In a matter of months, she transformed from the ferocious puppy guarding her mother’s body into a majestic creature of grace and perennial good nature. Her regal head always seemed to float above her body as she strode by my side. Always by my side.
I am an imposing figure to your kind, or so I have been told. Nearly nine feet tall—small by my people’s standards, to be sure, but plenty big enough to intimidate your race. Which is why Keena and I steered clear of your settlements as much as possible. Every Earthborn I met seemed to regard me as either a god or a threat to be subdued. For my part, I want to be neither worshipped nor conquered.
Keena and I hunted for our food each day and ate by the fire of our camp. We enjoyed each other’s company and had no need for anyone else. We took care of each other and were content to do so. An orphan dog and her outcast master. Sharing my life with Keena was the closest I have ever come to the contentment I seek.
And we lived that way, in easy reciprocity. We were not master and animal. We were the best of friends. We protected each other, provided for each other. We understood each other. Words were unnecessary. Keena was the perfect partner. I had found the purest of all the Creator’s creatures.
Three
The Builder and his sons began to construct a massive box of wood. Each day some of my Watcher brethren would stand and observe the construction, and each day the Builder would ask them to turn from their wickedness and join him. As his great-grandfather had. Then the Watchers and the Earthborn that were loyal to them would gather and ridicule the Builder while he worked. To his credit, he never stopped his labors to answer them.
Keena and I would watch him from the edge of the forest. He would call out for anyone to join his labors who wanted to, but no one took him up on his offer. “The water is coming!” he would shout. But anyone listening would only laugh at him.
And we watched.
One day, a group of Watchers and Earthborn brought casks of wine and filled a long table with roasted meats and feasted while the man and his sons worked in the hot sun. When they were fully drunk, my brothers and their followers began hurling stones at the family and their long, wooden box. Their attack became so furious, so relentless, that the Builder and his sons were forced to seek shelter.
And we watched.
Keena growled, and the fur on her neck and back prickled. I shook my head at her and assured her this was not our fight. We retreated to the safety of the forest and our camp, far away from the Builder and his harassment at the hands of the drunken revelers.
This pattern continued for months. Keena and I moved camp often to take advantage of better hunting or fishing, but we always returned to look in on the madman and his massive construction project.
One day the Builder climbed down from his large, long box of a building and declared it done. On that day, everything changed for Keena and me.
The Builder left his home for the wilderness. A strange thing happened while he was gone. The sky filled with dark clouds, and a tangible sense of doom pervaded the air. When the Builder returned a few days later, he and his sons gathered provisions and stocked them in the large wooden box.
One evening, after the Builder had gone to his bed, Keena and I snuck inside the box. It was the most ambitious thing I had ever seen an Earthborn undertake. The inside was a combination of house, barn, and granary. It was four times larger than the largest house, with stalls that could hold many hundreds of animals. We could see the foodstuffs the family had stored, and it looked as if they could survive inside this box for a very long while. Looking around at the great empty stalls and provisions stacked high, a keen sense of foreboding descended upon me. I called to Keena to leave, and as we passed through the doorway, I made the sign against evil. We slipped away unseen into the forest.
I lay awake under the dim light of cloud-covered stars that night, wondering at the dread that had come over me, that I was still feeling. Visions of destruction filled my mind. Terror filled my heart, and I saw the end of all things. I thought of the other Watchers and their treatment of the man, of their followers’ cruelty and the Builder’s proclamations of doom. I thought of the Creator and asked myself what the limits of His mercy might be.
I jumped up gasping for breath! I must have fallen asleep. It was just a dream. All my terror, all my ponderings. I tried to shake off the dread from my dream, but as I went about the next day’s labors, my dark mood would not lift, no matter how I tried to distract myself. My foreboding was unrelenting.
Keena and I went into the village after a few days of nervous distractions. The normal crowd was there, gathered around the Builder and his project, but they stood in sober silence. The Builder was standing watch over the main entrance of the box, while scores of animals were shepherded inside up a long ramp. Some animals in pairs, some in groups of more than half a dozen. Slowly they plodded, one after another, up the ramp and into the box. No one said a word. Keena and I watched with the same amazement as the rest.
The Builder, no doubt seeing an opportunity to address an attentive audience, climbed up on a stump.
“You see now before you the work of the Creator. You have taken it upon yourselves to leave your natural estate and conduct yourselves in a manner that goes against everything you know to be right. You, the offspring of the Earthborn and the Shining Ones, and you, the Earthborn that have pledged your fealty to these fallen few—you are witnessing the arrival of disaster, that which has been foretold. You have been warned, and now you have one last chance to redeem yourselves. Even the beasts of the fields and forests understand they are being cursed because of you. That is why they come willingly to me. The Creator will destroy his creation and start anew, with a world uncontaminated by the likes of you. Turn now from your wicked path and join us, before your eternal souls are forever held apart from Him. Turn or be destroyed utterly!”
The crowd shook off their amazement and replaced it with anger. They refused to be lectured. They refused to see. Watcher and Earthborn alike picked up stones and hurled them at the Builder. Some struck the animals still in their long march up the ramp. The silent parade became a cacophony of bleats and calls and cries and taunting curses by the crowd as the animals raced inside.
He stood strong for a while, the Builder did, but eventually he too retreated into the box, where he continued ushering the creatures to safety. Eventually his detractors tired of their sport and removed themselves to other quarters in which to seek their revels. Keena and I went back to the forest to search for supper as I pondered all that I had seen.
My dread mood deepened.
The clouds darkened.
Four
A few days later, we felt the first drops of rain. Keena had always been fascinated by the strange water that fell from the sky. I think it scared her when it first dappled her fur, so she scampered under a tree, peeking out only to see who was sprinkling water on her. Eventually she got used to the rain, as she always did, and joined me to wander, wet, in our forest.
Over the next three days, the rain went from a gentle mist to a hard drizzle. After five days, it was a steady shower. On the tenth day, the thunder began.
The rain would not relent, and hunting is difficult when constantly bombarded from above. So Keena and I visited the village to trade some pelts for dry provisions.
We found the Builder furiously running through the village, telling anyone that would listen—and none were—that this was the time. Destruction was at hand.