A. C. Rosenfeld

Pippin was trembling. This was not new. He was always covered with his wool coat, which fastened across his belly with oaken buttons, yet the trembling wouldn’t cease. Livia reached down and lifted him into her arms, the cone hood falling back and revealing triangular ears, soft and brown. 

She kissed his head and asked, “Are you cold?”

He looked up at her. I am ill at ease. 

“You are always ill at ease.”

And I am always trembling. Why do you ask these questions in the first place?

“Because I worry.”

He tapped his snout to her collarbone and replied, Worry not about me. Worry about the task at hand. 

Livia nodded in response. With Pippin still cradled against her, they continued to make their way through the woods. The light had turned to butter, golden and warm as it cascaded through the yellow autumn leaves. With the hand not holding Pippin, Livia reached out and grazed the peeling bark of the trees, letting the shavings fall onto the soft ground beneath them. It was the time of year where most beings began to prepare for the long sleep. Yet Livia never felt more awake. 

During the summer months, she could never do more than laze at the lake by her cottage with Pippin, a part of her body always in the icy water to offset the blanket of warm air that fell upon her. Though the war had kept her from her favorite place for several years, she had been able to feel that peace this past summer. 

Pippin had changed, though.

He had gone into the war as an older hound and had left it ancient. Both him and Livia had been through conflicts before, but this one was the longest. They were both tired. Tired of the things they had seen, tired of the way people had acted, tired of watching their kingdom burn. 

They were tired, but they were not yet comatose. There were still things to do, friends to see, places to rebuild. Places like Veritas.  

Veritas had never been a bustling city. Its population was small; farmers and orchardmen, their families, and the people who provided for them. There had once been a tavern and an inn, a mercantile store, a temple to the goddesses. Squat houses had lined the streets, in front of which townsfolk would sit on chairs and watch their children play.

Livia knew such things as she had grown up here. 

While Veritas produced farmers and merchants by the dozen, it also produced hound handlers like Livia. In her year at the tiny schoolhouse that sat by the creek, there had been three other children who went on to find hounds of their own. 

She looked down at Pippin and smiled. He was the smallest hound their kingdom had seen in a long time. But she didn’t mind his size. Out of the four children to become hound handlers, she was the only one who remained in the profession. And Pippin was a large reason why she remained. 

The first glimpses of Veritas grew on the horizon. Livia had smelled it several miles back; woodsmoke, sausage, and beef stew – the latter two likely coming from what was left of the tavern. A letter from the governor had supplied the young woman with all she needed to know, there had been no deaths and only the buildings on the main street had been destroyed. The townsfolk had evacuated mere hours before the attack.

Livia smiled to herself, remembering the letter. The people of Veritas were stubborn. They hated to leave their homes. The governor had been the last to leave, watching from Cooper’s Hill as the enemy marched towards their small town to take what resources they had left behind. 

 A large tremble shuddered its way through Pippin, and Livia looked down at him. That was not normal. Usually, his trembling was constant – a wave that lasted about twenty seconds every minute or so. But this wasn’t one of his normal waves, this was sharp and short. 

“Pippin – “ Livia began, her eyes on his small brown ears. 

He interrupted, Just get us to the village. 

She nodded and walked on, following the sight of charred chimneys and steeples in the distance. 

Their greeting was short, but amiable. The governor took Livia’s face in his hard, calloused hands and looked at her for a few moments before pulling her into a hug, Pippin sandwiched between them. They didn’t speak for a long time. When they pulled apart, he murmured, “You have come at the right time. The people have been wanting a sign of hope.”

Livia glanced down at Pippin, then back up at the governor. “We don’t have long, Marcellus. My strength will pass with him.” 

“Oh, little one.” The governor’s eyes welled with tears as he laid a hand on Pippin’s small head. “I wish you a comfortable journey when the goddesses take you.” He spoke to Livia, “Are you sure he’s all right to help?”

Of course, Pippin replied, though only his handler could hear him. I would rather nothing else. 

Livia had never seen a hound pass. She had only heard about it. She had seen other hound handlers, older ones, who had been through more than one hound. But somehow the thought of Pippin passing had never crossed her mind. And now it was happening. 

The handler sucked a breath in through her teeth. But not quite yet. Veritas needed their combined power, and Pippin was giving it gladly.

The townsfolk greeted them with words of encouragement, many of their faces familiar to Livia. But she didn’t have time to stop and truly greet them back, she had to get to work. 

Livia’s magic was soft, but powerful. It cascaded from her aura constantly like storm gusts on a summer’s day. If Pippin wasn’t with her, she’d have no way to return the magic to her body. He didn’t house her magic, like the familiar of a witch or a wizard – he redirected it. This way her magic was used to her, used to the feeling of her body and her mind, which made it more receptive to her commands. Her magic often knew what she wanted before she even had time to craft the command in her head. 

Today was no exception. She spent an hour or so in front of each destroyed building, Pippin either tucked under her arms or lying on a bed of leaves beneath her. With her hound redirecting her magic back to her, Livia was able to move and shape the logs laid out for her, placing them in the spots that needed the most work. It required intense concentration. Even though the townsfolk watched her, they remained quiet.

That was until, of course, someone’s hand on her shoulder interrupted her.

The log she had been placing on the roof of the tavern began to slide off the roof she had only just constructed. A string of curses followed as Livia did her best to steady the log’s descent until it lay safely on the ground. 

Before she could snap at the villager who had clearly not been told to stay away from her while she worked, their voice found her, “He is slipping, my love.” 

Two things happened at once: Livia recognized that voice as her mother’s, then she realized that Pippin hadn’t spoken to her in at least an hour.  When she turned around, she saw her own feelings reflected in her mother’s eyes. Caestrona was holding Pippin, his breathing rapid and shallow. Grief and regret filled Livia’s chest. How had she not noticed the state he was in? How had she not felt his silence, his pain, his life slipping away? 

Do not blame yourself, Pippin’s voice, fainter than it had been mere hours ago, entered her mind. You had a task that you were finishing. I am going to die, but these people are going to live. And you have the chance to make their lives more beautiful. 

Livia fell into her mother’s arms, her left hand cradling Pippin’s head. She wept for a few minutes, feeling Caestrona’s own tears drip onto her shoulder. What would she do without him? He had been with her for more than half of her life. He had loved her, taught her, comforted her through her childhood and young adult years. Who would she be without him? Would she ever be able to be a hound handler again? 

Though the log that would have been the finishing touch on the tavern’s roof remained on the ground, the governor’s baritone broke through the sound of Livia’s sobs, saying, “Take your time to grieve, young one. You both have helped us so much already. We will never be able to repay you for your kindness.”

Livia lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder and nodded, wiping her tears with the sleeve of her cloak.

Her mother looked around. The townspeople still hovered nearby, though their gazes were downturned. It was too public a place for Pippin to pass away. “We’ll go to the creek,” Caestrona said. “By your school. Where you two first met.” 

It had been a winter’s day. Livia was ten, old for a hound handler to not yet have a hound, but she wasn’t worried. She knew her hound would come when she was ready. She had not expected Pippin to appear when she was crying over the death of her father. Yet there he had been, much smaller than he was now, one of his ears folded over and one straight. He had trotted over and laid his head in her lap, and that was that. She had a hound, sent by the goddesses. 

Cross-legged, she sat with him now. His body in her lap, his head resting on her thigh. Caestrona was gone. It was just the two of them. 

“What will I do, Pippin?” Livia repeated her earlier thoughts. 

Without me? 

 “Yes.”

You will continue.

“You believe I should get another hound?”

That is up to you. I meant that your life will continue, as will the rest of the world. Veritas will continue to need your help, your magic. You know you are the best at what you do.

“We were the best.” 

Pippin lifted his head to look at her. Perhaps. But you must continue.

Livia placed her hands over her face and let out a guttural sob. There were rivers on her cheeks, again, ones that ended in her mouth and her chin and dripped onto Pippin below her. She choked out, “But you were the best of all of this. I want to have you with me forever.”

He pressed his cold nose onto her hand once she had lowered her arms. You will see me in the forests, Livia. In the leaves and the wind that moves them from their perch. You will see me in the ocean, in the fish that leap from the surface and the waves that break against the shore. You will see me in the sky, either in the shapes of the clouds or the call of the birds. You know I will always be with you. You must continue on. For that is the surest way you can see me again.

For a while Livia didn’t reply. She kept her hand on Pippin’s stomach, feeling it rise and fall. She felt the magic he usually redirected for her begin to slip back into the world around them. And as darkness settled over the trees and the creek and the world around them, she whispered, “I will do that for you.”