He backed against the far corner of the oddly shaped cave and began to whine and snort like Mother had done for him in the den. He was feeling content, had fed deeply, if in haste, and began to get sleepy, despite the dying and whining meat-puppets all about...
He was running along the high trail, above the grazer’s place, where Mother liked to pounce on the young grazers—stupid they were with their faces in the ground…
…Mother was petting him with her great forepaw instead of nuzzling him with her snout.
This is odd, but nice.
Mother then whined to him and it sounded like a meat-puppet. He looked up and saw a gentle old meat-puppet looking down into him and petting him with its frail little paw. His fur was night black streaked with moon-colored grizzle, just like Mother’s fur.
Mother, I did not know you were a meat-puppet?
I’m sorry, Mother.
They were not your other pups were they?
I love you, Mother.
Mother was tall frail and dark with the face of a kindly male meat-puppet but still with her night and moon-colored hair. Mother led him into the cave of the cringing meat-puppets as they screeched, howled and scampered about in protest.
They don’t like me Mother.
Can I eat them?
Mother nodded ‘no’ in answer to his plaintively snarled plea for play-killing practice, wagging her emaciated foreclaw admonishingly before his dripping snout.
No?
Oh, they are your pups also. I’m sorry. I won’t eat any more of your pups, Mother.
Mother petted him on his pulsating head and he howled weakly knowing that she would be leaving him—and he could not see the rising moon!
The Great Bitch-hound of Dawn, even in her meekest form, disguised as a wretched meat-puppet, was still his mother. She would soon be off to prowl the mist-covered land and possibly lair-up with Father in one of the cavernous high-caves that looked down upon the trifling world of the meat-puppets.
She gave him the rubbing pet and motherly nuzzle of leaving, and she was gone, transformed into her true form, the flint nails of her great paws scraping on the stony ground beyond this den.
I miss you, Mother, and so he howled up to the moon unseen.
Please return, Mother, he barked through the echoing cavern of the outer den.
Carry me to a new den, Mother, he yipped in loss and consternation.
Return to me, Mother, please, he whined in his abject loneliness.
He was a good cub though. Mother would be back. He found a nice corner free of piss and began turning in circles to get comfortable. Something was wrong. He had apparently lost most of his tail in the fight. Eventually he got down with his snout under his tail stub and his paw over his free ear to block out the noise of the many whimpering pups about.
Aren’t they fat gazers, maybe tasty climbers—prey?
No, no, they’re Mother’s other pups. Sleep…
