It was no lighter by the time they reached the edge of the city, but another glance up at the sky didn't look like rain. There was the quality of the air, too: not damp and heavy, like before, but drier, as if the sky needed a rest. Piled on the horizon were bigger, rounder clouds that would likely bring more storms later on. The coyote just hoped later was tomorrow or the next day, and not this afternoon.
Now that they were out of the city the pup perked up some. Pack was a curious dog, and liked to stick his nose in new things, no matter if he had complained about losing sleep. The coyote dropped him to the mud, and the puppy took to his paws and sniffed around --much shorter than the coyote had expected-- instead mostly using his eyes and ears. His ears, big and round in an almost silly-looking way, were constantly twitching; sometimes the coyote thought he caught whatever it was the pup was orienting on, like the call of a morning bird far off or the constant, irritating sound of water dripping from leaves, but sometimes he heard nothing. He didn't know if that meant he had missed something --his hearing was generally good, though he much preferred scent-- or if Pack was simply being over-eager.
For the first blush of the morning they went wherever the puppy wandered. Last time they had come out, the coyote had suspected that the pup had never been out of the tent-city, that he had never been in the wild, the grass. So today's lesson --that's what this was-- was more like preparation. Let the pup get used to everything that might otherwise distract him. Let him learn what it was like to be out, away from the tent-people he loved.
That right there was something already different from the other dogs. Brother was not afraid of people, but he didn't let them touch him or come near, he would always run away. Sister hated the human-forms so much she refused to come even near to cities, and she was likely to attack if she thought she could get a couple good bites in. Pack, though, he loved people, much in the way that the coyote did, though different too. The coyote's love was a need, deep inside-- being near people made that awful emptiness in his chest feel less, and he always wanted to make people happy.
For Pack it was just about making friends and getting attention. He liked to be petted, his fur brushed through with human fingers, his ears and chin rubbed, his paws massaged; this was something Kyo --the coyote's human-mind-- had never even considered trying with the other dogs. It just wasn't part of their interaction. Though his dogs recognized the coyote's human-form and always had --he smelled the same in either form-- they liked the coyote better with four legs. He was one of them, a canine, part of the pack, even though he was not a dog. He wouldn't pet his brother or sister; he would help groom them, yes, or play with them, or wrestle around, or sleep close and curled-in for warmth and safety. But pet them? No.
With the puppy, though, it was natural. Pack liked it. The coyote didn't think the pup yet understood this coyote's abnormal type: that he was both coyote-form and human-form. He still acted surprised --dropping his belly to the ground as if caught between a play-bow and a show of submission-- whenever the coyote shifted in front of him. Maybe it was the lights, scaring him. Or maybe he had never met one like the coyote before, and so did not know how to think about it.
Well, it had been hard for even the coyote to understand at first, after he had begun to meet people. He had thought that everyone was of his type, that everyone had both an animal and a human-form inside. Now he saw different. Not everyone-- some, but not all. And not even all human-forms were the same. The blue-men --called Akalak-- were not the same as the sun-ones --the Ethaefal. The Ethaefal were strange, too, because they also had more than one form. But both forms were human-like, though one did have an animal aspect, the horns that grew out from their brow.
Maybe it would just take the pup some time to come to understand, as well.
