Solo Meeting Needs

[Naiomi]

Tables were fantastic inventions. People sat at them on benches or chairs and feasted on food, but that was just the beginning of the miracle. While people sat at them, there had to be enough room for chairs and people’s legs to fit beneath, and that often left room for other things to fit beneath as well. Other things like dogs. Other things like Naiomi. Beneath the table, in Naiomi’s little Underworld, was where the true miracle happened. For those with keen noses and who were quick on the jump, there were treasures to be found, treasures of the very best kind. Food.

For the creatures that lived in the spaces that existed beneath the table, the tumble of food to the ground was like mana from heaven. Whether due to drunkenness, revelry, or just the uncoordinated hands of babies, these blessings were proof of providence. Some divine hand directed food to the floor, and it was there that the creatures who lived their life on four paws rather than two feasted. Of course, there were the even more mirthful moments when the advent of food was no accident but rather the deliberate act of some friendly hand.

Yes. Tables were fantastic, the miraculous invention of some god or goddess at their very pinnacle, no doubt.

Beneath a table was where Naiomi found herself this particular morning, but it wasn’t one of those tables. Not all tables were created equally, and this one didn’t have food. This was a dull table where men sat and tended to the tools of their trade or, if there was nothing to be tended to, read or conversed with others. Food, or rather its unforgivable lacking, was not the worst part though. What was the worst was that no one did anything.

There were things to be done, food to be eaten, creatures to be hunted, balls to be chased and fetched. What she wouldn’t give to be out chasing a ball right now. If someone took her out into the many halls of Syliras and threw a ball down them, she would be happy. Even if it meant she would have to give up her place under the table for a week, she would be happy. The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous her thoughts grew and the more time she promised to give up until she found herself renouncing tables for a lifetime.

She was so bored.

And then, her stomach gurgled, and she immediately ate the many promises she had thought only moments before. Tables were the height of creation, and no living creature for any sort of price should give them up.

So she sat beneath this particular table, too bored to figure out something else to do. At least Master was here. His presence almost made the nothingness bearable. Almost. Today, his attention was not on her. Instead, his nose was buried in an old hunter’s account of the wilds outside the walls of Stormhold Citadel, and that made him very dull, though Naiomi knew this was part of what made him so very good at hunting.

Naiomi, for her part, sat stoically in her usual place beneath the table at his feet, practicing patience and finding it stretched to her limits and very quickly beyond. She sighed heavily, then waited for a response. Nothing. Master was engrossed in the tale, whether purely for entertainment purposes or for education Naiomi didn’t know and didn’t care. She tried again, this time with a more prolonged sigh.

This time, his hand reached out and found her head, fingers working over the warm fur beneath them until they found one large droopy ear and began to scratch behind it. Naiomi melted into this attention. If there was a paradise in the afterlife, she was certain it was filled with plenty of this. Slowly, his hand worked down her head and around the folds of her neck until it found her chin. Craning her neck upward to give his hand unrestricted access, Naiomi drooled happily. When her saliva found his hand, he stopped petting, wiped her drool off his hand on the top of her head, then returned to scratching her chin.

This was the best, but the best things rarely lasted forever, and humankind was easily distracted. In her few short years, Naiomi had learned that, specifically, mankind was easily distracted. Master, despite all his most admirable qualities, was no exception to this rule, and the working of his nails and hands over her ears and chin slowly subsided as he was once again enraptured by the story. Eventually, his attentions stopped altogether, and dejectedly, Naiomi lied down with a deep huff. It didn’t get her the attention she had hoped.

Another bell went on this way, Naiomi whining occasionally in hopes it would draw Master’s attention, but it didn’t. The whines worked themselves up, gaining volume and length, but Master had spent his entire life around dogs and wasn’t easily won over by poor behavior. Unable to contain herself anymore, Naiomi let a whine spill over into a short, sharp bark. A quick snap from Master silenced her.

“Good dogs don’t make sound when others are at the table.” His voice carried the warmth of Benshiran sands and sun on it, and though it was a reprimand, there was a jovial tone, like that of a parent too proud and enamored to be harsh. Pup, as he often called her, was a creature he was immensely fond of, in the same fashion as a doting father. “This is important.”

That was a phrase he used whenever he wanted Naiomi to remember something and remember it well. She tucked this information somewhat begrudgingly away in a very easy to recall place. She was bored, but she wanted so very much to be good, so she quieted down and invented new games to play.

Crumbs and morsels of food weren’t the only thing to be found beneath a table. There were other spectacular things, like feet and shoes, and one of both of Master’s sat between her front paws. The laces were undone. He was a lazy man until it came to work, and he had only put on shoes to travel through the halls. Lacing them had seemed unimportant, and if the laces were unimportant, they could be chewed. First, her nose explored it, seeing what it had been dragged through, what things it had seen. It smelled heavily of horse manure, and it was exquisite. He must have visited the stables this morning.

Her tongue reached out and licked at it before she looked up at Master to see if he objected. He had never let her chew on shoes before. His focus was still on his book, so he did not. Her tail wagging, Naiomi licked the lace up and worked it to the back of her mouth where her heavy teeth and powerful jaws worked steadily on it until she had chewed off a piece, spitting it out and starting on the next length. Sometimes, in the joy that was chewing on something new, she forgot to spit out the piece and swallowed it instead, but it made no difference. The joy was in the chewing.

It wasn’t until she began to work on the leather of the shoe itself with her teeth that Master noticed. The same hand that petted her reached down and flicked the top of her muzzle.

“Hey.”

She wrinkled her nose and sneezed in surprise, then looked up at him, a piece of lace still hanging from the side of her mouth. Fingers working quickly to extract the lace, Master took a look at the damage done.

He brandished the offended strand at her. “Bad girl. Bad. This is not how we behave.”

Naiomi’s head dropped, and sadness, in the way only dogs could express it, filled her eyes. She hadn’t meant to upset him. He hadn’t said no, and so she hadn’t known to stop. His warm hands lifted her chin up, so her eyes met his.

“You aren’t in trouble, Pup. Just don’t do it again. You’re not supposed to eat other people’s clothes. This is important.” He ruffled her ears playfully, and Naiomi knew all was forgiven. She wagged her tail, sat up, and drooled on his lap in return. Wiping the saliva off his pants and on to the top of her head, Master laughed, then went back to his work.

For the time, Naiomi would have to wait patiently until he was ready to go somewhere.

[Naiomi]

to War
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Something changed though. Naiomi’s faith and patience had been put in the wrong person, and the patter of feet out in the hall grabbed her attention. Her head popped up, a string of saliva still connecting her face to the floor. Muscles pulled at the back of her head to draw her ears up, though it was difficult to make them move much with their considerable weight. Still, she could tell little things by the sounds echoing in the halls. The steps were light. They belonged to someone smaller, a child, though a slightly older one, but the even better thing was that they were running straight for this room.

Saggy eyes opened slightly wider in excitement, and Naiomi’s tail begin to whip back and forth. Master had missed the sounds in the hall, but he didn’t miss the telltale sign of the wag of her tail. Stopping his reading, he planted one elbow against the table to help him twist around toward the door and waited with her. Pretty soon, even human ears couldn’t miss the signs of someone’s approach.

A few moments later, a body collided with the door, and it burst open. A young girl, ten years old with messy brown hair and drying dough caked on her hands and face, darted her panicked eyes about the room until they fell on Naiomi.

“Mutt, come quick,” she half-shouted, already turning back toward the door. “The castle’s under attack. Damned Ravokians thought they could catch us off guard, but they came to the wrong city. Quick! To the ramparts.”

And just as quickly as she had appeared, Anita, Naiomi’s dearest friend in Syliras, was gone, sprinting down the hallway. Naiomi exploded to her feet, only to slam her head into the bottom of Master’s table. In her excitement, she had forgotten where she was, but this was important. It was war. She shook her head to clear it from the haze slamming it into the table had caused, then looked up at Master, asking permission with her stare.

He looked at her, then at the door, and finally back to her. “What are you waiting for, Pup? It’s war, isn’t it?”

He understood. He knew the importance of this. Licking his hand, she made to leave, checked that her shirt was tucked into her collar, then bounded out into the hall. Once there, she froze, holding her breath to listen for the sounds of her friend. She didn’t have to listen long before Anita’s battle cries reached her ears from the hallway to her right.

“Knights of Syliras! Knights of Sylir! To arms! We will not fall today. The Citadel will not be occupied. For Syliras!”

Using those cries to guide her through the halls, Naiomi followed the sound and, once she was on its trail, answered it with two short barks that cascaded into a thundering bay. Hers was a battle cry that shook the very foundations of Stormhold Citadel, or it least it would sound that way to anyone stuck in the hall with her where the bay bounced off the walls, echoing and building upon itself. Her thunder echoed off the walls and drowned out any other sound, and soon, Naiomi had lost track of Anita.

Stopping, she pulled at her ears again, though their significant weight didn’t allow them to be lifted very far. Sounds came from all around. Knights and squires training. Laborers going about their usual day. But there was only one fierce battle cry, only one warrior on her way to war, only one sounding the cry of her imminent triumph. There was only one Anita. It wasn’t Naiomi’s usual way of tracking something down. She preferred her nose, but there were times she just had to make do. Anita’s voice was coming from down a hall to Naiomi’s right.

Barking once happily, Naiomi shoved off with her hind legs, thick front legs reaching out in front of her and heavy paws slapping against the stone as she sprinted down the hall. Four legs always went faster than two, in her experience, and the distance that Anita had put between them with her head start was cut quickly. Foot met stone for what seemed like a time so short it existed outside of time before it was shoving off and reaching through the air again. Soon, she spotted Anita rounding another corner up ahead. That was good, because a fierce burn was started to creep into her muscles as her chest worked like bellows, ribs flaring to draw in much needed air.

She had been cooped up in the castle longer than she would have liked and her limbs were unused to the work. It felt good to run though, so Naiomi ignored the burn of her muscles. It was worth it, and when she caught up to Anita, though she was out of breath, Naiomi bayed again, jubilant, confident, and victorious. The two burst past two squires on watch duty, running ahead to where the battle lines had been drawn. Falling into line next to Anita, Naiomi’s hackles raised as she stared across the ten feet of empty space that divided the world into us and them.

boxcode credit : Ennisa