under a leash, pt. ii

Vaelyn and Kit walk through the city as quickly as the wind pushes on their backs, protecting them from the dangers of the lurking predators between the forest of mirrors. They cross streets in silence, their eyes drifting over the many advertisements that wave over the walls of the towers. The child laughs at all these views, happy in every moment she breathes, carelessly gazing upon the malice of the world with a welcoming smile. Vaelyn studies the child's thoughts without asking for them, eager to understand how she sees the world with such innocence. She believes the child is blind herself, but hasn't considered that the little girl and her innocence had saved her life.

The child stops in her tracks when a snarling beast starts bolting towards her. She jumps and screams, backing into Vaelyn, who just becomes aware that something had been approaching them. As Vaelyn comprehends the animal in front of her, she realizes that it's only a dog on a leash. Kit blinks several times in fear before gazing at the aggressive animal with the same curious, gentle eyes that she gave Vaelyn when they first met.

"Hey, don't touch him, okay? He looks like he'll bite," Vaelyn follows the leash to its origin, which is wrapped around a pole several times to keep the animal from going anywhere. She holds onto Kit to keep her from approaching the animal, and looks up to see a diner next to the pole. An older woman smoking a cigarette looks out from the bench, watching Vaelyn and Kit as they near the beast. Vaelyn circles around the dog, who drags his talons against the concrete with loud barks in an attempt to snap its bite into the skin of the child. Vaelyn drags Kit back as the animal gets close to its target. "Careful!"

Vaelyn looks to the woman, who smiles back as she inhales another time. She sits on the bench just outside of the diner, the smoke of her cigarette fading off into the air.

"Your dog is a little hostile," Vaelyn tells the woman sternly.

The older woman shrugs. "Not my dog."

"What do you mean?" Vaelyn asks harshly, upset that it almost attacked Kit.

"I mean I work here, it must've been one of the customer's," she shrugs again.

Vaelyn looks to the dog as it tugs its chains, sacrificing its comfort to snap at the child again. Vaelyn drags her further back, keeping a safe distance from the animal, and they both watch the woman as she blissfully looks out to the skyline.

"Where's the customer?" Vaelyn asks.

"How should I know? The dog's been there for three days," the woman says. Vaelyn tilts her head.

"What?" She asks the employee. Kit watches the animal as it stops barking, giving up in defeat.

"We've been feeding it leftovers from the kitchen after we close up shop. No one has come to pick it up, we assume the owner left it here. Abandoned the poor thing," the woman glares at the animal, "For a good reason, I'm sure."

Vaelyn walks up to the woman, letting the child's hand go. She stares at the woman, who watches back curiously.

"That animal could hurt someone," Vaelyn suggests to the woman.

"All animals could hurt someone, but it doesn't mean they're going to," she responds. She takes another hit from the cigarette, but it's the last one she can get before Vaelyn reaches for it and throws it to the ground. She stomps over it, putting it out with grunts of rage.

"Call animal support or something! You can't just ignore it," Vaelyn bites harder than the animal was trying to. The woman stands up to Vaelyn, angered by the lack of a cigarette in her fingers.

"Hey, piece of shit. Maybe you need to be chained up like that animal, too, with that attitude. You're just as aggressive," the woman growls.

"You're trying to say I deserve to be treated like an animal, huh? You think everyone that doesn't listen to you is an animal? You ignore the problems of others so you can benefit yourself, is that really the person you are?" Vaelyn snaps at the woman. The woman punches her in the nose, her glasses falling off of her face as she holds her face with both her hands.

"Who let you off your leash, bitch?" The woman pushes Vaelyn away from her. Vaelyn holds her cheeks to hide the tears welling up in her eyes. The woman sees her round glasses as they rest on the concrete, undamaged from the hit that Vaelyn took, and pushes Vaelyn away from them.

"You want to step on my stuff?" The woman asks her. Vaelyn looks up with a sob, but watches as the woman steps over her glasses and crushes them beneath her heel. Vaelyn lowers to the ground and cries harder, reaching for her glasses after the woman releases her foot from them.

The woman laughs in Vaelyn's distraught movements to pick up the shattered pieces of her sight. She cries harder when she realizes how broken they are, her dominance shattering with the glass beneath her fingers.

As the woman turns to the diner again, leaving Vaelyn to cry into her knees, the barks of the animal they fought over grow louder. The leashed animal abandons the pole it was trapped to, its chain dragging against the concrete, and launches itself onto the back of the woman, who falls to its weight. The woman screams as the dog bites into her shoulder, grasping onto her arm, and shakes its head to punish the woman for her moral crimes.

Vaelyn watches the best she can through her tears and natural blindness as the dog chews on her skin and slobbers over her hair, getting her work attire ruined in its attacks. She looks back to the pole, the chain no longer wrapped around it, and finds Kit as she watches the animal put the woman in her place.

"Enough, that's enough!" Kit exclaims to the animal, clapping to get its attention. The dog growls back to the little girl and hops off of the woman, who stays frozen in fear.

A group of people take pictures of the woman as they pass her, the dog innocently treading back to Kit and rubbing its head into her palm. Vaelyn stands, watching the woman shiver to her knees, and stands next to Kit as she pets the wild animal and tugs at the collar around its neck. She pulls it off as the animal attempts to shake it off of its head, and she drops it to the ground as the dog shakes its fur free of the restrictions it has been held to for so long.

"Go, puppy! Be free!" Kit tells the dog as she helps it out to the sidewalk, guiding it off towards the woods. It walks off to be on its own with her help, searching for the woods to roam the world without anything to hold it back. Vaelyn watches in awe as the hostile creature becomes completely harmonious.

Kit takes her hand, helping a blind Vaelyn forward into the outskirts of the city, following the prints of the animal as they, too, find freedom without restraints. Striding towards the outskirts in silence, they abandon the city as the sun crawls past the center of the sky.