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Indeed, the word could be applied to too many things. Any string of unfortunate events of whatever magnitude or severity, or even just one incident. Life was a curse. Death was a curse. Thinking was a curse, philosophizing was, reading, pondering too long and too hard. Metaphysics. Humans were their strange sort of predecessor -- not by blood or evolution -- they were not directly related, but they were, perhaps, equal now in society and potential intellect. He had had those conversations before too, contemplating and supposing about a civilization whose time had come. Disease, he suggested, War, both. It was how everyone seemed to destroy themselves, to some extent, even if sometimes, the disease was only in the mind and the war only with themselves.
Laruku did not consider their kind free of anything that had also belonged to the humans. Religion, while less prominent, still had believers within canines. He had met them. He had fought them. Likewise, politics were involved wherever there were communities, and as such, they had their fair share. Play nice with others, even if you don't really mean it. They're not all dead, you know. A while back, a band of them came by. Didn't stay long though, didn't make much trouble. He was surprised he remembered it at all, really. There had been so many other things that stood out more.
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I forgot about those humans on Souls, haha... >_>;
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“Oh really?” He had been all over the place, though never across the ocean, and yet he had never come across any thing that resembled a human aside from their skeletons. As he put the book back on the shelf in front of him, he couldn't help but ponder how it was that they managed to survive. “I'm surprised no one tried to turn them into kibble,” he went on to say, then pondering just what they may have tasted like. Similar to a cow, maybe? Or a deer, even. Or a horse, not that he had particularly cared for that sampling once. Still, he wondered if they were still around somewhere, deeply intrigued that there was that distinct possibility to see them in action.
“Did anyone get to talk to them or something? Could they understand us?” Old folk that they all spoke something different than a human. Humans thought they were stupid animals and nothing more and once upon a time, maybe they were. Maybe they still were, just capable of doing more things (which in reality, how did they make them any different from humans?) but at times they still lived the same way, in little groups, dotting and cropping up all over the face of the earth. Perhaps to its dismay.
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Honestly, Laruku didn't remember much about when the humans were there. Self-pitying as he was, he had probably been too preoccupied with something else, despite the obvious potential threat the furless, bipedal creatures posed. A packmember whose name he couldn't remember now had done much of the scouting, though the hybrid himself had chanced a glimpse of them here and there. I think most people were afraid of them more than anything, he said, They had horses and guns. Enough to outrun them and shoot them from a distance. We couldn't communicate directly, but they had dogs too. A few brave souls might have also tried to pass notes to them, which could have very well worked out, considering canines have largely adopted the humans' written language.
In some sense, Laruku had regarded them no differently than he might have regarded a new band of wolves or coyotes in the area. They had been investigated and left alone because they had not appeared threatening. They had defenses, sure, but whatever their goals had been, it had not involved encroaching upon any claimed territories. And so they had never clashed. They were all the same, in the end. They were gone pretty fast. Were around maybe a month? I don't think many people ended up crossing paths with them.
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Well, as long as they didn't try and shoot at them and eat them, Laurel didn't really care if they were around or if they ever came back. Though he was definitely curious as to whether or not there were more besides that group, the chances of seeing them were no doubt slim to none. The fact that they carried guns was enough to invoke fear in all of them, considering how a vast majority avoided them despite their availability. “At least they didn't stir up trouble or try and take back things,” he off-handedly mentioned. What a mess that would have been to deal with. “Maybe they set the fire.” He didn't know how long ago anything was, but if folks avoided them and very few of them tried to interact, well then who knew.
To humans, they were monsters, right? Taller, faster, hulking beasts of bone and fur. Teeth and claws all the way. Good enough reason to try and burn them out of the area, he thought. Maybe if he had been a human instead of a coyote, he would have done the same thing. Of course, if he knew anything about the fairy tales in the books in front of him, he would have been interested in the way that they portrayed all of them. Coyotes were just as much of tricksters as wolves were in those tales. “So other than reading things and playing music, what else do you like to do?” A couple of things in shared interest generally led onto more, or so he had learnt from experience.
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Nah, they were long gone before the fire, he said. The events had been far enough apart that he could say it with relative confidence, somewhat significant considering the general unreliability of his mental timeline in the times when he wasn't in control. The humans had been there in the middle of it. The fire, in the quiet, lonely afterwards when there was only a cackling in his head and a throbbing gash at his throat. They had been made self-centered by design, for survival, but it only seemed to dim his attention towards the rest of the world. He was the master of self-pity.
Laruku shrugged at the next question, I don't know. Not much? I'm not all that interesting, unfortunately. Or, like he had said, life happened, and extracurricular pursuits had been abandoned in favor of keeping demons at bay or letting them take over, or any number of other things that he doubted Laurel wanted to hear about. What about you?
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I'm lame. End soon, maybe? D:
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So much for that theory, he thought. There were a hundred other reasons why a fire could have started though. Lightning, camping gone wrong, who really knew. Possibly, he probably should have cared so much seeing how it was water under the bridge for everyone that had come over the mountain. “I fish, but I guess that's more out of necessity than for fun. Drink sometimes, play the banjo. I guess I'm not much more interesting than you either,” he admitted with a laugh. Even if they didn't have that much that they did outside of the things that they needed to do, he still thought Laruku was pretty interesting in his own right. Looked interesting, anyway. “Well, I reckon I should probably get going. Let you get back to your reading and all.”
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This thread was way too long anyway. XD
He laughed as well, somewhat happy to note that he was still capable of it and that he could still, apparently, keep conversation with strangers. It had been a long time, after all, but it made him feel normal. It was like he had only started existing moments ago, and all the things that had happened before had really happened to someone else. All right, he said, See you around.
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