Mickey Reichert - The lost Dragons of Barakhai

Korfius sniffled, and the tears stopped. He looked up at Collins. "Tome?"

"To you," Collins confirmed.

"Why me?"

The answer seemed so obvious, Collins laughed but stopped the moment Korfius looked affronted. "I want to make sure you're happy living with me. That you don't need anything I'm not providing. That I'm feeding you okay."

Korfius wiped the tears from his eyes with a fist. "I like being a dog all the time. That's every lesariat's dream." He rubbed at the other eye. "And I like having you as my master."

Collins cringed. With Korfius in human form, it made him feel like a slaver. "You're sure?"

"No one forced me to come to your world," Korfius reminded.

"Well, no, but"

"And I could leave if I wanted to, right?"

Stunned, Collins only nodded. "I… never thought about that."

Korfius sat up, freeing himself from Collins' grip. The tears had completely stopped, and his words came more easily. "Sure. I know where stuff is. Just 'cause I'm a dog doesn't mean I'm dumb."

"No, it doesn't," Collins agreed, rocking back on his heels. Remembering the others, he looked around the cave. No one seemed to be paying any attention to them. Aisa and Zylas cleaned up the remains of breakfast without so much as a glance in their direction. Prinivere dozed in her corner. "Are you happy with your food?"

Korfius shrugged. "I like the stuff you eat the best," he admitted. "And that's mostly all I get from you. Some of the others give me that kibble junk. It's not as yummy, but I know it's better for me, and I've got plenty of things to just chew on. I'd like to have you with me all the time, but I know you have to go to class and stuff." His young face screwed into a sidelong knot. "I honestly think I'd miss my quiet nap if you stayed home every day."

Collins could scarcely believe that a dog who had spent part of his life as a boy could be content with the simple ways of an average American dog. It also surprised him to learn that others in his building were feeding his dog.

"In fact, I think you should go out more." Korfius managed a smile. "With a lady who really really likes dogs."

Collins laughed, feeling like a divorced father. "Likes to pet them all day long?"

"That would be nice."

Collins thought he would have a million questions-not many people got the opportunity to talk to their dogs-yet he found himself thinking hard to come up with even one. "Do you… understand me… when I talk to you when you're a dog?"

Korfius bobbed his head vigorously, and the yellow locks flew. "Mostly I do. More so the last few months. Overlap gets better the more time you spend in animal form."

Collins remembered hearing that before, which explained why Regulars usually gained overlap faster than Randoms. Usually, he added to himself, thinking of Zylas' near-perfect overlap. Other factors included practice, desire, natural ability, and level of distractions. On the other hand, it seemed wrong to refer to spending life in one form as overlap."

"So," Collins tried to summarize, "you're basically happy?"

Korfius smiled. "I'm happy," he confirmed. The grin wilted. "Or was. Until you brought me back here. Now I have to deal with switching again. And don't the royals want us dead?"

Thinking of a very touchy subject, Collins lowered his voice to make certain none of the others could overhear. He hoped Prinivere's mind reading did not carry this far or, if it did, that she had her attention turned elsewhere. "Does it bother you that your food contains meat?"

"It does?"

Though Korfius' tone did not contain the condemnation and horror Collins expected, he still grimaced. "I'm sorry. I eat it. And all dog food and treats have it." He suspected some protein-balanced organic kibble might exist in some vegan store, but he doubted he could afford to buy it.

Korfius stretched his limbs, a few dried tears on his cheeks the only remaining sign of his sadness. "I knew some of our shared food was, but that's okay. I know it's not a bad thing in your world." He added, as if Collins might have forgotten, "Eating meat. It's okay there." He lowered his voice to a guilty whisper. "I like it."

'Me, too," Collins whispered back. He had toyed with the idea of going vegetarian on his return from Barakhai, but the hospital food had not given him much of a chance and he had found the lure of fast food irresistible. He did deliberately avoid the pet foods that contained horsemeat as an ingredient. "Our dirty little secret, all right?"

Korfius nodded.

Collins felt as if he had taken little away from a conversation he had risked death to have. "So I should just treat you like a normal dog?"

Korfius jerked back, as if affronted. "Oh, no. You should treat me like a spoiled, pampered prince of a dog. Like on that show we saw."

Show? Collins did occasionally turn on his tiny television in the evenings for relaxation. He considered, remembered the Dateline special on people who baby their pets, and laughed. "Well, you can forget the steak every night. Their dogs don't live long enough to have to worry about cholesterol levels and heart attacks-"

"Choi-what?"

"-but I'll work on the full-sized bed of your own when I graduate and have a good job."

"No, thanks." Korfius yawned. "I'd rather sleep on yours."

"Great." Collins laid on the sarcasm, not nearly as bothered as he claimed by waking up several times a night with a dog head on his leg or belly. In winter, he appreciated the warm body beside him, and it allowed him to forget he always slept alone. Since his breakup with Marlys, he had not had a relationship serious enough to last longer than a couple of dates, and his last sexual encounter had been with Carrie Quinton. Not that he had not had the opportunity. The notoriety his mysterious brush with death had gained him, along with the improvements physical therapy had made to his skinny physique had brought him the first flirtations of his life. Since his trials in Barakhai, the college girls seemed flighty, obsessed with the insignificant: all games and looks and alcohol. None of the unattached postgrads suited him. Somewhere along the line, he had fallen prey to the romantic notion of that one perfect mate, and not one of the girls he had met in the last year came close to fulfilling it.

Collins wondered how much of that to attribute to the meltdown of his own family. His parents had divorced soon after he left the nest, and each had become thoroughly preoccupied with his or her own affairs. Collins had ended up in Barakhai the first time because he had had no family to visit over the Thanksgiving holiday. Despite all that had happened, despite his mother's dutiful visits as he recovered and his father's calls from his European vacation, Collins had found himself stuck in the laboratory again over the next year's four-day weekend. Like Korfius' lesariat parents, they had raised him and then purged him, and one another, from their lives. Korfius professed not to miss his parents or his seven same-age brothers and sisters, who, like him, had an overwhelming doggy side.

Oblivious to the turn of Collins' thoughts, Korfius continued, "I like tug-of-war, and you don't have to worry that it'll make me vicious, despite what Maia says." He referred to one of Collins' neighbors, a long-legged redhead who considered herself the dorm authority on animal training. "I like the big biscuits, the brown ones-not the little multicolored ones. I'm not the one who took Bernice's shoe; it got kicked under the common room couch. I like Tom, but I wish he'd quit ruffling my back fur the wrong way. Dan's got the perfect touch on car scratching." Korfius rolled his gaze directly onto Collins. "You could learn from him. I would never poop or pee inside, so tell Nita to stop worrying. Nick smells too much like a cat not to be hiding one. And, by the way, you have huge roaches; and they're delicious."