My mother was a beautiful dog. She looked like a regular Australian shepherd should- gorgeous, long fur, grey with darker spotting, no tail, flopped ears, and white legs. I looked just like her, except with a lime bandanna donned around my neck. My mother could sew beautifully, until her later days.
Breaking this heart-wrenching news to my half-sister blue just about made me faint. I think she might have been intimidated by me. I was pretty tall, and had "Striking green eyes; they could kill a wolf from five miles away!" as my father used to put it. Before he was killed in a wolf fight. I had to stand there with my mother and watch him be slaughtered by a dog much stronger than him.
My heart was crushed when that happened. I thought it would never be fixed for months, but while I was thinking those thoughts, it had healed. My heart was shattered by a sledgehammer twice- first when I watched my mother die from a virus eating her inside out, second delivering this news to blue.
blue was obviously crushed. She couldn't keep herself up. She glanced up at me with glittering, watering baby blue eyes, giving off all signs of being scared, ears back, showing the whites of her eyes. "Please tell me this isn't true," blue begged. "Please, Bet. This isn't a funny joke if it is one!"
Now why would she think that? I was an intimidating, tough, broken-hearted Australian Shepherd, not a jokester. Heck, if I did joke, it would be a disaster. I'd make awful dad jokes.
I couldn't just stand there and look at my half-sister trembling, scared, rapidly blinking to keep back tears. I placed my nose to blue's white head. She had the scent of honey and milk, mixed with her usual scent. There was hint of our mother in her soothing smell.
"This isn't a joke, baby. I'm an awful jokester. You'd die from my jokes, dear." Soothing words mixed with my slight southern accent seemed to calm her. She seemed less tense. I moved back, taking one last sniff. blue straightened herself, finding her composure. She sniffed, opening her mouth to speak.
"How'd she d-d-die?" She stuttered. I ducked my head from her sad gaze. "Heartworms that went untreated. She said she was old enough, soon to die." I raised my head, cleared my throat.
I thought back to how we got to this.
YOU ARE READING
Bet & blue
FantasiBet and blue are two sisters- Bet is a purebred Australian Shepherd, blue is a mix of an Aussie and several different breeds. But they still share the same mother. They don't know each other exist, until a very strange series of circumstances.
