"A brave hero and a genius," you praise him, and help yourself to the enormous sloppy pool of water. After that you entertain yourself with the sharp contrast of wet concrete and dry concrete, dotting dark paw-prints around in patterns. You try to write curry, just to see if you can, get as far as C, and give up when you can't remember if the next letter is u or e. "Hey, write my name," you tell Bel.
It's a bit tricky to write anything with paws at first, but after a bit of fiddling around you write it for him: ERSKINE. "Not sure if that last E should be there or not. But I think that's how I've seen it spelled."
You lick his face in thanks and then look at the word for a while, tilting your head back and forth. You were a lot more sure you'd know your name when you saw it before you actually saw it, but with enough concentration, you can identify all the letters. Capital E's are distinctive. "Yeah," you conclude. "I think that's about it... Neat. Do yours!"
BEL, you write for him. Then, thinking you're starting to get the hang of it, you attempt carefully to write with only one paw-pad and achieve HANNIBAL. "Long version," you explain. "I never go by Hannibal though. People always joke about the serial killer character, they don't even know there was a historical guy." You are eternally disgruntled about this.
You bop his shoulder— affection and sympathy— and study the short and long forms of his name. "The end is different...?" you ask, pawing at the triangle of the A. "It's a different vowel." You get your paw wet and set yourself to carefully copying the short form. The E comes out a full square and the B is a bit of a disaster and you remember the middle cross-bar thingy of the B and E too late and drag the line all the way through the L (which you did, at least, have right, until then). You sit back, discouraged all over again. "It's hard," you complain.
"Nah, you just need practice." You lick his nearest ear. "I go by Bel because 'Bal' sounds dumb. When I was little my folks tried calling me Han but the Star Wars jokes put an end to that."
You frown. "The... the space race? Was there a cosmonaut..?" This had better not be another Harry Potter debacle.
"Star Wars. It's a movie series. One of the main characters was named Han Solo. Better than Hannibal the Cannibal, but still not my name." You blep eloquently at the idea. You try to write your last name for him, but the floor is just kind of a damp mess now. You recall your dad saying he'd handle sending your baggage along; you go sniffing amongst the stuff Helen brought in, looking for something that smells like your tablet. You're pretty sure you could use a touchscreen with your claw tip if you were careful not to lean on it.
You hop after him and root around through the baggage, too. It smells good, like Bel and his father. Belatedly you think to ask Bel, "What are we looking for?"
"My tablet. I'm thinking typing on the touchscreen might be easier than drawing on the floor, if it'll register a claw." You delicately poke him with a single claw to illustrate.
"Ha! Flexible!" You try to poke him back, but it turns into an awkward pawing-at. "Huh. I wonder if you've got more dexterity because you've got hands more frequently." You find the tablet case first and wave it around triumphantly in your jaws. Unfortunately, you can't really play an effective game of keep-away on three legs— you settle for rotating around on your haunches to delay the inevitable take-back.
You play the game with him, laughing and bouncing, for a few minutes before snatching the tablet and dancing away to his blanket nest. You've figured out how to turn the tablet on when he joins you, and you test the claw thing. Nope. Claws are apparently not conductive enough. You lick your claw and try again. There you go. Now it works. Bringing up a notepad app, you carefully pick out: bel <3 erskine
You flop into the nest after him, curl up by his side, and stick your nose into the ridiculous extravagance of his cape ruff. He's tapping out things you don't have a chance at reading on his tablet, so instead you thump your tail a few times, to be supportive and encouraging, and go to sleep.
"See, it's a little heart, you just have to look... at it... sideways..." You pause. "Did you go to sleep?" Pancho puts a paw on Logan's head, which pauses every part of the dog except the tail. "Aww, did he nap out on your lessthanthrees?" "He did," you sigh. "You are the saddest Romeo." "I am a tragic figure." You quit the notepad app and open the text reader. "Whatever shall we do with you and your heaps of sorrow?" "Eh, I'm just gonna read Winter Soldier fanfic I guess." "Pfff. Worp!" That second noise is the result of Logan getting fed up with head-stepping and bowling Pancho over. From beneath her excited dog, between giggles, Pancho calls, "Read the smutty parts out loud!"
You wake up an indeterminate amount of time later. It's dark, everyone is asleep, and your busted leg itches like mad. After a vigorous bout of chewing on it, you pull Bel's ear. "I'm awake," you complain.
Without quite waking up, you lick his face and then sort of stuff him under yourself for a better pillow. Ah, comfy.
"Nooooo!" you whine. You thrash your hindquarters around as best you can but he is a hairy pile of bricks. You chew the nearest chunk of wolf you can get your jaws around. "I want out! I want to go outside! Wake up and come outside with me! I'll piss on your leg."
Whining protest, you reluctantly drag yourself back to the world of the living. "Why are you chewing me?" you mumble. "Am I secretly delicious?"
"No, you taste like empty cans, you enormous sack of sadness," you say. "Get off me! Let's go eat mice! Let's find something and roll on it! Something that isn't my head."
"But you're comfy!" You're being deliberately obnoxious now. "Aside from the chewing, which could stop anytime." You gnaw his ear a little, but he nips your foreleg sharply enough to let you know he's actually annoyed, so you flop off of him. "Aw, fine. I need a piss anyhow."
