Strength

Quilla was happily running through the woods. She didn’t know exactly where she was going but she knew what she was supposed to be doing. Akeem had called for her when she was in the middle of playing with the pink fluffball and asked if she wanted to do something even more fun. And of course she wanted to do something more fun! He told her that there was some deer in the forests and they all could do with a really good feast.

And Quilla had thought that was a good idea! She liked the deer! Fidelia didn’t let her chase the pretty deer at that one ranch they occasionally visited but she could chase all the other deer she wanted. And they were a lot more fun than the fluffball. They ran and ran and ran and were fast! 

She never had been one able to catch up to one though. Even with all of her effort, they always managed to outrun her. Akeem asked though for her to find some deer and bring it back! And so she was going to catch a deer today! She will carry it all the way home and show it off to Fidelia. And she will not be mad at her for biting too hard because Akeem asked for her to find dinner basically! And it was not the pretty deer she gonna bring home either. Just the plain deer.

She hoped it was soon. She hadn’t spotted any and she had seen some rabbits running around earlier. They also were fun to chase around. 

Her tongue lolled out of her mouth as she panted hard. With a loud sigh, Quilla abruptly stopped running and flopped onto her belly. Exhaustion had suddenly hit her and her paws felt tired. She brought one up to start licking at it between her heavy panting. She just needed a quick break before she started running again. The deer wouldn’t mind.

“H-hello?” 

Mid-lick, Quilla paused, eyes wide and ears swiveling around to listen. She never heard that voice before. Was it a new friend? She finished her lick and perked her head up, letting out a happy bark. It must be a new friend!

From the trees came slowly peeking out a gray and black looking deer. They had interesting looking spots all over them and weird front legs. The purple antlers on their head and the short, fluffy tail indicated to Quilla that this was very much a deer.

Now… food or friend?

They did say hi… but they looked like a deer! A very strange deer but a deer nonetheless. And they were just staring at her and the patch of grass she was laying in. The deer flicked their ear as she kept staring back at them, trying to figure out the confusing question. 

“That’s my -”

It was food!

Interrupting whatever the deer was saying, Quilla quickly lunged for it. The deer let out a startled bleat as Quilla charged for it, mouth wide open to sink her teeth in. Quickly, the deer gave a sidestep, narrowly avoiding her jaws. 

Dangit! It was a smart one!

Quilla spun on her paws, tail wagging excitedly as the deer stepped backwards into the grassy meadow. Oddly, the spots on its body blinked at her. This was a very strange deer. She tilted her head curiously at these now blinking dots, her attack quickly forgotten. 

The deer had not forgotten though and was running forwards. Shutting her mouth, she raised her head at the perfect time that the deer had lowered its head and rammed towards her. She gave a surprised yelp as their antlers suddenly entangled themselves with each other.

Both shocked at the sudden action, they tried to back away from each other but were unable to. Instead, their antlers simply rubbed harder against each other. Quilla let out a shocked bark but she was not panicking… yet. To her, the deer had meant to do this. And was being playful about it! 

This was not food, this was a friend!

“Agh, dammit! Look what you did! Took my spot and now this!” The deer huffed out, shaking his head and making her own jostle along with him. She let out another happy bark and proceeded to shake her head even harder. Another bleat escaped from the deer at the action. “Hey hey! Wait!”

Quilla at least paused at the sudden words. Fidelia said them a lot to her when she ran ahead of her. Or tried getting dinner early. Or got too excited about a new game. Or when Malakai came over and she really wanted to say hi to him first.

She looked, as best as she could, at the deer. She could barely see him, just the top of his head where his antlers started. He gave a relieved sigh and tried to tug once more on their antlers. Her head followed against him at his incessant tugging. Her tail simply wagged as she let him pull and pull against her antlers. This must be some type of tug-of-war game!

After a couple more moments of useless tugging, the deer sighed.

“Uhh… I guess can you - do whatever you were doing earlier?” He finally asked.

Yes, it was tug-of-war!

With another excited bark, Quilla quickly shook her head.

“Not so fast!” He cried out as Quilla shook her head and tried tugging her head back. His feet scampered against the ground and he let out a yelp. “Ow ow ow ow.”

Abruptly, she stopped at the sounds of his pain. He gave a new huff of annoyance and suddenly sat down. Her head followed his roughly upwards and soon, they were almost nose to nose together. Her tail wagged even faster at being able to see her friend so close and let out a loud bark. His ears flicked backwards.

“I… think we might be stuck,” He awkwardly stated. Her tail only wagged harder and she tried to move closer to boop his snout with hers. “Wait - what are you doing? HEY! Oh.”

He stared at her in surprise before booping his snout back against hers after a few moments. 

Yes, friend!

“You are quite strange,” He muttered under his breath.

FLEXIBILITY

“Where are we going, hellhound?” 

Grimsby’s track record voice echoed around the odd city they had found themselves in. The last part was of a more affectionate tone than Grim liked, especially towards the wiggling beast. From what he observed, the nickname was apparently supposed to be affectionate. Even Vita said it in a more pleasant tone than what he expected from her. Maybe it was because she grew to tolerate the slobbering beast. 

Not that he could ever see why. 

The said beast did not even respond to his question. 

Of course. 

This one was the dumbest out of Fidelia’s lot. He did not even know why she was kept around other than possible entertainment. Not that she knew any tricks other than fetch, but anyone could do that. And she was not good for conversations. He didn’t think she even knew words.

At least the others could actually speak instead of loudly barking in his face. Which she had promptly done earlier before suddenly running into the weird city. For whatever reason, thinking it would be amusing maybe, Grim had decided to follow the terror inside. He was not worried, he could easily leave whenever he wanted. It was not the weirdest place he had been in but it was interesting, he could admit that.

The city seemed to be made of some type of dark reflective material. The buildings towered over them where wires connected all of them together. Neon signs seemed to cover the whole place, loudly announcing what the buildings were, mainly shops, or leading them off to another shop. One bright pink sign loudly announced it had fresh fish while the yellow one above it pointed to an opposite building, stating it had the freshest fish. It seemed to continue like that throughout the place.

When not neon signs though were holograms plastered on the few bare buildings. They played clips, some of them of workers, others people eating food, but most talking about dragons. He wanted to roll his eyes at the obnoxious videos showing a boring dragon suddenly being transformed to some type of electric-metal beast. It seemed they had great pride in fixing up dragons. Not that he would need one, he had Malakai to do it. 

Those poor dragons probably didn’t have a rider that loved him as much as Malakai did.

Quilla seemed to not take any notice of the bright colors or signs. She was happily trotting down the streets. Her white coat made her stand out amongst the city so even if he got lost looking at the signs, he would’ve easily found her. Not like she would ever let him get lost. He had a feeling she would somehow find him and loudly bark in his face again before running off.

They were walking for quite awhile now. Where was she exactly leading him? If not for his curiosity on what the beast thought was good enough to lead him around, he would’ve just left. He had more important things to do than wander around in a weird city with the hellhound.

Quilla suddenly made a quick turn towards an alley. Grim paused at its entrance, letting a questioning sound escape from his records. It was a sound he once grabbed when some traveling fool tried making a game out of asking questions and having the crowd answer. Quilla at least paused to look at him, tilting her head to one side. She let out a bark before beckoning for him to follow.

He already followed her this far. He doubted she was smart enough to do anything actually dangerous to him. And he didn’t think Fidelia was that attached to the dragon to miss her too much if something did happen.

Playing out an exasperated sigh, he finally followed after her. Her tail wagged excitedly and she gave a new bark before trotting a bit deeper into the alley. She paused at a pile of cardboard. Clothes were strewn all over it, like someone used to live there. Even a dirty blanket was thrown over it too. 

Was this seriously what she wanted to show him? It really was a waste of time.

He gave her a glare, preparing a new scathing remark from his records when she suddenly shoved her head under the pile. A record scratch echoed in the alley. What was she doing now? Now that he was surprised she would play in trash. She seemed the type to enjoy that.

After a couple of moments with Quilla’s body practically vibrating, she finally started to walk backwards and out of the dirty pile. She was holding something in her mouth, oddly gently. Grim narrowed in on the subject, trying to make out what it was. It looked to be bright yellow and was oddly round. Her tail wagged when she noticed he was staring and gently, she dropped it at his feet.

It was a topaz.

“How did you?” Malakai’s voice escaped from his records as Grimsby stared down at the gemstone. 

How did she manage to find this? Not that he truly cared, the whole place was weird. Guess she wasn’t so bad after all if she could find something like this so easily. And knowing that he was the right one to give it too. Bending down, he grabbed the jewel and she gave a pleased bark.

“You’re not so bad after all, hellhound.”

This time, Grimsby did not mind the more affectionate tone. Didn’t mean he was considering her his friend though. Not that she cared with how much she was wriggling.

Great.

PROVIDENCE

“What are you doing, ¿mi hija?” 

Quilla had been working hard on her own personal project, running into the forests and bringing back any fallen twigs she could find. She had tried pulling branches off the trees but they were too high up for her. And the one time she managed to get her jaws around one, she couldn’t actually pull it off. She had been stuck dangling over the ground until she finally let go and dropped onto the ground. So now she stuck with all the fallen twigs on the ground. There were plenty for her to grab and she had learned, after a couple of awkward runs to and fro, how many sticks she could hold in her mouth.

Right now, she was holding her new bundle of sticks. She stopped quickly in her tracks when she heard Fidelia’s voice. She was looking at her from her porch, peering from the door. She didn’t sound angry, just curious. That was good. Quilla didn’t like making Fidelia angry.

She wanted to give a bark but the sticks muffled any possible sound. And there was no way she was just gonna drop them now when she was in the middle of work! Instead, her tail gave a little wag and Fidelia’s features softened at the feelings of love and happiness.

“A pet project?” She continued.

Quilla didn’t really know what that meant. Fidelia had said those words before when she saw her working with yarn or wood. Sometimes she let her look at her sketches and heard her ramble about whatever they were supposed to be. She didn’t really understand it most of the time but she liked hearing Fidelia’s voice.

Still, she nodded. She thought that would make Fidelia happy. She liked pet projects with all the ones she seemed to have. Maybe she would feel proud that she had a pet project of her own!

And there were feelings of pride and warmth coming from Fidelia. It made Quilla puff up at that, her tail wagging even harder.

“Can I see?” Fidelia asked.

At that, Quilla whined, ears pinning back. Her project wasn’t done yet. It was why she was working so hard on finishing it!

“Oh, perdón” Fidelia hummed quickly at noticing Quilla’s sudden unhappiness. “What about when it's finished?” 

Quilla’s ears perked right back up and her tail resumed its happy wagging. That sounded like a great idea! Then she could see if Fidelia liked it and if she had to do something better. She hoped Fidelia would like it, she was working really hard on it. Her feelings of happiness seemed to make Fidelia giggle.

“Ok, ok. Go on, do what you need to do,” Fidelia purred, teasingly waving her away.

Quilla gave a nod at that and continued on trotting over to where her project laid. It was farther away from where Fidelia’s house laid but it wasn’t on the beaches. She didn’t want the ocean washing away all her hard work. And Fidelia didn’t like when she dug holes near her house, always refilling them up and telling her to dig near the beach instead. Hopefully it was far away enough that Fidelia wouldn’t be upset about it.

The hole she had dug wasn’t even that deep. It was deep enough for her to settle inside and sleep comfortably. The branches she brought over to it were piled around the hole. It wasn’t that high, she could easily step over them and into the little hole she made. It covered it up though, made it look like it was just a random pile of sticks from far away. And inside the hole were also some branches too. She dropped the twigs she was holding on into the hole before stepping inside to push them down.

She wanted them to be flat and comfortable to sleep on. Next she had to cover them up with some type of grass… or leaves or moss. Something that was soft and comfortable. She thought about bringing out her blanket that was on her bed in her room… but she wanted this to be different. She wanted it to be something she made all on her own.

Something that she could potentially lay eggs in.

She shook that little thought away. She’s been having that weird feeling for awhile and why she even started building the new nest. She could worry about that later though. She needed this to be perfect! 

Leaping out of her hole, she trotted back to the forest to find the leaves she needed.