All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 138: The Sweeping Society

We ran through the woods for 32 minutes. Well, Cliff ran. I flew. Despite being airborne, I was still having trouble keeping up with her quick movements. She slipped through the trees with a deadly grace where I felt like I had to swerve widely to not smash through any branches. When she was able to slip through bushes, I needed to go over them, and that often meant I had to contend with tree limbs or hanging moss.

If I hadn't been practicing my flying diligently, I wouldn't have had any hope of keeping pace with the dog. It was so much easier to fly in a straight line above the trees, away from any obstacles. But if I did that, I worried about being able to keep track of Cliff. My sensors should be able to keep her in sight, but there was a lot more life in the forest than in the castle, so I wasn’t as confident. Things were a lot more chaotic when I wasn't able to keep them in order constantly.

Still, despite the troubles, it was fun. I let out a cheerful beep near the beginning of the run when I pulled off a particularly tricky maneuver, turning sideways to slide in the gap between a split trunk of a tree. This had earned me a reproachful look from the dog after she skidded to a halt and looked around.

After that, I got the message. Apparently, we were supposed to be stealthy. What we were hiding from, I wasn't sure, but I would play along for now.

The only sound that I picked up was the woosh of the wind and the insects chittering in the trees as we moved through them. Every once in a while, Cliff would stop to take a deep sniff of the forest floor or a tree. Then, with a flick of her tail, she would be off again. Sometimes we would change directions slightly, and sometimes we would keep moving along.

This continued for a while until suddenly, we stopped. I almost shot past her, but the lowering of her head let me know something was going on. Ahead of us, in a small clearing, stood another four-legged animal. This one, though, was even larger than Cliff. Looking at it, I wondered if she wanted to bring it back with us. Were they friends or something?

Cliff pawed the ground and slowly started to move to the left. When I started to follow her, she looked back over her shoulder at me until I stopped. Okay, I guessed I was staying here then. I watched with my sensors as the large dog stealthily circled around the clearing. While she was moving, I also studied the strange animal sitting in the clearing.

It was a mixture of beige and white fur. Each limb proportionally was far thinner than even the cat’s compared to its body. The thing stood nearly six feet tall at its highest. However, the strangest thing was its head.

Settled there, above its eyes, stood a funny hat. The hat was very large as well. It seemed almost like a collection of thin sticks that was several feet wide and split into many points. Sometimes the animal would dip its head down and eat some of the grass below before bringing its head back up and looking around, chewing.

Across the other side of the clearing, I was able to make out the eyes of Cliff staring at the animal with a golden glow. My sensors showed me her semi-crouched position and the slight tips of her wickedly sharp teeth now exposed from her raised lips. Her eyes flicked to me, and I think I saw her wink.

Watching her study the animal still eating, I was still trying to figure out what was going on when a breeze suddenly rustled the leaves. The animal with the funny hat suddenly raised its head and sniffed. Okay, this was getting odd; I needed to go see what was up.

Slowly I advanced into the clearing so as not to startle the tense animal. Its scanning eyes caught my motions and locked onto my form. Staring at each other, it was as if the whole world had frozen. A sudden stillness came over the forest. Its eyes were small and beady. The entirely black orbs met my sensor bar unblinkingly. Maybe it was trying to wait for me to blink first, like in that game the kids played. If so, it was going to have to wait a while as I physically couldn't blink.

Neither of us was the first to move. Cliff seemed to appear behind the long-legged creature, and before it even twitched, she had sunk her wicked fangs into the upper hindleg of the creature. With a vicious tearing motion, Cliff thrashed her head and pulled back, freeing her mouth and taking a hunk of the leg with her.

The creature let out a coolant-curdling scream as blood started gushing onto the ground behind it. Cliff danced back with nimble paw steps, narrowly avoiding the powerful kick it sent backward at her. Scrambling on its three good legs, the animal started to run. I was impressed by its speed, seeing that every time it put weight on the leg that Cliff had attacked, the leg would buckle.

Staying not too far back, Cliff started to chase after the fleeing animal. I hesitated to follow. What had I just witnessed? Cliff just attacked a defenseless animal for no reason! And I had helped! This wasn't like the zombies that attacked us first or the other people who came to take Beatrice away. This animal had just been minding its own business.

The way Cliff moved had a practiced air to the fluidity of her movements. One didn't get so graceful without a lot of practice. This had to be more complicated than I thought. Dogs normally just ate the food the humans gave them. But I had seen a nature documentary before. Wild animals ate other animals. Maybe Cliff had somehow gone feral and started hunting again? She shouldn't need to, since Tanu was caring for her and she should have plenty of food.

Something was wrong with Cliff. Was it that her size that meant she needed to hunt? I didn't know enough about dogs for sure, but maybe she just needed to be trained better? I would talk to Tanu when we got back to the castle. For now, I needed to catch up to the pair. I wasn't sure if I could repair the larger animal. Maybe Beatrice would be able to?

Launching myself above the trees, I soared off in the direction that they had headed. It wasn't hard to follow the trail of blood, and it didn't take very long to find them. Once I got close, I dipped into the trees again. Right as I was able to make out the figures, I saw Cliff launching forward again. This time the funny-hatted animal was much slower and didn't even have time to flinch before Cliff’s jaws were clamping down on its throat. She ripped her head to the side again, and I turned my sensors away, unable to watch.

I sensed Cliff pad over to sit next to me and continue tussling with her catch. Eventually, the sounds behind me ceased, and I slowly turned around. The creature was clearly dead now as it lay on the forest floor limply. I slowly approached, and Cliff laid down next to me and lowered her head with a whine. What did she want now?

I watched as she crawled on her belly toward the body and nudged her nose at it, and looked at me pointedly. I wasn't sure what she was saying. It was obviously dead. She had killed it. What, did she think it was some sort of toy that I could fix?

It seemed she wanted me to do something with the body. If she didn't know what to do with it, why did she kill it? If she was hunting, she should be eating it. Though it was a lot larger than her, and I still wasn’t entirely convinced about the hunting explanation. Though… maybe it made sense? Maybe she wanted me to help her bring it back to the smaller dogs?

Getting near the carcass, I touched it with my claw. This would be a real pain to carry all the way back, and I didn't think I could lift the whole thing with Air manipulation. It almost weighed a ton. With a bit of effort, I pulled the whole thing into my vacuum. Cliff didn't like that at all. She yelped in surprise and then grumbled, repeatedly whining with her head down and tail still. Fine, clearly, that didn't make her happy, so I ejected the body back onto the ground.

Cliff let out another surprised yelp and sniffed the creature cautiously. She started wagging her tail and looking at me with surprise. Okay, if I couldn't take it, what was I supposed to do?

---

"Okay," Bee said warily. "I don't know if the name is the most important part of this whole operation, but we can talk about it now if you want."

The women all looked to each other, confused as Trent and Tony high-fived. "Good, good," Trent dropped into a serious voice as he suppressed a smile. He steepled his fingers in front of himself. "A name is very important. It’ll control how people first hear of you, and first impressions are very important."

Susan and Mary shared a glance, Mary just shook her head in resignation and leaned over to whisper into Susan's ear, but Bee could make out the words too. "None of our kids were named by my husband. You'll see why."

"So! I was thinking we need a good name that commands respect from everyone who hears it," Trent said, still struggling to keep his face impassive. "At the same time, we need to make sure that it's not too intimidating either."

"Okay, so what do you have in mind?" Bee asked.

"Well, I have a few options, but try to keep an open mind," Trent said, taking a deep breath. "So Void has a few domains that we know of. Cleaning. Order. Hatred of stairs. And, of course, lost children."

Bee nodded, waiting for him to get to the point. "So, we need to make sure we incorporate some of all of these in our choices. We need to consider his name too."

"Sure, yeah, that’s fine, but what are you suggesting." She finally asked, hoping he would just spit it out already.

"I'm getting to it, easy! So, the first one was I was thinking that we could use one of the more common forms of cleaning and turn that into a name. So… And stay with me here… I think as a first option to start brainstorming, we should consider… The Sweeping Society." Trent finished with a satisfied smile and a flourish. Tony and leaned over in his chair, and Bee could hear him snorting with laughter under the table. Mary just sighed, gaze fixed on her lap and leaving Susan and Bee to exchange disbelieving looks.

"Okay, okay, I can see that isn't going over well. Remember, this is brainstorming the ideas; no need to throw anything out too early." Trent said, his hands up defensively. A smile was starting to break through his normally stern facade. "Alright, not The Sweeping Society then. What about… The Anti-Stair Association?"