Suzuran burst around a corner into the alleyway, having finally caught up to one of the puppies. It was trapped, it had no where to go. It was exhausted, and so was she. She wasn’t precisely human, though her form may look like it. But even she was worn out. There was a light wet sheen on her brow from the exertion. Had she not the ability to recover from her own natural loss of ice over time she would be concerned right now, but for now she was just tired.
But she would get this puppy. She was certain it was the right one. If not… She’d recheck the flyer once she got the bundle of energy. Suzuran approached the puppy slowly, and its tail wagged in weary excitement. She stooped down when she got closer, and when it tried to duck around her grabbed it by the neck. It let out a terrified yelp as she did so. The white haired woman then sat down and put the puppy in her lap, keeping a firm grip on it but no longer holding it by its tiny neck.
It shivered in her lap for about a minute before calming down, soothed by her petting. Such a soft puppy. So soft. She did oh so love soft things. It was a pleasing sensation, that of touch. Such was the reason that while, as an ice elemental, she did not technically need to sleep, she did like the concept of beds. Swaddled in a blanket during the quiet night… It was quite relaxing. As was petting this puppy.
It licked her hand every once in awhile and let out a happy little yelp. The slobber was less than ideal, but she would deal with it, the fur was soft after all.
The serenity did not last long, however, as the puppy began to struggle against her grasp. She tightened her grasp around it, which made it wriggle even more. Suzuran then wrapped her hands around is neck, cutting off its air supply. She did not want to be parted from its softness. If it got away it might take quite a bit of time to catch it again.
It attempted to bite her, but could not quite get the angle quite right. Its paws frantically jerked and did leave a few scratches on her arms, but eventually it stopped moving. It was then Suzuran put the puppy back into her lap and began to pet it for another ten minutes before getting up again- this time without the nuisance of its licking her or its yipping.
She then got up and started walking towards the exit of the alley way, carrying the dead puppy in one arm as she fished out the flyer, from one of her pockets. She was going to have to drop off this puppy to its owner before catching the rest. She needed the money from this job to buy a few things, seeing as now she had absolutely not a penny to her name.
Had she a satchel she’d just put the dead puppy in there, but as it were she hadn’t even the money for that, so she continued holding it as she walked out of the alley. She grabbed the shirt of a random passerby. “Pardon me, but I must find 1432 Hammers Way, would you know what direction that would be?”
The stranger squeaked in surprise at having their shirt grabbed, looking back at Suzuran, then at the strangely still puppy in her arms. The stranger’s pupils went as small as pin pricks. “Is that… I-Is that. Is that puppy dead?!”
“Yes.” Suzuran answered simply, expression deadpan as she failed to interperate the humans’ look of fear and sorrow.
“How could you?” The woman gasped as she tore away from the ice elemental and started to run away. “How could you kill an innocent pup?” The woman sobbed loudly, earning Suzuran a bunch of strange looks, for which she also could not interpret.
“Easily!” She shouted in her monotone voice, loud enough for the fleeing woman to hear. That was when the she saw someone move towards her in the crowd. They were all frozen like deer in headlights, except for the one muscular man that was approaching her.
Within the crowd staring at her a bulky man pushed his way through, ending up before her. “Is that the puppy that I was going to buy from Fred Bluregard?”
“Yes.” Suzuran said with a nod.
The man’s fists clentched, something that she could not quite understand in his eyes making them water. “I picked that pup out when it had first been born! How could you just kill it?!”
“By wrapping my hands around its neck.” Suzuran stated simply. “If you wish to have the pup you can still have it.” She lifted the dead pup up by the scruff and offered it to him.
“You… You…” The man’s fist shook and his face wrinkled in a most ugly fashion. Any other human alive would have known that in the face of such a big, enraged looking man, to run for the hills. But as Suzuran knew not how to interpret the man’s expression and body language, she was taken completely by surprise when the man punched her. She fell to the ground putting her hand over her face as the pain set in. She found herself unwilling to let go of her face. It hurt. It hurt so much. The man kicked her, causing even more pain. She found herself sobbing from the pain. “You monster!” He screamed at her, kicking her a few more times for good measure.
The man stooped over and picked her up, a few chips of ice falling off her and clinking to the ground as he did so. Suzuran, suspended in the air, braced herself for another punch.
That was when another person, a much smaller man gently grabbed the man’s arm and said to him softly, “That’s enough.”
The bigger man snorted and dropped Suzuran. The ice elemental managed not to crumble to the ground for a moment, but her knees gave out. As the barrage was finally over she curled up upon herself. The newcomer looked at the crowd after the larger man stormed away. “Don’t you all have places to go?” He asked softly, yet there was a certain firmness in how he spoke.
They muttered for a few moments before starting walking on their way again, clearly hesitant to leave the scene. But eventually they did. She remained on the ground, arms now curled up on herself. “I said he could have it. Why’d he hurt me? I said he could have it.” She whimpered, staring at the limp puppy on the ground.
The newcomer crouched down on one knee putting his hand on her shoulder as he looked her straight in the eyes, as if searching for something. “People don’t want dead pups.” He said in that same soft, yet firm voice, as before.
“But why? They’re still soft.” Suzuran said, picking up the pup and petting it, earning a few more strange looks from the new passersby.
The stranger put his hand on hers to stop her. “People don’t want dead pups because-.” The stranger’s eyes widened slightly as if he had found something in her eyes. His brow furrowed slightly as he looked down for a second at the pup. “-Because people like puppies that are alive. When something dies it can no longer…” Explaining the concept of death to someone that looked to be in their twenties… Civi had never thought he’d find himself in this scenario. “Its just not the same.”
“But you could eat it.” She said, almost offering the pup to him before remembering that she ought give it to Fredrick to get the money for it. After she caught its siblings of course. But would he want it in this dead state? The one who had wanted to buy it no longer wanted it.
“No, we bury our dead.”
“But then its flesh would be rendered absolutely useless.” Suzuran replied, petting the dead pup a little again.”
“It gives plants the energy to grow, which they give back to the animals. Its a thing humans do to respect the dead and make sure their body continues to be use of everything around them. And when the plants grow it also gives us awesome things to eat, like pancakes for example.”
Suzuran perked up slightly at the mention of pancakes, then shrunk back down, remembering how pancakes had betrayed her. “No. I need to use this pup’s flesh in order to catch its siblings towards me. I do not care about pancakes.”
“You can’t feed the pup to is siblings!” The stranger said, looking alarmed. In seeing that Suzuran didn’t seem to register why he continued. “Its wrong!”
“I am merely making use of its flesh, I do not care for the energy given to plants and animals by it.” Suzuran said.
“You can’t feed the pup to its siblings, they’ll know. They’ll see you with their dead sibling and they won’t trust you.” The stranger said, his words quick as he spoke them.
“What if I tore off a piece of flesh off the pup and fed it to them?”
“That wouldn’t work either, they’re pack animals, they’re smarter than that.” Said the stranger, going pale.
“I hear that some animal species chew up their food before giving it to their young. Would this work?” She asked the stranger in all frankness, not an inkling of maliciousness in her gaze as she asked this. She was merely trying to catch the pups, she saw nothing wrong with the idea of feeding the pups their dead sibling.
“Pups and most carnivores like them don’t work like that. If you have a chunk of raw steak they’ll come to you.” He almost stopped talking before it occurred to him he ought clarify. “As in steak from a cow.”
“I do not have money for steak.” She stated. If she had money for steak she wouldn’t be doing this job in the first place. Suzuran bit into the puppy and tore off a hunk of flesh, chewing a few times before spitting it out. As an ice elemental she had no digestive tract after all. “Is it really all that different?” She asked.
Civi nodded, grimacing a little. “We could work out some sort of deal. I own an ice sculpture business and I could use a person of your talents for more ice.” He said, taking her shoulder and leading her toward his shop. By Suzuran’s eye it was a normal affair- just like anything else. But to anyone else it would have been a sight to dazzle and amaze. Alas, she had not taste in art to tell. She made the ice in question. The only ice spell she had was to make a weapon, but it was easy enough to manipulate it into a block.
“Thank you very much, here’s the steak.” He said, pulling it from one of his freezers.
Suzuran took teh steak and promptly chucked the puppy into the garbage. The human went a little pale, and delicately pulled the puppy out of the trash. “We should bury it.”
“You should bury it if you care.” Suzuran said. Despite the cruel contents of her words it did not actually sound like she meant them in an ill fashion. “That pup means nothing if it is not alive.” With that she left, in search of the other pups.
As she walked out of the store she spied another pup. If it had really mattered so much that they be alive they really should have put that on the poster, Suzuran thought to herself as she pursued the pup, holding out the steak as an offering. It kept on running from her, so she put on an extra boost of speed and grabbed it by the scruff, picking it up. She opened her dimensional pocket and dropped the pup into it, closing it shortly after.
Now there was a way to get all the pups at once… Hadn’t that human said dogs were pack animals? At least a few of the others had to be close by. Suzuran dropped the steak and waited, listening for the yelping of any other pups. A few yelps were in the distance, but not close enough for them to know about the steak. Suzuran picked up the steak and started walking towards the yelps, too tired to run for now.
When she got to the source of the yelping she found four of them playing together. She then tossed the steak in the middle of the puppy pile. They scattered for a moment, but quickly started tearing at the steak. Suzuran used the distraction to scoop up each puppy and stuff it in her dimensional pocket before they could eat the whole steak. She still needed it to find the rest of the puppies.
As she walked along she almost passed one, so quiet it was. While most of them had been fed by passerby’s, it seemed this one was less than fortunate in that it didn’t look as cute as his other siblings. He yelped pitifully for the steak in her hand, which drew her toward him. She picked him up and… Stuffed him in the pocket with everyone else, not understanding that he was currently starving to death. As an ice elemental she did not understand the concept of hunger.
Suzuran continued looking for more of the pups, holding the torn piece of meat in her hand as she did so. That was when she came across a child walking one of the pups that fit her description with a collar. Suzuran walked up to the pup and picked it up, and without ceremony shoved it into the pocket dimension with the rest of its yelping siblings.
“My puppy!” The child wailed, started to scream and cry.
“This puppy did not belong to you.” Suzuran said flatly. “You found it on the street, that does not mean it belongs to you.”
“B-b-but finder’s keepers!” Sniffled the child.
“Then find another one. One that doesn’t look like this one. I still have to find the others.” Suzuran said, turning around and walking away from the child, not realizing that everyone that had been nearby was now staring at her. She was now focused on how to find the rest of the pups. She decided to ask someone, so she grabbed the arm of a random passerby. They gave a start, and looked nervous as they came face to face with her empty gaze. Their nervousness eluded Suzuran, who was only after the information.
“Let me go!” They yelped.
“Tell me.” Suzuran insisted, refusing to let go until they did so.
“F-Fine, I saw a couple over there!” They yelped, yanking their arm away and running off. Suzuran went in the direction, ignorant of the fact that they may have lied to get her away from them. As such, she spent about an hour wandering in the wrong direction until she happened across a pup milling about and digging up someone’s garden. “Puppy.” Suzuran said in her monotone voice. “I have your siblings.”
She opened the pocket dimension so that the puppy could see them. “Join your pack.” The pup, for some reason, hesitated. That was more than enough time for Suzuran to grab the pup and shove him in there. As she got up she came face to face with a sign that said animal shelter. “That ought do it.” She said, then walking in that direction until she got to it. She then walked up to the desk and pulled out one of the puppies from the dimensional pocket she had. “Have you got any other puppies that look like this?”
“Yes actually, our catchers found around seven of them running around the city.” The woman said, looking concerned at seeing all the puppies in the dimensional pocket. “Does that get air in there?”
Suzuran looked at the pups, and in seeing that they weren’t suffocating, nodded. They looked as rowdy as ever. “I am here to collect the puppies to give them to their owner.” Had she known this place existed she would have checked here first. This was a lot easier than finding them herself.
“Alright then. I’m just going to need to get you to sign a few papers, then you’ll be good to go.”
Suzuran signed said papers, and went into the back, putting each puppy into the pocket dimension and then heading out.
The reward was smaller than she was expecting, the owner seemed to be discontent that the pup was dead. But she had at least gotten the money out of it. So that was good.
But she would get this puppy. She was certain it was the right one. If not… She’d recheck the flyer once she got the bundle of energy. Suzuran approached the puppy slowly, and its tail wagged in weary excitement. She stooped down when she got closer, and when it tried to duck around her grabbed it by the neck. It let out a terrified yelp as she did so. The white haired woman then sat down and put the puppy in her lap, keeping a firm grip on it but no longer holding it by its tiny neck.
It shivered in her lap for about a minute before calming down, soothed by her petting. Such a soft puppy. So soft. She did oh so love soft things. It was a pleasing sensation, that of touch. Such was the reason that while, as an ice elemental, she did not technically need to sleep, she did like the concept of beds. Swaddled in a blanket during the quiet night… It was quite relaxing. As was petting this puppy.
It licked her hand every once in awhile and let out a happy little yelp. The slobber was less than ideal, but she would deal with it, the fur was soft after all.
The serenity did not last long, however, as the puppy began to struggle against her grasp. She tightened her grasp around it, which made it wriggle even more. Suzuran then wrapped her hands around is neck, cutting off its air supply. She did not want to be parted from its softness. If it got away it might take quite a bit of time to catch it again.
It attempted to bite her, but could not quite get the angle quite right. Its paws frantically jerked and did leave a few scratches on her arms, but eventually it stopped moving. It was then Suzuran put the puppy back into her lap and began to pet it for another ten minutes before getting up again- this time without the nuisance of its licking her or its yipping.
She then got up and started walking towards the exit of the alley way, carrying the dead puppy in one arm as she fished out the flyer, from one of her pockets. She was going to have to drop off this puppy to its owner before catching the rest. She needed the money from this job to buy a few things, seeing as now she had absolutely not a penny to her name.
Had she a satchel she’d just put the dead puppy in there, but as it were she hadn’t even the money for that, so she continued holding it as she walked out of the alley. She grabbed the shirt of a random passerby. “Pardon me, but I must find 1432 Hammers Way, would you know what direction that would be?”
The stranger squeaked in surprise at having their shirt grabbed, looking back at Suzuran, then at the strangely still puppy in her arms. The stranger’s pupils went as small as pin pricks. “Is that… I-Is that. Is that puppy dead?!”
“Yes.” Suzuran answered simply, expression deadpan as she failed to interperate the humans’ look of fear and sorrow.
“How could you?” The woman gasped as she tore away from the ice elemental and started to run away. “How could you kill an innocent pup?” The woman sobbed loudly, earning Suzuran a bunch of strange looks, for which she also could not interpret.
“Easily!” She shouted in her monotone voice, loud enough for the fleeing woman to hear. That was when the she saw someone move towards her in the crowd. They were all frozen like deer in headlights, except for the one muscular man that was approaching her.
Within the crowd staring at her a bulky man pushed his way through, ending up before her. “Is that the puppy that I was going to buy from Fred Bluregard?”
“Yes.” Suzuran said with a nod.
The man’s fists clentched, something that she could not quite understand in his eyes making them water. “I picked that pup out when it had first been born! How could you just kill it?!”
“By wrapping my hands around its neck.” Suzuran stated simply. “If you wish to have the pup you can still have it.” She lifted the dead pup up by the scruff and offered it to him.
“You… You…” The man’s fist shook and his face wrinkled in a most ugly fashion. Any other human alive would have known that in the face of such a big, enraged looking man, to run for the hills. But as Suzuran knew not how to interpret the man’s expression and body language, she was taken completely by surprise when the man punched her. She fell to the ground putting her hand over her face as the pain set in. She found herself unwilling to let go of her face. It hurt. It hurt so much. The man kicked her, causing even more pain. She found herself sobbing from the pain. “You monster!” He screamed at her, kicking her a few more times for good measure.
The man stooped over and picked her up, a few chips of ice falling off her and clinking to the ground as he did so. Suzuran, suspended in the air, braced herself for another punch.
That was when another person, a much smaller man gently grabbed the man’s arm and said to him softly, “That’s enough.”
The bigger man snorted and dropped Suzuran. The ice elemental managed not to crumble to the ground for a moment, but her knees gave out. As the barrage was finally over she curled up upon herself. The newcomer looked at the crowd after the larger man stormed away. “Don’t you all have places to go?” He asked softly, yet there was a certain firmness in how he spoke.
They muttered for a few moments before starting walking on their way again, clearly hesitant to leave the scene. But eventually they did. She remained on the ground, arms now curled up on herself. “I said he could have it. Why’d he hurt me? I said he could have it.” She whimpered, staring at the limp puppy on the ground.
The newcomer crouched down on one knee putting his hand on her shoulder as he looked her straight in the eyes, as if searching for something. “People don’t want dead pups.” He said in that same soft, yet firm voice, as before.
“But why? They’re still soft.” Suzuran said, picking up the pup and petting it, earning a few more strange looks from the new passersby.
The stranger put his hand on hers to stop her. “People don’t want dead pups because-.” The stranger’s eyes widened slightly as if he had found something in her eyes. His brow furrowed slightly as he looked down for a second at the pup. “-Because people like puppies that are alive. When something dies it can no longer…” Explaining the concept of death to someone that looked to be in their twenties… Civi had never thought he’d find himself in this scenario. “Its just not the same.”
“But you could eat it.” She said, almost offering the pup to him before remembering that she ought give it to Fredrick to get the money for it. After she caught its siblings of course. But would he want it in this dead state? The one who had wanted to buy it no longer wanted it.
“No, we bury our dead.”
“But then its flesh would be rendered absolutely useless.” Suzuran replied, petting the dead pup a little again.”
“It gives plants the energy to grow, which they give back to the animals. Its a thing humans do to respect the dead and make sure their body continues to be use of everything around them. And when the plants grow it also gives us awesome things to eat, like pancakes for example.”
Suzuran perked up slightly at the mention of pancakes, then shrunk back down, remembering how pancakes had betrayed her. “No. I need to use this pup’s flesh in order to catch its siblings towards me. I do not care about pancakes.”
“You can’t feed the pup to is siblings!” The stranger said, looking alarmed. In seeing that Suzuran didn’t seem to register why he continued. “Its wrong!”
“I am merely making use of its flesh, I do not care for the energy given to plants and animals by it.” Suzuran said.
“You can’t feed the pup to its siblings, they’ll know. They’ll see you with their dead sibling and they won’t trust you.” The stranger said, his words quick as he spoke them.
“What if I tore off a piece of flesh off the pup and fed it to them?”
“That wouldn’t work either, they’re pack animals, they’re smarter than that.” Said the stranger, going pale.
“I hear that some animal species chew up their food before giving it to their young. Would this work?” She asked the stranger in all frankness, not an inkling of maliciousness in her gaze as she asked this. She was merely trying to catch the pups, she saw nothing wrong with the idea of feeding the pups their dead sibling.
“Pups and most carnivores like them don’t work like that. If you have a chunk of raw steak they’ll come to you.” He almost stopped talking before it occurred to him he ought clarify. “As in steak from a cow.”
“I do not have money for steak.” She stated. If she had money for steak she wouldn’t be doing this job in the first place. Suzuran bit into the puppy and tore off a hunk of flesh, chewing a few times before spitting it out. As an ice elemental she had no digestive tract after all. “Is it really all that different?” She asked.
Civi nodded, grimacing a little. “We could work out some sort of deal. I own an ice sculpture business and I could use a person of your talents for more ice.” He said, taking her shoulder and leading her toward his shop. By Suzuran’s eye it was a normal affair- just like anything else. But to anyone else it would have been a sight to dazzle and amaze. Alas, she had not taste in art to tell. She made the ice in question. The only ice spell she had was to make a weapon, but it was easy enough to manipulate it into a block.
“Thank you very much, here’s the steak.” He said, pulling it from one of his freezers.
Suzuran took teh steak and promptly chucked the puppy into the garbage. The human went a little pale, and delicately pulled the puppy out of the trash. “We should bury it.”
“You should bury it if you care.” Suzuran said. Despite the cruel contents of her words it did not actually sound like she meant them in an ill fashion. “That pup means nothing if it is not alive.” With that she left, in search of the other pups.
As she walked out of the store she spied another pup. If it had really mattered so much that they be alive they really should have put that on the poster, Suzuran thought to herself as she pursued the pup, holding out the steak as an offering. It kept on running from her, so she put on an extra boost of speed and grabbed it by the scruff, picking it up. She opened her dimensional pocket and dropped the pup into it, closing it shortly after.
Now there was a way to get all the pups at once… Hadn’t that human said dogs were pack animals? At least a few of the others had to be close by. Suzuran dropped the steak and waited, listening for the yelping of any other pups. A few yelps were in the distance, but not close enough for them to know about the steak. Suzuran picked up the steak and started walking towards the yelps, too tired to run for now.
When she got to the source of the yelping she found four of them playing together. She then tossed the steak in the middle of the puppy pile. They scattered for a moment, but quickly started tearing at the steak. Suzuran used the distraction to scoop up each puppy and stuff it in her dimensional pocket before they could eat the whole steak. She still needed it to find the rest of the puppies.
As she walked along she almost passed one, so quiet it was. While most of them had been fed by passerby’s, it seemed this one was less than fortunate in that it didn’t look as cute as his other siblings. He yelped pitifully for the steak in her hand, which drew her toward him. She picked him up and… Stuffed him in the pocket with everyone else, not understanding that he was currently starving to death. As an ice elemental she did not understand the concept of hunger.
Suzuran continued looking for more of the pups, holding the torn piece of meat in her hand as she did so. That was when she came across a child walking one of the pups that fit her description with a collar. Suzuran walked up to the pup and picked it up, and without ceremony shoved it into the pocket dimension with the rest of its yelping siblings.
“My puppy!” The child wailed, started to scream and cry.
“This puppy did not belong to you.” Suzuran said flatly. “You found it on the street, that does not mean it belongs to you.”
“B-b-but finder’s keepers!” Sniffled the child.
“Then find another one. One that doesn’t look like this one. I still have to find the others.” Suzuran said, turning around and walking away from the child, not realizing that everyone that had been nearby was now staring at her. She was now focused on how to find the rest of the pups. She decided to ask someone, so she grabbed the arm of a random passerby. They gave a start, and looked nervous as they came face to face with her empty gaze. Their nervousness eluded Suzuran, who was only after the information.
“Let me go!” They yelped.
“Tell me.” Suzuran insisted, refusing to let go until they did so.
“F-Fine, I saw a couple over there!” They yelped, yanking their arm away and running off. Suzuran went in the direction, ignorant of the fact that they may have lied to get her away from them. As such, she spent about an hour wandering in the wrong direction until she happened across a pup milling about and digging up someone’s garden. “Puppy.” Suzuran said in her monotone voice. “I have your siblings.”
She opened the pocket dimension so that the puppy could see them. “Join your pack.” The pup, for some reason, hesitated. That was more than enough time for Suzuran to grab the pup and shove him in there. As she got up she came face to face with a sign that said animal shelter. “That ought do it.” She said, then walking in that direction until she got to it. She then walked up to the desk and pulled out one of the puppies from the dimensional pocket she had. “Have you got any other puppies that look like this?”
“Yes actually, our catchers found around seven of them running around the city.” The woman said, looking concerned at seeing all the puppies in the dimensional pocket. “Does that get air in there?”
Suzuran looked at the pups, and in seeing that they weren’t suffocating, nodded. They looked as rowdy as ever. “I am here to collect the puppies to give them to their owner.” Had she known this place existed she would have checked here first. This was a lot easier than finding them herself.
“Alright then. I’m just going to need to get you to sign a few papers, then you’ll be good to go.”
Suzuran signed said papers, and went into the back, putting each puppy into the pocket dimension and then heading out.
The reward was smaller than she was expecting, the owner seemed to be discontent that the pup was dead. But she had at least gotten the money out of it. So that was good.
