Prologue
#1 of Elunix
I was a sled dog for a man whose name, from what I can tell through the babble of his conversations with others, was Dantès. I can't remember much about him; the only times I had ever seen him were when he was covered in furs and layers of other clothing with dark glasses over his eyes. He never talked to us either, except for the occasional command, which, although I personally despised, I obeyed. For this reason, on the day he died, I felt nothing. Unlike my brother and the rest of my unrelated clan around me, I had no compassion for this man. How can I feel for something that has no face, no substance, no influence on my life or my very nature? If he had only tried to have some other relationship towards me than that of employer and worker, then I might have wished to bury him, to grieve over his still body, to suffer with the rest. Actually, the only reason why I even cried at all was that I realized that I no longer had the ability to have food continually provided for me. I would have to hunt for it; I would have to work other than just running.
The first night after he died, my clan didn't leave his body. Everyone could tell that he was gone, his smell was different, no longer heavy and laden with black thoughts and sins, no longer sweat from shivering and urine from incontinence; everyone knew that his spirit had departed, but we had no idea nor any reason to leave just yet. We had his package of food found in the sled; we had the continual darkness of the winter days to keep us blind; we had the bodies of each other to keep us warm as we slept motionlessly; we had everything to keep us civil, including the rules set forth by both him and my elders; and yet, I was not content. My desires, both emotional and physical, could not be satisfied by them. And yet, when I told them this, they immediately understood why. This, however, is not to say that they accepted it.
~
The clan was always divided: my family against theirs, my brother and I against the rest. Even when we slept for the night, it was only with maximum reluctance and several forced commands from the man before they even slept near us. All my brother and I had to keep warm during the night was each other; all we had to keep from freezing was our mutual body heat; all we could do to not die was to love. His fur would brush against mine, my tail would stroke his, and our own inflamed hearts kept our bodies whole. The other half knew of our techniques and disapproved, but it's not our fault that we did that. Because of their sheer and complete animosity towards us, we were forced to survive by any means necessary. It was only by sheer luck that we learned to love each other in a way that was more than fraternal.
The night I decided to leave, though, the tension between the split factions seemed indefensible. Throughout dinner, they stared at us, the dried jerky falling out of their mouth occasionally when they focused too much on the brothers instead of their meal. Renveli sat beside me, the meat between his paws as he tore of another bite of the sinewy food. In addition to sitting windward throughout the day and night, we received the worst part of the meal as well. I looked at my brother as he gently chewed, his teeth gnashing and trying to get some amount of flavor out of the shriveled skin. His fur, so soft and white around his eyes but black on the rest of his head, a completely opposite mirror of my own, his fur blew like feathers in the wintry wind, pulling some slight powder off the tundra and onto my brother's face. Using my muzzle, I brush the snow away, eliciting a look of gratitude on my brother's countenance and a look of disgust on all the others. I glared at them, and eventually, every single one turned away except him, the leader of the pack.
"Stop that. It's disgusting."
I stared blankly, not ashamed of myself, just momentarily stunned that he finally said something.
"He had snow on his face. I was getting it off."
"You were getting it off? You two are repulsive, abnormal."
"Shut up, Ember. This has nothing to do with you."
"It has everything to do with me. You don't think I can smell you in the middle of the night? You don't think we can't hear you? You think we're too stupid to realize what you're doing? No, Elunix, I can't let you keep doing this. The master --"
"HE WAS NOT MY MASTER."
"--may have not cared about that, but I won't allow it."
I turned to my brother, and then I saw his nod. Turning away from Ember, I began to walk away.
"Where are you going, Elunix?"
"Back."
"No. But you can't leave. You're the strongest of us. We need you."
"I don't care if you need me. You've given me no reason to stay."
I stopped beside the sled and turned, staring at the rest of the pack, their eyes upon my fur. They were judging me, thinking to themselves identical thoughts, searching across my black back for a hint of white, looking at my pure chest for a stain of darkness, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn't look away. My resolve was too resolute, my will too trained to not back down. For this, I do give thanks to that man; his training in that regard did allow me to survive for as long as I have. If he wouldn't have taught us to sleep together, we would have been frozen near the beginning; if he had taught us to not veer, I would have died with my clan. But thanks to him, I only felt the dry wind blow harder against my fur, the burning eyes trying to cool my soul, and the leader's words failing to keep his pack complete.
"Elunix, please, you can't forsake the pack. That would be our destruction."
"I can't defect from you if I never belonged in the first place."
"Even after all the master did for us?"
"I never asked him to help me, nor my brother, nor my family. He did so of his own free will. With him now gone, I have nobody more to repay. My debts are resolved."
"Elunix, please. How can I change your mind?"
I looked at Ember, the man's favorite dog. He was smaller than me, his eyes much brighter but nonetheless cold, his body almost shivering, and yet I felt no compassion. I knew that I would benefit them greatly, but that cost to me was still too great for whatever I would reap. No amount of simple words could sway me of my desires, especially those from someone who not only provided nothing to the clan but also provided nothing to himself. I closed my eyes, desiring nothing more than not to see their shameful glares. I couldn't imagine, even then, how quickly they would turn on me. After all I had done for them -- leading the pack when we ran even though it was some other dog who led them in all other things, being the last to eat even though I spent the most energy, purposely deafening myself to all their empty threats and empty gossip -- after everything I did, they would still dare to question why I would want to leave. Actually, the leader spoke the truth: they needed me, and I did not need them. They still wonder why I don't want to be with them, to be their tireless and unthinking pack animal. No, even now, even knowing what happened to them, they deserved it, every last thing.
"You can't change what has been fixed in stone without first destroying that rock.
"Renveli, will you come with me?"
My eyes were focused on the ground, searching for the paw prints on the hard packed snow. I could not see the leader's expression; I could only hear his scoff of disbelief. My brother looked to the leader, then turned towards me. My brother was the only friend and the only family I had left. In fact, it was because of him that I wanted and, more importantly, needed to leave this clan before they decided that we were no longer functional enough for them. He quickly ran over to me, his tail touching mine, rubbing it slightly, telling me that he understood. Silently but not regretfully, we started off, leaving our past behind us as we walked to where we had already been before.