Awake
Collie of the Wild
by Elmagnifico
Awake
Conscious thought came to her in the company of a powerful ache. Cranial cavities gave protest to new strains as wakefulness asserted itself over blissful insensitivity.
Where am I?
Such was the first thought that came to her mind. It wasn't much of a thought, typical of a sentient being awakening somewhere they hadn't fallen asleep.
She wasn't sure where she had fallen asleep, but it almost certainly hadn't been half submerged in this chilly water. Since she had not yet opened her eyes, the first feeling she was conscious of was touch, the cooling embrace of water from around her middle down to her back feet. The second, as she drew a breath, was the plethora of smells permeating the air.
Some were familiar. Mud, plants, mud-plants, water, water-plants, something rotting; these scents came from all around, and were immediately recognized. Others were strange and unknown. Like sounds heard through a wall, or shapes seen through a mist, these unfamiliar aromas tantalized her. She tried to think back, whether she'd smelled anything like this before.
Memories from before she awoke were fuzzy, a smell here, an image there. Apples. Cloth. Straw. Boards. Water. Nothing clear, and certainly nothing like what she could smell now.
Further musing was interrupted by a spike of pain. The migraine ceased torturing her after a second, but it left a constant reminder of its presence in the form of a continuing ache.
This wouldn't do. She brought a limb up to her head and rubbed it. The rubbing did nothing to dispel the ache, but she felt better for having acted.
An insect chose this moment to investigate her. Its whining flight brought it winding around her half-raised body until it came to a rest on her ear. She brought a limb around, the same one she'd used to rub her head, and caught the insect mid-takeoff, squashing the arthropod into something that felt like mud.
Her eyes opened to confirm the feeling. Sure enough, the substance she'd smashed the insect into was mud, glistening in the light. Her limb was flanked on either side by a shimmering flower. She turned her head. The plants seemed to be everywhere, growing on vines that slid into the mud from above, hanging down from a tall, broad tree a little further inland. She frowned, bringing her headache back to prominence. Something was still wrong. The limb to the right in the mud, which had responded to her commands, was unfamiliar.
The whole appendage seemed wrong. It was a paw, sure enough, with the light fur “gloves” she was used to, but the digits were longer, jointed differently. She picked the offending limb up, using the opposite one to brace herself against the ground.
She wiggled the fingers. There were three of them now, with two joints each, and a fourth one opposite that only bent once. The single-jointed digit was shorter than the others. She stuck the first of the long ones out and brought it closer. The nail on the end blended almost perfectly into the rest of the paw, but the tiny black pad on its underside provided a contrast and marked where the claw ended. The whole underside was smeared with mud.
Curiosity satisfied, she turned to the insect. It sat there in the mud, twitching two short antennae and flexing its bright wing cases, buzzing its wings every once in a while. She brought her finger down and poked it. The insect fluttered a bit in response, but remained where it was.
She continued to stare at it for a minute or two, watching it flop around. Finally it recovered enough to take off and made an annoyed-sounding buzz at her, before flying off to parts unknown. She paused.
I just got told off by a bug.
Another thought, more absurd than coherent, but a thought, and one she found amusing. She felt something bubbling up in her chest. It felt like a cough or a sneeze, but she didn't feel like holding it in.
“Heh. Hehehehe—”
The laugh came forth like a small brook breaking a beaver dam, and like that brook, it flowed long and hard for a few seconds before she regained her faculties enough to realize something. She had laughed, verbally. It felt strange and unfamiliar, like she'd just stepped on a cloud or done something similarly absurd and impossible. Yet it also felt natural, like when she'd moved her fingers. That feeling brought another thought to her mind.
It felt like I was made to laugh that way.
She suddenly had an urge to look at her face. She turned her head, trying to look over her right shoulder into the water. When that didn't bring it into view, she pushed off with her left arm, causing her to balance on her back two limbs.
She looked down.
Looking back at her was a long light muzzle tipped with a black twitching nose with matching whiskers. The head attached to that muzzle was round and furry, with two triangular, floppy ears sticking off at angles. A pair of bright, large eyes examined her, a curious expression outlined by the eyebrows.
This is me.
What am I?
The thought sprung unbidden into her mind, and echoed there for a good while. The collie in the water stared back the entire time. How long she stood like that she didn't know. Her trance was only interrupted when her reflection was obscured. Something had floated up to her on the water.
A dark-ish object, round and flat with a mound in the middle bobbed serenely in front of her. She sent an arm down to retrieve it, pulling the item closer for inspection. It smelled faintly of sweat and apples. Its rim was interrupted by what might have been a very smooth bite mark.
Suddenly, she was back. Before the “now”.
There was a fire nearby, crackling and emitting its ashy smell. A comforting source of warmth from one side. From the other, another scent. A smell of wood, earth, sweat and apples. Her head turned. She felt smaller somehow, and her body felt more familiar. There was the source of the other smell, sitting on something nearby. It was wearing the bobbing trance-interruptor on its head, obscuring most of its head. Its snout was shorter than hers, and its coat was shorter and darker than her “gloves” but lighter than the rest of her fur. It smiled at her, a quirk of the mouth she knew meant happiness. She could feel her tongue lolling and her tail wagging. She was smiling back. A friend. A good friend. The whole scene was permeated by a feeling of relaxation and contentment.
A shift, like a sunbeam bleeding through a cloud. A new scene presented itself. Her friend was talking to another of its kind. A lighter one, hovering off the ground with wings. The hovering one's messy, multi-hued coat was swishing about as it dodged her friend's attempts to catch it. The hovering one had her friend's bobbing trance-interruptor clenched in its mouth. Her friend was vocalizing. “Rainbow Dash, ya'll give me back mah hat this instant!” The sounds meant little to her then, but the tone said everything. A fun game to play with friends. She felt her throat let loose a volley of happy barking.
Then, she felt she was further forward. Closer to now.
The friend was far above her, and wind was whipping at her fur. She tried to reach her friend, but the ground ahead of her was too steep and slick. Her friend was looking down, seemed very concerned. Calling to her. What the friend said was lost to the rushing of the wind. She couldn't hear. Rushing noises filled the air. She scrambled to get up, but just slid back down each time. The rush had become nearly deafening. Then, there was a “Whumf” noise, and then she was back.
She shook her head, clearing it but bringing back the migraine. She looked at the hat, connecting the sound to the object. A howl, long and wild from far off, interrupted her investigation of the object. She recognized that sound. Another memory, more a feeling than a picture or scent, was associated with that howl. That noise meant danger, an enemy that needed to be fought.
I need to help.
A problem presented itself. She needed a way to keep the hat while moving quickly. She looked around, searching for something, eventually settling on straight down. There was a black band around her hips, just above where the water was. That would work.
She moved. She tried running on all fours, but her arms were wrong. Her head was too far forward, and the whole posture seemed awkward and slow. Nevertheless, she tried to make her way towards where the howl had come from. That ended quickly, in a jumble of limbs and errant cypress knees.
A new approach. She reared onto her back legs again, like she had in the water. This felt natural. A step, however, was punctuated by a loss of balance and subsequent close acquaintance with a lot of mud and a low cypress knee.
She finally settled on a scrambling gait, back legs hunched up and spine bent, with her arms helping with stability by grabbing handy surfaces. So postured, she made her way through the swamp.
Mud, mud, trees, mud. These were the sights and smells that repeated themselves ad infinitum to her.
Occasionally she'd get a paw stuck in particularly watery muck or trip on a gnarled root, but she forced herself onwards.
Her persistence was rewarded by dint of a change in scenery. A clearing presented itself, grass obscuring the ground and a howl breaking forth from across the way. She proceeded towards the source of the sound.
A lone creature, giving off an acrid, burning smell, was scratching at the base of a tree on the edge of the clearing. As her eyes focused on it she scowled. She remembered this creature. Once again, no images or smells, just an impression. They were friend-eaters, if you let them. She growled her anger at the thing.
It turned to look at her, placing all four of its feet on the ground from where they had been scarring the tree it had been barking up. It was a twisted mockery of an animal, made of dead tree and held together by who-knows-what. Its eyes glowed like fire, flickering in an odd hue. It made a growl similar to hers before launching into another howl.
That was when she struck. Her back legs extended fully, launching her across the intervening space. She grabbed the at its head in one paw, and grappled over its back with another. Her main focus, however, was getting her jaws into where its neck would be if it were of flesh and blood. Instinctively she searched for a jugular.
She didn't find it, coming up with a mouthful of sticks for her trouble. It flailed at her, trying its best to bite her in return, but her paw kept its head held high and away from her own neck. She went back in, tearing with her jaws at the wooden thing, but it refused to stop struggling.
This continued, her tearing and it struggling, until a loud CRACK rang out from close by, and the thing clattered to the ground in a pile of wood. She spat out one last mouthful of sticks, and looked over at the source of the noise.
It was a creature like the friend she remembered, the hat-owner, only lighter and not as strong-looking. Its fur grew long from the front of its face, and it grinned at her around a few missing teeth.
“My thanks to ye. Pesky timberwolf caught me by surprise. Had to get up the tree to keep from getting et.”
Its voice caught her by surprise. She understood it.
“Good to see its heart was rotted after all, broke up with just one buck. Means it won't have packmates about.”
These sounds were thoughts. She wasn't just hearing noises and interpreting their tone. Something had changed.
“My name's Solitaire, what's yours?”
Another memory chose this time to assault her conscious mind. It was the friend's voice, from much further from “now” than the other memories had been. The voice was higher in pitch than the other memory.
“Ah think ah'll call you-”
Her voice, scratchy and hoarse compared to Solitaire's, broke the silence.
“Winona.”
Solitaire looked at her askance.
“So you do have a voice.”
She nodded.
“My name is Winona.”
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i'm fave your story
2685431 Good job mate!
WHen I read through this it seemed implied that she was a human. But then you described her like a collie. WHAT THE HECK IS SHE?!
2690407
She's a diamond dog. Sorta. Look, here's an image of what I'm thinking of. I would have used it as cover art, but I didn't want to bother the artist for permission.
derpicdn.net/media/W1siZiIsIjIwMTIvMDgvMzEvMjJfMDdfMDdfNjg0Xzg3MjgwX19VTk9QVF9fc2FmZV9zcGVjaWVzX3N3YXBfd2lub25hX2FydGlzdF9rbG9uZGlrZV9kaWFtb25kX2RvZyJdXQ/87280__safe_species-swap_winona_diamond-dog_artist-klondike.png.png
So human-ish features, but still a collie.
I guess the answer is "Both."
2690428 Ohhhhhh! Srsly, make that the cover image. the story will make MUCH more sense!
You really need to swap pics, the DD Winona pic is much more fitting.
You've got some talent. This has an interesting premise, and the writing so far is smooth and immersive; conveying sensations through writing is one of the trickier aspects of writing, and yet you manage to do so in a natural, organic way. I look forward to seeing where you go with this.
*Throws possibly epic reveal out the window in the first chapter*
Wonderful.