{sweet dreams} o

[Sasha]

THE night was dark, the moon new. The farther he got from town, the more Degree felt content as he loped lazily along the cracked asphalt road. Less pollutents stung his nose and the natural sounds of nighttime sang louder farther out. Overhead, he heard an owl hoot once or twice before it swooped away with whatever prize it caught. Crickets and other bugs were moving around the grass-filled ditches and every now and then a fox or some other small mammal would move about in the ditches and overgrown fields on either side of the lonesome road. Degree, a strikingly handsome black and white Dalmatian, felt at ease despite the fact that he was on a road. He had no love of roads but he'd been here enough to know that few humans drove this particular road so late at night. Regardless, he kept to the white line on the very edge but was unwilling to trek through the weedy ditches. After all, he would make better time if he simply walked on the empty road than tried to struggle through the ditch.

BY all rights, the male should have been heading back to Cold Creek. After all, it was well past midnight and by dawn his pack would be questioning his whereabouts but every now and then he simply wanted to get away from it all. A generally friendly dog, he was known as Sub-Zero to those that first met him or anyone he disliked because he would not give them his true name. His true name was given only when he was certain he could trust someone and he could appear as cold as the alias made him seem. His pack knew otherwise. They knew he was a canine of good sense and a generally friendly demeanor, though he was a touch kinder to those of the younger sort.

TONIGHT though, he simply wanted a bit of quiet time. He'd done his hunting around for food and told one of the guards that he wouldn't be back til dawn. Out here in the open, the mature Dalmatian felt calm and at ease. He knew he was away from wolf territory and a good distance from the junkyard the King Pack called home. He had no rush and nowhere to be.

THE spotted male's peaceful meditation was disrupted when the growling sound of a human car made his folded ears perk. Head shooting up, brown eyes scanning the road, he was blinded as headlights whipped around a bend up ahead. The beams were set on high and stunned the male and the car was going much too fast for that particular curve. It swerved wildly and, as though detached from his body, Degree heard himself yelp as his body was thrown off the road. The engine growled on, not even pausing. It took several minutes for Degree to come back to himself and realize he was sprawled in the ditch, blood trickling down his nose and his entire body throbbing. Sharp pain radiated from his shoulder but he couldn't raise his head to look at the damage. It felt like someone had stuffed cotton in his ears, so much cotton that it crowded his brain. His vision, average for a dog in the nighttime, was blurry and out of focus. He couldn't even see a stalk of grass in front of his bloody nose.

A soft groan rose from the dog as his brown eyes closed.

[Punktestern]

Ilmatar

A dark night, perfect for a night out to think. Ilmatar walked along the black tarmac, thinking about all that had happened in the previous days. It was too much to take in if there were other dogs around, even if they were dogs that didn’t mind that she had been taken by the humans. Taken and changed, she remembered. She had just recently found out that she could heal wounds in other dogs with just a touch. Of course, she felt exhausted afterwards, but it was nice to be able to help other canines out. Her black fur on her back melded with the shadows that covered the road. Somewhere close by, she heard a car driving along, and then a soft thump and a yelp. She jumped to the side of the road as headlights showed on the road ahead of her, then walked through the ditch beside the road until she was sure that the car had gone.

A soft groan alerted her to the presence of another dog. She looked in the direction of the sound and saw a black and white pile, spotted like the fur of a Dalmatian. She looked again, her brain responding only sluggishly. It really was a Dalmatian. She padded over to the canine and nudged it gently with her nose. All that was running through her head right now was, please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead. in the shock of seeing the dog lying there, she had forgotten all about the humans and the terrible but great power they had implanted in her. She nosed the dog again, her eyes taking in the shoulder, the great muzzle spotted with red alongside the black. She decided to try to help the dog and started licking the blood off of the muzzle, returning the fur to its white brilliance. She kept one eye on her patient as she worked, both hoping that he would wake up, and thinking it would be better if he didn’t, to spare him from the pain that he must be in. For it was a male, the smell told her that. She finished cleaning the nose and padded around to take a look at the leg.

[Sasha]

DEGREE felt like he'd been hit by a semi. His brain was muddled and foggy, the world dark. Wait...it was dark because...was it night? He remembered stars and then bright light. Had it been morning? Whatever, time of day didn't matter. What did matter was the throbbing, pulsing, angry pain in his leg and shoulder. It was cutting through the muddling fog like a hot knife through butter, sawing away at his consciousness, trying to push back the shadows and force him back into a world of light and pain. He didn't want to wake up because that meant it would hurt. Degree wasn't a dog that shied from many things, far too sure of himself and his ability to survive to be afraid of much, but he was no fan of pain. He never purposefully sought to indulge pain like some canines might with their suicidal tendencies and self-harm. Not him. He preferred to slumber through pain. When he was ill or hurt, he slept for amazingly long periods of time until he was well. This time, that method of healing didn't seem to be allowed. In fact, his body rebelled against it.

AFTER the pain, the second thing Degree became aware of was someone...licking him? Something nudged his muzzle and then a warm wet something grazed his cheek. Yep. He was being licked. As he floated between consciousness and unconsciousness, he took a moment to be amazed the strangeness of it. He hadn't been licked in a long time. His outwardly cold persona kept most dogs away, telling them he was dangerous and not to be trusted. A lot of dogs thought it was foolish to let a dog like him around a pack, maybe it was. He sure didn't make things easy for newcommers, hassling and challenging them until they got extremely mad and left. It wasn't his fault they couldn't take the heat. That simply told him they were temporary, no one to put your trust in.

THIS treatment though was probably just because he was unconscious. He hadn't had a chance to glare at whoever it was or give them the cold shoulder he was so famous for. They didn't know how much of a bastard he could be. They were lucky. He chuckled sluggishly in his mind until a bolt of hot pain made him clench his jaw. Time to wake up.

SLOWLY his dark brown eyes blinked open, first halfway and then fully. The first thing he saw was grass, right in front of him, except it didn't look right. He narrowed his eyes, forcing his uncooperating eyes to focus. The grass was...red. That wasn't normal. Slowly, almost as though fighting his own body to move, a pink tongue peeked out of his maw and brushed his nose and lips. A metallic taste struck his taste buds. Blood. Why...why was he bleeding from his nose? His eyes rolled in his head until he spotted...another dog. He almost groaned. Great. Someone to see him when he was down. Degree tried to move and get a better look only to have pain like white fire flare from his shoulder to his toes and back again making him yelp and go limp. Jaw clenched, the spotted male's hind legs twitched oddly as he struggled against the urge to flinch and try to escape the pain. Hard to escape pain when it was inside of you.

AGAIN brown eyes rolled until they found the other dog. Black and white in color, she had shockingly blue eyes...well..most of her eyes were blue. Half of the left was dark for some reason but Degree was too muddled to really bother wondering why. Instead, he focused on her face, specifically the end of her nose just because it could look like he was actually looking at her without having to actually focus too much on all of her. At least, her scent was feminine, although unusual in a fashion he couldn't determine right now.

"W..what do y..you wh..wh..want?" Degree panted, pain in his shoulder and leg making it hard to focus on forming words.

[Punktestern]

Ily continued licking, even when the great Dalmatian started awakening from his unconscious state. She could tell by his slightly faster breathing, as well as his heart rate speeding up as she licked the blood from his once white fur. As he started moving around a little, Ily ceased in her licking long enough to press a paw on his neck softly, not wanting to jar his shoulder, “Stay still. I’m trying to help you, but if you move, you may hurt yourself even more.” As his jaw clenched, Ily guessed that he had just figured that out himself.

When the dark brown eyes opened slowly, Ily was surprised by the darkness of their depth. As he started turning his head, Ily decided that he hadn’t heard her warning, or had just not comprehended what she had been trying to tell him. She could feel his eyes raking over her, taking her in. As he looked at her eyes, she ducked her head and resumed licking his fur clean, knowing that her eye would scare him, as it did with so many dogs. It was parti-colored, blue on one half, brown on the other. She knew it was unusual, but had learned to live with it.

At his question, she stopped cleaning his fur again, this time sitting down in the cool grass, regarding him with eyes both bright and dark. “Well, I noticed that you seemed hurt. As it’s not what I was taught to leave a pile of fur lying around bleeding all over the place, I decided to help you out a little.” She sniffed the air, and recognized a part of the scent as a group of dogs that roamed around the city. “You’re from the Sanctuary Pack, are you?” She had smelled that group around, and had met one of its members before. To her knowledge, they didn’t have anything against dogs that had been forced to change by the humans. That was when she remembered the power she had. Thinking, she decided to leave that alone until the dog could choose whether he wanted her to use her power or not.

[Sasha]

RAISED on the streets, Degree knew never to take someone's kindness as something given for free. Everyone wanted something, that was how the world was. His pack may try to do good but he knew in the end, there was always a goal, a price to pay. This fae was sitting in a ditch with thim. Anyone else would have left him. His interest was stirred by her presence but at the same time, his wariness. The face of a dog that felt nothing was quickly sliding into place, his dark eyes observing the she-dog in terms of what damage she could do to him rather than how she could help him. His posture was defensive, head and neck turned toward his injury, to guard it if she got close again. His hind legs moved slightly. In an ideal world, one where he didn't get hit by cars, he'd be in a position to spring up and away from her if she showed signs of masked aggression. Her offer of help? Brushed off with a soft snort.

"I may be, I may not," Degree replied when she mentioned his pack. It was no business of hers. As far as he was concerned, she could be out to kill him if he answered yes. She had the aura of a lab dog but none of their cruelty in her eyes, only a shy look.

WHEN he tried to meet her gaze, she looked away, something he made a mental note of. Yes, lab dog for sure. Though, how she escaped with such a...facade of innocence was beyond Degree. Most of them, despite his pack's tolerance, were rough, demanding, stubborn and angry at the world. He pitied them and on some level did wish ot help them, but he would never pretend to understand them. This one, she may be slightly different but regardless, Degree would keep his walls up for now. He was hurting, seperated from his pack with no one but a stranger for miles. Not an ideal situation. She wouldn't catch him with her guard down.

AGAIN he shifted his head, trying not to move his leg at all, trying to catch her eyes. "If you want to talk to someone, look em in the eye," he instructed gruffly, lips tugged down in a slight frown. "Ah. Whatever. What you do is no business of mine."

LAYING his head down, the Dalmatian tried to pretend his leg wasn't throbbing with hot pain. In his head, sent out a mental prayer that someone would notice he was gone in the morning. They might or might not search for him. Even if they did, they might know where to look. He could lay in this ditch for days. The idea of it alone was disheartening. He'd probably starve or be picked up by humans before his pack even realized something was wrong. The thought made him sigh softly, but he tried to get comfortable in the grass as much as he could without moving his shoulder or leg. He was going to be stuck here for a while.

AND to think, the night had begun with such promise.

[Punktestern]

Ily could tell that he was retreating into himself again, shielding his injury from her. She didn’t know his story, but she knew that many dogs did this, especially strays like them. Something closed over his eyes, a wariness that hadn’t been there before. As he snorted, she cracked a smile, “Oh, you don’t want my help?” She was teasing, as her voice indicated. She wouldn’t leave him here, helpless, unless he specifically asked her to.

At his answer as to his pack, she shrugged, “Well, if you are, you can get up here soon and go back to your pack without a bloody muzzle and hurt shoulder. If you aren’t, then I guess I’ll be here nursing you for a while longer, until you are better.” She didn’t want to heal some Rancor pack member with her power; they would probably come after her right after and kill her for helping them.

At his instructions, she looked him in the eye, “Thank you for the advice. I’ll make sure to remember that, not many dogs have ever taken the time to talk to me.” Her eyes glinted in the moonlight, seeming silver. All except for the dark part of her left eye. It gave her a slightly crazy look, which was anything but the truth. She looked over the dog and decided that it was safe enough to tell him the truth about her. It might help him, and if he was a Rancor, she could run away without healing him. It wasn’t like he’d be able to catch her, with that shoulder. She could just rabbit away, if she had to. He probably would have to take some time to get up, first of all.

She settled down, a bit away from him, her legs tense, ready to ring up if he was to attack her. Then she started to talk, stumbling over the words, “You know, uh, I could heal you really quickly. Em, humans changed me, early in my life, and, er, now I have the power to heal other dogs.” She looked at him, trying to gauge his reaction. “And if you would like, I could, you know, heal you, and then you could go back to what you were doing.”