She had laughed, and it was a very – well, a very lovely sound. It was not the breathless, hysterical laughter of earlier, when he had been too terrified to really listen. Nor was it a sob, or strangled. It was a delighted laugh. It was familiar in the worst possible way.
And so it was joined by another, more wretched surprise: a knot sitting just in the middle of his throat, what felt like the size of a grape. It was painful, and – as if the two were remotely connected – it made his eyes feel irritated and wet. It should not have prevented him from breathing, but he found his chest very tight regardless. He was utterly silent, breathing in and out evenly through his nose, desperate to hold off the tide of something that he felt was pushing at him inside-out. As if his skin and his very bones were a dam, and he had just felt the first hairline crack, and could not for the life of him find it to patch it over.
If her small hand had still been on his arm, he thought he might have died.
A dog, she went on, in the same infuriatingly wonderful tones. He snorted sharply again, though he managed to relax just enough; he rolled his shoulders, scowling at more tiny cracks. “I see,” grunted. “Friendly.” His scowl deepened.
The thing’s tail was still wagging at inadvisable speeds, thwap thwap thwap against his ankles. He might have been irritable at the thought of fur on his dress uniform, had the thing not been ruined already by this whole escapade. When the trial was over and he was back in Vienda, he would have to –
He swallowed tightly. He could hear the dog snuffling and licking at her, and letting out little grunting chirps.
She went on. Talking to the dog, he thought, unsure why for a moment he had worried otherwise. His lip twisted, but he stayed very still. What must have been a back foot bumped one of his boots.
It was wrong, he knew. All of this was horribly wrong. Every moment of reprieve or kindness would be paid for with cruelty later.
He cleared his throat. “Whatever it is doing,” he snapped, “now is hardly the time.” He narrowed his eyes. “Then – such a friendly dog seems a good sign. Its master must be near, and shelter or aid, perhaps, too. Does the dog seem well cared for?”
He had not felt the tail in a few moments. All of the sudden, he felt something latch onto his pant leg and pull.
“Damnation–!” He reached for his baton for one dizzying second, and then – froze, horrified, hand flinching away as if the thing were white-hot.
Grateful now, above all else, that she could not have seen.
The jaws let go, and there came another whine. Then the thing tugged – gently, he realized now – at his pant leg again. Bewildered, he did nothing; there was a rustling, and it seemed to trot away. It came back, then trotted away, then came back again and sat down with a soft thud, whining.
“Is it –” he grunted, feeling dazed and strangely too awful for his anger to hold any water. “Is it trying to lead us somewhere? Here. I am here, here is my arm – can you stand?”