Writings from Barnes & Nobel write-in!

————————————

“Where are we going?” Jon demanded.

Tos just stared at him. Akela twitched an ear in confusion and Athen sat down with a sigh.

“I’m not going anywhere until someone tells me what’s going on!”

Of course since the dogs couldn’t talk it was rather silly to ask. The dogs gave him a moment to figure this out for himself, and then Tos gave an exasperated look when he remained firmly planted on the ground. Akela whuffed in annoyance and shouldered Tos aside to take his place a nose length from Jon’s face.

“Are you trying to kill me?” Which is really what he had meant the first time, but Jon was still working out what he wanted to know and what he didn’t want to know. He wasn’t sure if he wanted an answer, but having Akela looming over him made it a rather important point.

Akela blinked, as if she was trying to translate from human to dog, the shook her head. Jon assumed she meant ‘no’.

Tos nodded quietly to himself and muttered something unrepeatable.

“Is someone else trying to kill me?”

There was a quick dog conference and then Akela nodded, but in a roundabout way that was half nod and half negation. Okay, so that wasn’t too bad. At least the dogs seemed to be on his side, or not actively trying to get him killed. Jon paused to digest the fact that some other unknown force was trying to kill him, or at least thinking about it.

Jon tried to figure out how to phrase his other thousand question into yes/no answers, but Tos’s snarling was getting less muted and Akela was giving him a ‘that’s it lets go!’ look. So he figured it was better to save those for after whatever it was the dogs needed him for. He stood, bushing off the remnants of last years leaves. Gesturing dramatically in the direction they had been heading originally he solemnly intoned “Lead on MacDuff!” But the dogs missed the reference.