Inktober #6: Husky (Patreon)

 Yes, they are out of order and I skipped #5. That’s because Freeze and Husky both take place in the same universe… which means that this too is a Diane Duane’s Young Wizards-universe fanfic.

Like the last one, this is heavy on the climate change preachiness. If I expanded these ficlets into a full-size story, I’d try to tone that down some, but I don’t see any reason to do so in a ficlet.

***

“Oh, she’s gorgeous!” the American scientist said to Ilya. Faro, who could understand huun speech and thus knew she was being complimented, wagged her tail fast enough that if she’d been more aerodynamic she could have propelled herself into flight with it. “What’s her name?”

“Faro,” Ilya said. “Thanks. She is beautiful.” He scratched her on the scruff, deep within her thick fur. “And you know it, don’t you girl?”

“I sure do,” Faro barked back. The American woman didn’t understand her, of course, because she was speaking Pack-speech, but Ilya understood her just fine.

“Faro? That’s an Egyptian name. Kind of a strange choice for a female husky, isn’t it?”

“It’s not Egyptian. It’s just her name. It means ‘duck’. She likes to go in water much more than average dog, let alone husky, so we call her ‘duck.’”

“What are you going to do if she asks you what language that’s in?” Faro asked, amused, knowing Ilya couldn’t answer her directly in front of a non-wizard human. He wasn’t going to be able to tell her it was Kyonsky, the Russian word for the language of dogs, after all.

“Shush, you,” Ilya said. “We get your treats soon enough.”

“Hah! Duck! That’s a cute name.” The scientist smiled. “I’d ask to pet her, but she’s a working dog, isn’t she?”

“She is not service animal,” Ilya said. “She is working dog, yes, but we work outside. Here in station, you can pet her.”

“Oh!” The woman bent down and ran her fingers through Faro’s fur. “You’re such a pretty girl, aren’t you? And you work so hard, yes you do. Ilya’s a slave driver, isn’t he?”

“No, Faro is workaholic,” Ilya said, chuckling. “She makes me get out of bed and go outside when I would rather sleep in.”

Faro shivered with pleasure. The American’s fingernails were just slightly longer than Ilya’s, and the scritch she was delivering was amazing. It would be disloyal to tell Ilya how good it felt, but Faro didn’t have any qualms about enjoying it.

“Well.” The woman stood up. “I won’t keep you any longer, Dr. Chernyshevsky. You give that good girl some treats, now.”

“Yeah, Ilya. You heard the lady. Give me treats,” Faro said.

“I will, Dr. Greenspring. See you later.” He walked away with Faro’s leash, and she followed. It was a huun rule that the working dogs needed to be leashed in the station, even if they generally did their work off leash and were trained to commands. Faro found this mildly irritating, but she couldn’t blame the huun; other Pack-people could be very badly behaved sometimes, and submitting to stupid huun rules was a small price to be able to work with her beloved huun partner.

Ilya and Faro weren’t a master and a pet; they were equals, both wizards, both partners in the endless battle to preserve life against the machinations of the Packless One and his inventions, entropy and death. This was not something that could be explained to other huun unless they were also wizards, with the exception of Ilya’s mother, who’d found out when he was on Ordeal as a teenager, first becoming a wizard. 

In the world of huun, Ilya Chernyshevsky was a biologist with a specialization in the Arctic biome, and he was working with a team of other scientists to identify endangered species and tag members of the species. In that world, Faro was something like a servant, something like a biological tool, and only a tiny bit like a colleague; huun thought themselves superior to Pack-people, and as long as huun were masters of the hunt and brought the food home, Pack-people usually agreed and let them have their status. But in the world of wizardry, Ilya and Faro were a wizard partner-team who worked to protect the species of the Arctic from destruction by huun industry or tourists or residences, and lately, the global warming caused by the huun. 

Once inside Ilya’s office, Faro said a Word from the Speech, the language reality was built on, and the leash unhooked itself from her collar. “I think the research is really helping. You’ve got so much evidence to present to the other huun. When they put the TV on in the common room, I hear the huun newspeople talking about the global warming all the time, and the research you and the other scientist teams are doing. Do you think it’s doing any good?”

Ilya shrugged. “It’s hard to say. The people who want to pretend it isn’t happening and they can keep going like they always have are very powerful, Faro. You know how pack likes to agree within pack? And pack likes to agree with pack leader?”

“Yes,” Faro said. “And you said huun society is made of packs of packs, right?”

“That’s right,” Ilya said. “Well, the powerful leaders who don’t want anything to change have a lot of human packs under their control, and most of those people don’t want to disagree with the leaders they’ve chosen to follow any more than you dogs like to disagree with your pack leaders.” He sat down on the only chair that wasn’t covered with piles of printouts. “But I think – I hope – it’s helping.”

“I hope so too,” Faro said. “I know we can’t risk fixing it with wizardry… but there’s so many hungry animals out there. So many creatures driven out of their homes. The balance of everything is in chaos. I don’t know how long all the creatures up here can afford to wait for huun to figure out what’s at stake and change things.”

“I know,” Ilya said. “I know.”