to go badly with Voldemort.
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Woods Forsaken
1/1by Meredith Bronwen Mallory
mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com
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Close your eyes now, Moony-- I'm going to let the bright-sky night in. Going to open the "door" so we can leave this dusty place and run, yes? There; now you can look, get used to the light slowly. So bright, like day-time to our two-legs forms, isn't it? Their eyes only see shadows, but we see everything, everything under the bright, silver night-time sun. The "moon", they say, part of your name, the same color as the hairs on the underneath side of your belly, so beautiful.
Oh? Moony, there's less night left than you think! The light-squares, from the "window"-- they've moved three times since you took to four-legs instead of two. So much red this time, Moony, but I licked it all off, I nuzzled you just like your pack mother would have, had you been born all one thing and none of the other.
Wait up! You're a lazy newborn and then you're a young alpha, is that it? So fast, so beautiful, my own. My "mate"-- a two-legged word for our "relationship", and that means you-and-me-forever. It's hard, isn't it, Moony-- to make two-legs words and four-legs words go together? So much easier just to smell, to press my nose into your fur. Two-legs make life so "complicated", like lots of barking, or so many smells that you can't find the one you're looking for. Hah! I can run faster, Moony-- come catch your Padfoot, if you can. In this place-- "the forbidden forest", such a stupid name-thing, it smells nice and is full of strange creatures like you and me-- the shadows are long and I can climb in and out, just like I do when I have two-legs and live in the forest made of stone. I'm good at hiding, I am, good at sneaking, though not as good as the rat. I'm too big, I'm Moony-sized, because we are pack brothers, like born of the same she-wolf-dog, even though that's really not true.
You don't like to think about that, do you? About being two-legs, I mean. Hey! You did catch me, but I forgot I was running. Let me up! No? I like your smell, too... like leaves and rain, the sound of wind in two-legs cities. My two-legs thinks you smell like "love" and "quiet cleverness" and sometimes "fear". Hard to make four-legs words for those things, isn't it? "Fear" is easiest-- it's your ears, flat against your head, that prickle of hairs all along your flanks. We can see farther than two-legs in the dark, and we can see a little bit farther in time, too, I think. Just enough to know, right before it rains.
We're the same for different reasons, my Moony. Do you remember two-legged-times? Food-stealing, pulling the braids of she-"students"? Our dens, the two of them side-by-side with red "curtains" and how we take turns sharing? When I have only two legs, I can put my forepaws around you, hold on tight. I can even give you one of those funny things, a "kiss. But then I can't smell so good, and then it's harder to see you, the Moony-you inside the Remus-you. Are you as close to Remus as I am to the two-legs me, named after a dog in the sky? Who ever heard of a dog in the sky, anyway? Must be lonely, no mate to run with and... Moony, your other-you says you're not the same, he's afraid. How can you be afraid of yourself?
Okay, okay! Don't nip so hard. I didn't mean to ruin the bright-sky time with two-legs talk. I just... I want you not to hurt, when you hurt it makes my ears go down and I feel like I have little bad blood-drinker bugs in my fur. Dog-star-me, Sirius, he wants Remus to smile, to close his eyes and have breathe-easy sleep. To not have to worry about you, Moony. Me, I want you to be free, to run always, even when there is no silver sun in the sky. So how can you both be happy, if...?
I love him too, you know-- the two-legs you, just like you love my other-me. It's hard, it's "complicated", but I do. Come here, let rub up against you, smell you. See, I'm sorry, I just have a bad before-the-rain feeling. No more two-legs words, okay? Look, I found a stick! My stick, got it between my teeth-- you want it? Oh no, you'll have to catch Padfoot first, catch me and I still won't give it to you then, I won't.
You cheat! That was my stick and you broke it. I'll soft-bite your tail for that, I will... it's so big and bushy and look and all the stuff you've got in here, Moony. Burs and leaves and-- is that a bad-bug? No, don't whine, it's not-- and I'm not trying to be your pack-mother, either. Or should I give you a bath, eh? Sniff, sniff, make sure the puppy is safe and sound and-- oh!
Yes, please, Moony-- I'll bare my neck for you, I don't mind... You're my Moony, my own, which makes me just as much yours, and there's no sign of morning-time yet. No sign of the bad before-rain feeling. Everything will be alright, if I can just believe it. I can even see the little silver-lights, the stars, but I'll close my eyes and put my nose in your fur, because what kind of pack-mother names her pup for a dog all alone in the sky?