The Wings of All Things

Chapter 1 Part 7

Suddenly, Manny heard a low growl behind him. With a quick turn, he found MABSOOT's sneering teeth. He froze up, confused as to why she was being so hostile all of a sudden until he noticed her eyes were not on him, but towards the mirror. He leaned into her line of sight and waved. "Oh! Hi Manny!" She chimed with a smile and a wag of her tail before leaning around him to continue glaring the harmless glass.

"Who'z that?" She whispered. "How'd they get in here?" Back and forth, Manny looked between her and the mirror before pointing at it and then himself. "Yeah! They look zo much like uz! They're copying uz too!" She cried in a hush voice. Hiding behind the doorframe to peer at their reflections. With a careful hand, Manny took her wrist and tried to bring her to it. At first she refused, hiding behind the wall a bit more until he lightly tugged on her hand a bit more. When he brought her over, her growling got louder until Manny released her hand and placed his own on his reflection. Curious and hesitant, MABSOOT placed her hand over the mirror too. After furrowing her eyebrows in deep concentration to think and she finally understood who this person was and what this weird window is. "Oh zhit! A mirror!" She exclaimed.

"I haven't zeen one of theze in yearz!" She chimed as she smiled at herself. Both hands now pressed on the glass as she left paw prints on their surface. "It'z zo weird zeeing myzelf after the lazt time. I got bigger!" She noted. Then she whistled when taking in his appearance. "Izn't zomeone cool lookin'?" She asked. "Cauze you are! Do you like it? Cauze I like it." She complimented. Manny nodded as he took in her appearance in return. Wearing a black and white striped shirt with blue pants, her socks were black and white stripes too. They were toeless. He stared at them. He could have sworn her feet looked different from that. But he did not really care too much to take it into consideration. She still had her brown fingerless gloves on, and backpack strapped to her back. MABSOOT's grinned fell a bit along with her ears when a sudden thought came to her head as she clapped her hands together and cleared her throat.

"Zo uh...! Are you um...? A-a-are y-yooou...?" MABSOOT was stuttering again. "I-! I juzt I wanted to azk if you were gonna... Uh..." Her hand covered her mouth as she tried to speak through it. "I-I'm zorry for being zo um... Zo ztupid zounding? For zounding ztupid I mean! But... Uh! I juzt never had... Never... Had um... I never..." She cleared her throat again, pulling at her hair softly. "I juzt never had an... An actual friend, before. Cauze um... I-I mean, I only had Bruno and my other um... Other canine friendz. And..." She was about to say another person's name when she decided it was best not to.

"But they're not really friendz, they're family! And uh... Well I mean! I never had a friend that haz uh... Thumbz and... I'm being a ztuttery mezz aren't I?" She asked. Gaze avoiding him as she sheepishly avoided his whole being. Manny took another step closer. Upon closer examination, he noticed how the area above her snout was going from light brown to dark black. A heavy blush was invading her face and she had no idea about it.

"I uh-! I'm z-z-zorry I-" Her heart was pondering was she tried to spit it out. What if she says something wrong? What if she says something stupid? All ready she knew that had been done but what could she say to fix that? As she started to mumble and her voice started to crack, Manny placed a firm hand on her shoulder. When she looked up, he took his other hand and made a circle motion. As if telling her to keep going.                                                                                                                                                                           "I'm... It'z juzt that... You're my firzt friend in thiz hellhole. And I haven't talked to anyone other than my dogz in zuch a long time. Okay maybe not that long if you count a few monthz but honeztly I don't have a calendar to keep track of how long I've been on thiz planet. But I'm juzt really happy to talk to zomeone new! I love my dogz, I do, but... I don't really know how to explain it." She grumbled.