Coye 5.13 (Patreon)

Chapter 13 - Therapy Dog

Back at the dorms, a certain room belonging to a group of bitches was down to only two of its members. Marlie was lying across her bed, chilling out as she poured over a scroll depicting ancient weaponry lost throughout Karnalle's history. Every so often, she stopped and nodded in approval of something she saw or narrowed her eyes at one that struck her as stupid-looking.

It was a wonder that Marlie could concentrate, what with the ruckus Coco was creating.

The puppy was strutting around the second messiest dorm in the entire Guild on all fours. She was practically stomping- whoever was below them on the first floor could definitely hear Coco's irritation. Her tail was curled between her legs, and she mumbled incoherent nonsense as she walked.

Their room was identical to all of the other Silver-ranked dorms, but the Baddest Bitches had torn the place apart during the year they lived in the Guild. Shortly after moving in, it was made very clear to Dorothy that their turf was never to be messed with. The Guild Mistress agreed, knowing that these girls were trouble even back then.

Their room was split into four separate sections.

The first was Britni and Coco's shared bed, where they slept together. Really, it was Britni's, and Coco didn't have a bed of her own. Britni had some stuffed animals of creatures from Midgardian folklore sitting around her pillows, and on the wall beside her bed were maps and illustrations depicting the Nine Realms of Midgard. The centerpiece of all of these different artworks was a vast painted scroll depicting the mystical Yggdrasil that Britni would often stare at her hours at a time whenever she felt distressed.

Marlie's bed was hidden behind a tattered red curtain she constructed to obscure her section of the room. Unlike the others, Marlie was a private person who required solitude more often than not. Her curtains were currently drawn open, letting anyone look within her little cave and witness the comical amount of edgy swords hanging from her wall. Each was too impractical to ever see use in battle, but Marlie took pity on them and kept them near as decorations.

It wasn't their fault they were cursed with such useless forms, and some made for good conversation.

As for Tiph's side of the room, her bed was well maintained, and an entire shelf's worth of alchemical texts rested on her nightstand. Multiple notebooks were flooding out from her drawer, and on the wall was a corkboard pinned with hundreds of alchemical diagrams she'd drawn herself. It matched one she had in her lab, but this one saw just as much use when she was scribbling down ideas in the middle of the night. Much to everyone else's dismay, a candle was almost always burning in their dorm because of Tiph, just in case she needed to jot a sudden formula or random thought.

By all accounts, the fourth bed should have been Coco's. However, she always slept with Britni or at the foot of Marlie or Tiph's beds if Britni wasn't around. The Baddest Bitches made use of the spare mattress in a more creative way.

It was a communal bed where everyone laid out all of their collective shit so that no one had to organize their possessions. Coco had dog toys, bones, and balls laying all over it, Tiph had even more alchemical books and esoteric scrolls, Britni a growing selection of Midgardian poetry which her uncle continued sending her, and Marlie a whole shit load of tacky-looking knives along with some miscellaneous gifts her father's followers had offered to her.

Bringing in your own furniture to the dorms was strictly against the code of conduct, but it was another one of the concessions Dorothy made to the Baddest Bitches. One of the first things they did in Cransmere was secure a magical wardrobe that acted as a walk-in closet where the girls kept their expansive clothing collections. It was a necessary yet spendy purchase for fashion-minded adventurers.

It wasn't much, but this place was their home, and they'd made the most of it.

Coco had been at her routine for a while, and her frustrations boiled over. She grumbled and pulled at her hair, sitting beside Marlie's bed.

"Still don't understand!" She whined. "Why is it still so stupid?"

"You tell me. I thought you and him settled things the other day?" Marlie said without looking up from her scroll.

"Did! Coco established dominance!"

"By losing?"

"Winning wasn't the point!" Coco snarled. "Proved runt was still weak. Thought he learned his place, but..." her simple mind drifted to their brief encounter on Lettimore street earlier that day. "Then he waved at Coco like we were friends! Don't understand...!"

"It's a basic social interaction."

"It's confusing!"

"Would it have made more sense if he came up to you and started sniffing your ass?"

Coco turned bright red and leaned against the foot of Marlie's bed, her claws digging into the sheets as she started pawing at them. "Coco doesn't do that anymore! Learned!"

Marlie sighed and rolled up her scroll. Her friend needed attention, and these weapons were all boring, anyway. "Do you need to talk about this, Coco?"

"No! ...Maybe? Probably shouldn't, but-"

"Britni isn't here," Marlie assured.

"Okay..." Coco frowned. "Need to talk."

"Let's try and look at this rationally and figure it out. Without thinking too hard about it, what would make you feel better when it comes to Coye?"

"Feel better if runt learned his place and stopped acting so cheeky... went back to how he was before he... confused Coco."

"Right. And where exactly is his place?"

"Underneath Coco!"

"I'm going to give you a few seconds to think about that before I make fun of you for it."

Coco didn't follow along, tilting her head as she replayed her statement. Had she said something awkward again? Words were always so tricky, and they often had more than one meaning when used a certain way. It was stupid, and- Coco's mouth fell open, and she turned even redder, her eyebrows creasing in anger.

"Didn't mean like that! Beneath Coco in pack hierarchy, not sexually! Never sexually! No!!" She barked off a series of unconvincing protests.

"Are you saying he's already part of our pack?"

"Britni wants runt as mate, and Britni gets what she wants!"

"True enough," Marlie shrugged, suppressing the unsettling thought of how Britni might react to that not always being the case.

"First things first, I want to know where all this is coming from. You never thought twice about Coye until this last week..." Marlie looked away for a moment, feeling somewhat hypocritical. "Instead of avoiding it, try to pinpoint the exact reason this all started. Remember all the details of your battle, and then think back to the day we got home when Britni had you mess with him. Why do you suddenly care?"

Coco had a bad habit of ignoring her problems. When something bothered her, Coco would always rationalize it, dismiss it, or try her best not to think about it. The only way to get Coco to process things was to sit down and talk her through her issues.

It was a skill Marlie had been refining for the last two and a half years.

Coco scowled and closed her eyes. Thinking about their bullying session brought back embarrassing memories of a particular scent and the outline of a large mating stick, but that wasn't all. It was the way Coye was acting that really stuck with her.

"Suddenly care because... runt is different than he used to be."

"Good, let's focus on that. Do you like that he's different?"

"I..." Coco opened her eyes again, her fluffy ears dripping as she stared off into the distance. "Don't know. Don't like when things change. Change scary, already changed enough for one life."

"It's okay, girl. You're doing good." Marlie praised the pup, who couldn't hide a few little tail wags of satisfaction. It was a shame she had to ruin her mood, but she had to ask, "You're not planning on telling Britni this, right?"

The tail wags stopped, and Coco's posture lowered. She was tempted to hide under the bed but decided that was beneath her. "Don't want to! Britni wants runt. Hearing Coco maybe has weird feelings for runt will make Britni sad or mad! Drink even harder! Can't do that to her. Only tell Marlie- Marlie listens to Coco's feelings and tries to make them better. Best friend!"

It hurt Marlie to hear that. Not because she didn't love her friend, but because Coco was right. Even if Britni ended up not minding, she wouldn't put it past the boss bitch to exploit Coco's feelings in her convoluted game. Despite Marlie's constant reminders, Britni often had trouble remembering that Coco was her friend first and her pet second.

She already used Coco as a bullying tool- Marlie didn't want to know how else Britni might take advantage of the poor puppy that listened to her every word.

Sighing, Marlie patted the spot next to her on the bed. Coco didn't always go where she was told, not without being stubborn, but she immediately took the cue and jumped on the bed. Marlie scooted over a bit so Coco could spin around in a circle a couple of times while pawing at the sheets until everything was sufficiently comfortable for her discerning self.

When Coco's spot met her lofty standards, she plopped down.

"Everything is stupid," she brooded. "Stupid. Stupid! Lived among humans for over two years- almost three! Still so hard... sometimes I... I wish Mooncaller never-"

"Hey," Marlie put her hand on Coco's paw. "Don't talk like that. You're making it sound like you wish you never met us."

"Didn't mean to," Coco bit her lip. "But... if I didn't, things would be easier again. Don't think I'll ever get used to other people."

"You will. If you really want to."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean that you're not as dense as everyone treats you. You're more in touch with your instincts than anyone else, but you're not listening to what your body is saying. Ignoring your problems will only push you further away from other people than you already are, you know?"

Coco shrank back at the bitter truth. Marlie was right- Coco knew fully what she was going through because of Coye. It made her mad, embarrassed, and scared all at once.

"Don't have choice," she mumbled.

"No," Marlie agreed. "Not really..."

Beneath her mask was a concerned frown. It wasn't fair that Coco had to tiptoe around Britni, especially not when Britni would never be as considerate if their situation was reversed.

"I'll be fine. Felt these feelings before. Coco defeated them!"

"You felt them for Britni, and you 'defeated' them by starting to fuck her," Marlie reminded her.

Coco's mouth fell open, and she stared at Marlie, her body shaking as her heart raced. "N-No! Not happening! Won't mate with runt- don't WANT to mate with runt!"

"No, of course not. You just want him to know that he should be underneath you."

"Not walking into that one again!" Coco crossed her arms and narrowed her brows. "Smarter than that..."

"I would be worried if you weren't."

For a while, things got quiet between them. They sat there in contemplation, Coco growing still. Her ears didn't so much as twitch, and her tail remained limp as she sunk deeper into the mostly unexplored realm of critical thought and self-reflection. There was a reason she avoided overthinking, and it had to do with how it only ever made her feel worse.

"Marlie?"

"Yes?"

"What would you do if you were... me?"

Marlie closed her eyes and pondered the difficult question. There were really only two ways to go about it. "Do you want the real answer or the one that would let things continue as they are?"

Coco bit her lip and almost broke the skin on her sharp fangs. "Coco will allow Marlie to pet her. Even try not to bite."

"Thank you," Marlie sarcastically showed her gratitude for Coco giving her permission to comfort her. Then, her hand found Coco's scalp and started giving it a deep massage- even sprinkling in some amazing scritches with her demonic claws.

The scritches weren't as effective as they usually were, but over time, Coco's mood eased enough for her to start drifting away from her troubles. Her tail was beginning to wag now and again, and once Marlie got to that special spot behind her fluffy ears, Coco was panting in subtle delight.

The relaxed mood loosened her lips, and Coco blurted out, "I miss the forest sometimes. And my pack mates."

"We're your pack mates now, but I understand the feeling."

"Not the same. Direwolves aren't complicated. When I barked, they understood. Didn't have to hold anything back. They aren't weak like people- won't get sad if you do something they don't like. They'll just bark and forget. Maybe they'll fight you, but... still be your friend after that."

"Coco-"

"Don't get hurt head from worrying whether or not every little thing will make friend upset. Hate it. Hate this. Hate having to care so much!"

"Everything is going to be okay," Marlie promised in the most comforting tone her smooth voice could perform. "You're a good girl. Good things happen to good girls, and sooner or later, everything will sort itself out."

"Marlie promises?"

"Yes," Marlie hoped she sounded convinced, but Coco didn't say a word about it if she could tell she was being lied to. Sometimes a lie helped more than the truth, at least in the short term.

As for the long term, Marlie had no idea what would happen. Coye's new lease on life was dangerous- unpredictable, even. She'd felt that firsthand the other day and Marlie tried hard not to think about the new strictly platonic interest she was developing toward Britni's unfortunate target.

Eventually, something would give.

Coco was crushing on Coye, and Marlie reckoned it was even worse than how things started between her and Britni. Forget Britni potentially using Coco's feelings as a weapon- there was a far more frightening outcome that Marlie feared was just as likely.

Coco and Tiph knew bits and pieces of Britni's past, but only Marlie had the clearest picture. She didn't talk about herself very often unless it was with someone she trusted more than anyone else, and Britni had a good reason for doing so. If one of the only people Britni knew and loved- her very own girlfriend, no less- were to betray her...

Marlie shuddered to think.

What was she supposed to do other than pet the poor puppy and tell her things would be okay? It wasn't like she could suggest Coco follow her feelings behind Britni's back, and she couldn't in good faith tell her to let Britni know what was going on, either. Marlie couldn't stand that the best answer she had for the situation was to just hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Change was coming. It was all they could do to enjoy the quiet moments now while they lasted before the storm inevitably rolled in.

"Good girl," Marlie said as she petted her dear friend.

Coco corrected with an increasingly fierce series of tail wags and a contented smile, "Best girl!"

"Best girl," Marlie agreed.