chubby

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


My Shadow hit the ground rolling, emerging into a sunken stairwell that led up to the ground level of the zoo. I flung myself at him again, but he slipped beneath me, and I slammed into the concrete of the stairwell wall. His claws raked my chest and belly and drew blood as he scrambled away and bounded up, hitting the vertical wall of the building once and then flinging himself out of the sunken stairwell entirely, his paws leaving traces of dark energy on the wall that quickly began to fade.
I summoned energy with my breath and left paw prints of azure starlight behind when I hit the wall at the same place and bounded after him.
I missed the leap, and my tummy hit the top of the concrete wall. I had to sink my claws into the ground outside and haul myself up with only my front paws, the back ones scrambling to get me out, and by the time I was, My Shadow was fifty yards away and accelerating.
Well. He was quite a bit, ah, sleeker than me. I told you, everyone says I am a Good Dog and that means treats. But perhaps I would make more time to exercise when this was settled.

Brief Cases, Zoo Day, Page 430-431