Writings from Barnes & Nobel write-in!

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This was where the trail ended. Jon stared at the unmarked ground for a moment wondering where the Dogs could have gone. Unless they could fly there should have been another set of ghost faint pawprints right after these, but he saw nothing. Of course the fact that the Dogs weren’t actually dogs took a second to percolate from things Jon knew to things Jon knew. At that point the question shifted from where the trail had gone to why the Dogs had been leaving a trail to start with. It would have been easier on Jon for them to have simply stayed with him instead of running ahead into the forest. The fact that they apparently no longer cared if he could follow them was disturbing.

So he decided enough was enough and he sat down. Leaning up against the trunk of the tree he started upwards into the oblivious canopy. The Dogs had seemed very determined to get him out here, and now they’ve just vanished. Which either meant that they’d gotten him lost in the woods on purpose (which wasn’t a good sign) or that they’d simply forgotten he wasn’t able to keep up with them (which boded only slightly better).

Either way he was going to wait right here until they came back or the search parties found him. At least he was assuming they’d send out search parties at some point.

After a few moments Akela and Athen came loping out of the forest, but the other two dogs were nowhere to be seen. They stopped about ten yards away and Akela yipped at him expectantly. They looked primed to turn and dash off again as soon as he got up, so Jon didn’t get up.

Athen barked at him.

John ignored him.

The dogs tolerance for being ignored was apparently very low. Akela gave him about twenty seconds after Athen’s barked to repeat the command, this time considerably less politely. Jon was amused how much emotion he could read into the various poses and noises. Dogs were so easy to anthropomorphize, especially when they were acting acutely undogly.

At that point Tos and Jenna reappeared. Jenna stopped a few feet behind Akela and Athen, but Tos continued all the way over to Jon until they were nose to nose. Or almost nose to nose, Tos had to look down.

Yet again reminded of just how large the dog was, Jon briefly considered giving in and getting up. Large and annoyed wasn’t the best of combinations for something roughly the same mass (even if he was phased out) and with much larger teeth.

But no, enough was enough, and he wasn’t budging. Jon glared back up at Tos. It was time for some answers.