Flare

~

A week passed by faster than a sunset turning dark, all the while her stomach twisting and turning in a horrifying cold certainty.

She now knew what breeding was, and she knew that it was expected of the female dogs in the yard.

Across the yard on evenings when it wasn't hot, Mocha and Grey dog went behind the dog houses for privacy. Flare didn't get to see much of what they were doing, but she wasn't all that interested anyways. Just morbidly repulsed.

Jax had fought Grey Dog a number of times, with feirce attitude and snarling stances at an attempt to show his raw power. Though the male was small, he had in turn left quite a few bites on Grey Dog's neck in the past week. And White Dog hadn't done anything... Which was strange to Flare. Perhaps he respected Mocha and Grey Dog as a pair, but not Grey Dog alone. What sense does that make?

Although rare, there was times when the proclaimed mates came to the middle of The Yard to drink or smell the area around it. Grey dog was almost always close to Mocha's flank. Flare turned away at the first sign of it every time, disgusted that Mocha seemed willing to breed with the controlling male dog. Why wasn't it an option for her to not have puppies, if she didn't want to?

She was more aware than ever of how she was getting older. Grey Dog's authoritive control over Mocha and the breeding rights had not distracted Flare from her own aging. The dog's legs and tail had grown longer, and her pelt no longer had any downy puppy fur.

The male dog's urine scents were more pungent than ever in spring. So Flare had also become more aware of things than she ever was before, especially the smells of the other dogs. Mocha's scent was present even know, even though she couldn't pinpoint it exactly because the wind was swirling around.

Jax began to approach her out of the darkness. The hazy street lamps hanging over the yard's fecetops flickered and buzzed with milling insects.

Flare's eyes flicked right past Jax and towards the others, even as he muttered a greeting. The short dog rudely stepped on her paw, but she ignored it.

Mocha was now near the back fence and for once, Grey Dog was picking his way through the piles of feces towards his tire. It was hard to see the both of them with hardly a sliver of light touching the yard.

Jax followed her gaze.

"Oh, Mocha and Grey Dog. He's stopped following Mocha around this evening because they're done breeding, and now Mocha will have her litter of puppies soon," he chattered on eagerly as if he was proud to know so much about what was going on in the yard.

"It's not fair, that I didn't get the chance to. As soon as I smelled her, I wanted to like any other male!" He sounded resentful as his neck-fur rose the slightest. Flare gave him a nervous look through her golden-brown eyes as she laid her head on her paws. What if Grey Dog hears that? She hated when Jax spoke so bluntly, and once he started he usually went on forever.

"Grey Dog thinks he is the biggest and strongest, but I am." He growled whilst raising his voice towards the end, deep in his gut with a glare over at the tires. The bloodied holes on his lips were still visible, even in the evening moon's light.

Grey Dog twitched an ear and opened his eyes, so Jax swiveled back towards her in a hurry.

"He just gets lucky with his bites 'cause he's been in so many fights."

The black-and-white male suddenly tried to lock eyes with Flare, but she averted her gaze by leaning her head away. "Doesn't matter so much now anyways, since we'll get to breed." She seemed to smell Jax's breath right as she was thinking that she didn't want to.

It took a few heartbeats before the stone-cold horror sank in all the way. Flare's insides felt like ice. She felt the pace of her heart speed up like horse hooves racing faster and faster.

"I mean, you're taller than me with long legs and you're way too skinny and weak while I'm stout and strong, but-"

Her claws were digging into the warm earth now. "Why would we breed?" Flare said, her voice coming out very unconfident but also indignant.

"Because female dogs are made for breeding, and male dogs get to mate with them as soon as they're in heat. That's how puppies are made. And every dog gets the urge to make puppies." He peered down at her as if he was confused about why she didn't agree. The wheels were turning in Flare's mind, as she realized that Jax had completely failed to grasp the point.

Just because we all have the instinct, doesn't mean we have to act on it with any dog in the near vicinity! She wanted to bark in his face, make him listen to anyone else's words but his own. If only Jax weren't such a brute, she'd have spoken the words aloud instead of in her head.

And then she saw his eyes slowly harden, as if he was really thinking about how to further respond. Although his neck-fur didn't rise again, he curled his lip and allowed a snarl to creep into his throat. This wouldn't have scared any other dog in The Yard, but it did Flare. Suddenly she felt threatened and crouched lower, with her ears flattened so they couldn't be nipped at. Jax bent closer as she did, as if he enjoyed some other dog cowering before him.

"You don't have much of a say in it, anyways. You're just a weird freak of a she-dog."

"And she isn't good for anything but breeding," a much deeper voice cut in. Flare jumped and then tried to hide her reaction, but apparently White Dog had already seen it because he glowered at her from several paces away while Jax laughed.

The younger dog's floppy jowels moved as he said something supposedly amusing, but Flare was paying attention to White Dog. He was much larger and scarier. He pinpointed his gaze like predator on prey.

"A she-dog like her will make terrified, weak and skinny pups... Unless a real fight-dog mates with her." He didn't wait for Jax or the tan she-dog to answer.

"Like me."

"Bogus!" Jax snapped. Flare flinched away from this loud retort. White Dog curled his lip and raised his head now, his shriveled and shredded ears clearly visible in the weak moonlight.

"Tan She-Dog is going to breed with me, I'm sure of it." Flare tried to muster up a no, but nothing came out as she sat crouched in her slab of shadow near the house. All of the other dogs were nearing now, apart from Mocha who was busily nibbling at some grass near the back fence, and could hardly be seen besides the shadowy movement of her head and jaws.

"Shut up, you two!" Snapped Grey dog, who'd taken a pace or two off of his tire. "Just fight it out now, or wait until the shed," he growled. His voice held no authority; instead he just seemed thoroughly annoyed at how the others were squabbling in the middle of the night.

"I know I'm not waiting for the shed," Jax growled. "I'm probably strong enough to take you on now, White Dog! Weak hound!"

Flare determined that since Jax had said 'probably,' he couldn't be as confident as he let on. All the same, he clawed at the dirt as if he couldn't wait to go for White Dog's ears and shred them some more.

"Everyone knows he's getting older, so you're welcome to." Grey dog's voice sounded sinister as he padded away. Flare had not noticed that any of the dogs were getting older besides her and Jax, but she supposed that White Dog moved slower and slept more because he was getting old. He also only stated his authority under certain circumstances, like Grey Dog.

So really, nobody here is the leader, Flare thought as she reminisced on the last long, cold months. The dogs only fought or argued for material things like water, food, or the best sleeping spot. But there was no dogs who argued over actual rank, or tried to establish themselves as a leader, beta or low-rank dog. And she supposed that she would no doubt be the lowest ranking dog alongside Jax.

"I'm not so old that I can't tear your snout up," he threatened. White Dog sounds actually mad now, Flare thought. He was usually the most even-tempered male dog in The Yard.

"Besides!" He snarled, causing Flare to flinch violently all over again. She felt that, at any moment, one of them was going to bite at her ears.

"Why do you think the smell is still in The Yard?"

At this, Jax looked genuinely confused. His face looked even more wrinkly than usual, and for a moment he lost his aggressive nature and peered around White Dog's large body. Squinting, he looked at Mocha and then back at the older male.

Mocha's eyes flashed in the darkness that pooled across The Yard. It was extremely unlikely that she had heard the conversation from such a length, so the she-dog was just generally avoiding the others.

Jax cleared his throat before he spoke. "Because..." But he let it trail off, as if he had no idea. Flare certainly didn't either, which is why she was completely unprepared for what White Dog opened his jowels to say next.

"Because Tan-Dog is the one who smells like that now, you simple-minded mutt!" He barked so loud that her eardrums pulsated.

Jax had sat down rather than react negatively to the insult. He turned to cock his head at the cowering tan dog.

"Flare is the one who smells that way now?" He questioned, and White Dog nodded with an impatient, infuriated jerk. Flare felt cold claws of certainty sink into her chest and catch around her heart as the fear settled in.

That must be why I smell different! The way Mocha first smelled weeks ago... But now it's coming from me, and I thought it was her the whole time!

She couldn't bring herself to voice her actual fears inside her head, to make it more real and unnerving and utterly, insanely terrifying. But then she did it anyways.

They want to breed with me! Her heart was picking up speed now, pounding against the earth through her chest. Next to Jax Flare hadn't felt so small for the longest- but with White Dog towering close by, she felt teeny as an ant.

"Well, I'm going to have puppies with her!" Jax howled and leaped forward suddenly, his teeth fitting expertly around White Dog's back leg. Flare was startled out of her own fearful thoughts.

"Bothersome little rascal pup!" White Dog leaned down with a deep growl and the whites of his eyes flashed as Jax's teeth sunk in harder, tearing at the tendon on his leg.

In one fluid movement, the older male grabbed Jax by his thick neck and ripped the dog away from him. Flare was close enough to see a curdling wound in White Dog's leg that ripped around to the back, where the teeth marks became deeper and split through the skin.

The blood began to well up right away, but White Dog didn't even glance at it, and had that leg as firmly planted as all the others.

He advanced on Jax. The black-and-white bully breed writhed and clawed at the ground as he righted himself.

"Your teeth are small," snarled White Dog. "Even so, you could've done a LOT more damage with the time you had. Let me show you..." He slithered forward on expert paws and flipped Jax's front legs from under him. Jax didn't go down again fully, but his jaw hit the dirt and he couldn't recover fast enough to avoid a cruel bite right above his nose. He reeled back with a yelp of pain.

White Dog adjusted his head position and jerked forward haughtily for an ear grab. Jax turned away so fast that his tiny triangular ear wasn't caught between the teeth, but the side of his face was- and Flare watched in frozen horror as she saw the skin being tugged away from his skull.

Jax had tried to turn and flee, but with White Dog's teeth there he was just causing his wound to become more terrible. After a long moment of kicking and flipping around in panic, Jax let out a long and painful whine. The black-and-white bully had heaving flanks and a lolling tongue as he finally sagged to the ground, his shoulders and haunches dusty.

"You're too small to be a great fight-dog like me! You won't win for years yet, pup." Snarled White Dog, but his words softened just a bit towards the end. Flare felt her own flanks heaving as well, and was disturbed that she had just witnessed this all just a few paw-steps away. Not only that, but the essential cause of the fighting was her this time, when she didn't even want it to be. As of right now, everything seemed hysterical to her. Flare couldn't believe it when White Dog finally released Jax's face and peered down at the younger dog with kinder eyes. Did these dogs just switch their emotions on and off?

"I know why you did it, though. Every male dog has the instinctive urge, and you're right that it may not be fair" His words were rumbling and gritty. He took a deep breath and looked down at Jax, who was bleeding from the holes his opponent had made. The black-and-white dog no longer seemed threatening, as he glared and glowered at both Flare and White Dog while trying to get his breath back.

"I'm not going to keep fighting a dog who clearly will never give up. You take every hit and come back for more the next day." He looked resentful as he stared down at the defeated dog, as if he were about to do something he regretted. Flare ignored to impulse to speak in case she somehow became dragged into the argument, or if White Dog was about to mortally wound Jax.

"So I'm just going to stop fighting you for it- if you agree to share her with me, and we both breed with her." He let a growl tone his voice on the end. Flare was astounded as Jax clambered to his paws and shook out his pelt and tiny cropped ears. His eyes were wide and wary, and he seemed disbelieving. On Flare's end, she felt a tinge of disgust that they were treating her like a piece of property with no choice but to agree.

"Really? B-but, then who's puppies will they be?"

White Dog shrugged his shoulders, taking the time to flop down on his haunches as if he thought they would be there for awhile longer.

"I don't know. Either yours, or mine- they can't be both, but I'm guessing we'll know right away from the size and shape of them. If we see them before The Man takes them and Tan Dog away, which you know we might not," he warned.

Do humans do this all over, and is that why it happened to me? Flare wondered. She felt less afraid now that no dog was being aggressive, but she knew she couldn't come to terms with being bred against her will.

Perhaps this was the way of man, to let the male dogs breed with certain females available, and then send them off to other humans for... What? Was it the slips of paper that the people exchanged for dogs? Flare had seen the woman pass some off in exchange for herself. But why, if it's just paper?

That's what happened to me, and probably the other pups that were in the bucket. But I hardly remember them now...

Flare scrunched up her nose as she thought of herself having puppies, and then those puppies being taken away just awhile later. She still felt like sort of a puppy herself, not knowing anything that was beyond the fence. Her haunches always twitched impatiently because of the impulse to run, bound, and play like a puppy.

Plus, the poor mother-dog's certainly had no idea of knowing where their puppies went... Flare's own dog-mom had not been with her before or during her departure to a new life.

Am I the only dog who thinks this is all wrong and horrible? She implored, letting her gaze travel towards Mocha. Jax and White Dog were speaking, but now they were nothing more than a bird twittering in the background.

Why does Mocha allow it to happen? Flare couldn't help but conclude that Mocha did not like the way male dogs treated her, or the fact that she was paid most attention to only at the prospect of being a puppy-maker. The male dogs seemed to think humans used females for mating and having puppies, but nothing else.

But we're the ones having the puppies, not them. She frowned. For the first time, she felt a bit of anger at how the world seemed to work. Why do the male dogs and humans get to decide where they go and whose they are?

One thing was for certain- Flare had a huge problem now. She was going to be a real target of the male dogs, besides Grey Dog. She felt certain that as soon as the light fell they would start ushering her towards the dog houses, like Grey Dog had done to Mocha. Now she had two male dogs to avoid.

I have to escape the yard tonight.