She'd lost time. The realization was slow, but no less startling, as she watched blood well up from between the pads of her paws. The stone she'd stepped on had been hidden by the freshly fallen snow, an even thicker layer of it covering the rest of the ground. A layer that had not been there Before.

She blinked. Blinked again. Drew in a breath and looked around and tried to remember where she was. This landscape was... unfamiliar to her. It certainly wasn't near the den, the meadow it was nestled in the farthest she had ever dared herself to travel. And her paws... never mind that she was still getting used to the idea of paws, but they seemed. Bigger. She seemed bigger. Her legs longer, her fur denser, the chill less biting. She had lost time. She must've.

She'd lost time before, of course, when they were still denbound and the others were just learning how to move their limbs, but never this much. It was disorienting then and it was disorienting now. She had no idea how much time had passed. Couldn't look at her body and tell with any accuracy how old it was now, because, well, she was a dog. And she couldn't very well ask the others without sounding like she was completely out of her mind. Which, well. She supposed wasn't inaccurate. She was alone, anyhow. It was so rare for her to get a moment to herself.

She put her paw back down, the cold sharp and surprisingly grounding. She drew in another breath, trying to calm the frantic beat of her heart at having woken up suddenly, an indeterminate amount of time after falling asleep against her will, and finding herself hopelessly and completely lost in a world that was not her own. She drew in a breath. It wasn't working. She drew in another. It caught in her throat and she gasped, doubling over, mouth agape, trying to remember how to breathe.

It was so rare for her to get a moment to herself. To be alone. She wondered, distantly, what else had changed that there wasn't a single energetic puppy underfoot or watchful father haunting the bushes nearby. But that thought was ushered out with a startling quickness, replaced by every question, every realization, and every existential crisis she'd been forced to weather in teeth grinding silence ever since she'd come to consciousness in this world where dogs could talk and the sky was alien and unrecognizable. Her body shuddered, not from the cold, as she choked back what could've been a devastated sob or raucous, insane laughter. Her head hurt. Her paw hurt, her teeth hurt. She watched a little drop of blood paint the snow at her feet, brought her wrist to her nose and watched it come away red.

She did laugh, then; a dry, derisive chuckle. What a cosmic fucking joke it was to not even be able to contemplate her own existence. After years of wishing to be in any body except her own, to live a life unlike anything she'd lived before. Maybe she'd prayed to the wrong pantheon. Maybe this was that divine punishment for her hubris or... something. It felt like someone was driving a metal spike into her brain and she didn't have to processing power to think about stories.

She sensed him before she heard him, the fur along the back of her spine raising at the sudden realization that she was no longer alone and probably looked fucking insane. Her head shot up, her eyes finding the big, blue wolf immediately. Her skin crawled, just watching him. She hadn't really interacted with anyone outside the five little puppies and their dad. Or if she had, she certainly hadn't been conscious for it. Uh. Did he recognize her? Was he waiting for her to speak? Was this some sort of weird... wolf... ritual? Hi?

She wasn’t familiar enough with wolf body language to recognize the challenge, the subtle threat, but something primal seemed to urge her to be wary. Of what, she wasn’t sure, but she knew well enough to trust her gut. This one wouldn’t like… bite her, right? Right??

Her brows furrowed, giving a little sniffle as another drop of blood plip’d to the ground. I don’t know what you mean? What did she see? Snow?? What—? But then he mentioned visions, and her blood ran cold as the air.

I don’t… A vision. How did he know about that? Why did he say that? Did he know why this was happening to her? Was he like—

The metal spike pierced her brain. She didn’t see anything, but she knew. She knew things, she— Pain. Again, and again. I remembered, she gasped, wild-eyed, going a little starry from the pain. She was having trouble focusing, her eyes starting to glaze over, and another drop of blood hit the snow. Then another, and another, the trickle from her nose becoming a steady flow.

The wolf got in closer, much closer. He was close enough that she could headbutt him if she wanted to. She didn’t want to. (Right?) No, she didn’t want to. That would definitely hurt. He had several inches on her and more bulk besides. Though, everything already hurt so much she figured the pain of her skull striking pavement would be pretty inconsequential in comparison.

He wanted to know what she saw. He told her it couldn’t hurt her, not really, said it like he knew what he was talking about. She tried to chuckle at that but found that her gut only twisted sickeningly, grimacing and going slack jawed, tasting iron. It was plenty hurting her, now. She almost didn’t even want to see what this “vision” had for her.

But she didn’t know how to stop the memories of a life she’d never lived.

Her head hurt. Her paw hurt, her teeth hurt, her nose hurt her eyes hurt her legs hurt her body hurt. She began to shake, still possessing just enough awareness and fine motor function to kick a leg out and widen her stance so she didn’t topple over. Her gut roiled like a snake and God, it hurt so much she felt like she’d just been sh—

It felt like she got…

Like she’d been…

Suddenly the shaking stopped, and she looked directly into the eyes of the boy in front of her. In a single, startling moment of clarify, she managed, I don’t belong here, and promptly turned to retch blood into the snow.

The strain left her gasping, trembling again, the bite of iron on her tongue and in her nose and on her hands. They came in flashes, names, faces, slipping through her fingers like water the harder she tried to reach out and grasp them. I don’t belong here, she slurred again, wild-eyed and glassy, staring without seeing at the splatter of crimson against white, seemingly unaware of the presence of another.

The pain, though, she beheld in stark clarity. In her stomach, the crush of pavement against her back, the pressure of hands against her abdomen, trying to stop the blood that bubbled between her fingers. She couldn’t.

She remembered those hands. She used to kiss their knuckles and clutch them in her own only when no one was looking. They cradled her face, thumbs tracing softly over her cheek, ever graceful in their movements, the first time they’d said “I love you.”

I don’t belong here. This isn’t my home. Her eyes bulged, as if she could discern the face of whoever she’d left behind if only she looked hard enough. As if there were a veil covering everything that had been taken from her and she need only rip it away to know. To reminisce. To mourn.

The ground pitched dizzyingly beneath her. The sky was moving too fast around the earth. This isn’t my home, and this time it was a sob, a painful, keening sound as she turned her wavering, teary-eyed gaze to the wolf. He bumped her shoulder, disrupting the tenuous agreement she had with her legs. Her stomach lurched, she swayed. She managed one last, I miss— before her eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped gracelessly to the floor, out like a light.