ORIGIN - Happy Paws

Bentley was out having fun.

Nobody had told the dog that he was no longer a puppy, anymore. As a big, shaggy hound he had no idea there were expectations of certain behavior. If he'd known, he might have laughed and shrugged it off. He was, at the moment, splashing contentedly through the shallows of a Pisces pool: lifting each paw as high as it would go and then slapping it down, his tongue lolling and the corners of his mouth hiked high.

Once or twice, he barked excitedly at the water droplets flashing up into the air, sparkling like diamonds--they were pretty, and Bentley was happy.

He'd actually come here looking for carvings, hoping to find some old writing to decipher somewhere--but now he'd forgotten all about that in favor of splishy-splashing across the rock.

A playful idea occurred to him, then, and one little flash of magicka later, Bentley's paws were also squeaking. It was... really, more like honking: like a little bike horn repeatedly squeezed every time a paw came down.

He barked again, overjoyed at the silliness of it all, and began to prance about with a series of honks and splashes.

@Sonata

It had been drinking near the waterfall when it heard the strangest noise.

It wasn't the splashing and barking-- that was normal. They had seen others wander by and known their noises and known to shrink away and avoid it, but never had they heard this kind of noise. High-pitched squealing akin to a mouse but most definitely not, a mouse.

Sonata always shied away, as it had done for years whenever they encountered something strange, but... I want to be brave.

Their body swung towards the noise. I don't want to be alone, the words rang through their mind-- at least, not right now. Huge paws went thumping carefully forward until they turned the corner to see another Someone there: jumping and barking and squeaking and for a moment, Sonata almost forgot about the unusual noises coming from their paws.

Another few careful steps and soon the hybrid was there, closer-- closer than they had dared get to anyone in years. "What are... you doing?" It asked, with something denoting genuine curiosity behind the rasp of its throat.

It looked... fun. It reminded them, distantly, of their siblings running through streams of running water. "Can I do it with you...?"

@Bentley

Bentley glanced up, sharply, at the sudden voice--surprise jolting him so that his ears sort of swung around his head, a little. His canine smile briefly faltered, then widened, his brush tail sweeping into a happy wag of greeting. "Hello!" was his enthusiastic greeting, and it took him a moment to register how large this stranger was.

Guileless, he felt no fear, only excitement at making--at least, potentially--a new friend. "Yes! I'm-... playing," he offered, glancing down at the puddle below his paws. He wasn't sure what sort of playing it was; how could he describe it-? "-It isn't a game! I'm just playing in the water! The sounds are magic," he added, rising up on his hind legs to stomp down on both front paws with a loud, shrill HONK.

The magic faded, and he turned, scampering an uneven circle. "I'm Bentley! Ben! Who are you? Do you live here? -You can play with me!" he repeated, just in case. He gave a brief play-bow of invitation before leaping back into his puddle, splashing himself soaked.

@Sonata

There was a short spike of fear as Sonata noticed the brief change in expression, and even though Bentley was smiling wide and play-bowing, doubt lingered in the back of their head-- something between are they just being nice? and did I just imagine that? but regardless, they took another step forward to sniff the puddle.

For a moment, they studied their pink pawpads before thumping it down on the ground-- but there was no squeal that came from there. Magic? Yes, it remembered magic-- but it didn't remember magic that made noises. Maybe they had imagined that, too, because the sounds faded from Bentley, too.

A beat. "Okay," said Sonata to nothing and no-one in particular. "I'm Sonata. Hi." Another beat, before the hybrid dipped into a bow, too-- gigantic paws stretched and grey-rimmed tail in the air. They weren't sure what this gesture achieved other than the general idea that it was meant to be a good thing, but that didn't seem to matter to much, in present moment.

They shifted their weight into their hind legs to pounce into the puddle, sending a cascade of pale water in all directions. It had been a long time since they felt water on their belly, and it took a moment of consideration before they decided that they quite liked the sensation.

It rolled, and it kicked, and some seconds later came to another conclusion: "this is fun!" and it flopped over like a fish out of water onto its side. They watched, for a moment, Bentley's wagging tail and attempted the same. There was a chorus of splashsplashsplashsplash as its short tail thumped against the puddle.

It felt good. It felt... happy.

"Do you always play?"

@Bentley

Bentley paused to consider this question, looking back at Sonata with a friendly, thoughtful glance. He noticed, as he did, that Sonata looked sort of like a bear.

But only sort of. And he wasn't sure what the rest of them might be.

"I play a lot," he answered, then gave a short hum of thought. One paw splashed at the water. Sonata's play, he thought, was sort of cute--in a fun way!--what with the also-wagging tail and the HUGE leap down into the water. Well--it probably wasn't meant to be huge, but they were... big.

"Do you live here?" he asked, after a moment's pause--he didn't think they'd answered that, and he was curious. He hoped he wasn't intruding, or something. "Do you play-? It's sort of cold, here," he added, glancing around, as if in afterthought. But then again--(and he looked back at Sonata, here) "But your fur looks warm!"

His short barrage of questions ended with another jump, and a splash, and one last happy query: "Do you have friends here? Or family?"

@Sonata

Sonata pushed up from the puddle and they shook themselves mostly dry, spraying more water that had been sucked up like an oversized sponge. "I live here," they said, tongue rasping against a wide paw. "I don't... play. I eat, and I sleep. I hunt? Hunting is like playing." Morbid, if you thought about it too hard: but not untrue.

"It's colder when you're wet," they said, wisely. They'd never really noticed if their fur was particularly warm or not-- but maybe that just meant that it was, if Sonata had never considered it in depth before. If they were to think about who did have warm fur, though, "My father has warm fur," it offered, after a beat.

They licked water from their jowls. "I have a mom, and a dad, and a brother and a sister," they went on. "I don't know where they are. My brother and sister used to play." Bentley would like them, probably-- he'd like Baroque, who was shaggy-looking like him. "Do you have family? ... friends?"

@Bentley

Bentley paused again (as though he could not both think and move at the same time) and cocked his head before agreeing heartily. "It is colder when you're wet!" he exclaimed. It wasn't that he hadn't known; it was that he'd just sort of always recognized it and never really thought about it before. "I wonder why? Maybe because water is cold..? I wonder what'd happen with warm water!"

Dogs contemplating thermal physics wasn't exactly Bentley's normal life, though, and after a moment he was thinking about other things. "Having brothers and sisters sounds nice," he observed, and for a moment his golden gaze was lost in the middle distance as some long-dormant instinct granted him a sort of ancestral memory glimpse of the sensations of warm puppy bodies wriggling, of the scent of a mother, of family joy.

He didn't know what any of that meant, but it was what he thought of when Sonata said "a brother and a sister," and it was pleasant to consider. "I don't have family. I do have friends!" Sort of. "I live in Cepheus! It is the cave with the white building! We read books, there," he went on--and then eyed Sonata with keen hopefulness. "Can you read?" A new friend with a shared interest seemed almost too much to hope for.

Oh, but what if they can't? He didn't wanna hurt their feelings!

"If you don't--I could teach you!" And he meant it, too, judging by the kind and patient shine in his eyes.

He then pushed up, tail wagging cheerfully--prepared to offer a full and complete lesson immediately.

@Sonata

exiting due to inactivity