Totoka River baby, when I whisper, can you hear?

His ears prick forward to catch the threadbare whisper Seelie finally answers with. ‘I was bad.’ What? How? What happened? Leaving? Because she left and didn’t tell? ‘Bad dog.’ “No,” he says firmly and immediately. Shakes his head minutely and stares down at her even if she doesn’t meet his gaze. “No bad dog.”

Perhaps it is a flaw that he trusts so immensely and deeply in her; he does not understand why she left without leaving word, and it would be a lie to say it hadn’t hurt him, but he believes without a doubt that she had good reason to do what she did. It wouldn’t matter if she never even told him why, if he never understood her reasoning, he would still believe in her unerringly and without doubt.

“Seelie good,” he reaffirms with a huff against her neck, raking his teeth through her feathery fur. It’s a bit intoxicating to be this close to her suddenly and he has to focus to hold his concentration and keep his mind from drifting elsewhere. He should probably ask her why she left, or tell her the story about the time he was a ‘bad dog’ and left the Man to follow a cat – it was a cat! how could he not! – and got lost in an unfamiliar place and the Man had to come find him. The Man had not been mad though, only happy that Stockholm was safe. That would be a good, relevant story to tell. Except when he opens his mouth to talk his brain kind of short circuits and instead he just growls low and deep into her shoulder, “Mine.”