"Well aren't you two just a lovely looking couple?"

Rick sighed, but did not move from his place. Cliff on the other hand, would not allow the snarky comment to go unanswered.

"Go suck on a ball, or somethin' Randall."

The dog in question merely snickered again, "I might just take you up on that offer."

Cliff shook his head, before placing it back down, "That's gross. You're gross."

"Listen as much as I hate to interrupt this honeymoon the two of you have going on, we need to get to rehearsing soon. There's a show tonight, remember?"

It was then Rick's turn to raise his head with an answer, "Randall, when you've performed up on that stage as many times as we have, you tend to become what they call non-amateur, you should try it sometime."

"Haha," Randall rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "But seriously, Peg really wants to get to rehearsing soon."

"Tell her we'll be down in five minutes."

"Make that ten."

He shook his head, "You know darn well that the smartest dog alive could never tell the time, let alone the two of you."

"You calling me stupid?" Cliff again raised his head.

"I'm not calling you smart."

"That does it!" Cliff lifted himself up entirely. "C'm'here!"

Randall dodged his initial pounce and then began to run the other way, Cliff quickly taking chase.

"Awh heck," Rick rose and cracked a bone in his back, "don't leave me out of the fun."

He promptly joined his brother in trying to catch the smaller dog, which given their longer legs and thus superior speed, should have been an easy task. It was only made difficult by how 'slippery' they considered Randall to be. Where they went right, he went left. And when it seemed as though they had him cornered, he always quickly took flight between their legs or side-stepped to give himself an opening. Neither of them minded though, for it always paid to blow off a little steam, especially with them having found a place to call home, temporarily anyways.

They chased him over green grass that would surely be ruined by their antics, through a bush which the three of them jumped through multiple times, round a tree enough times to make a toddler dizzy and skimming the white picket fence which served as the perimeter of the property.

"Gotcha! You mangy mutt!"

Randall yelped when he was finally pinned by Rick, due to a miscalculation on his part.

"Alright," he conceded his defeat. "Good game, you can let me up now."

"Oh no, you're not getting outta this that easily, Cliff give me a hand will ya?"

"W-what are you two planning on doing?"

"Oh you'll find out," Cliff was practically glowing as he walked over.

"What in tarnation are you three boys doing out here?"

They all turned, Randall still trapped beneath Rick's paws, to see Peg with an airy dominance on her face. To them, she often appeared more emboldened. The changes were small, hardly noticeable by most, but having spent enough time around the once timid dog, it was easy to tell that something had caused her to change. And they found that change good in the best way possible. It meant that they no longer had to ask her to speak louder when she wanted to say something. It meant that she could accompany herself most places, without having to ask for someone to come along with her. It meant that she could finally partake in their banter without feeling nervous or shy about it. Of course, it also meant that she intended on taking her performances a lot more serious, which left her expectant of them doing the same. That might have been why she was looking at them now, that very same dominance that they had all but gotten used to, plastered on her face.

"What in tarnation," Peg repeated herself again when they didn't immediately answer, "are you boys doing out here?"

"Oh, uhm Peg," Randall spoke from where he was still stuck. "I was just fetching these two and then well, you know-"

"Having all this fun without me?"

And then she leapt at Rick, knocking him off-balance and freeing Randall from his hold.

"C'mon!" she exclaimed to the free, but now bewildered dog. "If you don't get a move on, you're gonna be trapped under their paws again."

So the game began anew. Now with there being two chasers and two runners.

There was a period of time, most notably when they first met, where Peg would hold her gaze to the ground and allow Randall or her father to do most of the talking. To say all the words that were held on her tongue. A time where she was seemingly most content to just sit and watch their tomfoolery, no matter how much they asked her to join in. Those times seemed long past, if the way that she ran and barked at the top of her lungs was any indication. And even more so in the way that she often disappeared with anyone dog that she found attractive for extended periods of time.

The game eventually ended, all four of them having decided that the runners had caused enough of a hassle for the chasers to be declared the victors. Now, they lounged together in the tiring warmth of the sun, panting and laughing.

"Get your hind leg out of my face you adopted jolly rancher," Cliff snarled at his brother. "It's as ugly as your muzzle."

"Jealous much? I can't help the fact that I've had more women in a month than you've had in a hundred years."

"You enjoy the marks they give you when you inevitably say the wrong thing?"

"I'd rather have marks all over me, pretty or not, than be a loner like you."

"Well I'd rather be a loner than look like a painted cross."

"Did a woman really give you those scars Rick?" Randall piped up.

"Yeah and so what if one did? They got a fierce bite to them y'know?"

"Alright, alright!" Peg broke the air of relaxation. "Can we please get to rehearsals now?"

"Can't we just rehearse here?" Rick whined from where he lay.

"No, 'fraid not."

"Okay fine, you all go ahead, I'm gonna go get another taste at that blind squid."

Peg's face scrunched up, "You still enjoy that stuff?"

"Helps a dog relax," he said with an easy shrug and then blinked past the sun shining in his face. "Helps a dog relax."

Jeptha Otto took in a peaceful breath of air and looked out at the streets of his town.

They disgusted him.

In his rise to power, the place had only gotten worse from the state that his father had left it in. That was not to suggest that his father had left it in an amicable state, rather it had been in a state of fear and mistrust during the reign of his predecessor. Jorcina Otto's death had for a brief while been cause for celebration and Jeptha had made sure to allow it. Perhaps a lesser authoritarian leader could have restored some of the magic he remembered from his childhood. Alas, it become clear in only a few short weeks that dogs could not self-govern without leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.

So he tightened down, refusing anything that he recognized as being depraved or that went against the values he had decided on.

Some had met his calls for policy with resistance, others had accepted them in a way which pleased him. That meant that some had been rewarded, while others had been brutally punished. Punishment which some called cruel, but which he called necessary. It wasn't as though he asked for much either. If basic rules could easily be decided on, then surely they could just as easily be followed.

However, no matter how hard he worked, the results never seemed to pay off in the ways he hoped for. New resistors always appeared in the circuit and they got in the way of full efficiency even when he moved the switches, or put things in parallel with one another. It was a system that left him frustrated, but not one that he would give up on. He couldn't when his son would one day come of age and bear the responsibility on his shoulders.

Otto Junior was already accustomed to much of the business in which his family dealt in, but there was still much for him to learn and much of that knowledge had to be digested in the most practical way possible. He didn't believe his son mature enough to see what became of disobedience and resistance to the rules and so that element had as of then been held back, but it's introduction would come soon.

Sometimes he hoped that he was doing Penny justice. Penny, the only one that he had ever loved. The only one he had ever sworn an oath to.

"Boss?"

"Mhm."

"You asked for a report on that singing dog?"

"Mhm."

His thug took a second to stand straighter and clear his throat, "It's true- everything that cat was blabbering about. She gets on stage and the crowd starts cheering, then before you know it, she's barking and howling up a storm and moving her hips from side to side, or 'gyrating' as you may prefer to know it and when she starts doing all that, most of the town dogs who enjoy that sort of thing start howling and barking up a storm of their own."

"And who are the dogs who enjoy that sort of thing?"

"Well there were quite a few and so we naturally can't name all of them, but uhm, few spies of ours were talking about some nobody called Peter, another nobody called Frank and James Clark."

"James Clark...my James Clark?"

"If it's to be believed Boss."

"My own confidantes partaking in the very same things which they sought to destroy. It's a sad day today. Do you mourn with me Michael?"

"Of course Boss."

"Good. Kill this Peter and Frank out in the road somewhere, make sure there are plenty of witnesses. Bring Clark to me."

"Yes Boss. What of the girl?"

"Find out whoever manages her and bring them to me."

"Yes Boss."

In all his days, Charlie had rarely been the type to blindly trust.

The first time he had ever done so was as a young pup. Like most at that innocent age, he was easy to convince and easy to toy with. He'd follow easily so long as there was some incentive or promise of a good outcome. In those days he had a friend that went by the name Mandy. She was brave and brash, making it difficult to not be attracted when he was just as audacious. A magnet, that's what she was to him. That was the nickname he had given her too, Magnet.

Now on one of his adventures with Magnet, they had gotten themselves into a small bit of trouble. It wasn't anything serious, or at least nothing that they couldn't save themselves from. Mostly, it was just a minor inconvenience. If one considered getting trapped in a mine shaft to be a minor inconvenience. Wanting to prove himself, he'd readily held a large-ish rock up from the entrance, allowing Magnet the chance to escape. He still remembered the way she had promised to get help to save him.

A minute had passed.

Then an hour.

Then two.

By the third he was beginning to grow concerned.

By the fourth he had given up hope.

Were it not for the fact that there was still gold in that mine, he never would have been rescued. Of course, the dynamite which had been used to blow apart the rocks had nearly killed him, but he had been grateful all the same. Even if he never showed it to any of the dust covered humans that had discovered him.

In a different time, he had been taken in by a human. An old one. Arthur was his name. Arthur was a conservative man who led a conservative life. There were never any adventures, never any trouble. It was a change of pace, a new lifestyle that he fit surprisingly well into.

Arthur had had a wife. He never knew much about her, but the old memorabilia like clothes, jewelry and even an artist's rendition spread around his house, was hint enough of the special place that she must have held in his heart. Occasionally, on quite nights, he would hear Arthur mutter her name over and over again.

"Sadie...Sadie, Sadie."

His heart had broke for the man, seeing how lonely he seemed. And so while he knew that humans were social creatures mostly among their own kind, he still chose to make an effort to distract him in what were surely his final days.

They had done all sorts of things together, be it playing fetch with whatever old, mutilated sticks they came across on a daily walk, or keeping each other preoccupied with mock wrestling matches, that somehow never broke Arthur's frail body. He was Arthur's dog and Arthur was his master and he felt sure that he would live to see the end of his master's days.

Then when day, they had traveled a little farther than what he was use to. Far enough that he could no longer turn around and see the wide, sprawling hills that hid their home. He wasn't sure why they were headed out so far, but saw no reason to be concerned, that's how loyal he was, willing to follow his master to the ends of the Earth with no questions asked.

There had been a crowd within a clearing and if the stick in Arthur's hand had been any indication, he'd wanted to play fetch. Something that Charlie was more than happy to do. They had played and played in that usual rhythmic set of motions, stick soaring across the air as he chased after it, dutifully returning it just seconds later.

One.

Two.

Three.

One.

Two.

Three.

He never liked to count past three. Four was where the road thinned out. Five was where you could see the dead end and six was the grand explosion.

One.

Two.

Thre-

He stood, strangely expectant. There was no shadow blocking out the relatively harsh rays of sunlight. There were no old, almost torn up, brown boots where he was already used to them being. There was not even the familiar scent which had been so strong just a few paces back in time.

And so just as he'd done for Magnet, he stood and waited.

A minute passed.

Then an hour.

Then two.

By the third he knew it best to simply move on.

Mourning was not something he did well. A waste of time, he called it. Yet there had been no way to silence that quiet ache in himself.

The third time he could recall being let down by trusting blindly was when Maribel...well he never liked to recall anything about Maribel. Words, images, gestures- anything that he could do to separate her from his mind, he did. He refused Peg the chance to ever so much as even talk about how much she missed her mother. Some days he felt cruel about that, other days he felt fairly just, but the rule remained in place either way. If thinking about her caused the mourning that it did, he found it difficult to imagine what talking about her would do.

Still, no matter how hard he tried, something always came back to him. Especially when he looked at-

"Hey Pops, can we talk?"

"She looks so much like her mother," he suddenly thought longingly. "If only she had gotten her fur and not mine. They'd be a reflection of one another."

"Depends, what do you want to talk about?"

"You know, the weather, how good you look today. Just the usual stuff."

"This is about The Major again isn't it?"

"What? No..." she trailed off with a nervous chuckle, but stopped when he fixed her with a look. "Or...it might be."

"We can talk all you want about him, I still don't trust him."

"You say that, but you never give a reason that isn't a grunt."

He grunted at that and she wasn't sure whether it was out of playfulness, or done to drive his point home.

"If you aren't willing to trust him, then can't you at least trust the fact that I do?" she tried to reason.

He looked at her closely, "You are young. Still at the age where you walk by faith and not by sight. The day will come where you see what I see in him, the deceptive nature that he holds behind his eyes."

"Well I said yes to his offer," Peg felt the rebelliousness building in her soul, "and there's nothing that you can do to change that."

"As I said, you are still young. The choices you make today are to be expected. But you are also allowed to make mistakes. I won't rob you the opportunity to learn from them."

She frowned, something he couldn't place presenting itself on her face, "You're saying that my choice here is a mistake?"

"I can't see the future. It may be, it might not be. All I can do is offer you guidance where you need it."

"Except that's what The Major is doing for me now. And what he's had to tell me has been much more useful than anything you've told me."

"I had an old friend once," Charlie began, ignoring her derogatory statement, "she was everything that I thought a woman should be. Beautiful, daring and bold. But it was when she let those things get ahead of her that we clashed the most. Despite that, I could never lose the love I felt for her. We spent most of our time speaking of what we were uncertain of, speaking of the future. She always said that love inevitably lead to grief and in a way, she was right. She also used to say that different roads lead to different places and I'd like to believe that she was right about that as well. I don't mean to stop you from making your own choices, but remember that consequences must follow."

"Mmh...this 'old friend' of yours' didn't happen to ever go by mama did she?"

Another grunt and then...

"No."

"Drink."

The Major looked down at the bowl that had been placed by his paws and only barely managed to suppress the way that his nose wrinkled at the purple-looking liquid. He looked back up at his escort with a relaxed face.

"Thank you for the offer, but I don't seem to be particularly thirsty."

The thug only gave him another hardened stare, "You will drink. The Boss insists that you do."

"I'm sure he does, we are old friends after all."

Surprisingly, that got a scoff out of the stoic looking dog.

"What? Don't believe me?"

"As if the Boss wastes his time with lowly con-dogs like you. He has much better things to do with his precious time."

"I wonder then what this whole meeting is about. Bit strange that your boss would want to meet with and talk exclusively to a lowly con-dog, don't you think?"

"The Boss spends plenty of that precious time dealing with trouble like you. If you're lucky you'll only leave here with some scratches, a couple of bruises and maybe a few broken bones. If not, well then..." he trailed off at the sound of an impending arrival. "I must go now. I look forward to our little 'meeting' after he's done with you."

And before The Major could say anything else, he was gone, straight out the exit opposite the entrance. It mattered not to him, the brash attitude with which he'd had to deal with. He was never one for holding grudges anyways.

"It's been too long."

The sound of the arrival stopped as soon as he caught sight of The Major.

"That it has old friend."

He wasted no time in walking over, taking in the sight.

"Jeptha Otto, how are you?"

"Please, please, just Otto," he said with a barking laugh, one of the few indicators that existed to tell when he was in a good mood. "What do I call you though? They tell me that nowadays you go by 'The Major'."

The Major shrugged, "If not by family then by title."

"Alright then Major, how have you been doing all this time? What have you gotten up to since the last time that I saw you on that bridge?"

"Oh you know, life begets life. I've settled down, left larger scale business for smaller scale business. It's nice, having one place that I can call home and just being able to let everything else take it's toll."

"C'mon," he barked again, "you act like we're that old?"

"Well time certainly isn't making me any younger, maybe it is you."

Otto smiled at that before beckoning him further inside the old, dilapidated building, he crouched down by the bowl and lapped the equivalent of a sip, "Sorry, did you want some?"

The Major waved him off, "Not in my taste."

"I hope," he said in between drinking, "that Roman didn't give you too much attitude on your way down here."

"If it's usual for him to threaten breaking a few bones in my body and other...things, then I suppose no, I didn't get too much attitude."

Otto sighed, "That's Roman for you, but don't worry, I'll have a talk with him. Sorry about that one Major, should have made sure he knew that you were a very important guest."

"No worries friend, no worries. Now," he cleared his throat hastily. "I most certainly enjoy catching up and remembering good times and all, but surely there's something more. Something crucial that you invited me here for."

"Ah," and Otto straightened himself out as he rose. "Yes, that."

"Serious business?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Well then, don't keep me guessing."

"It all has to do with this business of yours' Major."

"Well, I might have a stake in the whole thing, but I'd hardly refer to it as my bu-"

"More specifically that girl that everyone has been buzzing and whispering about."

He glanced sideways temporarily, before bring his eyes back up squarely, "Oh? Peg you mean? She's uh, she's quite the entertainer no? If you want we could arrange for the two of you to meet."

"No, no," he spoke half-clearly, something of a mutter in his voice. "I don't want to talk to that filth. To tell you the truth, I don't even want her anywhere near me."

"Otto what," The Major found himself hesitating, but forced the words out anyway, "what precisely is the problem?"

"I like order Major. I like to see things go where they should and I like to see that what needs to be kept in place is held in place. Your girl, well she breaks every last convention that I can think of what with the way she moves up on that stage and all."

"Otto, there's surely been some misunderstanding of sorts between what you've heard and what is really-"

"Picture this Major," he cut him off with a sharp tone. "Picture the sweet innocents in their youth coming upon such a sight and deciding that it's okay to act that way in public, more problems for me in the future. Imagine any bitches seeing the way that one of their own acts out, more problems for me wouldn't you say?"

"Otto I-"

"It's like you said. We're not getting any younger anytime soon. I can't be here to keep the peace forever and I don't intend on leaving my son something that is disorderly and filled with chaos," he leaned down to take another sip. "Forgive me Major, but I must let you know that if you don't get your girl under control, I will be forced to take action."

"I-I understand."

"Good. Now then, it would surely be a waste if we spent all our time exclusively discussing matters of business. Please, walk with me. I'm sure that the tales you told me in our youth are still as wild as ever."