Addition to Dogscape
A/N: I felt like the one thing Dogscape was missing was a female perspective, so I made it my mission to write one. Enjoy.
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If I ever had a name, I've never known it. The tribe just called me “Girl”. Sometimes I wonder if my mother named me after she gave birth, but I never knew her either.
I was born here, in this place made of dog fur and skin. I was my tribes only woman from the time I was six months old. They traded for me, I don't know what they traded, but I think if I knew, I wouldn't think it was enough. I was cared for by the tribes medicine man, Jal. He was kind, made sure I was fed, and tried to protect me from the outside trauma of what the world held for me, for a time.
But then, one day at the age of fourteen, I began to bleed, and my true purpose began. Jal told me that fourteen years ago I was bought to become the wife of the tribe. I would bare children, provide milk, and be a place of pleasure for the men.
Even with being born in the Dogscape, I knew I didn't want to be the breed mare, but my desires were unimportant. The first to take me after my bleed had stopped was the Chieftain. He claimed that he was the only man worthy of 'breaking” me. That evening is a blur of pain in my mind even now. I remember too much and not enough. After it was over, I tried to compose myself, get up and move on, but then another man came to the tent. Then another, and then more. By the end of the night I was sore and sick. Blood tricked from me, and I cried as the men cheered. They had their woman. Wife of the tribe.
Nine months later I gave birth to a baby boy. I fed him from my breast for six months before he was taken from me and traded to another tribe. My heart ached for him. As the tribe left, I heard his screams and cries for me. I swear I could hear them into the night, for hours on end.
I had five children as the wife of the tribe. All taken at six months, and traded for goods. The last baby I had was taken by a tribe from the north, dressed in heavy furs. They had three girls with them. I tried to talk to them but they wouldn't speak to me, fearful tears in their eyes.
“Where are you from?” I asked the youngest of the three. She looked to the ground, and spoke no words.
“Do you have a name?” I asked in desperation.
A man from her tribe looked over.
“Keep your girl to herself, shes bothering mines!” he said to the chieftain full of anger.
I saw tears drop onto the ground from her face. It scared me. I didn't try to speak to them again.
I was treated differently than the other women in other tribes, like the girls from the north. While the other tribes chained and bound their women, I was left to live in my own tent, with Jal ever on watch. I had been accustomed to nightly visitors. I had become accustomed to the life I was given. I had accepted that this was my fate. They fed me, clothed me, and protected me. But they also used me, even Jal had his turns with me. But the women from the Northlands, they weren't fed, they didn't look protected. The oldest one walked with a limp, and the others were covered in bruises. One was missing and eye. I began to think that maybe my life, in this world, was more privileged than others. A pit of disgust opened up inside me with that thought. A pit that grew eternally. If I was one of the lucky ones, then why didn't I feel lucky?
My body may be fed and protected and clothed, but it was stretched and worn like the dog skin beneath my feet. I had learned to ignore the physical pain, but the mental pain was never ending like the pit of disgust deep within my belly. I cried often, my dreams were only ever nightmares. The night they took my baby, I dreamed nothing but pure blackness stretching over the horizon. Darker than night and deeper than the dog-mouthed pits. A blackness that ate the world, and set me free.
They left the next day with my baby. They last time I looked in her eyes I named her Bala. My only daughter. I knew she would never remember, but it made me feel better to name her. I knew her fate, same as mine. In some way, I hoped having a name would shield her from what I had experienced, even though I knew better.
Two weeks later as my tribe and I were traveling across the unending Furlands, we were attacked shortly after nightfall. The horrid monsters of bone and dog flesh, known as The Towering Ones, descended upon us. Their wide mouths dripping with saliva and blood were hungry, and they had chosen us as the target. With them came the feral hounds: thin with wiry hair, starving and aggressive. Hunger was ever present in their eyes. Fear cascaded over me.
“Stay in your tent no matter what!” Jal yelled at me, his face popping into my tent only for a moment before the bloodshed began.
The preamble of the massacre was yelling voices, hurried footsteps, and the clank of weapons. A symphony of fear enshrouded the camp. Then the deep rolling growl of the creatures and feral hounds came. The symphony changed from fear to destruction. Screams from every tent, blood flowed so heavily it seeped into the ground until the dog flesh could no longer absorb anymore. Soon the blood tricked under the edge of my tent.
The blood came after me like a tentacle of affliction. I was scared, I didn't want it to touch me. I was no stranger to blood, but this felt different. This blood was the blood of change.
“Jal!” I screamed for him.
“STAY IN YOUR TENT!” he screamed as I hear the sound of bone against bone.
I started to cry.
The gruesome sounds of death and violence went on for what seemed like hours until all was still, all was silent.
“Jal?” I called out. There was no response. I knew what had happened to Jal, even if I couldn't see him.
As hard as I tried to keep the blood of my tribesmen off of my body in the night, I couldn't. My tent had flooded and I was covered in a thick layer of red blood that was beginning to dry into rusty brown flakes that shed off my skin with every movement.
I stayed in my tent all night, unsure of the carnage that would greet me. As I opened the tent flap in the early morning hours I was greeted with the sight of the towering ones and feral hounds. I shrieked in fear, falling to the ground, accepting my fate as they came closer to me.
But death did not come for me. The creatures, towering above me stayed to the back as the feral hounds came forward. Snouts covered in blood and viscera, but no teeth bared, no ears back. I thought it was a trick of the Dogscape. Surely the hounds would have me as a final meal before they traveled on, to kill again. They moved closer.
“Stay back!” I shouted as I outstretched a hand.
Closer they came. I closed my eyes, prepared to be taken into the mouths of the hungry beasts. But then, I felt something, a warm tongue lap at my fingers. I opened my eyes. Before me was a female hound, large and black as night. Her fur caked with the same rusty dried blood as my own skin. Her paws were giant, and her body filled out. This was no hungry feral hound. I didn't know what to think of her, but here she was, cleaning me like a newborn pup.
The other feral hounds came to her side, licking me, cleaning the blood from my body. The towering ones watched on. Maybe they were satiated, or maybe it was something else. Within minuets I was clean. The hounds sniffed me and brushed against me, all one by one, sniffing and yipping with pleasant excitement. The large female laid next to me and put her head in my lap. I stayed frozen. I couldn't understand, and in my confusion I asked “why?” out loud. With my word The Towering Ones stepped forward on their broken dog legs to me,bones crunching, skin pulling. I cowered again.
One knelt down and looked at me. A face of teeth and glistening black dog eyes looked at me, silence enveloped us. For several moments we looked into each others faces. I began to feel something, but as soon as I did the hounds began to move away, heading towards the east. The last to leave was the first, the one that licked the blood from my fingertips. She stood, I raked my hand softly against her fur, warm but still matted with blood. She gave a low while, and then left too, looking back once more and blinked at me with a deep almost human expression.
The towering ones moved after the hounds, leaving me in a blood soaked battlefield, clean and untouched. I sat for hours and tried to make sense of what had happened. Once the sun began to lower, I rose and scavenged the camp. There was very little but these pages, from Jal's belongings. As I head towards the west, in the path of the setting sun, I heard a howl in the distance.
She was talking to me. She was saying something.
Freedom.
Freedom granted by the Mother.
