He doesn’t know where his dad is, but Ghost is on a mission.
There are treats in the room - he knows, because the gentle woman with the soft hands and the hair that smells sweetly of lemons had packed them into her luggage. He’d watched her from his spot in the back seat: she’d laughed, throwing open the door of the passenger seat in his dad’s rumbling transport dragon to run into the house, and had returned, moments later, shaking the box of lamb-flavoured treats.
The transport dragon is a beast and Ghost hates it - it can never make up its mind about where it wants to go. Some days it takes them to park and he gets to spend his days in the sun chasing his tail. His favourite days are when the gentle woman’s pretty Lady dog joins them, and then he is on his best behaviour, because Lady is so, so pretty and he can’t think properly for kibble when she’s near him. Other days, however, the dragon takes them to the scary man in white with the needles and the gloved hands, and it’s all Ghost can do to stay still as his father exasperatedly soothes him with his warm, calloused hands.
It hadn’t been all bad today, however. The gentle lady had hopped into the back seat at some point to keep him company, and he appreciated her soft touch and the way she had sung softly to him as the dragon had rumbled along. By the time they’d arrived - it was neither park nor scary man - he had been fully sated in pats and happy to disembark and stretch his legs.
Hours later, his father has disappeared with the gentle lady, with promises to bring him a huge steak for dinner. He’s hungry, though, and so he noses through the luggage. There’s a faint whiff of lamb and herbs in the air, and he paws (without success) at the bags, but the metallic sides refuse to slide.
So he sulks. He hops up onto his father’s bed and kneads the sheets, then flops down.
Oh, he thinks, as he licks at his paw. Maybe she was mad at dad earlier, too, and sulked here, too.
A hint of sweat drifts in the air. He perks his ears. Wait.
Sweat. The scent of something else, metallic and sharp and spunky. It smells the way he feels, when he sees Lady.
It hits him faster than the scary man’s pointy stabby things. Oh, he sits up. Oh, she’s Dad’s Lady.
