We go on twos when we have to do. We argue over things like mayonnaise on meat—what are they? Sandwiches? Sand-witch-is? This helps us to fit in. We puppet ourselves while we stalk the shadows of this world, half-aware of our enemies. We are down in the town, going in and out of the stone temples, pulling our paws long into crooked fingers (the fleshy claws humans think and make with instead) meanwhile, our lupine spirits are soaring down the roadways, off the highways, racing alongside the car windows, carrrs… garrrrs… grrrrs… and children swear that they can see us running as their parents drive on, yes they can. But we see only red and black, like real animals. So they are either meat or dead to us. Mostly, they are dead, so we leave the young ones alone. We turn into the trees, we try to get in as deep a forest as we can, my love, and we mate, and sniff around, and mate again, and wag our tails and wonder how long we have before the bell calls us back, and we have to return our human bodies to their homes. Then we must perch on the puppets’ shoulders, pretend we weren’t very naughty, and not be too wild while the humans are out drinking, or dancing, no longer drones. They fuck each other and we watch. We wait, wait, wait-wait-wait… now, yes… Until they slumber again. The, we have another chance to float and live out our true lives, my love.

Master Baruther.

Soon, we must find what we came for here, because I crave ending this curse of being tied to this lesser third-rock and its yellowing sun in its damnable black sky… I loathe it as badly as I crave you in the rutting season. And we will have our heirs soon and they will help us, I promise you. Have I ever lied to you? No, never, ever, Master Baruther.

In your life, I am pathetic. I am a fool woman you always see on the train, and she doesn’t dare to look up and know you. But, D.C. is a small place. People don’t realize—it may be a city, but it can be exactly as life among the trees. With scents, and tracking, and staying in the rain to wait and see if the pitiful prey will come out again, for us to snatch its neck. People wash and wash themselves of scent, but still we know who we are… we see the woman with the thick, thick mane and the good, round legs. The taught buttocks that raise pert and fall as she tries to shift round people in the crowded aisle of the train. Through her coat, through her dress, beneath the thin web of her stockings, you can still see her, imagine yourself united with her in heat at last—though she only stands, and she is far away, and you know her because you notice her sometimes down the train while you read your phone… that horrid black thing. Drop it and break it and pick her up! My Baruther…

The times, what terrible lonely times we live in. That they live in.

It’s as if I’ve opened my legs a thousand times for you, my mate, whenever our spirits were free of ourselves, to be wyldehounds in the sorry dream of the nine-to-five, but you never take me fast on the train, nor see me very well, though I know you are watching hard. You should know me, my poor love, but you don’t. I hate you.

Master Baruther…

We walk the same trail every morning.

You know the scent of my soap when I pass. You idled in the store once, turning bars and bars of plastic wrapped stuff over, sticking your nose in at the edges, flicking open pastel-colored tops of bottles to desperately huff scent with your instinct to try and see… not realizing that you’d gone in a panic to know, which one I was.

I smell like lychee. I luxuriate in it.

People walk the same paths as animals, don’t they?
People have the same hearts as damned beasts, they can sure love like it.
I’ve never known you to be brave whenever my eyes have seen you—

I’ve only sworn to myself and prayed to the polite puppet-god, not the real, baying gods,

But I adore you.

One day, we will break the curse and we will find the ancient golden stone, and we will be truly united with our wyldehound bodies again. I as icy as your furious heat. Be one again. Yongseohaseyo! 

But that could take forever,
We could be borne into many bodies—

A man,
A woman,
Two women,

People who are passionate and refuse for gender to be finite…
Three men who want one another at once… Oh, I don’t know.

---

Chapters

Part Two: When Blue Envelops
1, Crushing Velvet :: 2, Cold Cobalt :: 3, The Sapphire Hound :: 4, The Teal Pack

Part One: When Red Expands
1, Mistress Howlar-haelia Turim :: 2, Nine to Five Dreams :: 3, Awakening :: 4, Back in Red