Chapter Forty-Seven | Pet or Beast







The howls of the wolves followed us throughout the night. They grew closer, bolder, and more numerous in number. None of us were sure if this was normal wolf behavior and we were being hunted by mere animals, or if this was more witchery at work.

            By morning, it sounded as if we were surrounded by the lonesome baying. Since I was still recovering, and because Wolf refused to trust Mutt alone, he ran off to confront our pursuers, saying he would catch up to us.

            Light drops had started to fall on our heads and on the trees and bushes that surrounded us. I knew we were getting close.

            Mutt stayed ahead of me, using the stick he had found last night to help him on his way. He had not talked once since our encounter by the fire. Wolf, alternatively, had used the time to ask me countless questions. Mostly, they had to do with how witches and familiar's operated. I told him what I could, but the constant barrage of questions had started to wear me down. He had sounded too much like me—old me.

            He was at least careful about not asking too much about my own past, even though I knew he was curious. I wasn't sure how much he saw in my dream, and part of me didn't want to know. There wasn't much I remembered of it, just glimpses. Fragments. More memories from my past.

            Was that how dreams were supposed to work? Somehow, I didn't think so.

            I remembered Kat being there, and Maple. They had saved me—sort of. Maple said she still wanted me gone, but, if that was the case, why bother freeing me from the clutches of the Hunter? I was perfectly gone in the nightmare he had made for me.

            I shook my head as if to clear the clutter that was my thought process, dirty tangles of red hair smacking  my face. I wasn't going to understand what was going through her head inside my own. I didn't understand how any of these witches operated, least of all her. It had been two years since she killed her mother and ran away.

            Two years of being hunted by people that once cared about you.

            I scratched at the numerous, itching spots on my head that never seemed to go away. I was starting to miss Wolf. At least his constant barrage of questions had been a good distraction from my own unanswered ones.

            Mutt was still limp-walking ahead of me and still not talking. He did not move his steadfast eyes when I started walking next to him. If anything, he appeared to be trying to pick up his previously slow pace.

            "Can we talk?" I asked.

            One, quick glance. "I don't want to talk about that stuff from last night."

            "We don't have to talk about that," I quickly assured, picking up my own pace to match his. "We can talk about anything. I think I might go crazy if I'm left alone with my thoughts for too long."

            Mutt grunted but did not say anything further. He kept his eyes focused straight ahead.

            He was so different. His face looked about the same, now that the bruises were no more than a pale yellow that decorated his cheeks and his nose had mostly straightened itself, but everything else was not how I remembered. At least, not how I remembered the Mutt before he was a familiar.

            After Mallard was replaced with Fawn, there were no more smiles. No excited pitch to his voice. No uncomfortable excess of energy. I didn't realize it at the time, but he had resigned himself to this life, and changed himself to fit his new outlook. I had tried to do the same, but it was half-hearted at best and I had forsaken it as soon as things looked too hard.

            Not Mutt. Just like everyone else, he was far stronger than me. He adapted to this new world, he could survive it.

            For the first time, I wondered how things could have been different if I had just listened to Mary.

            "So, how have things been?" I asked while having to clear my throat and rub my eyes. "I mean, you know, with Madame Terrebonne and Shepherd."

            Another glance. "I'm not supposed to tell you about that. We're supposed to be enemies, Foxy."

            "It doesn't have to be anything your Master wouldn't want me to know," I insisted, though quickly realizing that could easily mean anything and everything. "Just, I don't know. Oh, hey, you were playing something when Kat and I found you. I don't remember Fawn teaching us anything like that. Was it your Master?"

            I immediately cringed at my own choice of topic. It probably wasn't the greatest of past encounters to bring up. But, if Mutt was bothered by having to think of when I nearly beat him to death, he didn't show it. He was furrowing his brow instead, his eyes less focused. Like he was thinking really hard about something.

            I tried not to smile when I realized it was probably about whether or not this was a topic his Master wouldn't want me to know about.

            "She taught me," he answered after coming to his conclusion. His face relaxed back to it's determined focus on the path ahead. "It was really hard to play it right, but Master helped me. She can play it much better than I can."

            "Whatever you were playing, it sounded good to me." I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep latching on to his unhappy encounter, but it might have been the only thing Mutt would talk about. I wasn't about to let that go. "You made it sound both happy and sad. I didn't think I'd ever see you playing anything like that."

            Mutt was quiet for a moment. Maybe he was thinking again, but his face was less strained.

            "When I got good enough, Master asked me to make up my own music. She said she wanted to hear what was inside of me. I don't know what Master means, but I just played what sounded good. It made her happy."

             The corners of his lips turned up, his eyes drifting away. "It made me happy, too."

            My throat tightened. That was it, the first smile I had seen since the witches tore us all away. And it was for his Master. A witch.

            All I had ever done was make him bleed and cry.

            "Has your Master asked you to play anything, Foxy?" Mutt suddenly asked me, breaking me from my stupor. His third glance my way was the longest by far. "If she asked you not to talk about it, don't."

            It was my turn to focus in on the direction we were going. In between trees that nearly blocked our view of the sky. Softly padding over damp leaves. Brushing past bushes laced with thorns and prickled leaves. We were home. We were close.

            "No, she doesn't have anything like that," I answered. "At least, not that I know of. I've never even been inside her room."

            When Mutt didn't say anything back right away, I chanced my own glance in his direction. He was thinking again. Struggling with what he could and could not ask.

            "You can ask me what's on your mind," I told him in an attempt to lighten his burden. "My Master and Lady Louise never said there was anything I couldn't talk about."

            "Really?" Mutt spun his head to meet my eyes. Frustration replaced with wide, open confusion. He immediately pulled his face away, as if to rein in his lapse of judgement, but his expression had not changed. "But..."

            "They were...different then I think Masters normally act," I said, answering the question I knew was swirling around his head. "But maybe it was because they knew who I was almost from the start. A failure. Something they didn't want—"

            "You're not!" Mutt interrupted, making me pause. He didn't stop walking though, so I had to hurry and match his pace again before he continued. "You worked hard, Foxy. You hurt and you changed and you made yourself a good familiar. You're not a failure."

            I couldn't help but smile at the look of sincerity on my friend's face and how it contrasted with the heavy weight inside my stomach. "If that were true, I don't think either of us would be here right now."

            Mutt paused again and searched for the words he wanted to say. Some weak part of me wanted to hug him. It wanted to cry and thank him for everything. He was trying so hard for a lost cause. Risking his life against monsters, struggling with his own Master's wishes. I could almost say everything leading up to this point had been worth it, just to see that my friend cared about me, even if it wasn't for the reason I wanted him to.

            "Your Master was mad at you, back at the station," he said.

            Said, not asked. He was finding loopholes in his Master's instructions. I had to chuckle, just a bit, at the surprising amount of ingenuity and at the memory itself. It made me wonder where I was now that I could laugh at something that was once my greatest source of depression.

            "Yeah, I wasn't what she asked for. She wanted a girl and, well, I wasn't one."

            Mutt blinked. "She was really mad."

            I laughed again. It felt good. Nostalgic. "I guess having a girl was really important to her. I don't know why, maybe boys bullied her or something."

            Mutt gazed off into the trees. He was thinking again, but it only lasted a moment. He turned back to me and voiced his answer, "Maybe she wanted a friend."

            I blinked. Immediately, I tried to think back—tried to find something that would dispute the answer Mutt had barely put any thought into. But it made sense. Rosetta hardly left her room, let alone the house. The only times she did were to train in the shed. She ran away a few times, but there was no one in the developing neighborhood we lived in. And she was always back by morning. She could not have gotten far enough to reach the city where all the colorful people lived.

            She had been alone. Trapped in a dark and cold house with only her dark mother and her cold butler for company. And the familiar she did not ask for. The familiar who wanted nothing to do with her.

            She had just wanted a friend.

            Well, shit.

            "Foxy?" Mutt called out to me after a full minute of us walking without me saying a word.

            "I really am a failure," I said, meeting Mutt's worried stare with a helpless smile. "I couldn't help her, even when the problem was right in front of my face."

            "It wasn't fair what they did to you!" Mutt argued, shaking his head at my words. "Mr. Crooster and Mr. Copper kept you in the dark. They didn't tell you. That's why you got confused. That's why we're here, Foxy."

            We both stopped when Mutt reached out his free hand to grip my arm and squeeze it. His brown eyes were just as determined  as they bored into me. "You're not a failure."     

            My smile fell away. "I'm not who you, or they, or anyone want me to be, either."

I steadied my breathing, but broke my eyes away from his as I pulled his arm off of me. Even though I didn't know where we were going, I started walking again without waiting for Mutt. There were only a few seconds of quiet before I heard the shuffling of leaves as he hurried to catch up with me.

I knew he would start talking again when he was beside me, so I spoke before he could get the chance. "Whatever is you think is going to happen when we find our Masters, it isn't going to work, Mutt. I'm not going to change. You should just go now before Wolf gets back."

"I'm not going to leave you, Foxy."

"Just what do you think is going to happen if we go back together?" I snapped, feeling the age old claws of anger dig into my body. "If Lady Louise or my Master take me back, it would just be to try and kill you and your Master. If your Master is asking you to bring me with you, it's just to do the same to us. If that's what you're after, you might as well just kill me now and stop screwing with me like this."

Mutt winced at my final words, but I refused to feel bad. It was becoming a never ending dance, meeting my friends and being denied what I wanted. The same, repeating music. Both happy and sad. I was tired of it. I was tired of being pulled along in so many different directions, by so many different forces that were out of my control.

"I don't want to kill you--"

"Then what do you want, Mutt?!" I shouted, spinning around to face my friend and block his path ahead. "Why are you here? Why are you sticking around? Why are you tearing me apart like this?!"

Mutt seemed to shrink into himself as I barraged him. Both of his hands were on the stick, and they were trembling terribly. His whole body seemed to be trembling, actually. His eyes were closed and there was a great pain etched into every crease of his face. He did this for several, long seconds before finally getting the words out.

"Master hurts."

He breathed out, like he had been holding his breath for years, and his body relaxed to the point where he had to use his grip on the walking stick to support himself. But he wasn't done. He looked up to meet my eyes before continuing.

"Master hurts, all the time. She hurts inside her. When she plays, I can hear her hurting all around me. She says your Master and Lady Louise did it and she hurts herself even more when she tries to punish them." Mutt's eyes were unwavering, never blinking. They had the same hold over me that Kat's once did. "I don't think what your Master or Lady Louise did was right, Foxy, but I don't think they are bad people. You wouldn't be their familiar if they were. Master is not a bad person either, but she does bad things to try and hurt others. Master has no one else but me and Shepherd, just like your Master has no one else but you."

Mutt smiled then, big and bold, like the ones he used to smile years ago. "We're familiar's, Foxy. We can help their hurting without them having to hurt others. Master and your Master are both good people. If we try to help them, we can show them they can stop punishing each other. They can let go of their past, like we did."

"I didn't exactly do that, Mutt," I muttered, finally breaking away from his eyes and smile.

"You can still change!" Mutt insisted. "If you do, your Master will see that she can too—"

"I wish I knew what go into you and Kat, making you both think we can change people." The fire in my lungs returned and when I looked back at Mutt and saw the smile gone, I almost smiled myself. I almost felt satisfied. "Kat once told me she thought she could change her Master. Make her a better person. I actually saw her not that long ago. You want to know how that plan of hers panned out?"

Mutt closed his eyes and shook his head, but I didn't listen.

"She's a mindless, lifeless puppet, you idiot! That's all that is going to happen to us if we try and do something our Master's don't like! If we try to change them, they'll change us instead. They'll only play nice as long as we stay in line. The moment you and I reach them, they'll have us tearing at each other's throats. I won't be forced to make that choice."

"Your Master still isn't calling for you, right?" my friend asked me, his eyes still closed.

"No," I said.

"Aren't you worried about her? Now that you know what she wants, don't you want to help her?"

"No," I said again, but I had taken longer than I wanted to say it and felt the need to clarify. "She doesn't want my help. She doesn't want me. Why should I care what happens to her?"

"I don't think you're right." Mutt wiped his eyes and kept them open to watch me. "Master told me she helped you break in and find me. Master said she was in a wheelchair—She was hurt, but she still helped you."

"I didn't give her much choice," I answered. I looked away and wanted to move, but I felt rooted there. If I walked away, that would mean going along with Mutt's wishes—his Master's wishes. "If she had the chance, she would have abandoned me."

"I don't think you're right."

I gritted my teeth, but, as I thought back again to search for fuel for my growing fire, I instead found something else. The span of seconds I felt the most desperate and alone as I ran to the friend who now stood before me. Screaming out to him in fox words that he could not hear. In that moment, I cried out to the only person who could have helped me. The person whose life I only made more miserable.

And she answered.

A witch and familiar had to be close to hear each other's thoughts. There was no one left watching her besides August, and he had all the reasons in the world to take the frail girl and run once Mary and Kat were out of the picture.

So, she would have had to insist to stay. For no other reason than to be there if I needed her.

            For no reason, Rosetta, my Master, helped me.

            "No," I said aloud, as if to try and argue with my own brain. "If she cared, she'd be trying to bring me back now. She wouldn't leave me alone out here."

            Mutt smiled, not even needing the time to think for this one. "Maybe she is trying to protect you."

             A great wind blew in the distance, shaking trees and waking up birds. Mutt and I fell into silence and simply waited a minute or two before Wolf came bounding in our direction. Strewn over each shoulder was the limped and ravaged corpse of a wolf.

            "Problem solved," the great, black beast announced, a wide grin revealing the fresh blood on his teeth. "Also, I brought breakfast."

            "Looks good," I said. Mutt nodded in agreement.

Wolf's black eyes danced between the two of us as the grin slowly fell away from his furred face. "What's up? Why've we stopped?"

Mutt winced when I patted him on the shoulder. "He lost the signal for a second, but just picked it back up. We were about to head off until we heard you coming and decided to wait."

"Yeah?" Wolf studied my practiced smile and Mutt's averted eyes for a few moments more before the blood-stained teeth decorated his face again. "Well, lead on then, pet. Let's put some more miles behind us before we eat."

Mutt blinked a few times at the nickname before nodding again. He flashed me a smile I knew we both hoped Wolf couldn't see as he turned to continue down the unseen path we were following.

I wasn't able to return the smile. I had wanted to talk just to escape the thoughts in my head, but all it left me with were new ones. Somewhere in the cluttered mess, I knew there was a choice to be made. I was standing on a sort of crossroads between the dog that walked ahead of me and the wolf who walked behind.

Soon, I had to decide or, like always, the decision would be made for me. And, as we walked, as the rain on our heads grew heavier and more frequent, I knew that decision was fast approaching.

...

*Author's Note*

We are fast approaching the final encounter. With such divisive allies on Foxy's side, will he be able to get through what awaits in one piece?

Whatever your thoughts, I would love to hear them.

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