It's lucky for the dog, that he stops. Not that Teresa is hungry just now or that she's particularly jumpy, but pets aren't really a phenomenon on her world. Horses, yes. Hunting dogs, rare.
She looks up at the animal and tilts her head, watching.
"Woof," the dog says, very meekly, as he realises he is being spoken to.
He comes a few steps closer, still wagging his tail. He can hear his own human coming up behind him, so if there are problems, there will be somebody to sort them out.
"I don't know if that was an answer," she says mildly, and decides not to pursue it. Last time she acquired a living thing that didn't say anything and followed her around, it ended badly for Teresa.
Instead she lifts her head when the more upright, bipedal animal draws closer.
"Oh," Teresa says, lightly now she understands the question. "My job, I suppose. I never spent more than a day in any one village. How am I supposed to notice all their pets?"
"Because the dogs would bark at a stranger as they're trying to protect their human masters and their families and property?" Urquhart says. "Dogs aren't just pets, they work for the people who keep them and have been doing so, I read, since the dawn of mankind. Of all the animals that humans domesticated, dogs were the first."
He stops near the edge of the clearing, tentatively wagging his tail at the strange human on the ground.
In the background, she might hear the firm tread of long human steps following.
Reply
She looks up at the animal and tilts her head, watching.
Reply
He wags his tail and waits for a reaction, or for his own human to appear. His own human has things that make dangerous creatures drop dead.
Reply
Teresa retains her mild smile and eventually tries a question, "are you a person shaped like an animal?"
Reply
He comes a few steps closer, still wagging his tail. He can hear his own human coming up behind him, so if there are problems, there will be somebody to sort them out.
Reply
Instead she lifts her head when the more upright, bipedal animal draws closer.
Reply
He would find it too cold to just sit on the ground like this.
"Franz!" he says, and clicks his tongue. The dog comes to heel beside him.
She just sits there on the ground, her back against a huge drawn sword that remains him, faintly, of a claymore.
"Good evening," he says, politely.
Reply
"Does it belong to you?"
'It' because she hasn't a gender for the dog, not because she's particularly interested in objectifying it.
Reply
He guesses they don't, because otherwise the question would have been 'Is that your dog?'
Reply
She just never really bothered with them
Reply
"What was so important?" he then asks.
Reply
"What do you mean?"
Reply
He looks at her, steadily.
"So important you didn't even notice that dogs existed," he says.
Reply
"Oh," Teresa says, lightly now she understands the question. "My job, I suppose. I never spent more than a day in any one village. How am I supposed to notice all their pets?"
Reply
And she never even noticed they existed?
Reply
That's nice for them, she thinks. And nice for him, that he did the reading.
"Have I personally offended you that you're so intent on giving me the history of these animals?"
Reply
Leave a comment