Chapter Text
“Come, travellers, come,” said the ancient mystic. “All are welcome into my yurt. Come – again I say, come. The fire is warm; the kefir is cold. There is room for all. Shake off the dust and worries of your travels. Come. Mingle. Share the warmth of the fire and camaraderie.”
The warmth was a welcome relief to the guests, and they streamed into the mystic’s tent. Most had arrived before first light, and the predawn chill had settled into their bones while they waited for their host to part the curtains and invite them inside.
Although they called the wizened one a mystic, in their youth they had worn countless other visages as a scholar, a leader, a conqueror and a healer. In later life, they had become a wanderer and philosopher before settling in the upper tundra and becoming a lone oracle.
“Come. Settle. I sent out summons to you all because of late, the wind has begun to whisper in my ear of the end; it couches at the threshold and begs my audience. I am ancient by any measure, and though I might once have tried to evade this inevitable visitor, of late it speaks to me as a friend, coming to lift the tiresome weight in my step, and free me from this trap of frail bones and withered flesh.
"But before I meet this end, I must share an important message with you. I’ve had much time in the latter years to meditate on my life, and either through divine machination, or a fortuitous confluence of my lifelong experiences, the answer came to me. The answer to everything.
This answer is a story of hope, and a cautionary tale. It is beautiful in its simplicity, yet with the clarity of a crystalline winter morn. So lean close, travellers. Listen with wide ears and open hearts. Heed these words that I shall – nay – must pass on to you before the end of my days draw nigh.”
“… an' then he died,” said Mittens. She stretched and inspected the spread pad of her right forepaw. “I guess he waited too long.” With that, the cat started casually grooming her shoulder.
“What?” Bolt had been wriggling his butt while he settled in for the story, but he froze in mid wiggle. “That’s not a proper story!”
“I dunno,” said Rhino. The hamster had the top of his clamshell ball open and was leaning back in the tilted lid with his fists bunched together under his chin and his index claws extended on either side of his furry muzzle. “It seems to have all of the elements,” he said. “Joy and pathos, hope, tragedy and mystery. What was his important message? Will we ever know? The open ending invites the listener to take a trip down the wending avenues of speculation. I can see lots of potential for fanfics.” The rodent leaned forward to address the cat. “Tell me, sister, was it a good death?”
Mittens paused her grooming and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?” She motioned toward the hamster with her muzzle and winked in Bolt’s direction. “See? He gets it,” she said. “Ain’t my fault y'er not a fan of high literature.”
“No,” barked the shepherd, “I refuse to accept this as a story. You can’t just jump from the introduction to the denouement and call it done. You’ve omitted important details like,” the pooch frowned and gave an expansive wave of his right paw, “plot! You know – the part where the story actually happens.”
“It’s got plenty of plot,” argued the cat. “You just gotta learn to listen between the lines. I just happen to like my stories like I like my dogs -- short.”
“I am almost average height for my breed,” said the canine flatly between clenched teeth.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Mittens with a dismissive wave. “Anyway, I didn’t hear ya bitchin’ about Rhino’s story about eating twelve different kinds of hamster chow.”
“’Twenty Chows in Twenty Countries’ at least had some action between the start and the end. I mean, it included ninjas, and a chase scene involving an unstable Austin Mini with three elephants balanced precariously on top.”
“I was going to make it five,” said Rhino, “but I didn’t want to stretch credibility.”
“Well, whatever,” mewled Mittens with a dismissive toss of her tail. “It’s my story, and it goes the way I want my story to go.” She stood, circled, and settled herself again in exactly the same position as before she’d executed the turn, then flicked her paw twice in the direction of the dog. “If ya think you can tell a better story, then consider it your turn.”
“Oh, challenge accepted,” said Bolt with a grim set to his muzzle. “Though you’ve set the bar so low that it shouldn’t be hard to tell a better one.”
“Yeah, yeah – everyone’s a critic until it’s their time in the limelight,” said Mittens sourly. “Sound like you fancy yourself to be some kind of Herman Muttsville.”
“Hush, you,” said the dog. “You had your turn.” He sat up and put his paws together before extending them in a manner that a human would have seen as analogous to cracking one’s knuckles.
The early morning September sun gleams off the dew on a spider web, casting a ballet of rainbows across the leaves of its host shrub as it sways in the gentle breeze. Shift focus. The web fades into a gaussian blur as the figures behind it resolve into crisp focus. It’s brave Penny, and her loyal, fearless companion. Both have grim expressions as they have their eyes locked in unison on the apparently impenetrable fortress before them.
They are hiding behind the lone copse of scrubby trees standing between the spy-infested forest behind them and the heavily guarded structure before them. Guards decked out in high tech armour patrol the main entryway with laser weapons in their hands…
“Wait, hang on,” interrupted the cat. She pressed a paw to her temple and squinted in thought. “Is this the one where you used an experimental device to throw your super bark into the woods, drawing off the guards so that Penny could zip up to the main door on her hoverboard and use her Hyper-Decrypt-O-Matic to brute force through the combination lock in mere seconds?”
“No,” said Bolt tersely.
“… yes.” The hamster was leaning forward in his clamshell lid, tapping his claw tips rhythmically on his knees. “Wasn’t this from season two, episode nine when Bortus the super Tortoise was threatening to use his Half-Speed Ray to slow down time if the world did not surrender its supply of Tellurium to him?”
“Oh… gosh, you’re right,” said the white shepherd, blushing slightly under his facial fur. He held the back of his left paw to his brow and shook his head. “Here I thought I was coming up with something original. Trust the fan base to call me out on it.” He winked at Mittens and grinned. “But silly fan comments aside, I’m really impressed that you remembered such an obscure episode. We had some serious sophomore issues with our second season, with some uniquely forgettable writing.”
“Whoa, hang on,” said the feline, waving her left paw back and forth in negation. “Let’s temper expectations here before you get too excited. I ain’t never watched the show, but I don’t need to. Every time we play this game, your stories end up being a basic retelling of an episode. They all follow the same formula. I figured if I spouted enough technobabble nonsense, our resident Encyclopaedia Boltica would take whatever I said and find the appropriate match.”
“Madam, I bristle at your remarks,” said Rhino, rising to his feet and bristling. “I will have you know that my eidetic fan knowledge spans more genres than just one series – though I confess that our furry protagonist here takes up an inordinate number of entries therein.”
“Not even one episode?” whimpered Bolt, ignoring the hamster. “Even the holiday specials?”
“Wags. Sweetie,” said Mittens, patting his paw gently with hers. “Do you remember when we first met, and I had no blessed idea who you were?”
“I thought you were just being a jerk.”
“Guilty,” nodded the cat, “but also, I had no blessed idea who you were. I mean, ya showed outta of nowhere, yellin’ about villains and claiming to possess superpowers. What was I supposed to think? ‘Geez, I bet that under this crazy exterior, there’s a red hot hunk’a smexy pooch’? I’d never even heard of y'er show before we met.”
“Wait,” protested Rhino. He waggled a foreclaw at the cat in disbelief. “Even in my trailer park, I was inundated with reminders about the show. It was huge. Surely you must have noticed the billboards, or the ads on the side of buses, or even some bit of discarded merchandise rattling around in the alleys?”
“Eh,” Mittens rubbed her chin in thought. “I mean – I guess it’s possible that I might have brushed aside some tacky knick-knack from the show when tryin’ to get to a serviceable fish head in the dumpster, but it didn’t register if I did. I kinda had higher priorities at the time – like eatin’ to survive.” She shrugged and turned to Bolt. “It ain’t like I had a chance to watch your show when I was on the streets, and I guess I just haven’t got around to checking it out since.”
“Not a single episode? Not even one of the Christmas specials?” The dog tilted his head and frowned at the cat. “I mean, after all we’ve been through together, I just thought you might be… curious?”
Mittens returned his frown with a wry smile. “Sorry, Wags. I’ve seen enough clips of the show to know that it’s just ain’t my cuppa. It’s not exactly cerebral material if you catch my drift.”
“That’s fair,” said Bolt in a glum tone that hinted that he thought it was anything but. His frown deepened into a sigh. “I think I should forfeit my turn. It’s not fair for me to criticize your story – bad as it was – when I’m just recycling old episodes for mine.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to kill the mood,” said Mittens with what sounded like genuine contrition.
Bolt reached a paw around behind the cat and pulled her close, eliciting a mew of surprise from the latter. Before she could wriggle free from his grasp, he gave her a sloppy lick from the tip of her nose to the back of her head. “It’s okay,” he said. “You’re right – I need some new material.”
“Ack! Blech!” protested the feline, wresting herself away from his paw and frantically wiping her sopping brow. “Towel! Now we’re definitely done here because this gal needs a towel.” Mittens harrumphed and stomped out of the room, grumbling under her breath, pausing on the threshold to shake a spray of slobber off her head.
The shepherd chuckled as he watched her leave, but as she disappeared around the corner, the chortle faded into a low whine.
“Hey, what’s up big guy?”
“Rhino, I know that she was just teasing me, but she’s got a point.” Bolt stood and began to pace, as he was wont to do when his thoughts were conflicted. “My whole younger life was a fabrication. She grew up in the real world, dealing with hunger, cold, and all the problems that real people face. I grew up in a fantasy.” He paused his pacing and stared through the door where the cat had made her egress. “The two of us have nothing in common once you look past the surface.”
“Hm,” Rhino flopped back in his lid again and rubbed his chin. “I would argue,” he said slowly, “that since you met, you have everything in common.”
“That’s not the point, Rhino.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No! I’m saying that it’s the sum of our lived experiences that define us as people,” argued Bolt. He began pacing again, stopping to wave a paw dramatically for emphasis with each point he made. “It’s basic math, Rhino. Mittens's past is that of an actual life lived, and the end sum of that is a genuine person. I spent my formative years in a TV script, which makes me a thespian. I'm like that Trojan dog of legend; I look like a normal canine on the outside, but that just hides a hollow interior filled with the fantastical stories of others."
Rhino held up an extended claw. "Not to interrupt your compelling argument, sir," he said, "but wasn't the animal in the legend a horse?"
"Of course!" Bolt waved away the hamster's objections with a quick lateral motion of his paw. "I'm just using a literal parallel to draw an analogy -- stick with the script, Rhino." He clapped a paw over his eyes. "Ugh - did you hear that? Stick with the script? Even my metaphors are one-dimensional." He sighed heavily, with his expressive ears drooping slightly. "What I'm saying is that at some point she’s going to realize that I’m just a hollow sock puppet of the television industry whose whole lived experience amounts to pages of lines in a ten-point serif font.”
“Is it?”
“Now you’re just being obtuse,” said Bolt with a hint of a frustrated growl in his tone.
“Am I?”
“Rhino!”
“Okay,” said the hamster, holding up his foreclaws in defeat. “You’re on to me – but hear me out.” He reached up and slapped the lid of his exercise ball closed so that he could pace it in circles while he pontificated. “I can’t say that I have ever claimed to be a relationship expert, but I watched enough Oprah to pick up a few things.” He chuckled. “The cat’s a character for sure – don’t think I’ve missed the look she gives me sometimes where it’s obvious she’s picturing me basting on a rotisserie with a honey-rosemary glaze…”
The rodent hesitated. “I sound pretty delicious when I put it that way. Anyway, what I’m getting at is that she stayed.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was ready to set up a new homestead in Vegas when we did our big road trip, but she gave up that dream to follow you to Hollywood – after a bit of gentle persuasion from me.” He breezed out the last bit as a quick afterthought. “It wasn’t me, or Penny, or some dream of appearing on the big screen that drew her there, big guy, it was you. What I mean is,” he stopped rolling and stood in his ball with his arms crossed. “Have some faith in the gal. She sees you Bolt, not the role you played.”
“Yeah,” responded the pooch. He lowered his head and flattened his ears a bit before he cast a wan grin and sidelong glance at the hamster. “Look at me, nursing my anxiety here. Acting all like Penny’s mom when she hasn’t taken her prescription.” He sighed again. “Still, real or not, my past life is still my life. I just wish that she’d – I dunno – show a tiny bit of interest in it.”
Rhino nodded. “There is that,” he agreed.