The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (48 page)

Fist

Day One, Thursday, An Hour
Earlier Some Place Far Away at 5:22 am…

All of the aches and pains
he’d felt for years had disappeared - the stiffness in his joints,
the hunch of his spine, the slight twist in his right hip he’d
developed after his first master had kicked him in a violent,
drunken rage and broken it. All of them, every last residual echo
of pain, were gone.

No longer looking at the
world nine inches off the ground, no longer trapped in a tiny
four-legged body, he stood on two legs now, upon huge padded feet,
man-like. His head was nearly six feet from the cold, snow-covered
earth. Gone were the days when he cowered and hid from anything
making excessive noise or moving at speed. No more would he duck
for cover or quiver at the sight of a large raptor intent on
snatching him from the ground and taking him up into the sky.
Though his face was still like that of a pug, pushed in and broad,
his jaws bristled with massive teeth and incredibly sharp two-inch
fangs. His arms were long and muscled, hands ending in equally
intimidating claws, the color of obsidian. He was still covered
from head to toe in a thick coat of salt-n-pepper-tinged hair. It
was longer and thicker now, impervious to the icy chill of this new
place. When he’d awakened, only a few hours ago, he’d found himself
within a new world, entirely different from the one he’d left
behind.

He glanced down, grinning
at the smoothness of his coat. It lay evenly against his body as if
freshly brushed. Finally, it was free of brambles and tangles as it
had often been before his transformation (and transportation) to
this
other
place.
He inhaled. His grin broadened even more, making him look wild with
delight. He was truly amazed at his lack of offensive odor, a thing
so typical and ordinary in his old form. He’d grown used to
smelling like a cesspool, fetid and putrid, as though he’d been a
walking corpse with hair. Everything about him seemed improved -
his size, his strength, his vigor, his eyesight (which had been
atrocious before), even his hearing was three, maybe four times, as
acute as it had been only a short time ago.

His stomach growled
hugely, suddenly reminding him, he was ravenous. This had to be due
to his recent growth. His change must’ve used an inordinate amount
of energy.

He glanced about the
landscape, realizing he was just down the hill from the house
belonging to the Lady with the Long Hair. Only, her house wasn’t
there. In fact, there were no houses around at all. He stood upon a
small pathway. It should’ve been a wide paved road, called Church
Street by the humans. All about were spruce, pine, the odd willow
and an abundance of shrubbery, long cleared in the world he’d known
before. Now, it was everywhere.

He surmised, as sniffed at
the air, letting his eyes inspect the landscaper in depth, he
wasn’t
in
the
same world of old, of his birth. Maybe, he’d known the moment he’d
opened his eyes and hadn’t understood it fully. With a bit of time,
though, he could tell. The smells were wrong, the stars in the
night sky were in the wrong place, and the timing of his
instinctual internal clock was misfiring second after second. He
was nowhere near where he’d fallen asleep after digging his way
under the house owned the Lady with the Long Hair. He’d scurried
there when those ferocious creatures had taken his Little Flower,
her brother and her sister.

The memory of them being
beaten into submission made his fur stand on end. He growled deep
down in his throat, a sound that would’ve sent a grown man running
in the opposite direction, overcome with fright.

I hope you are unharmed,
my Little Flower. It will not be long, you will be rescued and
avenged!

His gut contracted for a
second time. He knew he would have to hunt soon. This new body
would consume much, much larger meals than those he’d required
before. He shook his head against the idea he’d have to eat the
equivalent of two of his former selves in order to satisfy his
hunger now.

My, my, what an indecent
thought!

Then, he heard it… a long,
forlorn howl, peeling across the landscape. It sounded in his ears,
sparking some heretofore unknown response. It came from the very
core of his now vast consciousness. It was like a key opening a
locked door, a password granting access to an unknown level of
himself, and he found he couldn’t refuse it.

He was
compelled
to obey.

His body flexed. The whole
it, as he mentally calculated his physical condition, testing the
limits of his now considerable strength.

She calls!
his mind shouted silently, breakfast would have
to wait.

The
Fist
was forming.

A split second later, he
was gone.

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

Bear-Dog

Day One, Thursday, 5:25
am…

There was no other way to
describe it – she was monstrous. She was truly a gargantuan
representation of what she’d been only hours ago. She resembled a
bear, but in actuality, she was very un-bear-like in almost every
detail. Whereas bears have short, tufted ears, she had long,
triangular ears standing prominently upon her head. Her hair was
chestnut colored, typical of an ursine. Hers, though, wasn’t the
two and a half to three inch length, which was the short, dense
coat of a bear. Her fur was shorter, possibly only three-quarters
of an inch in length more like that of a German Sheppard than a
bear.

Underneath this short
hair, bulged and flexed her great musculature, belying the
incredible strength she had within. Her snout was also unlike a
bear’s. It was a long protrusion, full with bright white teeth and
commenced in a black, very canine looking nose. Upon all fours, she
still stood nearly five and a half feet at the shoulder. Her body
easily a yard and a half wide at the barrel and, where her feet met
the ground, she stood upon clawed paws more than eighteen inches in
diameter. Set deep into her broad, rounded skull were a pair of
compassionate, dark-brown eyes – orbs that possessed the ability to
delve into the very center of one’s soul, to know the truth of a
person, in all of their glory or their shame. If one had to put a
sign best describing what she might be, the term “bear-dog”
would’ve seemed the most fitting. For all intents and purposes, she
was exactly that, a dog the size of a bear, all one thousand pounds
of her.

She pawed at the ground,
waiting at the top of the hill where once there’d been a street. It
was along this street where the house of the Lady with the Long
Hair should’ve been, but was not. There was no street either, only
a narrow, nearly overgrown trail of compacted dirt, covered in a
thin dusting of snow. The wind blew harsh and cold about her. She
faced downhill, into the rush of air, her thick fur shielding her
from the elements. Her nostrils flared. She was barely able to
contain her excitement.

Any moment now, she would
catch the scent of a creature she hadn’t smelt in more than five
years, a creature she had cared for, nurtured and loved. The same
creature that had been taken from her, against her better judgment,
but one she had to let go all the same. Her undeniable sense of
duty had demanded it. She had borne the guilt and the hurt all
these years, never certain if the decision she’d made had been the
correct one. At times, she’d even questioned the very details of
their mission themselves. Was it worth the sacrifice? Was it worth
their separation? It had torn at her heart for so long. She could
scarcely remember the animal she’d been before that fateful night
when she was given a choice (and not a tiny one at that). She had
agreed, finally, and watched her baby disappeared into nothing,
right before her very eyes. Though she’d been fully aware the task
before her baby was one of monumentous importance, knowing it would
take her nearly five annums to complete, the bear-dog still had her
doubts. She still questioned those who had told her baby was
needed, as well as herself.

Five years, she had
waited.

Five years, she had
wondered.

Any minute now, she would
know the answer…

The anticipation was
making her skin twitch and contract in different places, all about
her body, as if she possessed a myriad of nervous ticks. She
pretended she was shaking flies from her hair, though it was far
too cold for insects to exist in a place like this. This was a
rendering of only half the world she’d come from and half of
something else, something dark, sinister and ancient. This was an
impossible place, shouldn’t have existed, but, by some monstrous
twist of power and will, it did.

That means little in the
grand scheme of things
, she thought
silently.
The task at hand is all we must
focus our minds upon. All else is best left ignored or
forgotten.

Although, I will miss the
Lady with the Long Hair, she was like a sister I never
had…

The first rays of a
sun-that-was-not-Sol were already peeking over the horizon in long
bands, looking like the outstretched hands of an impossibly large
giant. The amount of light about the landscape, doubled. To her,
though, the brightening of the young day didn’t matter much. She
could see just as well at night as she could during the daylight
hours. Her capabilities had improved since the evening before,
before the change, before her traveling was over.

The forested land was
beginning to awaken. She was aware of the great many animals and
like beasts beginning to fill it. There were many more of them than
there’d been upon her arrival only a few hours prior. This world
was filling quickly with
entities
from both planes of existence. Her ears began to
pick up the usual rustlings of the small rodents, possum,
squirrels, and rabbits, the calls of the gulls, the raven and the
hawk, even the occasional Blue Jay or sparrow.

Now, these noises had
mixed together with all of the noises she hadn’t grown up
categorizing, memorizing. There were others she couldn’t place.
Some she couldn’t even guess at. They were strange ululations or
serrations, high-pitched screeches issued from bodies sounding much
too large. There were howls and grunts from chitinous throats with
volume unnatural to the earth. It was unnerving to think the
children were out there in this quagmire of conglomerated species.
They were extremely vulnerable, exposed. They were completely
unaware of what they were up against, ignorant of their cruciality,
unknowing of how much hung in the balance, because of them. It made
her shudder anew, she –
they -
would have to act fast. Time was running short.
Before long, they would be completely out of her reach, surrounded
by too many of the enemy.

Time! Time! Time!

Then, she caught her
scent!

The scent of the one she’d
let go, of the one she hadn’t seen for so long, the one whose
absence had cause such agony in her heart. She was here! Her loamy,
familiar smell - cinnamon and earth - a sweet musk much like her
own, wafted up her nostrils and into her brain, sending sparks of
recognition. They made her crane her head this way and that,
shifting upon her feet, though she held her position atop the hill.
The sun crept ever-further over the horizon. With it, came the
wind, the temperature rising slightly with its’ warming rays,
different areas of air pressure rushing about the land, a natural
attempt at equilibrium.

At the bend in the trail,
some distance down the hill, she suddenly came into view, another
bear-dog. She was a near replica of the older bear-dog standing
above. Almost, save she wasn’t as tall and was longer of body,
maybe a hundred pounds lighter. Her snout wasn’t as pronounced and
her great paws not as large. Even from a distance, she looked like
a faster version, though there was still immense strength within
her large form. She was graceful and feminine in the eyes of the
bear-dog atop the hill.

Her saucer-like eyes
brimmed with tears as she watched the younger creature come
forward, making no noise, leaving behind not a single leaf stirred
or twig snapped. She couldn’t help it. She let her heart fill
again, pregnant with a wine of astonishment. She gazed at the other
- prideful, relieved and bittersweet - all at the same
time.