The situation was rapidly evolving from new and exciting to confusing and concerning. He was bowing to the biggest specimen of wolf people kind he had ever seen. Still didn’t stop him from looking ridiculous in his big boy chair. Once he seemed satisfied with the show of supplication he started talking. For the umpteenth time today, Khale cursed at not being able to understand what was being said in his presence.

He was still able to pick up broad concepts like when someone was asking questions and picking up the general mood.

Throne boy was asking a question to the basket keeper, who responded with some kind of affirmation and then gestured to plank face who said his own piece. Though Salad couldn’t glean any meaning from it.

Again the guy in the chair asked a question to the group and Khale could feel a rising tension, it was subtle but the worried looks being passed around by the guards that were looking on were hard to miss.

Once more basket keeper answered in the affirmative and throne boy responded with a question that Salad could understand.

“Afwuf?” How?

Basket keeper for his part responded by turning on Khale and lifting him by the scruff of the neck. It was uncomfortable, but he couldn’t even struggle as the basket keeper lifted up one of his ears, as though showing it off. Thankfully he put him down after that.

That was apparently not the answer throne boy wanted to hear as he leaned back in his dirty chair and had to catch himself from falling since the chair back was so far away in comparison to his size. Once he’d caught himself he started to scratch his chin in contemplation.

Eventually, throne boy made some kind of decision and made what sounded like a proclamation of some kind, plank face nodded along, but basket keeper didn’t look thrilled with the outcome.

Seeing the signs of insubordination, throne boy stood and barked at the basket keeper, asking some kind of question but it also sounded like a demand at the same time.

The basket keeper only shook his head no, though it wasn’t the way a human would do it, instead of turning his head left and right it was more like he was tilting his head from side to side. It kinda looked like a dog trying to shake off water, made the same sound too.

That seemed to satisfy throne boy and made some kind of proclamation, which to Salads immense discomfort, included a lot of pointing.

At him.

Soon enough the bunch bowed again, and Khale had the sense to join in this time. He was led up a different set of tunnels. They kept ascending until something strange happened, color started to seep into the surroundings.

It was mostly dark browns and other earthy colors, but for a world that had been monotone for as long as he could remember, this was practically miraculous.

Then they were at the entrance to their warren. There were dozens of wolf guys milling around, some had weapons, others were attending to what looked like giant piles of oversized trash.

Some yapped questions at the group and plank face or basket keeper would answer.

But the thing that really captured Khales attention was all the color, he could see the normal colors as he could before, but there was so much definition, as he looked up into the sky he was shocked to see the stars and one, two, three.

Three moons!

It was so bright out he thought it was daytime, or maybe this was what passed for the day in this place. The moons were so bright he could barely look at them, and they burned patterns into his eyes. But he couldn’t help it, they were wild. One was a deep ocean blue, the next was neon green, but the last one! The last one was freaking yellow with purple polka dots! How does that even happen?!

Looking around Salad tried to take in more of the scenery. The entrance to their warren was set in a small cave set into the side of a large hill. Green grass spread over almost every surface he could see, various vines and creepers and ferns were all over the place. Looking up at what he had originally thought were trees he soon realized that instead, he was looking at something more akin to a bamboo forest, but everything was jumbo-sized. The Bamboo was huge, the ferns were bigger than some of the other wolfmen and most of the underbrush came up to the adult chests.

Then the smells hit him.

The dank mold smell he had been born in was washed away with an overpowering cacophony of scents. The difference was like only being able to hear morse code tones for your entire life then being able to listen to an orchestra. It was like he was listening to twenty radio channels all at once or ten pastors trying to preach at him all at the same time.

He wasn’t terribly surprised when it started to give him a headache. trying to ignore the smells as best he could, Khale followed plank face and basket keeper into the surrounding woods.

The sheer size difference in size was oppressive, everything felt bigger than him, heck, everything WAS bigger than him, the leaves on some vines were bigger than his head!

Persevering in spite of this disparity in proportions, he chased after the backs of the two adults. Or more accurately their heels, he couldn't really see much else through the scrub brush.

They zigged and zagged between giant mushrooms that blocked out the light from the moons, but that wasn’t much of an issue, the only result was that the colors dulled where shadow took hold. It was truly a bizarre sight to see.

It was clear that he had some sort of souped-up night vision, but he didn’t know of any animals that could see in complete darkness. To his knowledge, most creatures in that kind of environment either had bioluminescence so they could make their own light or they ditched eyesight altogether.

If this was some kind of third option he was really happy not to have to deal with being completely blind, his first brush with the concept made it abundantly clear how much that would suck.

Though being able to glow could have been cool. Still, this was clearly the superior option.

He plowed through the brush, being comparatively minuscule in size being in his favor as he wove between stalks and under bushes. Losing sight of the two he was following didn’t matter as much as he would have assumed. He could hear them tromping through the growth, smell their scent on the wind, and their tracks were practically road signs. It was actually kind of fun.

After the walk showed no signs of slowing after an hour he started to get bored. So he decided to make a game out of trying to track the pair of adults. The objective was to circle up around them and try to sneak up and touch one without being noticed on the approach.

The immediate problem was that the basket keeper was paying way too much attention to him. Any time he got too far away he would softly bark something that vaguely sounded like it meant “come here” though after a few times Khale could tell he was getting annoyed. So instead he tried to sneak up on plank face.

The two were walking side by side with plank face on the right and basket keeper on the left. So Khale slowly moved up and to the left, making sure the distance between him and his babysitter didn’t grow to the point where he would feel compelled to call out. Soon he had finally circled in front, looking for a bush he could hide under and wait for his chance at ambush. When their trek approached a particularly large fern he saw his chance, darting under the fern and stopping dead in his tracks ready to pounce. As soon as plank face was in range he struck grabbing at the adult. Plank face yelped and in a rather impressive maneuver, the surprised wolf guy lept his own body length in pure vertical height, his hind paws dangling where his head had been as he reached the apex of his jump.

Khale and the basket keeper laughed as plank face whirled on Salad barking something, though the tiny tike couldn’t even begin to try to understand what he was saying, His own squeaky Jackal laugh wasn't making it any easier to hear the chastisement either.

Plank face pointed at basket keeper and then gesticulated at Khale while making high-pitched doggy whining noises. Even though the language barrier Salad knew a bitch fit when he heard one.

Eventually, the laughing basket keeper just rolled his shoulders and made a gesture that came off in that ‘oh all right’ kinda way and leaned down to pick up the pup. Salad squirmed a bit, but after a moment stopped fussing when he realized he wasn’t going to be put down again and just enjoyed the ride. His eyelids growing heavy after all the excitement finally started to leave his system.

Right, he was basically a toddler slash puppy. And an hour of walking and running around was going to require a nap.

He nuzzled into the basket keepers shoulder and simply let himself be carried off to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was something fundamentally weird about falling asleep in someone's arms like a toddler once your age got into the double digits. At least that’s how Khale felt as he got ready for work. It wasn’t every day that you were rocked to sleep by a large dog man.

He paused as he laced his shoes.

Come to think of it, could they really be described as 'Large'?

Salad had thought the wolf people were huge motherfuckers when he first saw them, what with carrying him around in their hands and all that. But looking back at all the oversized chairs, the trash heaps that seemed to be filled with stuff that was just too large to be practical, and with almost literally everything he had seen be bigger than him or the adults…

Were they actually really short? He hadn’t seen anything that was properly sized for them. Which was weird, since they had to make their own stuff, right? Though, once he thought about it, he had seen something properly sized, plank face’s poncho from when he did that crazy dance. Also his face plank, but he wasn’t sure that he could count that.

He continued his musings as he pulled out of the driveway.

Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen a lot of stuff around the warren to begin with. Yeah, there were a lot of other wolf people around, but there wasn’t anything like clothing, and bags and straps seemed both rare and strictly utilitarian. Almost everything anyone had been carrying had been in their paws.

Stranger still was the tunnels, there had been no carvings, stone piles, or any kind of signage. It was all naked tunnels that twisted and turned with no rhyme or reason. Some of it had seemed natural, at least the stone parts did, but the dirt tunnels had shown signs of being dug out. Still, the total lack of ornamentation struck him as odd.

He pulled a box from the shelf he had been working on and sent a jar of pasta sauce to the floor. With a sigh, he started cleaning. His mind had been wandering back to the dream world all day. There had been so much new information! The chair guy. Finally going outside for the first time. TRIPLE MOONS!

What was this supposed to mean thought? Supposedly there was some deeper meaning to all this that he had to figure out, but it wasn’t coming to him.

He leaned on his floor squeegee and gave it some deeper thought.

Was it because he was working like a dog? Was that what this was about. If he stretched the metaphor, he had been more or less placed in a kennel with a bunch of warm friendly people. They were all working like dogs. So who were the big dogs?

Was the basket keeper some psychic representation of Bryan? Then who was plank face and throne boy?

None of this felt right, if this was supposed to be representing his life at BoxCo then what was with that whole bit with the whole being blind and getting his eyes opened and shit? What were the tunnels? What was the outside? What did a polka dot moon mean?!

Khale jumped as something poked him in his back and spun to find Birdman giving him a funny look.

“Spacing out on the job? Got to be sneakier than that buddy boy, at least do it in the toilet paper isle, at least there you can take a nap behind the stacks.”

Salad scratched the back of his head and sighed.

“Sorry, just been having some really fucking weird dreams lately.”

He finished cleaning up his mess and started to put the cleaning supplies away.

“Weird how? No, wait! Don’t tell me, it’s a weird sex thing right? And I mean, don’t actually tell me. I don’t need to hear about how you discovered a burning need to be stepped on, or whatever new fetish-”

“It’s not a weird sex thing you jackass.” Khale interrupted. “I’ve just been having some recurring dream where I’m a puppy.”

Birdman stood stock still as he tried to process that. You could practically see the loading screen on his forehead and if you listened closely you might have heard the old internet dialup tone.

“What?” was his eventual reply.

“A puppy, I’ve been dreaming I’ve been a puppy for a few weeks now.” Khale was deeply blushing at this, it wasn’t like he was trying to hide it, but he didn’t need his coworkers to think he was crazy. “I don’t know why, but that’s been going on for a while nnow, it was real freaky at the start, but… Hey listen, don’t go spreading this around okay?”

Blinking, Birdman nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah sure.” It seemed he was still a little punchdrunk at the revelation. “What’s it like?” From his expression it was clear that he hadn't meant to vocalize that.

Khale shrugged.

“You run around in a kennel and do puppy things,” He thought about it for a moment then smiled, “the best part is going to sleep in a gigantic pile of puppies a the end of a dream. Real warm and fluffy.”

His coworker’s eyes went from confused to jealous.

“Duuuuuude, that sounds awesome!”

“Yeah,” he admitted, “it’s pretty great.”

Salad gestured to his aisle. “I got to get back to work.”

That was enough to bring Birdman back to earth.

“Oh, RIGHT! Sorry, Bryan wanted me to tell you that he wanted you to do the cart run tonight.”

Khale just gave him a thumbs up and went back to work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He woke up in the arms of the basket keeper, and it sounded like they were in the middle of a conversation with someone, he turned to look and discovered it was a lot of someones.

They were in front of another cave, this one vastly different from their warren. There was practically no stone and the cave looked like a hole in the ground, but what it lacked in pizazz it made up for in defenses. Specifically the twenty-something force of wolf men that were standing around it protectively.

Getting a good look at them he saw that they had different coats than the ones carrying him. All the wolfmen he had seen in the light had brown fur, even he himself had brown fur now that he was out in the light and could actually see colors.

The other wolf people were black with white Husky-like patterns. They were also buck naked and all visibly male. Still hadn’t seen a female yet.

Khale observed this new group as plank face talked to the biggest one. Neither seemed all that happy with the conversation. Perhaps this was a different tribe or something?

It was hard to guess, but it made as much sense as anything else here did. He listened in on the conversation as best he could, but he could still only pick out the occasional word and general feel of what was being said, still it was better than nothing.

The big one would gesture to Khale and grumble something, clearly unhappy and either plank face would reply placatingly or sometimes angrily. He then gestured for the big bastard over and pulled on one of Salad’s ears.

“Hafoo!” Hey! Those are sensitive!

Plank face then whispered something to the big guy and the large wolf man’s expression changed from clearly unhappy to contemplative. He still didn’t look happy by any means, but at least he didn’t look like he was stewing in his own piss anymore.

The basket keeper decided this was a good place to jump in and said his own piece. Whatever he said must have carried some sort of weight, because now the large stranger was looking at him with interest.

To Kahles growing concern he was handed over to the stranger and was inspected to a highly uncomfortable degree.

This guy looked in his mouth, parted his fur, and even at one point pulled up his tail to look at something. Salad had no idea what he was looking for down there but whatever it was, the big wolf man was satisfied and slung Khale under his arm like a sack of flour.

The big guy sent a runner down into the hole and eventually, they came up with what looked like a bunch of coiled-up rope and a basket that seemed to be at the end of its life cycle. The basket was full of some kind of meat. The basket keeper looked pleased and placed its straps onto his shoulders while plank face wrapped himself in the rope until it hung like a bandolier. Salad didn’t like where this was going.

The sinking feeling in his gut felt like it turned into a ball of lead as plank face said a short goodbye to the big guy and turned to leave. He only paused as the basket keeper patted me on the head and said something. It sounded like words of encouragement before he turned and left as well.

Did he…

What just get fucking SOLD?!