Mouse's Shadow

I huffed out an energetic breath, and it was like wind blowing away fog. The shadows and darkness lifted, and standing a single long leap from me was …
Me.
He was a celestial hound, just like I was, though his fur was streaked with broad bands of nearly black coloring. His mane, especially, was vast and dark, and it made him look threatening. He was leaner than I was, with more sharply defined muscle, and scars that showed through the fur in streaks of fine white. He showed every mark of having lived a difficult life.
“Brother,” My Shadow growled.
I inhaled, and the scent of him filled my nose and brought out brilliant, simple images from when I had been small enough to fit in My Friend’s pocket. Taken by figures in dark robes, male and female, from the monks of the monastery. They’d swept all of us, my brothers and sisters, away to a place of dark power, and surrounded us with cold stone, black enchantment, and watchful demons.
Until My Friend had come. He slipped in when the dark robes were briefly away. He fought the demons, and saved me and my brothers and sisters.
But he hadn’t saved all of us.
The figures who had taken us had only left the others unguarded in order to take my siblings, the largest male and female, away. I had never scented my brother or my sister again.
Until now.
I tilted my head at My Shadow and then bowed it slightly and politely. “I hardly recognized you.”
“We were puppies,” he said.
“We grew up.”
“I grew,” he said. “You …” He lifted his lips from his fangs in a sign of contempt. “You merely ate.”
“I like food,” I said.
“You’re fat.”
“And very happy,” I said. “Are you happy?”


Brief Cases, Zoo Day, Page 427-428