Last Chance to Choose
A thing cannot be undone. The sacrament was fulfilled in all ways. But there was something, there was just a soft glimmer of hope. No, not even. A rope, held only by a single strand was a man's survival, and that's all he held onto. That thread, that fraying thread, was hope. It wasn't a real thing, it wouldn't hold at all. He just closed his eyes as the heavy, hot, animalistic breath brushed over his flesh. Here, it would have to end. Because, if that thread was tested, it would surely break, right?
One last thread of hope, carrying a hundred and sixty pounds of defeat. Precarious.
But then his eyes opened. Above him there was only sky. The sky, a pale blue. It slowly pressed in, and carpeted over with clouds. Vertigo set in and he felt himself lurch downward.
He was looking at the ceiling, in his bed. Next to him, his wife looked at him concernedly through a veil of messy morning-hair. "Carl, are you okay? You screamed. Scared the honest-to-goodness shit out of me."
He just gawked. There was no way. It was all so real. His heart was pounding out of his chest, he was sweating and panting like he'd won a marathon.
"What did I say?"
"You kept screaming, 'She chose me,'over and over again. It was... worrying. Are you sure you're alright, hun?"
"It was just a dream. Could you.. Could you put on a pot of coffee for me while I wash up?"
It was a shaky request and he hated to ask. He was trembling deep down inside and couldn't stop. She nodded, and he edged off the bed, and stumbled into the bathroom across the hall.
Hot water. As hot as he could get it. It would never be hot enough to burn the terrible nightmare out of his mind. Never. He leaned against the wall and felt it poor over him but he didn't feel any better. The whole bathroom steamed up hot.
He stepped out, still didn't feel any better. But he was clean. It was a start. Yeah, that's what he needed. It was a start.
Breakfast. So nice, she'd fried some eggs for him. Just the way he liked them. They sat and ate together on the couch with the weekend news on. He didn't watch, he only ate quietly.
He flinched when he felt a brush on his leg, and looked at his wife. So beautiful, with her fair skin, her brunette hair and pale blue eyes. He smiled a little, but he was still frozen inside.
"You're all shook up. That must've been a horrible nightmare."
"It was the worst. But it was just that. It was a nightmare."
It was. Maybe, maybe it wasn't. Maybe, maybe his God hadn't forsaken him?
"It's okay, hun, you're here now. Here with me. We have all weekend together, nothing else but just us. No research, no preparations..."
Yes, he remembered. They'd been waiting for this for ages. This was the last time they really had together here before they had to start organising the expedition.
He very gingerly put his arm on her shoulder, and leaned onto her. But he didn't close his eyes. He saw, in the corner of the room. The darkness, it was somehow disturbing. Every shadow, every shade, seemed much too dark now.
It was there, hiding, in the shadows. It was the shadows. And it was, all color drained from the earth. Troubled, he felt butterfly in his knotted stomach, a flutter of fear in his head. he ground his teeth, even as he held his lover. This holy place, a small sanctuary, it would end. He was restless. His dreams fell deep into nightmares as the shadow rooted at the base of his spine, and spread its oily tendrils from their, in every crack. It didn't even care to spend the energy it would take to pierce this soft, mushy matter, it was content to seep and twist gently into the cracks.
Maybe, even with escape, he was still a sacrifice. Maybe, maybe his body was not the sacrifice, but something else, something just as essential.
Throughout the rest of the day he had a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was paranoid, looking over his shoulder. All day, the shadows, dark and robust around him, seemed to be made of something. The light, it was a hard light. All the color was washed out. But still, he would look back over his shoulder and his love would smile back at him over the couch and smile warmly, and her soft cheeks would be ever-so-slightly rosy, and her hair would fall just right around her face.
The notion came to him that this was an illusion. He couldn't help it. It very well might have been an illusion. It was all terribly off, horribly terribly off. Something wasn't right.
He ground through the day. It was grating, the whole time. Teeth grinding, worry, nervously flinching. By the time late afternoon had arrived...
"Honey, you're so tense,"She whispered to him sultrily. "I think all this lazing about hasn't helped. here, I bet I could take your mind off of your nightmare..."
He looked at her, at first confused, then a little offended, but then sighed. "Alright. Worth a shot. I'm really sorry, Carol."
She giggled lightly and made her way to the bedroom. He slumped on the couch, still heavy in his head. He looked at his shaking hand. Aw, hell, it was worth a try. Maybe he was just letting this whole nightmare get to him far too much. That's exactly what it was.
He followed her into the bedroom. Inside, dark was all aorund. He almost recoiled, but he storpped, as a small, red, bedside lamp flickered on. There she was, bathed in an aura of warm, red light, on the silken blanket. Her stumbled towards her in the dark. There was a sharp pain in his leg but he didn't wince. A sort of weight, pulling where the pain was, but he pushed through it. He came to her and fell forward onto the soft bed, and then crawled up onto it gingerly. There, she laid back onto her side, and put a soft hand on his shoulder. For a moment, he thought he felt something softer, but it must've just been his mind playing tricks.
It was warm, a little humid in the room. She gently undressed him, and then she herself, and he found himself letting his worries ebb away, until...
"Carol, that's... Where'd that collar come from?"he asked. He laid atop her, flesh to flesh. He put his finger to lift up the loose accessory, which was the same color as her eyes.
"You wouldn't believe me if I said,"She teased, and kissed him. He closed his eyes, finally, and it was like he was suddenly swimming in a vast, dark ocean, on the current, only his faith in the water keeping him on the precarious edge of existence. They made love. Sweet, simple. Her moans, petite and shapely, notely like a songbird.
"Oh, Carl... Carl..."
He lifts his head to her, and felt her hot breath wash over him, in a sigh. He opened his eyes, the lamp flickered.
Carol was there, but her eyes were fully black. An ebony black that even in the dark he could see distinctly. As black as the shadows earlier. He tried to recoil in horror, but she grabbed him, and pulled him into a kiss, just in time to feel her teeth grow sharp, and her face to stretch, her skull extending into a long, black muzzle, her nose turning leathery.
He tried to scream but he had no air.
She began to change all over, under him. That was first, as he felt, around his cock, she changed inside, and out, and her hips grew narrow.
He tried to pull away, and fell back into the dark, and came to rest against what felt like a deep, dank stone wall.
He watched her body change more as she looked at him, and began to crawl towards him. Her hands bent and swelled into huge paws, her nails warped into wicked ebony talons. Her legs cracked and twisted before him, as she became all the more alien to him, a huge canine, growling softly, showing off her terrible fangs.
"Carl, I chose you."She said in a deep, double voice- half was Carol's and half was hers. "I chose you, and you chose me. You're now bound to me."
Her lovely curves dissolved into raw muscle and tendon, her skin grew thick. Her breasts receded into nothing, and a short, bristing, rough-furred pelt grew over her whole altered body. All this time, she crawled.
"I am nothing but a being of hate now, and now, Carl, you are bound to me. I hate what you are, but I still chose you."
"Carol--"
"I have no name. I was once your Carol, but am no more."
The red lamplight faded into nothing and all he saw floating in the void was her, the monstrous hound, its head wide, set in a snarl with short ears. Brute, animal, with wicked claws and tough fur, tough skin. No longer womanly, just female in gender. She was more akin to an alligator than the type of dog he knew here in his life, in the US. And her black eyes, abyssal, they stabbed deep into his soul.
There was a pang in his leg and, into the very flesh was a ring on a chain, and that chain stretched away to be bolted upon the ground. But there was no ground, just an invisible plane that he and the hound waited upon in the darkness, and the chain was mysteriously bolted to.
"You wanted this, Carl, you begged for this, you prayed for this. Now I am here. Because you chose me, because you died for me, I chose you. And now that is it. In all of many thousands of years of memory, I see nothing and no one like you. Do you know why I chose you?"
Her huge, bloodied fangs were right before his eyes as she peered down her blocky muzzle at him. She exhaled sharply and her hot breath washed over his face, humid, collecting almost like a dew on his face.
"Pitiful. No, I chose you, because of what I took from Carol, the part of me that was all of Carol. Now it is a simple facet of my personality, but it was all of her. But there was something in it, how she had such... Adoration for you. It was sickening."
She turned away and whipped her bony tail in the air. "I just had to know. I had to know what it was. It was... More. It wasn't stronger than, though, just... Extra, an asset to instinct. Something that wasn't the meat of it but made it more appealing. My mate, the other hound, you know him. From your nightmare. I didn't feel the same for him, as Carol did for you. He was my mate, and I would protect him, die for him, but... It was not at all the same as Carol cared for you."
A tear welled up in his eye and the hound turned to look over her shoulder, wilth a disappointed canine sigh.
"You're weak, small, soft. You're made of nothing but fibers of hope woven together. They only last until something frays them. Threadbare and ragged... Yet Carol chose you over him. Over he who could give her everything she would need. Protect her, feed her, protect her offspring. But she chose you. I have to know WHY."
The she snarled and lashed out, and Carl pressed back, back into the invisible wall that felt like damp, musty stone.
"And now that part of her, it's inside me! In all the weakness, all of them hers, all of them belonging to your pathetic species. I should kill you! I would tear you apart! This thought, this complication! It should be so simple! I should devour you and return to Him and my mate! But I cannot. She chose you! She... She... I chose you! How could such a new, weak vine become the very lifeblood of a mature tree? I should shrug it off, I should! But I must know."
Carl was so confused, as the world slowly materialized around him. The walls, the stone walls, stretched on forever now in either direction. The floor, smooth, dark, scattered with the moldy remnants of ancient bones, eight shackles around in the circular room. It was so dark, he could only make these things out when looking away, and could only see the vaguest hints of them. But he could clearly make out the hound. She came to stand before him as she let herself down on her paws, crossing them under her chin as she rested her head, her black glare sweeping over him.
"Talk, worm."she spat. He just stared at her, he was back to the dream, it all replayed in his head. And all that rang in his head, Carl, I choose you... in the dying, half-human breath of his changing wife, in the dungeon, ravaged deep by another hound.
"Carol..."
The hound turned away. "I... I don't know. I tried to overcome it. I honestly tried. But the choice was already made. All the petty things, they came, and overpowered me, and just in that instance before I could finally squash her conscious she chose, and now..."
Now I am.
The dreamworld rushed back into reality.
There was blackness, and there was searching. The soft tipping of claws from around the corner. He tried to pull closer to the wall but the shackle through his mangled leg, ripped and dripping with blood, prevented any such motion.
He was sick and dizzy and sweating in the cool dankness of this stone underworld, ancient, deep, slumbering. The labrynthian walls stretched on and turned, and from 'round the corner came the hound.
"Carol..."he breathed. Not even he could hear it. But she did not respond. She locked onto him.
I choose you, Carl!
She chose you with her thinking mind, but she chose him the only way that matters.
He felt a hot breath, mere feet from him. The bestial hound was upon him, sniffing him, her slavering jaws hanging open. He could see the blue of her collar, it was the blue of Carol's eyes.
The previous trials replayed in his mind, all the tests, all that. The three convocations, the choosing. The dark god who'd trapped them in here, killed their assistant, lured them into this wager where he lost everything, and she lost everything. And in the end, her flesh and blood was a traitor to her mind.
She sniffed, and scented the air around her. His scent, so familiar... No. Nevertheless, she knew what she had to do, to ensure the life of her puppies, formed but yet lifeless inside her bloated womb.
But first, why not have some fun? She would revel in the suffering of this being, she would gnash her teeth and growl, harass and molest him. She would press her soft fur against his hide and press her black lips against his. She pull them back into a sneer, her teeth around his neck, slowly trail them down, down his chest and stomach, rend the useless rags on him. She'd start slowly, with his unnessential parts. As she stared at him in the dark, she plotted and planned. She had all the time in the world, unlimited time, locked in here, just the hellhound and Carl.
In her assimilated mind, part Carol, part hound matron, she saw and smelled and felt this human form before her, and carried in her every muscle and every fiber the hatred of millenias of isolation. Stuck, in this moldy, decaying stone labyrinth, deep under the earth, away from the world above. Feared, reviled, made into so many things. She was so many beings, so many lives, all as one now, deep within her. Generations of pre-Mayan and Mayan women were made to be her, and all were assimilated, fully, their hate and her hate leading them to freedom from the male-dominated society, freedom from the heavy hands of their pitiful, vain human mates and to the eternal, pure, instinctual affection of their hound counterpart.
It was always the same hound, the same matron. They had been together for thousands of years in the same form, with new bodies; their pups had always become their new vessels when the old ones were destroyed. Their body was made of ages of darkness, manifested, repurposed from the human form in the fires of hate and loathing and strength. Power and instinct. She was a being of that, of hate and suffering and transmutation.
So ages of hate all came to a point here, where the hound appraoched, slowly. She felt the dread in the human being, the deep well of sorrow that permeated his very core as she came nearer. A small swell of hope, when she stopped to sniff. The smallest, but just enough of a rise to bring him down. By the end of this he would be nothing, and have nothing. His panic would have receded into a numb defeat, and then she would devour his flesh when his mind had no soul to give.
She brought herself closed to him, leaning forward. He just stared in fear and made the same sound over and over again. Carol, Carol, Carol... His sweat soaked his shirt and the blood from his torn leg was exciting. That terrible, wonderful scent that made her heart begin to beat. The image of the hairless, pitiful creature there made her salivate with lust for his flesh. His fear replenished her and gave her urgency. Maybe she wouldn't be able to restrain herself and draw this out as long as she wanted.
Her teeth parted, her jaw stretched. In th silence she could hear her muscles stratching, hear him quivering, his breath, his heart pounding in his chest as she pressed her teeth forward. Too scared to even move. Her teeth, they passed his nose, his head, behind his jaw. The sharp tips of her fangs dragged across his perspired cheek, and she tasted the salt from the tears and sweat on it.
But she stopped as she tasted it. She paused for a brief second, as her teeth pressed against his skin, and he shivered and held his breath. There was something, deep in her mind, where she felt... Attraction. And imperative, not unlike with her hellhound mate. It was odd, just for a second, something stirring, in her heart, in her mind, mixing with the disgust of this human form, and turning it into something obscene and perverse. She tried to ignore it, as she began to pull her head down, her teeth following the contour of his cheeks. She could imagine, snapping her jaws shut, tearing through the muscle and tendon. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. She told herself, she would just teas him more.
Her teeth went down his neck, and she could feel him tense up. She traced down to the collar of his shirt, where she let out a throaty growl, and snapped her jaws shut on the lifeless cloth. She threw her head to the side and popped the buttoned shirt open, pleased with the invigorating feeling of his sudden fear, the sound of his yelp, the smell of his hormones as he was yanked to the side with the force of her pull before the fabric frayed out from between her teeth.
She stepped back to watch, for a moment, as he grovelled on the ground, looking up, partly confused, with huge eyes, his shirt ripped open. His chest very lightly toned, paler than the rest of the skin. She gazed at him with her pitch-black eyes, and felt another thrill in her heart, but this was not purely hate. It was much the same rush as when she was taken for the first time by her hellhound mate. That wonderful, cloudy attraction of seeing him strong and dominating. Now, it was her, strong and dominating over who was her mate, watching he who once joined with her now on the floor, at her mercy, as she draws out his suffering and fear. Knowing his flesh, his life, would feed her pups, the pups who would be both his and the other, absent hound.
Carl, meanwhile, cowered. He lay on the ground with his shirt torn open, staring in fear at the hellhound in the dark. The hellhound, his wife. He couldn't stop thinking of her, of it, as his wife. Carol was in there, she was, somewhere, but he could not reach her. She was all mixed up and scrambled within the hellhound mind. Faith, he held onto it, tight as he could. Faith in Carol. She was a clever woman, very smart, very strong. She had said that she had a plan. That was the key, she had to have had a plan. She willingly submitted, so she could keep her mind, and learn his scent, but, what was that just now? She dragged her teeth up and down his face, his neck, and nearly yanked his shirt off. The way she acted, there was not a trace of Carol in there...
Maybe the hound was just playing with him. They lived off those negative feelings. Maybe it would just tease him until it got bored,and kill him. That was a most definite, likely possibility. He felt it loom in front of him like a wall, an insurmountable mountain that blocked him from all other possibilities, and shadowed over him so darkly that he could not think of anything else, no matter how hard he tried. He scoured his mind and replayed the events to try and find out just went wrong, to try and keep occupied. If he focused on this going on right now, he'd surely fail.
But he had no chance. None. He realized, with a sinking feeling, something key.
As he prayed to his God, he was hit with an answer. He chose this. He made the wager with the Dark One. He submitted himself. His wife, Carol, she trusted him, trusted his decision, and so she agreed. She had absolute faith in their love, and she trusted him. Trusted him to keep her safe. He knew this when he agreed, and he bet and lost everything against someone who he knew would NOT play fair.
Now his wife was taken, destroyed, absorbed into that hideous form. For a moment there was a glare in his eye, but then he stepped back from himself to assess. That was all he had, as he watched the hound and replayed in his mind his wife's head enlongating into that hellish, brutish muzzle. She said she had a plan. Where was her plan now?
But no, that wasn't right.
The hound circled around him. His scent was filling her head and clogging it. There was something about it, something attached to it, that she associated with being a mate. It made her think both of her hellhound mate and this hairless thing. Thinking of him as a mate? That was... True. He was. Once, ages and ages ago. She knew why, now. That pesky part of herself that was Carol was holding on to the idea of him as her mate, and it sickened her, revolted her, but secretly thrilled her. It wasn't supposed to be this way. She had to take in his flesh, for her pups, to bring life to them.
For what? so that six may be born and one shall kill the other five, as prophecized, as has always been for the last passing aeons?
No.
But, she had to. She could not stop herself. She needed it, she needed to have this puppies, to complete her convocations. But she could not bring herself to kill him. He was her mate, no matter how much her stomache twisted at the thought.
She turned away from him and snorted to clear her head.
Now there was no difference between the part of her that was Carol and that which was the hellhound matron. What conflicted were her two very powerful instincts, both to claim him as her mate, and to rip him apart to complete this ritual. The age-old ritual which had always been, and was needed for thsoe offspring to be born. She turned to him again, snarling, but had no resolve.
As she looked over his naked, helpless, broken and bleeding form she again felt that rush, a lust and a revulsion and a hate and compassion all mixed together, all churned up. She turned her head and snorted again and began to pace restlessly around the room, stopping to snarl and to bark at him, to harass him, until she came around the room when she snapped at him and bowled him over, pushing him down between her paws, stressing his broken leg and making him cry out in pain, a deep, pained suffering. And now his suffering which, at first, only invigorated her now both fed and sickened her, and inspired an urge, and instinct to try and comfort his pain like a true mate would. But her litter-bearing, swollen stomach would not leave it at that. And no matter which way she tried to focus, one of the two imperitives fighting in her mind wouldresurface. She snarled and howled in frustration, and barked at nothing. It echoed in the room around them, and she turned to growl fiercely at the human whose shoulders she was pressing into the ground.
At first, he'd fought, scared, his heart pumping out of his chest, but now he only stared. His dawning realization that this was all his fault drained him of the power and will. And as he thought back, he realized that... He liked it. This had all given him some kind of rise. Watching his wife change, watching her submit to these trials, to try and get through them, all for him... He liked watching her turn, with that hellhound bent over her back, transforming her. He enjoyed it, he was thrilled by it, by the gambling, by her doing anything for him. Some deep part of him was turned on by it, and he hated it. He hated himself now. All of it was his fault, for his sick thrill, and now he knew that the real Id under his Ego was a sick thing.
He'd loved watching her change, he was thrilled by it. Even now, as she loomed and growled down at him, the welling drop of hound-saliva dripping out of her mouth onto his shoulder, just knowing that that was once his wife...
He deserved this, all of this. She was going to devour him, for the litter in her heavy, wide stomach, and he deserved every second of suffering and pain, to repent, to repent to Carol, who was now gone, who was now this thing.
And the thought crossed him, that she enjoyed it too, and it sickened him somewhat deep inside. She wanted this. Maybe she was much more in control than he thought, and she was enjoying this. It worried and clawed at his heart, this thought, and he mulled it over and over again, knowing that it was a very probably answer.
She knew, she knew his scent... And she was doing this, by herself, on purpose. To punish him? To get revenge? Maybe all along, everything he'd done wasn't good enough. Maybe, like in the vision that the dark god has showed him, she was tired of him. He only laid back and shuddered a deep, sobbing sigh. He knew he failed, he played on his wife and her love for him. Her trust and her faith in him, he had used it and gambled it all away.
But now the hellhound pinning him let out a heavy sigh, and lifted her head up and looked away into the gloom. Despite her mind being assimilated, two very conflicting instincts had developed, both equally matched and equally strong. She had to take his flesh, his life so that her pups may have life. But yet she could not kill him, as he was still, in her mind, forever bound as her mate, even though her hateful matronic genetic memories mixed with her human memories of him to create a perverse hate-love.
But none of it would matter if she couldn't find a way to get out of here with him intact. She looked down at the fragile, shuddering human between her feet. But no longer was he putting off fear. Now, he was a well of deep despair that radiated out. A feeling she did not quite understand, but nevertheless made her bestial heart ache in a strange, foreign way for him, that her hound-mind had no way of comprehending. She leaned down and he pressed his head back, exposing his neck to her. Immediately she found herself baring her teeth, ready to bite, but caught and stopped. No... He was her mate. And this gesture, letting someone at your neck, was a sign of profound trust. She backs off of him, and felt and smelled the confusion on him. But she had to scout the walls, the circular dungeon here. Was there some sort of way out? There had to be. That's how she'd come in, rounding the corner into the room...
Now instead of the hallway through whence she'd come there was now an ancient stone door, blocking the way entirely, with an airtight seal, completely covered in ancient symbols she had only a vague notion of. But the Hound Matron's affairs in the ancient writings of these peoples were forgotten long ago when, from the host of a deity, she was cast and banished in these halls by jealous, hateful, fearful men. And now, she was trying to save one. She didn't know if she really wanted to save him, though, but she could not let herself just devour him. Were it so easy, she would have been nearly done by now, and her pups, the heavy burden, would be alive, ready to be born into their new dark world, and to fight and slay each other to decide which would live and be at their mother's side.
But this world of hate... Something in her longed for it, but that ever-present part of her that was once the human woman, Carol, had lent the hound an experience of a softer side of life which she almost doubted could be real, and both sides of her knew that now they'd never return to such a dreamlike life.
Hours past. The hound went around the room multiple times. She slammed herself against the door, she turned and in anger barked, snarled at the man and even made to go bite him. But she never harmed him. All she could do, eventually, was slump down across the room, glaring occasionally at the human there, her heavy, swollen, but lifeless belly protruding over her hindpaws.
He could only look back, confused, upset, but increasingly becoming emotionally drained. So much feeling was in the last few hours, so much despair and hate and love. He was tired now, all he wanted was for her to finish the job and stop this madness. At least, he hoped, she'd be safe here. Her chosen offspring would grow, and the three hounds would spend eternity here, deep in the forgotten halls of the earth.
It was not the most comforting thought, but it was security. He was so exhausted, so tired and so wracked with pain, that he just lay there. Occasionally a silent shudder would rattle his ribcage, but now, he had no hope.
But she woul not come near. For hours she sat apart, watching him, trying her best to think herself out of the situation, but her thoughts were cloudy and broken, and she no longer felt the capacity for increasingly complicated thoughts. Not that she could not or would not have insight, but there was a massive, formidable wall that thoroughly locked out a large amount of the capacities she would have gained from Carol.
Eventually she decided that she had to do something. She had to make a decision. How long could she hold off from sating one instinctual hunger, and forsaking the other? She couldn't know, not at all. She had no way to get him out of the room, no way to escape with him. And even if she could somehow find the way through the world of darkness, evading her mate, and subverting the Dark One, what would then happen? Her belly full of a lifeless litter, her injured mate. She'd always have to battle her callings and her deep-seeded, genetic desire to feast on him, and always have to battle her deep-seeded and firm-rooted hate for all humans. They could never love one another again, not truly, not as they once did.
She had to make a decision. She had to choose. But she could not make herself chose. She'd already chosen him, but she had also chosen the hound. Now, she was the hound matron, but she still had these two choices fighting within her mind.
She had to try something, She had to... She had to know the feel of his soft, fragile, delicious skin against her rough, short fur. She rose and went over to him. He was looking far up beyond her, in a daze. Bleeding from his leg. Maybe he'd die before she could make a decision... Maybe that would be best. Indecision was, after all, a decision.
She bent her forelegs down to his violently-shackled leg, and scented the blood. Her heart jumped, both in care and in hunger, but she had to keep it back. A tendertaken, tentative lick to his wound, and he only shuddered, not even going to look at her.
It took ages, as she cleaned his wound. She was trying to fight down her growing hunger as she tasted his blood. She was trying to make herself know him. No matter her choice now, she'd always remember this one. He would always be the different one.
She had to tear herself away, and snarled and barked loudly in frustration. At her god, at herself, at the hopeless, helpless, useless human man on the ground. At her own inability to make what should be a simple choice, she bowed her head and shook herself, she went and slammed her shoulder against the stone door, but it did not budge.
She panted from her fit, and slowly made her way back to the human. Now, again, the hound was curious of the affection. The feel of fur on skin. The delirious, lost human would be good for this. She looked behind her, forwards, around the room. She felt like she should not do this and she was only begrudging herself as she did. Beside him, she sat and then laid hersel.f She slowly, ever so slowly, put one of her huge forepaws on the human's stomach. A long, tense moment passed, before she laid her head on his chest. It was another very long time before she could finally let her muscles relax, and she could feel her heavy head rise and fall on his breath.
There was a flutter in her heart that she could not explain as she felt his heart flutter. Such a weak thing. She could not wrestle with her conflicting instincts, but part of her began to see, just a little bit, why. She did her best not to let herself, but she knew that this would very likely be the last time that the hound would ever hold a human like this, so dear, even forcing herself to hold back all her aeon-tempered hate...
Just a last little taste of that strange, unexplainable approximation of 'love'..