Is loneliness temporary? [Amaya]

[Hunter]

The patched, adolescent dog lay among the gravestones of the Tintagel cemetery, her forelegs crossed and her big head resting on them. From a distance, the 8 month old female looked like an ordinary member of the Tempest pack, a strong and healthy dog who peacefully enjoyed the sun of the afternoon – maybe a bit bored, laying around alone, but none the less an individual who wasn’t different from the others.

Fact was that this adolescent female was everything else than peaceful.

She was the youngest daughter of the General, Hueso, who’d had this young female dog with his mate, Nikita, in his second litter. Her name? Antigone.

Healthy? Yes. Strong? You bet. But the deep frown proved that she was anything but peaceful, laying there alone on the cemetery while the hot sun of the afternoon baked down on her black and white fur. It wasn’t as hot as it had been in midday, and that was also why she had chosen to venture out of the mental asylum. She’d had enough of the other dogs. They didn’t like her much, didn’t understand that she was just play fighting. It wasn’t like she had bitten that young female Labrador that hard. She’d asked if Antigone wanted to play, and Antigone had gladly taken the offer, but her kind of play was apparently much wilder than the other dog had liked, and Antigone had ended up with being accused by a group of older pack members. They had told her to behave and get a grip on her temper, but Antigone didn’t know what they were talking about and had refused to apologize for what she had thought a game and what they had thought the start of a fight. Yes, the game had become wild when the female Labrador, named Mira, had accidentally shoved Antigone hard into a table in the room, but come on! She couldn’t have been that violent when jumping back into the game…

She huffed angrily at the memory. Some of the older dogs who had pulled her away from Mira thought her a troublemaker and had been quick to accuse her. Stupid old fools, how dared they to think they knew her at all.

Her brown eyes found two coyote puppies, stalking their prey. And it seemed like their prey was her. They had been crawling on their small, soft and round bellies from the side, hoping she wouldn’t notice them, but they had been pretty wrong to think she hadn’t noticed them. But of course she pretended not to see them. She loved pretty much every little, soft hairball of the pack and she would let them have their fun. When the darkest of the males jumped upon her back, Antigone laughed and rose to her feet, the little guy falling off as she did. He laughed back and Antigone lowered her front body and growled deeply at the younger member, indicating that she wanted to play. She had always loved during that when she had been younger, because then she could pretend that she was a big, bad and dangerous dog. Her parents had always laughed cheerfully at their little daughter, not thinking her scary at all, but the young coyote yelped of fear and turned around, speeding away with his tail between his legs. He ran into his brother and they both fell to the ground, but Antigone couldn’t reach them before they both were on their four, running away from her as fast as they could. Left alone, Antigone tilted her head to the side, wondering what she had done wrong. She had liked the little fellows – they would for sure have become great playmates. And she definitely needed some to play with. She was pretty much always alone – it was only her siblings whom she played with, and she sometimes wondered whether they actually wanted to play with her or were told to do it by their parents. How typical it was that when she finally found someone she wanted to spend time with, she somehow scared them away. Maybe they were just cowards... whatever the reason was, they were gone now. Alone again, she thought bitterly and returned to her former state – legs crossed, her head upon it, and a deep, irritated frown on her brows.

[/justify]