It’s been by my guess a month or so now. I got to see what I think was Dad. The wolf-thing wasn’t much taller than Mom, but way bulkier and more muscled. Mom is big, but Dad looks dangerous. Dad is to my sight… Still not sure if I’m color blind or if everything in this part of the world is muted and dull… a very dark shade of black, with crisscrossing scars across his muzzle and shoulders. He has patterns as well, much easier to see than Mom’s patterns. His patterns crisscross along his neck and down his chest and stomach in some sort of wide braid. If I saw Dad when I was human, I would of ran home, locked the door, and barricaded it praying that I somehow didn’t make the giant wolf angry by breathing in its presence. Dad is nice though, not mean or scary to young pup me at least. He seems to try and be playful sometimes, most us pups are still wary of him, least the others seem to be.
Oh yeah, I should mention that I’m not the only pup. People would care about that stuff if anyone could read my thoughts like this. I was born in a litter of 6. I was lucky enough to be first born, I guess. I’m not the biggest of my siblings, that goes to the one I nicknamed Mole. First thing Mole did when he was free to go further than 15 ft from Mom was to start to dig a hole, then lay in it till Mom had to drag him back to all of us for nap time. Mole is a dark shade of grey by my sight. Solid with no real different patterns or distinctions in his fur.
Other siblings that really stick out are 3 who seem almost identical. I can only tell them apart by smell and because they have different sized socks. You know, the fur patterns that go up the legs. The one where the socks only go up to the tops of his paws I called Moe. Then Larry is the smallest of the sock siblings. His socks go all the way up to what I assume to be his elbows though. Curly is the only female of the litter. She is one of the sock siblings as well, but her socks seem to just vanish into her regular fur in what looks like a pointed crown pattern at the midway point between her elbow and paw. Moe is a very light-colored boy. I’d guess snow white fur if my eyes could be trusted. Larry seems to be an in-between color as well, not black in my vision, nor white, just a blotchy grey… spotted maybe? Curly definitely got the same treatment as Mom though. She appears white in my vision, so I’d guess a white color to her fur as well. She got the patterns from mom though. I can see the strange symbols in her coloration. They don’t stick out much but I do believe they are there.
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All the pups are fun to play with now that we have the strength to do so. We are also starting to travel a bit. Doesn’t seem we are going far yet. Just trips to a nearby stream, and occasionally to walk around Mom and Dad’s claimed territory maybe? We live in a nice stretch of woodland. Lots of trees, rocks, some burrows and grassy clearings that we sometimes laze around in. Well, Mole likes the burrows, the rest of us really enjoy the clearings. The sun feels nice to lay in.
Dad has taken to playing with all of us more. No one is really scared of him anymore. He likes to play tag… well, he doesn’t get mad at us when we chase him around the clearing at least. Sometimes he even tussles with Larry. Larry has some guts, even going after Dad’s ear one time. He didn’t do it again after Dad picked him up by his nape fur and carried him around for a few hours while he did whatever it is he has to do in the evening. Once I am larger and stronger I will follow him on one of those evening trips to see what happens. Hopefully I can sneak away from Mom to do so.
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It's been about 2 months now being stuck in this body. Sometimes I swear I can control it perfectly, and other times I feel like I’m trying to move through molasses. My reaction times feel delayed as though I have to think over what I’m doing and then go through it manually. Do you know how difficult it is to think about walking somewhere step by step?
Anyway, enough rambling. I decided to sneak away and follow Dad today. He takes his time on these walks... patrols… trips. I’ll call them trips. He doesn’t seem to hunt during these expeditions, just walks around the forest, stopping occasionally to just stare at stuff. Sometimes he stares at some plants or a tree. Other moments he is just staring into the water. If I didn’t know better, I would say he is thinking about stuff. My old man from my first life used to go for long walks like this all the time. He would just sit on a bench and watch the world go by. That is what Dad seems to be doing now.
Following him further along, he doesn’t seem to have heard or noticed me yet. I’ve been doing everything I can to stay downwind so he doesn’t smell me. It is fun to be so sneaky to be honest. The one time I thought he saw me I hid in a shrub, making myself as small as possible and staying perfectly still. He stared at the shrub for a while, then made some sort of chuffing noise and kept going.
After following him for a while it seemed we were headed back towards home. When I saw the den, I realized my mistake. Mom was frantic, sniffing around following the trail I took to follow Dad, then back again seemingly loosing the trail somehow at the tree line when I decided to be sneaky. When she saw Dad, she rushed him and seemed to just melt into a puddle of sadness against him, that’s what it looked like to me at least. Dad just turned his head and stared at where I was hiding at the moment. Oh wait, he IS looking at me. Mom seems to be approaching me and seems quite large now. Why are you not looking this way, Dad… Dad a little help maybe?
After a few hours of being forcibly carried around by the scruff of my neck, Mom seems to have reassured herself that I am alive and not missing. I’m not allowed to leave her sight now though… Oops.
