Chapter 1 - Unexpected Losses

*beep*
*beep*
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*thwack*

I rolled over in my bed, letting my paw slide off of the alarm clock and slam against the side of the mattress, a groan escaping my muzzle as consciousness started to flood my mind. I wanted nothing more than to stay in bed and go back to sleep, but real life demanded that I get up and prepare for work. With a great amount of willpower, and after smacking snooze on the alarm a few times, I managed to crawl out of bed and onto my feet, the blankets sliding off of me. I slowly padded around the bed and into the bathroom, leaving the door wide open behind me.

Work had kept me at the office way later than normal last night, and I didn’t get home until long after midnight, so I was running on just a couple hours of sleep. Realizing that I was late, I grabbed my coat and keys, then sprinted out the front door. Work was only a few streets away, so I was walking through the front door within a couple of minutes.

“Keit, you’re late again.”, came a gruff voice from my right. I turned to see my boss, a very large, overweight brown bear, standing with a clipboard in one paw and a cigarette in the other. He started padding toward me.

“I swear, if you’re late again, I’m canning your ass. The only reason I haven’t gotten rid of a waste of space like you is because we’re short staffed.”, he punctuated that last sentence by tapping his cigarette in front of me, the ashes drifting down and landing on my feet. “But make no mistake, I’d rather get rid of you given the option.”

With that, he took a long drag from his cig and blew it in my face, then turned around and wobbled away. I let a short sigh escape from my muzzle, then shook my head and turned to head toward my desk. My chair squeaked as I sat down on it and spun around to face the computer. My job sucked, my co-workers sucked, my boss sucked, basically every aspect of this job sucked, but it paid the bills and was the only job someone like me could get.

In the eyes of most of the civilians, I was a failure and a coward. See, there were creatures that existed outside of the town walls that wanted nothing more than to tear us to shreds and consume our flesh. About 50 years ago, the founders of this city moved to this planet to harvest its natural resources, but were unaware of it’s local fauna. Initially, they could barely survive; every day was a constant battle for their lives, some days literally. But after nearly a year, they were able to get financial support from a wealthy investor who saw the potential riches that the planet could provide. So work started, and within a decade, the town was built, walls and all.

Over time, the high mortality rate caused wages to skyrocket, anybody willing to accept the risks could work here and make a fortune, which attracted all sorts of extreme personalities. My parents, both of whom are snow leopards, were from the initial wave that moved here, and at the time I was yet to have been conceived. They joined up with the militia the first moment they could, and were able to make a small fortune protecting the city. Seeing as they had excellent night vision, they were given the night shifts almost every time, which earned them a reputation of being badasses for having braved nighttime at the wall. However, after my mother became pregnant with me, they left and settled down, working desk jobs within the walls.

As I grew up, I slowly formed a bond with the wildlife surrounding the town. Whatever the militia might have you believe, most of the wildlife was actually quite passive, and would run away before risking conflict. Yes, there were a few species that did seem to enjoy killing us. However, there was one species in particular that I’ve always held a special place in my heart for, one that was referred to as the smilodon, as it was nearly a twin to the prehistoric creature back on earth. Although, these were different from their cousins: they much, much smarter. Their intelligence is what scared the local population, and what gave them their reputation as being murderous creatures that would stop at nothing to kill you. This couldn’t be further from the truth in my opinion. Everything that I had seen of them pointed to them wanting to avoid us as much as possible, but would stand their ground if backed into a corner, or if their cubs were threatened.

When I became old enough and the militia extended me an offer to join. I promptly turned it down, which was basically unheard of. Everyone, male or female, immediately joined when they could; it was considered a rite of passage to serve for a year or two before going to work a desk job. After that, my life took a downward turn. I was refused service at most establishments, and almost everyone would ignore me, pretending that I didn’t exist. This didn’t really bother me that much, I actually liked being invisible to most everyone. But the part that hurt was when my own parents disowned me, casting me out. They couldn’t understand why I had refused to serve, and no matter what I said to them, they couldn’t see past that. Instead of seeing me as their son, they saw me as someone who had betrayed the community, and nothing more.

I couldn’t afford a seat on a ship off-planet, nor could I ever hope to afford one, so I was forced to stay and try to make a life for myself. Which is why I’m currently working this shitty job, on a shitty planet, filled with shitty people.

A loud thump followed by a crash in the cube next to me brought my back to reality, and I snapped my head around to see what the noise was. Luckily, it was just my co-worker tossing a truly massive stack of papers on his desk, knocking a few things over.

“Everything ok over there, Charley?”, I asked. A few seconds later, I saw a scaled head stick up over the cube wall.

“Yeah, I just knocked some crap over on my desk”, he responded.

Charley was a pangolin, and actually the only one of his species on the station. He was mostly covered in large, light brown scales, except for his belly, inner thighs and arms, and his face, which were scaleless and cream in color. He had two adorably round ears sticking out of the side of his head, and claws that required trimming nearly daily. And unlike most everyone else, he didn’t wear clothes due to his scales shredding everything he would try to wear, aside from basically body armor.

He also happened to be my one and only friend in literally the entire world.

He disappeared back behind the cube wall and noises of cleaning arose.

“Need any help?”, I asked.

“Nah, I’ve got it. Just tired and clumsy is all. Besides, if anyone needs help getting work done, it’s you.” There was a brief pause. “I heard what the boss was saying to you just a minute ago.”

“Fuck him, let’s see him try to get someone to replace me that does as much work as I do.” I said, snorting a bit at the end.

“Dude, not so loud!”, he whispered, peering back over the cube wall. “I know you don’t care too much about this job, but I don’t know how long I’d last without you here.”

“You’d be fine.”, I said simply, turning on my PC. There was a mountain of work work that I had to go through as well, mine just happened to be in a digital form.

Most of the day passed uneventfully, I managed to get an ass-load of work done, as per usual. Charley and I took our lunch break together and used every second of the lunch hour we had. Then, when the day was done, we said our goodbyes to each other headed off to our separate homes.

My typical route to and from work took me near one of the gates that led out of town and into the wild. It was normally stationed by the assholes of the militia, but it was the only “safe” route to my house. As much shit as the militia gave me, I figured they’d never get violent. If they did, their commanding officers would probably have them running laps until they collapsed from exhaustion, regardless as to who they assaulted. As I padded closer to the gate, I hear people shouting from an alleyway nearby.

[Great, they’re either blind-drunk again, or they’ve got another animal they’re torturing], I thought to myself.

I quickened my pace so I could see what was going on, and my heart sank as I rounded the corner. There was an adolescent smilodon that had managed to escape from its cage, and was now backed into a corner.

“Be careful, the boss wants this one alive!”
“Watch out, don’t let it slip past us, it wants to go to the right!”
“Remember, hold your fire unless you have to!”
“Randy, move further over!”
“Where are the tranqs?! We need them NOW!”

The men were all shouting at each other, their guns pointed directly at the terrified creature. They were slowly pushing forward, getting closer to it, trying to back it further into the corner so that it couldn’t escape. It’s eyes were wide open and filled with terror, blood dripping down its left flank, sullying its beautiful golden coat. I blindly started jogging toward the commotion, but was quickly stopped by a militia member.

“Woah, hold up! Do you not see the giant flesh eating creature up there?!” A wolf had grabbed me with one arm and pushed me back a few meters. “Stay the fuck back and let us handle this.”

I didn’t know what to do, there was no way the creature was going to be alive for much longer, but there wasn’t anything that I could do to stop it. I looked around, trying to find some way to stop them from killing the poor thing, but to no avail. They had it completely surrounded, and there was no way I could get close to it.

I looked back at the creature, and at that moment it looked directly at me and we made eye contact. Its eyes were filled with tears, and as I gazed into them, it seemed to be silently pleading for help. I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could, the sound of a gunshot echoed between the buildings. The creature eyes rolled back in it’s head and it slumped over, remaining silent and unmoving. Tears welled up in my eyes as I realized what had happened, one of the newer members had shot it.

“GOD DAMMIT!!! Ben, what the FUCK did you do that for?!”, a large bat walked up to who I assumed was Ben and ripped the gun out of his paws. “Where the fuck did your trigger discipline go, did you fucking forget it when you got up this morning?!”

I stood there, motionless, staring at the lifeless corpse of the smilodon pup. Civilians started pouring into the alley, being stopped a few steps behind me.

“Hey, didn’t I tell you to get the hell back, you little shit?!”, I looked over to my right just in time to see the butt of a rifle being slammed into my gut. I doubled-over in pain. “Get the fuck back before I lose my patience!”

I gripped my gut and stumbled back a few steps. The wolf snarled at me, then walked past me and toward the crowd of civilians.

“Oh my god, did one of them get into the city?”
“Wow, that’s a big one!”
“Thankfully they stopped it before-”

I pushed my way through the crowd, gripping my stomach in pain, ignoring the commotion of those around me. Once I was clear of the mass of people, I propped myself up against a nearby building to let the pain in my gut subside. I couldn’t believe what they had done, yet at the same time shouldn’t have been surprised, this sort of thing happened all of the time. Lately, they had been capturing more and more of the local wildlife, yet no one really knew why they were doing it, not even most of the militia members risking their lives to capture them alive.

I wiped the tears out of the corners of my eyes and pushed off of the building, walking in the opposite direction of my home. I needed to go see Charley, tell him what happened.

I made my way to his place, and up the massive climb of stairs to reach his apartment room. I knocked against the front door with my knuckles and paced on spot, waiting for him to open the door. After a couple of seconds, I heard the door unlocking, then swing open to reveal Charley.

“Charley! Hey, can I crash here for a few?”, I asked, avoiding direct eye contact with him.

“Yeah, of course, come in.”, he said, motioning me in with a scaled arm. “You ok?”

“I don’t know, I’m just so sick of this happening”, I said as I made my way in. I padded over to his couch and flopped down, sinking my head into my arms.

“Wait, sick of what happening?” He sat down on the couch next to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “What happened?”

I took in a deep breath, then slowly let it out, my breath shaking slightly.

“...They killed another smilodon.”, and as I said this, tears started welling up in the corners of my eyes.

“Aww crap, I’m sorry man.”, he squeezed my shoulders. “I know how much that stuff gets to you. How did you hear about it this time?”

“I was there. They had it backed into a corner. It was just a pup, it wasn’t even trying to attack them!”, at this point, I was on the verge of crying. “Some fucking moron shot it by accident, right through the base of the neck.”

We sat there in silence for a few minutes, Charley most likely wasn’t sure what to say. To be honest, I didn’t really need him to say anything, I just needed him to be here to comfort me while I tried to sort things out in my head. I leaned over and rested my head on his shoulder, letting out another deep breath.

“You can crash on the couch if you want to tonight.” He said, finally breaking the silence. I just nodded in response, not saying anything. “You really should find a new route home.”

“I’ve tried”, I said, wiping a tear off of my cheek. “Everything else is too dangerous for me.”

He squeezed my shoulders and leaned over to rest his head on top of mine. It felt so good to have someone to be with right now, even if we weren’t mates. Just having someone who actually gave a shit about me meant so much.

“Well, for now, you wanna watch a movie or two?”, he asked, picking up a controller. “Help take your mind off of things.”

“Yeah, sure.”, I responded simply.

With that, he turned on the TV and flipped through his collections of movies until he must have found what he was looking for. He started it playing, then sat the controller down and sank down in the couch a bit, pulling me closer so that he could wrap his other arm around me. I just sank into him and let out a quiet purr.

We sat on the couch and watched movies for a few hours without saying anything. It wasn’t until the second movie started playing that he shifted; I felt him pull his arm up off of my shoulders and start to get up. I leaned over to let him up, but happened to glance down at his crotch as I did. There, nestled between the his cream-colored thighs, was a hint of pink. I grinned to myself as I realized why he was getting up, and stifled a chuckle as he walked down the hallway. I guess that’s one disadvantage of not wearing any clothes.

At least now I was feeling better, enough so to be able to laugh at what had just happened. Within a couple of minutes, he reappeared no longer showing pink, and sat back down next to me.

“You mind if I call it a night?”, I asked him.

“Sure.” He stood back up and turned off the TV, setting the controller down on the end table. “At least I’ll be able to make sure you don’t sleep in again tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah. Rub it in.”, I snorted. “Got a blanket for me?”

Right as I finished asking that, he had retrieved a blanket from under the couch table and tossed it at me. He started padding back to his bedroom, but stopped in front of me. He reached down and patted my head lightly.

“Try and get some sleep.” And with that, he headed back down the hallway and into his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

I let out a sigh of relief, oddly enough it actually felt good to be alone again. Just a few hours ago, I couldn’t bear the thought of being alone, but now, it felt like sweet relief. I stripped off my clothes, leaving my underwear on, and wrapped myself up in the blanket.

What felt like hours passed with consciousness never leaving me, I kept tossing and turning, never able to keep my eyes closed. Every time I did, the images of what happened earlier would flood my mind, forcing me to snap them open again.

I finally gave up and set up on the couch, resting my head in my arms. There was no way I was going to get any sleep tonight. With a sigh, I stood up and put my clothes back on, then padded over to the kitchen. I opened up a couple of drawers, located a pen and some paper, then quickly jotted down a note for Charley. I put it down on the couch table, then walked out through the front door, letting it close and lock behind me.

It was a colder night than normal, and I cursed myself for not grabbing a jacket before I left. I walked back down the massive flight of stairs, swearing a few times at Charley for having chosen a place to live that was so high up. Slowly, I made my way back to my house, not really paying much attention to what was going on around me as I walked. Before I knew it, I was back at the gate, right next to the alleyway where the smilodon was shot.

I quickly snapped back to reality and stopped in my tracks. Silently, I looked around to see if I was alone, namely making sure none of the militia pricks were around. Luckily, the only ones that I spotted were patrolling near or on top of the gate, and no one seemed to be near the alley. I quickly disappeared into it, and made my way down to where everything had happened. It was completely empty, and when I got to the end, there was nothing left except for a large bloodstain.

“Fucking assholes”, I whispered to myself, kicking at the ground. I turned back around and started heading back out. As I made my way around the corner back into the street, I ran face-first into something. I let out an ‘oof’ and staggered back a couple of steps. I looked back up to see what I had run into, my heart sinking as I quickly realized what it was.

“Hoooly shit, it’s that little faggot from earlier.” The grey wolf that had nailed me in the gut earlier today was standing there, a huge grin spread across his muzzle. He had two friends following behind him, a skinnier male fox, and a female roo.

“Is this the one that tried to save the beast earlier?”, asked the roo, walking around me and stopping when she was directly behind me.

“Yeah.” The wolf chuckled a bit as he said that. “And he’s also the one that refused to join up with the militia. Apparently he’s too good for us, thinks we shouldn’t be killing these beasts.”

There was a glint in his eye that scared me and made me sick to my stomach. I took a step to walk around them, but was shoved to the ground by the roo. I caught myself with my paws, but as soon as I started to get back up, the roo kicked me in the gut. For the second time today, my stomach exploded with pain and I rolled over onto my side, clenching my guts as I curled up into a ball.

“Oh, it’s this asshole.” She said. “I thought that I recognized him.”

“Yeah, his parents used to be bad-asses, they were part of the original group that tamed this area.” The wolf walked up to me as he spoke. “But then they gave birth to this piece of shit.”

“Wait, does he really think we shouldn’t kill them?”, asked the fox.

“Yeah. People talk about how he thinks they’re actually gentle creatures.” As he said gentle creatures, he made quotes with his digits. “Makes me sick.”

My heart was pounding, I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t outrun them, especially the roo, and they had me surrounded. There was a brief and terrifying silence as they stood there, looking down at me.

“What should we do with him?”, asked the fox.

“Let’s get rid of him.”, the roo responded.

My heart stopped and I turned around to look up at her. She was staring down at me with cold eyes.

“Wait, we can’t kill him!”, this time the wolf was saying something that I agreed with.

“I didn’t say kill him, I just said get rid of him.” She kicked my arm, thankfully with less force than before. “We just take him outside the walls and drop him off, let him see just how friendly the beasts out there are. No one’s going to ask where he went. No one likes him. He’ll just disappear, almost no one will even notice, and we’ll move on with our lives, one less asshole slowing us down.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, part of me was just hoping that I actually had fallen asleep on Charley’s couch, and that I’d wake up soon.

“Fine, go get one of the hogs, but make it quick.”, the wolf padded up and stood right above me, pointing his rifle down at my head. “You stay right here.”

The roo sprinted off, disappearing around the corner. My mind was racing, trying to figure out how to get away. Maybe I could call Charley? I carefully reached down to the pocket on the side of my leg, and slid a paw in. I let out a gasp as my arm was yanked up.

“And just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”, the wolf slung the rifle over his shoulder with his free paw, then reached down and into my pocket, pulling my phone out. “Who were you planning on calling? I’m willing to bet no one gives a shit about you, especially not this late at night.”

He looked back over his shoulder and tossed my phone to the fox, who caught it with one paw.

“Smash that, but keep it with you, I don’t want to leave it behind for someone to find.” The fox nodded, then tossed my phone on the ground and smashed it with the heel of his boot. My heart sank even further as one of the only chances for me to escape was destroyed. He picked it back up and shoved it into his pocket.

A few seconds later, I could hear the sounds of an engine, then saw a small 4-seater pull up around the corner and stop next to me. It was a simple vehicle, with a roll cage on top, some all-terrain wheels, and an engine that was completely exposed to the world. The wolf grabbed me by the arm and pulled me up, then shoved me into the back seat, pushing me over the far seat as he stepped in behind me. He dug his rifle into my side and nodded at the roo.

The vehicle lurched forward, then did a quick 180 as the roo turned us around and back toward the gate. We passed under it without anyone stopping us, and I cursed the militia again and their lack of professionalism.

The vehicle bounced down the dirt road as we drove out of the city and into the forest, all of the lights quickly being snuffed by the foliage overhead. Soon, the only light that could be seen came from the vehicle’s headlights. The roo drove us down the main road for a few minutes, but then turned to take a smaller side path, obviously not used by anyone for quite some time. For nearly an hour, we drove in silence, the wolf never taking his paws off of me or his rifle out of my gut.

The trees seemed to be getting larger the further we drove, the underbrush getting thicker and thicker, to the point where it seemed to be completely untraversable on foot. At some point, the path completely disappeared, and we were driving through what looked to be uncharted territory.

The vehicle finally skidded to a stop after quite some time in the middle of clearing. The wolf stepped out of the vehicle, pulling me behind him. Just as soon as I had stepped out, he kicked my knee from the side, and I screamed out in pain, collapsing on the grass. Pain flooded my mind as I clenched at my leg. The wolf stepped back into the vehicle, reaching forward into the front seat.

“Give me the phone.” The fox pulled my phone out of his pocket and dropped it in wolf’s waiting paw, who then stood up and threw it as hard as he could. I could hear it crash through the branches and land with a small thud on the forest floor. The engine roared as the roo floored it, and the vehicle did a quick spin in the grass, then took off behind me, kicking dirt into the air as it disappeared into the forest.

Silence ensued.

My knee was throbbing, it was the worst pain that I had ever felt in my entire life. I pushed myself up so that I was sitting and looked around at my surroundings. There was nothing but dark forest everywhere that I looked, and the small clearing looked to be empty. I pushed myself up off of the ground and leaned on my good leg, then carefully placed my left foot down. Pain shot up my leg and I quickly abandoned trying to stand on it, and sat back down on the grass.

Fear started creeping into my mind as reality sank in. I was out in the middle of the forest with no lights, no way to defend myself, and completely unable to run if I was attacked, or even walk.

I took a few deep breaths to try and calm myself, but my heart continued to pound in my ears, drowning out almost everything around me. A twig snapping to my right gave me a small heart attack as I turned around to find the source, but saw nothing in the darkness below the treeline.

“Fuck this.”, I whispered to myself, then stood back up. I balanced on my one good leg, then started hopping in the opposite direction that the noise had come from.

Aside from nearly falling over once, I made it to the edge of the forest without messing my knee up any more, then collapsed against a tree, sliding down to rest on the ground. My knee was still throbbing with pain, and if anything, it had gotten worse. I silently cursed the militia for doing this, then looked back up into the forest ahead of me.

I froze as two glowing orbs pierced the darkness. I stared at them, not blinking, waiting to see what happened. Were those eyes? Or was my brain just playing tricks on me? After a couple of seconds, they quickly vanished and reappeared in an instant, then rotated and disappeared.

Those were definitely eyes.

There was no way I could run if whatever that was decided to attack me. A second later, I heard what sounded like chains clinking, followed by a low, bellowing growl. For some unknown reason, I felt something inside of me urge me to investigate.

I quietly pulled myself up and onto one leg, still leaning against the tree, then started hobbling forward. I was able to use my busted leg just long enough to hobble forward and land on my good leg, taking a few seconds in between each step to let the pain subside. As I approached the unknown creature, my eyes strained to take in all of the light they could. Whatever it was, it looked to be caught in a trap, one of its legs snared in it. Then, I caught a glimpse of gold, and immediately knew what it was.

It was a smilodon, and it had walked into one of the traps set out by the militia. I hobbled closer, wary of the giant beast, and stopped just out of its range.

It heard me as I approached, and spun around to face me, letting out a weak growl. I took a step back and held out my paws.

“Shhh, it’s ok, I’m not gonna hurt you.” I knew it couldn’t understand what I said, but I was hoping that it could pick up on my tone.

The beast surprised me by seeming to relax its muscles a bit. It looked down at the trap latched onto its massive paw and let out a soft bellow.

I took another limp step forward. Part of my brain was screaming at me to just run away and not look back, but another part of it urged me forward. It looked back up at me, this time directly into my eyes, but made no further indication of moving. I continued pressing forward, each step followed by a grunt as the pain in my knee screamed at me to stop. I was almost within arm’s reach of the beast, and continued to limp forward. It still stood silently, looking directly at me.

I stopped directly in front of it; if it wanted to kill me, it could have done so by now. I lifted my paw up and nervously moved it towards its head, before finally coming to a rest on its snout. The best let out a small snort.

I let out a small laugh. I knew it! These weren’t mindless beasts that wanted to kill everything. I grinned and lifted my paw off of its nose, then hobbled over to its side and looked down at the trap it was stuck in. It was too dark to make out much color, even for my night eyes, but it was clear there was a lot of blood. I looked back up at the creature as I reached down toward the trap.

“It’s ok, I’m just gonna take a look at this, alright?” The creature remained silent, still staring directly at me.

I looked back down and examined the trap. It was a standard bear trap with a chain attached to it, which was bolted deep into the ground a few meters away. Luckily, the militia had gotten smart and started using a version that had a quick release. I braced myself on a nearby sapling that was just large enough to hold my weight, and leaned down, triggering the quick release, which caused the trap to fall open, the jaws being pulled down by gravity.

The beast growled as the teeth of the trap were removed from its flesh and staggered back a couple of steps. Then, it sat down and started licking its right paw.

I took this chance to sit down on the ground, letting out a loud grunt as my knee thanked me. For a couple of minutes, the only sound that could be heard was the beast licking its paw. I just sat there and looked over the creature. It was quite obviously male, and looked to be an adolescent. It was hard to make out anything in the low light of the forest floor, but it seemed to have the unmistakable markings that were common of the smilodon.

Just then, the creature stood back up and looked at me. I froze.

He limped over to me and stopped, his head right in front of mine. I turned my head a bit to look away, suddenly fearful. Instead of doing what I was afraid he was going to do, he just licked the side of my face, then took a step back to look down at me. I turned my head back around, silently staring back at him.

I still wasn’t sure what to do. Smilodon or not, I was still lost in the forest with no way of getting back to the city. I had no food, no water, no shelter. I pulled myself up once again, and grunted as my knee protested by shooting pain up my leg.

I reached down to rub my knee, carefully stroking it with my paw. The smilodon padded up to me and sniffed at my knee.

“Yeah, it’s fucked up. I guess we’ve both been screwed over by the militia today.” I said, forcing a small chuckle.

He let out another snort, then turned around so his side was against me. He knelt down and looked back at me.

“Wait, do you want me to…?” I asked, not quite sure if he wanted me to hop on, or was just doing something weird.

He wiggled a bit and moved closer to me, shaking his back. I took this as a hint that he meant for me to hop on, so I did. I hobbled over to his right side, and used my good leg to lift myself up onto his back. As I sat down on him, I was able to feel just how soft and fluffy his fur was. He stood up and I latched onto the fur on his neck, catching myself before I fell off of him. He turned around, then started walking in the direction of the clearing, I could feel him limp each time he put weight on his busted paw.

Part of me felt bad that he was carrying both our weight, but the truth was that my knee was too fucked up for me to make it very far. I resigned to trying to not fall off of him, and lied my head down on his neck, squeezing my legs a little to help keep balanced.

I drifted in and out of consciousness as he continued to carry me to some unknown destination, the forest becoming a blur as it slowly passed by. Soon, I felt gravity changing and I was being pulled backward, toward his tail. I latched back onto his fur again and held on as I looked around. We had gone from a deep, thick forest, to a sparse one that lined the edge of a huge cliff. I looked up at the mountain we were heading toward, trying to figure out if I had seen it before, but quickly realized I was too tired to. It was massive, to the left was a sheer cliff that was almost at a 90 degree angle. The right side of the mountain was a bit more forgiving, but still looked hard to traverse. Rocks jutted out at all sorts of odd angles, and looked sharp enough to cut flesh.

He continued to take us up the mountain, along a path that seemed to have been well used. It winded to the left, along the cliff edge, and eventually nearly a quarter of the way up. I felt gravity shift back to normal, and I pushed myself up off of him, it looked like we were at the destination. A few meters ahead of us was a small cave entrance. He padded up to it and into the cave, and we were swallowed by the darkness. After a couple of seconds, my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I was just barely able to make out the general shape of the cave. It looked to be very shallow, and only consisted of this room. It was only about 3 meters to the ceiling, and what looked to be 10 or so meters from wall to wall, roughly in the shape of a teardrop, with the entrance being at the narrow end.

He stopped in the middle and knelt down, allowing me to slide off and onto the cave floor. I collapsed instantly, falling onto the dirt below. Somehow, the dirt was the most comfortable thing I had ever felt, and within seconds, I could feel myself falling to sleep. Just before I did, I felt him lie down behind me. He used his left paw to pull me toward him, then partially underneath him. My legs were buried under stomach, and my chest was directly beneath his, his massive front leg draped over me and resting on the floor. I was too tired to think about much, and just rested my head on him, quickly falling asleep.