Note: This one's all forestgreen's fault. I was talking about this AU idea (where Harry went back to Lea after killing Justin and she did turn him into a hound for a while, then he was raised by the sidhe) I had for one of the prompts (the DP with Donar/Harry/Erlking & Mab & Marcone watching, in case it makes any difference) and forest said something about puppy!Harry meeting the Mothers. And this happened. So. All forest's fault. Like so many things. :D
Note 3: Excessively, inexcusably fluffy and lacking in plotty things -
I nudged Ginger's belly with my nose, trying to get her to get up and play with me. She opened one eye and raised her head from the ground to look at me. Ginger spoke quietly, with fond exasperation in her tone.
“You are not as cute as you think you are puppy. Go annoy someone else.”
I whined, trying the cute and pathetic route. She huffed and lay back down, her ear flopping with the movement. I crawled backwards out of her den, knocking my head on the edge of the doorway when I tried to stand up just a little too soon.
The other hounds were all napping too, as I looked around the exercise yard. I growled a little as I wandered around the line of the fence, looking though the wooden slats at the world outside. My godmother had been right; being a hound was fun, most of the time. Easier too. I ran, I played, I chased things that smelled interesting. I learned from the rest of the pack how to actually hunt. I rarely remembered Justin or Elaine. They were gone, and things that were gone were unimportant. And it sure as hell had thrown the creepy guys in the cloaks off of my trail. But the others in the pack were all fully grown, and not as enthusiastic about having to entertain a puppy as Lea and Glenmael were.
With both of them off doing sidhe things, I was left to my own limited devices. Chasing a ball was less fun when you had to roll it yourself, and the giant butterflies had gotten wise and were avoiding flying through the yard. I found the wide spot in the fence, the one facing the path through Lea's demesne in the Nevernever and dropped to my belly, my nose sticking out through the gap. The wind looked stronger out there, rustling the branches of the apple trees that filled the yard and lined the road against one another, making a soft kind of music.
I lay there and let the breeze ruffle my fur, the longer hairs that had just started growing in tugged gently against my skin. The coolness of the dirt beneath my belly felt good. I yawned, baring my teeth to the empty road and let my eyes start to close. Maybe the others had the right idea. A nap would be nice.
Something woke me up a few minutes later. Less than an hour, though time was a fuzzy concept now. The breeze was still coming from the same direction and the sun had only moved a little. So it hadn't been long. I didn't move except for my ears pricking up, opening up so that I could hear better. The something turned out to be a sound; a fast, steady badumbadumbadum in two slightly varied tones, accompanied by the whooshcreak of wooden wheels. Horses drawing a carriage. Not Lea's. The horses were wrong, and her wheels had an extra groan, a little whump on the back right wheel from where it had been patched, to them that these didn't have. And Glenmael drove a lot faster. Strangers.
My muscles tensed and I got my feet and my legs under me, ready to jump up and start sounding the alarm if I needed to. Strangers didn't come to Lea's. None of the others stirred. Did that mean that this was someone who came by all the time? I shoved my head into the gap farther, the wood creaking around me. I got my head far enough out that I could see the path without anything blocking my sight.
The horses appeared first, both variations of pale done in the shades of gray my vision had become. One looked healthy, the other looked dead. They ran together in spite of that, strong and steady. I inhaled, taking in their scents. The healthy looking one smelled great; fresh grass under a hot sun, something moist and growing. Something I wanted to roll in so I could carry that interesting scent around with me. The other one smelled great too; rotting slowly in the cold air. I itched to roll around in that one too. Scents were great, better than sight for identifying things.
They pulled a black carriage, driverless, behind them. It was black and smelled like a combination of the two horses, only stronger. Maybe the sunny, dirt warm scent was a little stronger. It was hard to tell from this far away. As I watched, waiting for the carriage or the horses to do something threatening, an arm reached out from the window in the door and plucked one of Lea's apples from the branch as the carriage rushed by.
I forgot to howl as my jaw dropped open in shock. The carriage was gone, dust still settling in its wake by the time I got to my feet. Someone had stolen one of Lea's apples. Someone had stolen from the Leanansidhe. That was- no one did that! Even Queen Mab, when she'd come over to meet me had asked if she could have one. Not that Lea would have told her no, but it was the way things were done.
And these yahoos had just taken one! I growled at them, my paws digging into the dirt. That could not be allowed! They had just insulted my godmother! I inhaled deeply, making sure to get their scent and really fix it in my mind, then I rushed back to Ginger's burrow. I didn't bother crawling in this time, just stood outside and yelled for her, my nose down into the entrance to make sure she couldn't ignore me.
“Ginger! Ginger! Giiingeeeerrrrr!”
“Shut! Up!” A vise clamped down on the end of my nose and I yelped, freezing. I could feel Ginger's growl in my bones. She shook her head, her teeth scraping over my muzzle and drawing a burning line of pain along the top and the bottom. I whined and tucked my tail, backing away as fast as I could when Ginger released me. “Go to sleep, pup! It's too hot out for your silliness.”
Okay. Okay. I sat outside of Ginger's burrow and touched my front paws to my nose in turn. They came away a little wet, but nothing to cry about. I whined anyway. It stung, and it was embarrassing to be treated like an unruly little kid. I was a puppy, sure, but there really was something going on. Someone had stolen from Lea! It was our job to protect her things.
Fine. If Ginger wouldn't help, none of the others would. She was head of the pack. So that left me. I ran back over to the gap and started digging, the earth hard packed and tough to get through at first, then looser as I got deeper. It took me no time at all to make a hole big enough for me to crawl under the fence.
I dropped to the ground and crawled, the dirt collapsing a little on me as my back legs kicked. The hole on the other side of the fence wasn't quite big enough and I had to dig at it a little more, sneezing dirt out of my nose as I went.
On the other side of the fence I stood and shook myself off, felt the dirt scattering around me. I panted, happy and a little excited. I was outside. I hadn't been outside without Lea since I'd arrived, before she'd turned me into a hound. It was so big, bigger than I remembered. Sharper, too. Everything came to me loud and clear, the sounds and scents touching my brain and telling me all about themselves. I gave a quiet little yip of excitement and lunged to my right and then to my left, chasing invisible enemies.
A crow cried out from the trees by the road and I forced myself to get back to what I was supposed to be doing. The carriage person had stolen from Lea. I was going to make them regret it. If I didn't get moving soon, I might lose the trail. I hadn't paid enough attention when Ginger and Fred were giving the tracking lessons to track a really old scent.
With one last look back at the yard, none of the others had come out, I kicked some dirt back at them and took off. The road was rough and gravelly beneath my paws as I stepped onto it and I stopped, the fur on the back of my neck rising. This might be a bad idea. It was the Nevernever, not Iowa. How would I find my way back after I'd gotten the apple back from the thief? The crow screamed again and I jumped, crouching low and growling up at it. It flapped its wings and cackled, a strange bird laugh. I barked at it, once. The crow hopped to a lower branch and pooped, cackling some more. Oh, hey. Good idea.
I lifted my leg along the side of the road, right beside the tree that marked the entrance to Lea's lands. Once I was done I turned to sniff it. Yep. It was strong enough I shouldn't miss it when I came back. All I had to do was leave a trail, like breadcrumbs, only better.
With my nose right above the dirt of the road I could pick up the combined scents that made up the horses and the carriage easily. I growled, planted my feet and kicked up a little more dirt. Then I started running along the road, following the apple thief.
I stopped every so often, when it felt right, to make another mark. The snow along either side of the road held scents really well. At some point, the snow started to thin out, with chunks of grass and little flowers starting to break through. I was leaving Winter, or maybe on the border between Winter and Summer. If I wandered into Summer, I could be in real trouble. It made me slow down and move more cautiously. The snow never melted entirely away though, so I kept on going. The crow, the one who had mocked me back at Lea's, followed. Sometimes it flew ahead, calling back and egging me on. If it would just fly a little lower, I'd teach it not to make fun of me.
Fic: Hound Days 1a/1
Note: This one's all forestgreen's fault. I was talking about this AU idea (where Harry went back to Lea after killing Justin and she did turn him into a hound for a while, then he was raised by the sidhe) I had for one of the prompts (the DP with Donar/Harry/Erlking & Mab & Marcone watching, in case it makes any difference) and forest said something about puppy!Harry meeting the Mothers. And this happened. So. All forest's fault. Like so many things. :D
Note 2: Also forest's
faultsuggestion - Harry is a Scottish Deerhoundhttp://www.dogcastradio.com/upload/PN023432.jpg
Note 3: Excessively, inexcusably fluffy and lacking in plotty things
-
I nudged Ginger's belly with my nose, trying to get her to get up and play with me. She opened one eye and raised her head from the ground to look at me. Ginger spoke quietly, with fond exasperation in her tone.
“You are not as cute as you think you are puppy. Go annoy someone else.”
I whined, trying the cute and pathetic route. She huffed and lay back down, her ear flopping with the movement. I crawled backwards out of her den, knocking my head on the edge of the doorway when I tried to stand up just a little too soon.
The other hounds were all napping too, as I looked around the exercise yard. I growled a little as I wandered around the line of the fence, looking though the wooden slats at the world outside. My godmother had been right; being a hound was fun, most of the time. Easier too. I ran, I played, I chased things that smelled interesting. I learned from the rest of the pack how to actually hunt. I rarely remembered Justin or Elaine. They were gone, and things that were gone were unimportant. And it sure as hell had thrown the creepy guys in the cloaks off of my trail. But the others in the pack were all fully grown, and not as enthusiastic about having to entertain a puppy as Lea and Glenmael were.
With both of them off doing sidhe things, I was left to my own limited devices. Chasing a ball was less fun when you had to roll it yourself, and the giant butterflies had gotten wise and were avoiding flying through the yard. I found the wide spot in the fence, the one facing the path through Lea's demesne in the Nevernever and dropped to my belly, my nose sticking out through the gap. The wind looked stronger out there, rustling the branches of the apple trees that filled the yard and lined the road against one another, making a soft kind of music.
I lay there and let the breeze ruffle my fur, the longer hairs that had just started growing in tugged gently against my skin. The coolness of the dirt beneath my belly felt good. I yawned, baring my teeth to the empty road and let my eyes start to close. Maybe the others had the right idea. A nap would be nice.
Something woke me up a few minutes later. Less than an hour, though time was a fuzzy concept now. The breeze was still coming from the same direction and the sun had only moved a little. So it hadn't been long. I didn't move except for my ears pricking up, opening up so that I could hear better. The something turned out to be a sound; a fast, steady badumbadumbadum in two slightly varied tones, accompanied by the whooshcreak of wooden wheels. Horses drawing a carriage. Not Lea's. The horses were wrong, and her wheels had an extra groan, a little whump on the back right wheel from where it had been patched, to them that these didn't have. And Glenmael drove a lot faster. Strangers.
My muscles tensed and I got my feet and my legs under me, ready to jump up and start sounding the alarm if I needed to. Strangers didn't come to Lea's. None of the others stirred. Did that mean that this was someone who came by all the time? I shoved my head into the gap farther, the wood creaking around me. I got my head far enough out that I could see the path without anything blocking my sight.
The horses appeared first, both variations of pale done in the shades of gray my vision had become. One looked healthy, the other looked dead. They ran together in spite of that, strong and steady. I inhaled, taking in their scents. The healthy looking one smelled great; fresh grass under a hot sun, something moist and growing. Something I wanted to roll in so I could carry that interesting scent around with me. The other one smelled great too; rotting slowly in the cold air. I itched to roll around in that one too. Scents were great, better than sight for identifying things.
They pulled a black carriage, driverless, behind them. It was black and smelled like a combination of the two horses, only stronger. Maybe the sunny, dirt warm scent was a little stronger. It was hard to tell from this far away. As I watched, waiting for the carriage or the horses to do something threatening, an arm reached out from the window in the door and plucked one of Lea's apples from the branch as the carriage rushed by.
I forgot to howl as my jaw dropped open in shock. The carriage was gone, dust still settling in its wake by the time I got to my feet. Someone had stolen one of Lea's apples. Someone had stolen from the Leanansidhe. That was- no one did that! Even Queen Mab, when she'd come over to meet me had asked if she could have one. Not that Lea would have told her no, but it was the way things were done.
And these yahoos had just taken one! I growled at them, my paws digging into the dirt. That could not be allowed! They had just insulted my godmother! I inhaled deeply, making sure to get their scent and really fix it in my mind, then I rushed back to Ginger's burrow. I didn't bother crawling in this time, just stood outside and yelled for her, my nose down into the entrance to make sure she couldn't ignore me.
“Ginger! Ginger! Giiingeeeerrrrr!”
“Shut! Up!” A vise clamped down on the end of my nose and I yelped, freezing. I could feel Ginger's growl in my bones. She shook her head, her teeth scraping over my muzzle and drawing a burning line of pain along the top and the bottom. I whined and tucked my tail, backing away as fast as I could when Ginger released me. “Go to sleep, pup! It's too hot out for your silliness.”
Okay. Okay. I sat outside of Ginger's burrow and touched my front paws to my nose in turn. They came away a little wet, but nothing to cry about. I whined anyway. It stung, and it was embarrassing to be treated like an unruly little kid. I was a puppy, sure, but there really was something going on. Someone had stolen from Lea! It was our job to protect her things.
Fine. If Ginger wouldn't help, none of the others would. She was head of the pack. So that left me. I ran back over to the gap and started digging, the earth hard packed and tough to get through at first, then looser as I got deeper. It took me no time at all to make a hole big enough for me to crawl under the fence.
I dropped to the ground and crawled, the dirt collapsing a little on me as my back legs kicked. The hole on the other side of the fence wasn't quite big enough and I had to dig at it a little more, sneezing dirt out of my nose as I went.
On the other side of the fence I stood and shook myself off, felt the dirt scattering around me. I panted, happy and a little excited. I was outside. I hadn't been outside without Lea since I'd arrived, before she'd turned me into a hound. It was so big, bigger than I remembered. Sharper, too. Everything came to me loud and clear, the sounds and scents touching my brain and telling me all about themselves. I gave a quiet little yip of excitement and lunged to my right and then to my left, chasing invisible enemies.
A crow cried out from the trees by the road and I forced myself to get back to what I was supposed to be doing. The carriage person had stolen from Lea. I was going to make them regret it. If I didn't get moving soon, I might lose the trail. I hadn't paid enough attention when Ginger and Fred were giving the tracking lessons to track a really old scent.
With one last look back at the yard, none of the others had come out, I kicked some dirt back at them and took off. The road was rough and gravelly beneath my paws as I stepped onto it and I stopped, the fur on the back of my neck rising. This might be a bad idea. It was the Nevernever, not Iowa. How would I find my way back after I'd gotten the apple back from the thief? The crow screamed again and I jumped, crouching low and growling up at it. It flapped its wings and cackled, a strange bird laugh. I barked at it, once. The crow hopped to a lower branch and pooped, cackling some more. Oh, hey. Good idea.
I lifted my leg along the side of the road, right beside the tree that marked the entrance to Lea's lands. Once I was done I turned to sniff it. Yep. It was strong enough I shouldn't miss it when I came back. All I had to do was leave a trail, like breadcrumbs, only better.
With my nose right above the dirt of the road I could pick up the combined scents that made up the horses and the carriage easily. I growled, planted my feet and kicked up a little more dirt. Then I started running along the road, following the apple thief.
I stopped every so often, when it felt right, to make another mark. The snow along either side of the road held scents really well. At some point, the snow started to thin out, with chunks of grass and little flowers starting to break through. I was leaving Winter, or maybe on the border between Winter and Summer. If I wandered into Summer, I could be in real trouble. It made me slow down and move more cautiously. The snow never melted entirely away though, so I kept on going. The crow, the one who had mocked me back at Lea's, followed. Sometimes it flew ahead, calling back and egging me on. If it would just fly a little lower, I'd teach it not to make fun of me.