4/ The Diamond Dogs: Mutts
MUTTS
The Diamond Dogs
He'd always seen his mother in the stars, and in the dark, he saw his father. The moon kept the stars company, kept things civil. He was glad to know her shine couldn’t be overpowered there.
Rover raised his head to the sky and his heart froze, colder than even the night itself. He seemed to be alone with a beautiful, beguiling lady, one whose face held many truths, many secrets, and many lies. Inquisitiveness and bravery were the only restrictions, both of which he knew he lacked.
The moon was just as alone, as exposed, as he was. Both the stars and Rover’s companions were fast asleep in their safe, private worlds. Maybe for the best. This way, it was like a dinner party: as the night went on, less and less could stay around to chat until finally there were two, and a more intimate talk could begin.
Ears slanted down, melting into his head, the dog felt a mewl begin in the back of his throat. His snaggle-tooted jaw clamped. He held it back for his two friends’ sakes, but the battle between his long sought after privacy and this insatiable urge to scream had not been entirely won yet.
Eyes ever upward, Rover rose from his seat and walked to the rocky outcroppings of their temporary camp. The moon kept his attention brilliantly, luring him out in with impish flourish, as though by way of a silent siren song. Inviting him to a more private place as he stumbled down the rocky hill.
She lead and he followed far past the point of him knowing how far he’d gone. Or, how he’d get back. Meanwhile, he shivered under the heaviness of holding his own tears. A thousand thoughts swam in the dark swamp of his mind, but he hoped, maybe beyond hope, that he could at least keep it from leaking. Being lost, of all things, was a welcomed sorrow at this point.
Rover’s paws finally paused on sunburnt sand, and it seemed as good a place as he’d find. A wonderful place, in fact, gazing over it. Nothing grew for miles, and yet … it was such a beautiful garden. The word, garden, stuck in his mind, and it too felt as good a word as any he’d find.
Breathing in the night as supremely as a god of storms, Rover let a great howl out of himself. His sorrow exhumed from him, up and away toward the moon. “A-wrooooo …”
He stalled a moment, waiting for her reply. Panting, his jaw clenched. Then, his features pinched again. “A-wroooooo …”
A desolate pause.
“We needs your help,” he said to the sky. “We cannot go home, but we have to. I am afraid. We need jewels. Eh- … please? I know you’re busy, Miss Moon Pony, but you know where the gems are, right? So, you could tell us where they is in our sleep, and you wouldn’t even have to wake up.” He smiled with glinting teeth, making gestures with his paws.
The Mare in the Moon held her composure. Rover waited with his breath on-hold, his head cocked sideways. Soon, his brow sagged over his eyes like an old bridge over water, and his mouth hung like a porch swing while he made the empty motion, as if to grind his teeth. His jaw stopped, teeth jutting out like a poorly made picket-fence. “You could help.”
Her reply was a cool breeze tugging at his red vest. A mere moment and the diamond dog threw his arms down, shouting, “You could help, Pony!”
Rover’s unstable wheezes and sniffs were the last sounds on the air; the vague breeze now lay still, asleep. He shivered, his collar jingling, as he turned away from the lustrous moon, in a starless sky.
<><><>
Three weary wayfarers with miserable mugs staggered down a road. It lead to a pool of blackness in the ground. They felt the heat on their backs vanish, lifted like a pick-pocket. When their frowns were masked by the shade, their padded paws felt the earth dampen and the slope even out in the underground passage.
Here, the dogs plodded along to a beat echoing from the catacomb walls. An immense buzzing erupted from the mining machinery below. The squishy, slimy soil shuddered to it.
Fido, the largest of three, sneezed when a litter of pebbles fell over his nose like pepper. Snuffling, agitated, he scowled. “Well?” His voice was resounding and angry. “What we going to do?”
Eyes down, Rover grumbled at a volume that varied with his uneven march down the path. “Wouldn’t I tell you if I knew?”
“They’re going to expect something,” Spot prompted. “If we tell them the gems is gone-“
Fido pointed a finger. “Bad.”
“If we tell them the gems is coming-“
“Bad to come.”
“If we tell them-“
Rover groaned. “Don’t tell them nothing, stupids. That’s the point.”
Spot rose his chin to glower. Fido glared down.
“Well.” Rubble fell over Rover, who snuffed and sneezed. He rubbed his pink nose, his voice as congested as his snort. “What do you think’d happen if they knew the truth?”
The two let their panting paws spoke with all the volume they needed. Fido’s jaw set off to the side, as askance as his gaze. Spot’s chin receded into his chest. Their empty-headedness gave new definition to the hollow whistle of the corridor.
Rover’s groan balled up all the exhaustion from the back of his throat and threw it down the hall. The other two looked at each other, and back at him. Spot muttered, “We- … we won’t tell nothing.”
Fido nodded. “Nothing.”
The red-vested dog sighed, moving into Hoist House. Spot managed to catch Fido’s gloomy glance once more time before they followed into the wood-paneled shack at the end of the stinky, muddy hall.
Entering a wired cage within, the three idled as Rover snatched the elevator cord. A dancing light bulb made Fido hunch over, which lit their greasy faces in pasty, ghoulish light. Spot closed the elevator cage. Violently, Rover yanked down cord, paw over paw.
The squeaking of the pulley was the only sign that they’d ever been there. Above.
<><><>
The guards came forth on ledges. Then, they began to play. Kettle drums beat with every heart in the room, burning through chests. Bum ba-bum-bum, bum ba-bum-bum …
The mob barked on every accent, spittle airborne. The limestone walls shivered from their mossy foundations. It echoed. The mismatched smells of lava and dog sweat quaked together in an exotic dance. The air hummed, visibly unsettled.
The crowd howled together toward one side of the room. One ledge remained shrouded by a crooked curtain. A big brown Labrador in silver armor came from there with a jewel twice his size. He created a circular spot-light by placing it atop a lava crater, and angled it so that the light matched up with the curtain. Saluting, he disappeared from sight.
When the room was thunderous, the three dogs stumbled out.
Rover held up a paw to save his green eyes, but stayed stoic. His chest pushed out, his other paw behind his back, and his ears at attention: he gave every confidence. Spot and Rover mimicked his stance.
The drums sped. The howls rose. Two synchronized pounds on each drum chopped through the amazing noise. There was nothing, except Rover’s uneven inhale.
“Hounds!” His voice carried remarkably well through the room, echoing. “Sit!”
Four-thousand diamond dogs followed the order, leveling the crowd.
“Beg!” Fido struck the air with a humungous paw. “Beg for your masters!”
Many did, hunching with their paws and tongues hanging in the air. They drooled for them. Watching them rise, Spot cracked a smile. “Good dogs.” He snickered. “Very good doggies.”
Rover had none of the same enthusiasm. His scum colored eyes seethed at the sight of the twenty- the fifty- the two hundred standing higher than the beggars. A heat spread through his stomach, but he remained still. “Bad puppies!”
“I’d love to see you beg!”
A chorus of laughter rumbled afterward.
“Where’s the jewels, boys? All we’re looking for is the jewels. Don‘t tell me you didn‘t find any.”
“Yeah, the jewels!”
“Where are the jewels?”
“The jewels! The jeweeels!”
This word ran through the gathering, passing through dogs like a poltergeist. Even Rover clenched his paws, trying to keep his chest from heaving. “Quiet.”
Spot curdled beside Rover, scowling in every direction. “Sit, dogs!”
“We want the jewels!” cried the young voice.
A hungry anger exploded from five hundred throats: “Yeah!”
Spot could see Fido gripping the ledge for balance. One of Rover’s ears fell as he heard the crowd. He idly rubbed his knuckles, grasping and finally settling on his response.
“Doggies,” he started. “Nice, doggies, eh, the jewels are-“ He straightened. “The jewels are many. Yes, yes. It will take time to get them.” He smiled, throwing up his paws. “But, when they get here, there will be a million!”
A million spun through two thousand tongues, hound dogs brightening, tails wagging, Fido’s claws releasing. The masters grinned and nodded spastically with the growing concurrence.
“What? When?” the young voice hollered. “We’re hungry now, we’re tired. A lot of us don’t have enough for families. Don’t you see us? We’re standing right here, standing right in front of you.”
Fido ground his massive teeth. “But-“
“No!” The young voice sounded volatile, ready to blow. “We need a new mine, we all know it. There isn’t nothing left here, and no half-truth of yours can fool us otherwise!”
The grumbles metastasized through the room, like a cancer, this time an even larger amount of the whole. These grumbles rose in chaos, but as one. A swarm of changelings in the full throttle of attack.
Fido looked at Spot, Spot looked at Rover, and Rover didn’t seem to be looking at anything. His eyes were paralyzed in anguish.
“There are enough,” Fido said, bursting forth. “They’s just not where you can see them.”
Rover’s eyes snapped onto him, his face scrunching.
“No, there’s not!”
Spot shook his fist. “Quiet, you! There is!”
“Plenny!” Fido added.
“How can we trust -”
“Take us for suckers-“
“-Can’t even afford the vet!”
“Might as well have killed the canary!”
Spot and Fido argued hatefully with the objections as the volume escalated further and further until-
“Stopit!” Rover barked. “Much gems are here, and we will stay here until they are not. We know you are angry … and hungry, because we are, too- but we is together here. Angry together, hungry together, and we needs your patience until we can get more gems. All we need is time. We will have the gems here when we can- but there are many still here in meantime.”
The grumbles remained. Not enough being the most common. They churned like an upset stomach, but Rover had no other option.
“Back to work.”
And the whistles blew.
<><><>
“My pups are starving, Mr. Spot, my wife and I haven’t eaten in days.” A big dog stood in the doorway, a silhouette to him. “We need gems for food. A little food.”
“Denied.”
“Wait, but-“
Spot, balancing on the back legs of his chair, wasn’t looking. His eyes were every else. “Next.”
The other dog barked thunder into his face. Spot’s ears twitched. A few hungry licks from his water bowl soothed his parched throat, while the swinging doggy-door came to rest.
The rations bank was a room dug out of black soil, soft but dark. Spot’s lantern-lit office had a continually replenished bread-line coming into it, and a vault directly below his desk, hidden in a hole three times the size of the office itself. Having all those gems down there, just below, just under … he hated this job, but at least he was close to them. All day, just below, just under.
Spot’s ears caught a tut-tut as the doggy-door was locked in place. His chin swivelled automatically to the source, and a snarl propelled from the back of his throat. “Don’t let the door close!”
A little red dog with a pointed nose stood with his back to it, stretching his tar-coloured lips in a frown. “You wouldn’t want them to hear this.”
Spot hopped down from his giant chair and unlatched the door with a paw, standing just an inch shorter than the red dog. His yellow eyes made solid contact with the grey ones staring down at him. “Many listen if you won’t.”
Spot squinted, growling faintly from the back of his thundery throat.
“Not everyone spoke today, but everyone heard. Remember, just because dogs come in for gems don’t mean they don’t know the vault is empty.” He waited for the reaction Spot wouldn’t give him. Tongue poking his cheek, his eyes flickered, before he put out his paw. “Rudolph.”
He put out his own. “Eh … Charmed?”
He scoffed out his nose, and mumbled, “Sure you are.”
The master stared with his lip quirked into a vague, baffled sneer, recognizing his young voice from earlier, one of the shouters. “What you want, boy?”
The grey eyes roamed the room. He didn’t respond and instead opted to distract himself, wander about, as though Spot wasn’t there at all. But Spot was watching.
“You know, worst of it is I like you. Your company …” He pouted. “Not so much, but you, you’re-you’re a good dog, Spot. You worked for what you have- you suffered, you were humbled by it. I’d trust you in jam.”
Chin slightly raised, Spot watched him migrate around the room, taking notes of the little trinkets he’d find as his paw fondled the wall. He went on after a pause. “And, I did, too. Long time. I thought, ‘least we have him, can’t all be bad.’”
He came across the pink dog tag on the bureau’s top shelf and stalled. His thumb stroked the coarse, pink band as he raised the collar to his eye to read the label.
Spot rushed over, barking, and yanked it away. He hid it in his vest as his paws stumbled restlessly around the room. He faced away.
“That’s hers?”
Spot opened his paw and watched the golden lantern light shimmer off the silver metal tag. His brow struggled under the weight of his wrinkles, and buckled as he sighed softly.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” The stale air broke into pieces around the words, but the humidity remained to hold him in the aftermath.
He didn’t look up, and in his growling voice, whined. His ears lay back. “Rover knows what he doing.”
Rudolph’s teeth caught his tongue, forming a sneer. He shook his head with a deep frown. His rusty voice dropped into a lower hush. “… How can you think that?”
Spot closed his paw around the tag.
“He may think he know what’s happening, but does he?”
Spot’s pupils staggered up and down the length of his adversary. “How much do you?”
Rudolph’s paw went to his chest, rubbing his thinly protected ribs as his tongue poked at his cheek again. His voice lowered again, crisping like the temperature as it descends from summer to autumn. “I’ve been humiliated. Felt useless, bitter, anxious, forgotten, desperate, hungry- a hungry he’ll never have.” His head bowed deeply in a nod. “Crying because I can’t be angrier.”
The bulldog made careful movements, as if a twitch would cost him his head. He tried to pull away, back-up.
“I know what scared’s like. Not a kind of scared that goes away, it’s a kind that ruins everything- I can’t come down from that scared, can’t even think. I have to go to sleep when it’s like that, it’s better.” He took a breath, holding the back of his head. His eyes flashed up. “I know despair.”
“Rover knows that,” he said very quietly. The clock in the corner spoke over him.
Rudolph held his side, feeling his dry, damaged fur against the black pad of his paw. “Not like the rest of us. Come on, you know that.”
“… He does, he knows.” Spot was winching, looking away. “He’s better dog than me. Stronger, a-a-and braver. If you had his dad-” He gripped the tag. “You do not know who you’re talking about.”
His mouth curled with a pained ‘Really?’ ready on his lips. His scoff sounded more like a chesty cough.
Spot felt the blood washing away from his head. The quiet, broken air could barely reach their tired lungs in the seconds or hours that they stood looking at each other.
When Rudolph’s eyes broke free, he grunted, and made for the door. “I’ll leave you alone with your thoughts, Master.”
Spot’s shoulders fell. The door shut tut-tut.
<><><>
Fido knew he should hurry. At curfew, the chrome drawbridge to the shops would lift and lock into place for the nocturnal miners to use as an elevator shaft. His paws clomp-clomped on the metal path as he thought about how little time he had left, conscious of the clipboard in his front paw.
By now, the last dawdlers had dwindled. The long strips of the bazaar were growing dark, shopkeepers closing booths, pinning cloths as curtains, hanging cardboard signs with shoe-strings, and stocking themselves away, for tomorrow. Some, who had no home, cozied into allies, or behind their booths, or even in plain sight. Fido had to step over the candle-maker.
He winched. He had to move swiftly, but he tried his best at being quiet. Not an easy task for someone his size. It was times like this that his limbs were felt long and useless, his hind paws too small to balance all of his weight. Even the aisles of the bazaar were meant for the majority of dogs. Ergo, smaller.
The more he thought about it, the more he concentrated. He watched his paws carefully, his eyes facing the ground as he made his way to the butcher’s.
In the corner of his eye, he caught a quick flash of something and upturned his eyes to see it scurry into the crack between two booths. A pup. Fido realized with a start that he was trying to hide from him.
He waited before he approached, seeing the tiny guy squirm under a blanket there. Fido’s snout scrunched. “’Salright,”
The puppy flinched.
Fido sat outside the narrow alleyway with his paw extended. A long interlude passed with no action. A debate warred on in his mind. Eventually, he produced a near silent grunt, deciding. He reached into his lapel pocket with two sausage fingers.
When he did this, the puppy peeked out from under his blanket. He gasped when he saw the blue jewel being offered to him.
“For mommy and daddy.”
The puppy smiled, reaching for it, and Fido moved his paw back to his chest, now able to see the other dog’s eyes. Or rather, eye. His left eye was swollen shut and encrusted.
“For mommy and daddy.”
The blonde pup nodded and swiped the gem away in with amazing reflex. Fido stood, hearing him scurry away through his alley. As he bit his tongue, he was fairly certain the puppy had no mommy and daddy, and that he just gave his last jewel away. The latter pressed heavier into his mind.
Remembering it in his paw, Fido squeezed the clipboard and moved along. The butcher’s was at the end of the row.
Head down, he had to remind himself what he was here for. Get in, get out. He wasn’t supposed to have jewels, anyway. Everyone has secret stash, but I’m not allowed to?
His thoughts shuddered to a stop when he saw the butcher’s. His paws sped to the corner, and once there, stood as still as ancient trees. His stomach burned and he swallowed, seeing ahead of him three words on a sign he never even thought he could see there. Out of Business.
<><><>
Rover took sniveling gasps of the humid air in his workshop. He could barely stand to look. His paw over his mouth, he moaned, a trembling whistle, and swallowed.
His gravelly voice whispered, “Can-nary?”
He took the bird out of its cage, hung above his head looking haunted. Rover held the featherless bird and tried to pet it before its limp body burst into flame. He shouted and threw it down, his features tumbling into a hodgepodge of emotions
The bird’s ashes sprinkled over the greasy workshop floor.
Rover started to pant, making slobbery grunts. He scrambled for it with two big paws, ash falling through them like dirt through the roof of a collapsing tunnel. His fingers closed around it, and he beat his fists against his head. He mewled on the floor. His forehead grew hot.
Rudolph’s eyes were as wide as the moon as he hid behind the doorframe.
When Rover’s tears depleted, he left the room, passing Rudolph unknowingly and lashing the other dog’s heart with a whip. But, Rover disappeared, running.
Rudolph waited another minute before he took a breath.
When it was finally all clear, he peeked around the corner to see the ash scattered on the floor. The ash lay for only a moment more before illuminating, reforming the form of a fiery bird, flapping around spastically, and flying out the nearest hall.
His eyes bulged.
<><><>
Late into the night, the sirens shouted. The corridors and catacombs flashed red, flood lighting. Hearts leapt into mouths. The diamond dog populous funneled out of their houses to the wire elevators. All going down.
Massive confusion swept through their sleep-poisoned heads.
The evacuation lead back to the Grand Concourse. The porous walls crackled with lava. No one in the congregation, not one, seemed to know anything about what was going on. Where were the guards? Why were they woken up? Was everything okay? Four thousand diamond dogs asking four million questions.
Fido hid in the back, as far out of sight as he could be. So many little dogs complained about their size, but he’d always have a better rebuttal. He didn’t even fit in guard’s armor.
For once, it was easier to think about his size, even being a guard. The whole afternoon he’d felt as though the inside of his chest was filled with water. Just about anything could make him leak. His ears pressed against his skull.
On the ledge above the crowd, a single dog came out. Silence. He stood there. He held his paws behind his back. He waited.
Fido stopped himself from screaming. From behind his back, the dog on the ledge pulled the golden bird cage with its swinging door. Bedlam began.
“They killed it!”
“The bird! The bird!”
“Oh, mercy! Luna, please! Get me out of here!”
Rudolph stared through the birdcage bars. He’d yell his plan, to evacuate, but before that, he stood there dangling an empty birdcage over a ledge. He searched in himself for a reason he had this disgusting, despicable sensation in the back of his throat, and swallowed.
<><><>
The dogs emptied out all day long. The entire day.
Fido, Spot, Rover and their guards sat and slumped on the edges of craters and boulders around the mine’s main entrance, watching while dogs marched through all the different tunnels, carrying themselves a little higher. The conversation between the trio and their guards was mostly non-existent, lapsing in long bursts of languid, awkward quietness.
By evening, the traffic petered out. The stillness was heavy in their chests. There was nothing to say. The words died out so quickly after being thought that they often dissolved before they could reach the tongue.
Their ears against their heads, their paws between their knees or rubbing something for comfort. Rover thought sitting there was the hardest part, but nobody had the guts to get up and head in for the night. Nobody want to go to sleep.
Late in the process, Rudolph marched over, making a b-line. Spot squirmed in his seat. The red-dog held his front two paws together as if he had a small frog inside. His expression was uncharacteristically damp.
The guards arched their backs and snarled at him, hateful looks in their dull eyes, but he put up his paws. “Easy,” he mumbled. “I came to talk to Rover.”
They all twisted back to see him squinting at the dog. “Just me?”
“Yes.” His voice whistled.
Spot and Fido bartered looks of distrust, and Spot leaned forward. “Eh, why not us?” Fido nodded after.
He rubbed his side, and grunted. “Don’t worry about it, I just need to see Rover a minute. Then I’ll be out of your fur.”
Rover cast a glance back to the other two as he slide off his seat. The only sound was his paws patting the dirt, and the early-rising crickets. Rudolph led him far enough away so the others wouldn’t hear.
He’s so small. Rover looked down his nose at this dog who was half his size.
“You know we aren’t coming back, right?”
“Where are you even going?” His whisper was hoarse. “There’s only pretty, precious ponies for miles-”
He stepped forward and raised his grumbly voice. “Ever heard of the Crystal Empire? Folks say it’s up north. Not a body seems to know anything much about it, especially the ponies, but you know why? They must be sitting on a crystal gold-mine, of course they’re going to keep a secret. I figure they could use a couple paws here and there, don’t you?”
Rover squinted at him again. The way he spoke was so … odd. It sounded like he was trying for some measure of confidence, but at the same time, he was hesitant. As though he was waiting for something.
Rudolph cast a look to the other dogs. Then, back to Rover. “Think about it. A crystal mine so large it won’t run out for generations. A dog could have a girl and a litter. A family.” He hesitated, then flicked his head to the left. “Can’t get that here.”
Rover’s ear flicked. His face was tight.
“Well … fine.” He squared his eyes with the green in Rover’s, and raised his chin, as if a deal had been made. Rover thought he was terrible salesman. “All I really want you to know is that it’s your fault, anyway.”
Rover stared down at the little red dog.
Rudolph turned away and strolled off, to where the diamond dog exodus marched into a cold wind. The shadow he cast was three times his size on the red plains, and before he made it too far, the shadow turned back, hearing his name.
The trio of diamond dogs stood together in a pack and together their shadows far outweighed the small dog’s. Rover’s tail wagged, and he snickered when his guards came behind them. “Tell them that.”
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Hm... Decent number of errors this time.
Here are two
That should be "private".
"snaggle-toothed"
Interesting story and world building for the Diamond Dogs, excellent and evocative descriptions as well. ,
I took a gander briefly at the first chapter. I don't read too much FanFiction anymore, but this certainly seems like it's worth the time. I love the wording and complex though, smooth pace you have. Just by reading the first chapter alone I've already added four words to my vocabulary. Very good job, I'll have to read the rest later.
Also, that one dislike is from someone who is, indeed, full of hateful jelly.
5357322
You, my friend, are awesome. Taking the time to leave me such thoughtful comments? Especially when you hardly read fanfiction at all? Seriously, thank you, it means a lot. It also means a lot to hear you've enjoyed the story so far! I'm so glad!
Oh, and I didn't edit it all myself! Delta93 was my editor (and a really, really swell guy, I might add) for the chapters that you see here!
As it happens, right now I'm trying to revise the entire story- you know, really think everything through with character arcs and the plot as a whole- and you most definitely will hopefully like the end result, since I plan to have much more going on in each chapter. I wish I could say it's nearing completion (because by now it really should be), but I can't really put a time estimate on how long all the changes will take
I'll do my best, work on it as much as I can, but that's unfortunately all I can promise right now. In the end, though, I think it's going to be a much better story for it. Or, you know, at least I hope so
Again, thank you so much for the comments
5360224
For some reason, you're comment didn't reply to me. Strange... Anywho, just finished this chapter and it was just as wonderful to read as the others. There is one error however, one I wanted to point out so you could patch it up real quick.
Right at this part you'll notice the center bit I've highlighted in bold:
Just letting you know. If you need an editor, I'm free, and I'd love to read more of your work.
5361177
Thanks for catching that! Just made the fix!
Would you really want to be my editor? That's so cool! Like I said, right now I'm really focusing on thinking everything through conceptually, and really trying to construct the plot. If you're willing, maybe I could bounce some of the basic ideas off you to see if you can poke holes in my logic
5361271
Left you a message on editing. =)