The Dog of Destruction

[inkydink]

For inkstains , the Kismet/Fate thingy.

Okayyyyyy. So I figured I'd start to write something from a longer something that I've been meaning to write. This is from my still-unstarted manga/novel/animation script. Yes, status still remains unstarted --this doesn't count because this bit isn't intended to appear in the thingy I plan to write. Still, every bit helps, I guess.

1045 words, woo!

 

 

Cupcake was safe. Her father found her a block and a half from the main house, safe and sound with nary a mark on the little girl save the strawberry cream smears on her face that the puppy was conscientiously licking clean.

 

“I don’t care, “ she was telling the pie vendor. “I’m not going back! Old Baba just wants to get rid of Flower, saying all those lies about him being the dog of destruction and such! Look at him! I tell you, does that look like the dog of destruction to you?”

 

On cue, the puppy raised its head and stared adoringly at the vendor.  He had to admit,  the little creature hardly looked anything like the cursed being of legend, what with the the strawberry cream smears around his nose that were a pale match to the fuschia threads braided in his topknot.

 

The vendor reached down to scratch the puppy on his drooly chin. “No, he’s adorable.”

 

“My point exactly! Stupid old Baba just doesn’t like dogs!”

 

“Stupid old Baba is your grandmother, child. Be more respectful.”

 

Child, dog and vendor whirled around to see the distinguished-looking gentleman in a Chancellor’s robes smiling in amusement. With one hand, he picked up the child, puppy and all, and proceeded to raise them on his broad shoulders.

 

“I’m not going back! I’m running away! Wif Flower!”

 

The Chancellor rolled up his eyes. “Nobody’s running away, child.”

 

“But … but… “ Cupcake started to cry. “You’re going to kill Flowerrrrrrrr!” The crying was now turning into a full-blown wail.  The Chancellor, being a practical man, decided that the first order of business was to get the child and her puppy home first, cursed animal or not.

 

“I’m not going to let them kill Flower, “ he said.  “Now come home.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Really.  Now come. We’ll figure out what to do with him later.“

 

The dog let out a happy yip. The Chancellor sighed.  The puppy really didn’t look like the dreaded dog of destruction his old mother described.

 
***
The executioner read the account surrounding the death sentence and frowned. It didn’t seem fair that a loyal animal be put to death for defending his human family in the best way that he could.

Still, he had his orders, and the law was the law. All animals that took human lives were to be put to death, regardless of the circumstances.  Never mind that those lives were next to worthless, human scum who didn’t have half the loyalty that the dog displayed, willing to kill a good man –someone who had previously shown them mercy and generosity-- and his entire family for coin.

 

He looked at the numbers again. They seemed familiar.

 

168.

 

The dog—a puppy, really—had killed 168 men, all by himself.

 

Two hundred men, formerly the Chancellor’s guards, had been paid to raze the Chancellor’s keeps, murder him and his family, and none of those two hundred survived.

 

According to the reports, the Chancellor and his last remaining men had managed to kill thirty-two men.

 

The puppy had dispatched the rest.

 

They had found him blood-soaked and standing guard by the sleeping girl with tearstained cheeks, her arms wrapped around the bodies of a dead dog and her pups, surrounded by 168 corpses.

 

Such a shame, he thought. If it were a human, he would be rewarded, not put to death. He wondered how the little girl was going to take it. She had been to the puppy’s cage every single day, the guards said. He never went out while she was there, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to take it if the child decided to beg for her dog’s life.

 

But she wasn’t there now. He decided to go out to feed the brave puppy his last meal.

 
***

The old pie man was praying, thinking of all the things he had and had not done in his life. He was done for, he thought, and looking back, it wasn’t such a bad life. But if the robbers were going to kill him for his day’s sales, he figured he would at least do one brave thing.

 

“Please,” he begged. “ You can do anything you want to me, and here is all the money I have, but please, for the love of the gods, let the lady go.”

 

The lady and her family had been good to him all these years, ever since she was a child and tried to run away with her puppy. In fact, they had even given him the spot in front of the keep chapel to sell his wares every time he was in town.

 

He wondered what happened to the puppy. Flower? Yes that was the dog's name.  The last he had heard, he had been sentenced to death—she had managed to save him from her father and grandmother, but not from the executioner’s sword. He must truly have been cursed after all, the pie man always thought—what kind of fate was that, to be put to death for defending your family? Still, taking down 168 men—that wasn’t such a bad way to go.  He wished he were that brave. But he was old now, he’d be lucky if he could even take one.

 

“Please, please just let her go.”

 

“Don’t beg, “ the woman – he only knew her as Cupcake, that was what her brothers and sisters called her— said scornfully.  “These scum don’t deserve to be talked to, they’re not human. “

 

The leader of the bandits took one step and raised his hand as if to hit her, then stopped. He fell back, eyes wide open, a blade-disc firmly imbedded in his throat.

 

The bandits looked around in confusion. 

 

The pie man looked in the direction the blade had come from and blinked.  Two figures stepped out of the shadow. He vaguely recognized the man-- was that the former executioner? -- but his companion, the one on all fours, carrying a broad executioner's sword on his back,  was familiar.  The big dog’s topknot had streaks of red and fuschia, and it waved in the wind as he bounded towards them, in the direction of the terrified robbers.

 

“Who are you?” One of the robbers managed to scream, a scream that turned into a gurgling sound by the canines locked firmly on his neck.

 

“ I am your destruction, “ the man said. “And this is my dog—Flower.”