Canine Comrade

Travel Arragements

Hanzo returns to the land of the living slowly, a welcome change to his usual sudden awakening from his dreams. He rolls over and his calm awakening is short lived as he opens his eyes only to have them stabbed by sun beams- seems he's not allowed to be content for too long. He scans the room, everything's in its normal place so that's all good. As he lays his eyes on the make shift pen in the corner a spike of panic shoots through his gut as he notices that the puppy hasn't moved all night.

Jumping from the bed he skids to a halt on his knees next to the nest and notices the gently rise of fall of her chest, he only fully relaxes once he's nudged her and her little paw twitches in response. Yesterday must've been more tiring for her than it was for him, she didn't physically do anything but being lugged around in a bag and then suddenly being fed by a stranger would've been mentally exhausting- poor thing. Hanzo's always had a soft spot for dogs he just didn't let anyone know, couldn't let anybody know (caring for a "useless creature" was seen as a weakness by the clan and mostly importantly his father).  He thought his secret love for animals of the canine variety was well hidden... until it's wasn't, he didn't know how Sojiro found out about his weakness for them (probably because he cooed at every dog that walked by the window during a meeting) and he voiced his displeasure at dinner one night after Genji had left the table. He remembers it so clearly, like it was yesterday.

The three of them had finished their meals and waited as the servants collected their plates, the only noise that could be heard was the impatient tapping of Genji's foot.

"You may leave us, Genji" came the voice of his father, a small "yes!" came from his brother as he bounded away, a small smile on Sojiro's face was present as he watched his youngest son. He then turned his attention to his heir, smile disappearing, "you must stop this weakness", Hanzo said nothing, just kept his head down allowing his hair to fall in front of his eyes.

"Look at me" so Hanzo did, he looked him dead in the eye "good, now we need to bring this weakness into the limelight" neither of their gazes wavered.

"I am sorry, father. It will not happen again" he hoped that would be the end of it but luck was not on his side.

"Oh but it will, and we both know it" Hanzo looked away "we will have to deal with this as the council have begun to notice your wandering mind but I have not decided how yet. Give me time and I will have a solution" he stated. He sat there obviously waiting for a response.

"Thank you, father" seemingly satisfied he nodded and dismissed him fro the table. He only let his tears fall freely once he was locked behind his bedroom door.

An obnoxiously loud yawn broke Hanzo from his memories and he realised he had unconsciously started to rub the pup's chin. Now she's just blinking owlishly at him whilst licking her lips- he comes to the conclusion that she must be hungry, she cant be blamed for that, its common sense that pups should be eating often to make sure they grow up big and strong.

He leaves the little pup forcing himself to ignore her pitiful whines as he digs around in the mini fridge for the goats milk and begins to mentally make a plan for the day ahead.

Priority one- feed pup (already working on it) and take her outside, two- get himself sorted (by that he means change his clothes and brush his teeth nothing special) and finally journey to the nearest shop and stock up on enough proper puppy food to last him until the next town over when their paths will take separate paths. It'll be the most he's done in twenty-four hours in a while.

He places the shallow bowl of milk by the pup and watches in amusement as she rams her snout enthusiastically into her breakfast so she gets a splash of milk on her forehead.

"Take it easy, little one" he surprises himself with how gentle his voice sounds and puppy momentarily stops her meal to peer up at him before returning to it- he smirks as he watches her quickly lap at the milk (an improvement that he'll take).