You wave the tip of your tail, hopefully, and accept a porkchop, though you make sure to eat it in the farthest corner of the kitchen from the table. It's delicious, and by the time you've licked every bit of oil and flavoring off the floor and plate and put the dish in the sink, you're feeling a lot better.
"Join me in the entry for The Great Unpackening? You can have my chop bone too, I need hands for this."
You take the bone and trot along after him, then have fun rounding up every stray bit of packing plastic or foam that skitters loose, and piling it all up the largest discarded box. It's sheepdog work, but amusing enough.
You have so much fun playing with Erskin and the boxes and styrofoam doodads like a kid, it takes almost three hours before all the gear is divested of packing material (and scratchy tags, where appropriate) and stowed in its smallest configuration, ready to be loaded into your truck when it's time to go. Then Erskin helps you carry the trash and recyclables to the garage, trotting along with plastic wrap trailing behind him like a bridal train, which you have to take several pictures of. The bit where he helps with the tent box by wearing it is unbearable. You have to cut a little eye slit, draw a robot face on, and take him to show Dad.
You assist with the cunning robot disguise by making a high errrrrrr whining noise the entire time, and vacuuming up crumbs. It is flawless. Bumping into furniture is also, probably, part of your disguise.
Dad performs theatrical gameshow delight. "You got me a roomba! Now all I need is a kitten to ride on top of it!" Erskin bumps into the wall and you laugh so hard you have to put your head down on the coffee table.
You spend a nice last evening with Bel's dad, the two of them reading books and having various Moments and Talks while you chew the pork bones down to nubs, and in the morning you find Bel's relaxed back into fur overnight, and curled into your side like a puppy. It's absurdly cute. You lick his ears as he makes sleepy snuffles against your stomach fur. "We're getting out to the park just in time, aren't we?"
"Mm... I think so, yeah. I really don't want to try changing until after breakfast. Which is a Sign, I guess. Fortunately it's only one day's drive. If I tried to go like this I'd have trouble reaching the pedals." The idea makes you giggle sleepily. You don't want to get up yet, even if you do have a long drive ahead. You just want to lie around and have your ears licked. Maybe turn the tables, lick his face for a while.
"Mmmb," you say, intelligently, and resume snuggly dozing. Eventually, though, kitchen smells prod you into motion. "Come on, let's go admire your dad's latest masterpiece," you nudge him.
Delicious smells notwithstanding, you're laid low by snuggle gravity, and do not even attempt to move until he gets fed up and jumps off the bed without you. Then you have to follow, of course. Dad's masterpiece of the morning is Proper English Breakfast: fried mushrooms, sausages, tomatoes, poached egg on toast, and beans. "You'll have to let me know if I got it right," he tells Erskin. "Oh, Bel, are you having yours on the floor too?" You nod and tap out TY. "You're welcome," he says, and ruffles your ears, then Erskin's.
"Oh, I wish I could appreciate this all properly," you mourn, then dig in. "We should come back some time."
"Absolutely," you agree, attacking your own plate. Sadly, as he implied, the flavors don't really come through properly. You get mostly umami and salt, with a bit of bright tartness on the tomato and sweetness on the beans. As compensation, though, it turns out 'umami and salt' is all a wolf requires to be in tastebud heaven, so you lick your plate clean. Feeling much revived, you tap BRB and trot upstairs to change. It's hard enough that you have to lie down for a minute afterwards and catch your breath. But you don't seem to be in any danger of collapsing back into wolf form if you relax, which was what you'd worried about most -- imagine that happening at 70 mph on the interstate! so you're cautiously optimistic about the trip. When you return to the kitchen to do the dishes as thanks for the cooking, your dad's looking up the weather on his phone. "Looks like you'll have a little snow your first night, but it won't stay. You've got weatherproofing stuff, right?" "Oh yeah, I planned for blizzards. I mean, I told you, right? This is just the beginning, we're hitting Calgary next, we might go a ways into the mountains, and then we're going to basically camp our way up to Juneau." "And then, what, spend the winter in the dark? Or turn around and come back?" "Er. Actually. Erskin wants to go over the Bering ice. I'm really curious about that, I want to try it." "On foot?" He's worried, and not quite believing you. "On paws. My proposal is to get a lightweight dogsled and use it to pull our supplies, so we don't have to try to hunt on the sea ice, and we can tent up if the weather gets too foul. But we haven't really decided yet, we'll have to experiment with how best to travel." "I'm really uneasy with that plan, Bel." You grimace. You don't need his permission, but you would've liked his encouragement.
"This is my fifth trip around the globe, does he really think I can't see you over somewhere as easy as the Bering Strait safely?" You are a little piqued. "Calgary's on more dangerous ground. Tell him. No, wait, don't tell him the bit about Calgary."
"I already told him we're going to Calgary," you say blankly, and then realize he meant looking for someone to lay your ghosts. Yeah, that part's kind of private, but you don't know how to reassure him when Dad's right there, so you just convey the other part. "Erskin knows what he's doing, Dad, and I am an actual no-kidding Special Forces soldier. We're going to take our time, enjoy the trip, we won't take any stupid risks, and if worse comes to worst we can turn around, head back to Alaska, and take a boat or a plane." "To Siberia," he says skeptically. "I want to see Lake Baikal. I want to take Mom's camera to Lake Baikal. This is important, Dad! It's important that I do this before I settle down and have a family, because I know once I do I'm going to be too responsible and too attached to them for adventures like this." You spread your hands. "I don't understand why -- I went to war and you did the stiff-upper-lip sniffle and wished me good hunting, but now I'm planning a nice safe bit of dogsledding and you're digging in your heels?" He hesitates, then gives a wry smile and shrug. "Because this time I can?" "Argh," you explain, and throw your arms around him. You beckon to Erskin: "Come on, this group hug needs some face licking and I'm not doing it."
Dad helps you load your truck, which your pretty sure means you have his blessing for the trip, Siberia and all, he's just too proud to say so. Once you're ready to go, you set up the tripod and timer, and take your first picture with Mom's camera: the three of you together by the truck, your arm around Dad's shoulders and hand affectionately on Erskin's head. You have no idea whether it came out -- that's the thing about a film camera, you won't know until you develop the roll. You kind of like that. It's like having presents to open. Dad hugs you goodbye, then goes on one knee to hug Erskin. "Take good care of my boy," you hear him murmur; you pretend you didn't.
"Any trouble we get into will be his fault," you lie, and then laugh at Bel's look when you hop into the passenger seat. "Okay, let's get going," you command. "I want fresh meat tonight."
"It's a seven-hour drive," you warn as you put it in reverse and wave to Dad. "By the time we've set up camp it'll probably be dark. Oh, but if it's not cloudy, we'll have moonlight!" The thought of running under the moon is more tempting than it's ever been. It's all you can do not to drive like an asshole in your eagerness to get there.
It's longer than seven hours, but only because you need breaks to get out of the car and shake your legs out, or you would go insane. Finally though you are there, and marking off the edges of your campsite as Bel fumbles with the tent. The smells of rabbit and squirrel and even deer is making you drool, the fast food you were bought today just didn't cut it.
"I could really use another pair of hands here," you grumble. "Damn moon. Inconvenient shiny sonofabitch." It's starting to drizzle, and you're working by the light of a wind-up lantern for the most part. That, combined with a new tent you haven't practiced setting up, and the fact that you're still stiff and logy from the long drive, mutes your excitement somewhat. But the smells are still getting to you, the rush of wind in the pines, the distant calls of waterfowl preparing to migrate, and you wouldn't trade it for anything. Finally, the tent is solid, and you can stash your clothes inside and change. Smells that had been enticing you before now take you by the collar and pull. "Oh my god, I need to run, I bet you need to run, you better lead the way or I'll run right into a bog and drown."
