Page 22 of Katya and the Young God
Sure, there are ghosts and ghouls and wisps in her world, but that’s entirely different, and the exact science of what causes them is anything but sure. But actual resurrection...that’s entirely different.
There’s another crash of thunder, then, outside her door, a strange, lonesome howl, chilling down her spine and raising the hairs on the back of her neck.
“What the fuck,” she whispers out loud to the empty room, unfolding herself from the stretch and tiptoeing to the window.
Barely visible through the rain, the silhouette of a soaked dog hunches against the porch, clearly waterlogged.
For a split second she stares at it, before the dog lifts its eyes up to her, the same soulful ice blue that’s in every husky’s eyes.
“Oh goddamnit, Stepan,” she mutters, before opening her door and letting the soaked dog dash inside, where it darts to her kitchen rug and huddles against the warmth of her heater.
Grabbing the extra towels from the closet that came with the place, she sits down next to the dog on the floor and starts to aggressively rub the fur dry.
“What the fuck were you doing out in a storm?” Katya asks, and is a smidgen ashamed of herself for using a goddamn baby voice with the dog, but it seems to work. “Why the fuck didn’t he keep you inside?”
Stepan just blinks up at her, eyes already adoring, and he’s somehow only soaked through the first coat. Which, she guesses, is the point of huskies’ double coat, for this weather or worse.
The dog nuzzles her, sticking his head on her lap, despite the damp fur smell, and Katya just sighs, running her fingers through the fur along his scruff, catching along the collar.
The collar is soaked through and ice cold, so she snaps it off, and the dog heaves a sigh.
On the inside, stitched in like embroidery, are runes. Runes after runes, the tail end of one bleeding into the next, like cursive. It’s beautiful, somehow, and makes entire sense that a Demigod would do something so extra to protect a pet.
She snaps a picture and texts it to Miri, because at the very least it should be of interest to her boyfriend, and if Katya survives all of this she very much wants to be on his good side.
MIRI (11:02 PM): Put that fucking collar back on that dog right now.
Raising an eyebrow, Katya does so, and the dog just thumps its tail against the kitchen rug.
MIRI (11:05 PM): Someone very powerful or very knowledgeable really loves that dog.
K (11:06 PM): Well that someone left the dog out in a thunderstorm and it was howling at my door.
The dog huffs at her, so she resumes scratching, before thunder shakes the entire cabin again and the dog whimpers.
MIRI (11:07 PM): Who the fuck’s dog is cozying up to you?
And Katya knows she can just...tell her friend, but something keeps her mouth shut.
K (11:09 PM): Anything I need to be aware of about the runes? I think the dog is scared of lightning.
MIRI (11:10 PM): Oh my god just pet the dog. NT says to not worry about the owner, the owner knows exactly where the dog is at all times with those runes.
Katya eyes the collar now on Stepan’s neck, because that’s not a great little bit of information, but the fact that he’s known where this dog is for months now every morning and hasn’t come collected him means that he’s unlikely to panic now.
Hopefully.
K (11:15 PM): So the owner knows the dog is mooching off my porch every morning?
MIRI (11:16 PM): Lol.
MIRI (11:16 PM): Grats, you have a magical neighbor.
K (11:17 PM): Not comforting.
Another big crash of thunder, and the dog whimpers, burying its head further in Katya’s lap like a big baby, despite weighing what must be close to eighty pounds.
“Did you just get out and run while being scared?” She whispers, and the dog’s ears twitch. “You belong to a ridiculously powerful Demigod who threatened to kill me because I looked at you weird—you don’t have to be scared of thunder.”