AiD 3 - If you lie down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas.

http://youtu.be/kTe0Ow5-i2o
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>It’s been well over a month in the diamond dog caves.
>Honestly, you feel rather happy here. You work hard, and you play hard too.
>Your job is pretty flexible now, you almost never get relegated to pulling carts or tunneling anymore. At least once a week you take a shift in the kitchen, or when the hunting dogs manage to catch something new or good.
>At your request, you’ve begun to work as one of the scouts, patrolling the woods up above ground. Your life before coming to Dogland was spent indoors almost all the time, but living underground was kinda driving you crazy. Now that you could go outside and walk around every few days you were feeling pretty content.
>The dogs have been treating you really well lately.
>They were pretty happy when you came up with a pulley system for moving large loads of gems.

>When you first started here, you were basically working just to subsist. You’d work your muscles sore, eat your meals, and sleep on a hard floor.
>Now however, you were getting all sorts of gifts and payment for the things you did. The worker dogs had made you some clothes in exchange for playing some music on your sweet new lute, mostly shorts that you used as underwear. One had fashioned a strap so that you could sling the instrument across your back. A blacksmith had agreed to make a knife for you, and the result was a bit crude but very sharp. You had given him the design, that of a large Bowie knife.
>You thought it was appropriate, given that you were living with a race of beings called Diamond Dogs.
>Your most recent gift was your very own vest, which seemed to be the equivalent to formal attire for the dogs. Given to you after making the pulley, you took the first chance you had and threw it on, over your button up shirt.
> Like almost everything here in the diamond dog tunnels it was rough, but still pretty well made.

>You had taken to going drinking once a week with Fido, he was actually really fun to be around.
>Might take a few seconds for him to get the punchline to a joke, but he was a pretty good natured guy.
>Today, Fido’s the only one drinking. You’re scheduled for scout duty later on, so you’re just giving another showing of your awesome lute skills.
>In all fairness, you’ve gotten pretty damn good with the strange instrument. Feels like you spend more time tuning the thing than playing it, but by this point you can play it almost as well as you could a guitar.
>The song tonight is Rebel Rebel, you’ve made an effort to play every song you could remember from the Diamond Dogs album in these caves.
>You finish the song to cheers and applause from the dogs that are relaxing in the cavern.
>The dogs hadn’t had any good performers down here for quite a while it seems.
>You flash them a nervous smile and head over to where Fido is sitting. You still weren’t completely comfortable performing in front of others, but it was hard to feel intimidated by a crowd of drunken stomach-high dog-people.
“I’m heading out for scout duty now, do you need to to meet up with Spot and Rover after this?”
>”Nope!”
“Cool, wanna go up with me then?”
>”Uh huh!”
>You’re happy for the company, scout duty will be a lot less boring now.
>As you head above ground you notice that it’s night. You can never be too sure down in the caves.
>You take a deep breath and feel a cool breeze on your skin. Summer is winding down, it might even be Fall now for all you know.
>At least that means the weather’s cooling down.

>You climb out of the hole soon followed by Fido, who has managed to bring a barrel of drink with him.
>It might be your imagination, but Fido seems to drink a lot more now than when you first arrived with him. Maybe he was trying to match you? Your years in college had certainly taught you how to hold your liquor (or act like it, anyways) and the foul ale they had wasn’t exactly hard, more like beer.
>The two of you chat a bit, your friend telling you that he thinks one of the seamstresses in the lower tunnels may have been eyeing you.
>You don’t really know how you would deal with that, you couldn’t see yourself exactly dating a diamond dog woman, whether or not the other dogs thought she was the pick of the litter.
>Making your way to the edge of the woods you take a spot atop a large craggy rock overlooking both the field where the tunnels let out and the adjacent desert.

>A movement in your peripheral vision alerts you and you stop abruptly.
>The dogs had better senses than you, but Fido was a bit tipsy and hadn’t noticed until you did.
>Staggering across the desert not too far from the edge of the woods, was a p0ny.
>It was difficult to gauge its size from this distance, but it looked rather small. You’d say maybe the size of a Shetland foal.
>Normally, a scout would report anything out of the ordinary to the three head dogs, but seeing as you had one here, you turned to him instead.
“Hey Fido, do you think we should try to catch it? We could probably use a p0ny down in the mines.”
>”Nuh uh, dogs captured p0ny before, made p0ny work. P0ny made awful noises that hurt dogs’ ears.”
>You think for a second, diamond dogs had acute hearing, but this seemed a bit odd. Maybe the p0nies in this world had some kind of defense-mechanism cry or something.
“Don’t worry, I have an idea”

>You’re each holding a bit of rope now, and you’ve explained the concept of a muzzle to Fido.
>He seems happy enough about the plan you’ve come up with.
>The two of you sneak along the edge of the woods. Fido is almost noiseless, and climbs up one of the short trees quickly. You loop around behind the p0ny and creep up as quietly as you can.
>The creature doesn’t look like the desert has treated it well, it must be dehydrated and tired. It doesn’t notice a thing as you approach it from behind.
>You pounce, quickly wrapping the rope around the p0ny’s snout and behind its head. It’s bucking fiercely while looking wildly around with its wide, overly large eyes.
>As you finish tying the muzzle you can hardly manage to hold on to the thing, so you throw yourself in a way that the p0ny is facing the woods and let go.
>It bolts forward, straight towards the tree that Fido is hiding in.
>He drops down, and the p0ny veers to its right, narrowly avoiding the dog’s clutches.
>Shit, the plan was to keep the p0ny between you two.
>You run after it, your long stride keeping pace with the already tired animal.
>The thing is really freaking out, muffled noises coming from its throat. It turns its head around as it runs, looking back towards you, and manages to run straight into a ditch.
>A sickening crack is heard, and you don’t see the p0ny come back out.
>As you slow to a jog, Fido catches up with you.
>The two of you peer over the side of the ditch and see the p0ny at the bottom.
>It isn’t moving, its neck bent in a way that’s almost certainly wrong.
>Yep, it’s dead.

>Fido is kinda freaking out.
>”Uh oh. Bad, no no no.”
>You look the p0ny over and notice that it’s branded. A horseshoe mark shines white in the moonlight on the p0ny’s tan fur.
>”Not good! P0ny is dead! Bad!”
>You quickly connect some dots in your head. If this thing is branded, it must already have an owner. You know that in the old west, stealing a horse was punishable by death. You couldn’t have known that it was owned, but if this thing is dead, you can’t really just give it back and say you didn’t steal it.
>Yeah, this is pretty bad.
“Fido, calm down. I know how we can fix this.”
>His bright yellow eyes look into your own.
“It’s too dark for anyone to be looking for this little guy right now. We just need to get rid of it before sunrise.”
>”How?”
“I can cook it up out here. We’ll have ourselves a little barbecue, just you and me. As long as I destroy the brand, we can bury whatever’s left here in the woods, the animals will take care of it.”
>Fido is bewildered, lateral thinking was never really his strong point.
>”Will that... ...work? Fido won’t get in trouble?”
“Trust me. Anyways, I’m an outsider to this whole dimension, I don’t know your rules. If worst comes to worst I’ll take the blame and claim that I didn’t know. It was my idea to catch the thing anyways.”
>Relief spreads across his canine face.
“Now if you could dig me a pair of holes over there...”

>As Fido prepares the fire pit you set to work on the p0ny. Cutting off its head and hooves, you carefully remove its hide and organs, taking care not to puncture any. You clean the beast as well as you can, but you’re doing so based on what you can remember from old survival guides as a kid. Also the guides were talking about deer.
>Whenever you find something questionable, you throw it out.
>You work carefully, trying to be clean. Your shirt is off, and your knife cuts well enough that you aren’t making too much of a mess.
>Using sticks and twine you make a cross on which you impale the carcass. The cooking you know how to do.
>Angled so that the meat hovers above the pit, you adjust the cross and make sure it’s firmly implanted into the ground.

>You rinse your hands with some water from a nearby brook, then rifle through your pockets.
>Pushing aside gems you’ve collected from the mines you find what you wanted, flint.
>With the backside of your knife you strike the flint, showering sparks onto the kindling in the pit.
>After a long hot summer, there’s plenty of dead stuff to burn.
>With the meat started, you go back to the leftover bits. It’ll take all night for the meat to cook.
>You take a look at the horseshoe mark on the hide, and realize that the hair is still there, just silvery white as opposed to the normal fur color.
>Must be a freeze-brand you think. Surprising to imagine something so technologically advanced in a society run by dogs.
>With Fido’s help you bury and dispose of the entrails and weird bits. With your knife, you carefully remove any trace of the brand on the hide by shaving it off. As an extra precaution, you slice the whole hide into strips and singe each one until it is devoid of any hair.
>Might be overkill, but you really have no idea, better to cover all your bases.

>Fido is acting much cheerier by now, and you notice he’s clearly drunk from earlier. Had he been sober, he probably would have been able to corral the p0ny between the two of you.
>Oh well, at least you’re getting a nice meal out of it.
>You scratch at a bug bite and think about the meal you’re cooking right now.
>You’ve never tried horse meat before, much less p0ny. You’re pretty sure that it was illegal to sell horse meat in the U.S. for food.
>Granted, if you ever wanted to try you could have probably just visited the neighboring nations to the North or South, You’re pretty sure that Canada sold horse in some places, and Mexico was the largest supplier of horse meat in the world.
>Hell, if you remembered correctly you could have sworn that you read somewhere that horse was a delicacy in France at some point.
>Of course, you were also pretty certain that the French had confused the word ‘delicacy’ with ‘international gross out contest’ when it came to food.
>You’re actually kind of excited to try this thing. The creature was clearly young, so it would be very tender. You’re going to be eating the veal of miniature p0nies.
>As the meat cooks, you continue to scout out the area.
>Nothing interesting happens, so you treat yourself to some of the remaining booze that Fido had brought upside.

>A few hours before dawn finds the p0ny cooked to perfection, medium rare.
>You slice off pieces of the meat, handing a few off to Fido while taking some for yourself.
>You take a bite.
>It’s delicious.
>Quite possibly the best tasting meat you’ve ever had. Surprisingly close to beef, but a little like venison as well. The meat is almost unnaturally sweet, but rich and clean.
>You had been worried that the meat needed salt, but as you eat you know that any seasoning would have ruined this delicious animal.
>You could cut this meat with a spoon it was so tender, you stop using your knife and begin to simply bite pieces of meat off the liberally sized chunk you’ve cut for yourself.
>If your friends could see you now, you think. Living like a barbarian, eating like a savage, and yet so much happier than you were back home.
>You still missed your friends and family, but simple pleasures like this were certainly winning you over.

>Between Fido and you, a surprising amount of the p0ny is consumed, and the entirety of the booze is gone.
>You take what remains of the p0ny and bury it deeper within the woods, where the wilder animals tend to visit.
>The sun is coming up by now, you’ve been out here a little longer than you should have, but the dogs don’t usually stress an hour or two.
>Fido is asleep when you get back to him. With great difficulty you hoist him over your shoulder, leaning so that he won’t fall off.
>He may be much smaller than you, but he’s still pretty heavy.
>You opt to roll the barrel back by kicking it.
>You smile to yourself, all worry about p0ny-rustling already gone.
>It doesn’t feel like anything in the world could get you down right now.

End chapter 3 - If you lie down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas.