[who let the dogs out?]

[majorlyugh]

WHO: Major Lilywhite
WHERE: Major/Ravi's cabin, around the village
WHEN: Mid-October
OPEN TO: All, specific starter for Ravi
WARNINGS: PUPPIES.

---

Major had been lured outside by the sound of whimpering. Every ounce of softness and kindness he'd ever held in his body had been tingling like a small fire, spreading over the expanse of his body from head to toe at the sound. When he had opened the door, two boxes were sitting side-by-side on the porch - one about half the size of the other and, to his surprise, moving around like one of those fake ferret toys for cats, the kind that's glued to a mechanical ball that moves around.

Only a little less erratic.

He took the stationary box in first, setting it off to the side of the living room, before returning to get the one that had now seemed to calm down a little bit. As he lifted it, there was a quiet yelp from the inside, and Major knew in an instant what the mystery box's contents were, without having to remove the lid.

He sets the box down in the middle of the living room, carefully lifting up the cover to reveal the small, Basset Hound puppy gazing up at him inside. At the sight of his face, it lets out another yelp, this one happier but still pleading, and tries to stand on its hind legs to see outside the open top of the box. It doesn't quite have the hang of what it means to be coordinated yet, and so it tumbles backwards, causing a very loud "AWW!!" to come rushing out of Major's mouth.

He reaches inside, carefully scooping the puppy up in his arms. Once near enough, it begins to lick his face and squirm around in his grip. As Major's trying to check the box for any other dog-related items, the puppy manages to wiggle its way out of his arms and, before he can manage to do anything to stop it, runs straight out of the door that Major's foolishly left open by mistake.

He opens his mouth to shout a name, but realizes he doesn't have one at the ready, so he shouts the only thing he can think of:

"HEY! ... HEY YOU! COME BACK!" as he scrambles to his feet and out the door, chasing after the bounding, long-eared puppy.

Comments

.for ravi. (or, when major remembers to close the god damned door)

[majorlyugh]

Major's brought in the strange mystery box, completely ignoring the second one that's still off to the side. That one isn't moving around like it's got Mexican Jumping Beans inside, so it doesn't seem as dire or in immediate need of attention the way this one does.

After lifting off the lid and setting it on the ground, Major reaches inside, carefully scooping the puppy up in his arms. Once near enough, it begins to lick his face and squirm around in his grip. As Major's trying to check the box for any other dog-related items, the puppy manages to wiggle its way out of his arms and makes a bee-line for the door.

"HA! It's closed!" Major shouts as he quickly scurries after the pile of fur, securing it in his cradling arms again. The puppy looks up at him as though upset its plans have been foiled, but lets out a quiet groan to show that it's willing to comply. At least for now.

"RAVI!" he exclaims, walking from the living room to the kitchen. "RAVI! THE STORK CAME AND LEFT US A PRESENT. IF WE HAD ANY RESERVATIONS BEFORE, WE NOW HAVE TO BE IN A COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP TO PARENT A SMALL, LIVING CREATURE."

[zomboligist]

Ravi hits the floor with a heavy thud at the sound of Major's voice careening through the house, making him think twice about moving out of the nice, peaceful, sex-adjacent house with Mark and Helen to here, though he still stands by his reasons (better to sneak out and spend time with Helen than sneak her in here and listen endlessly to the commentary).

Face planted against the floorboards, Ravi groans and blinks to try and lure himself back to some sort of state where he actually understands words. Squinting, he runs those words through his mind and manages to get to a sitting position. "If there's a half-Chakrabarti, half-Lilywhite child down there, please tell me he got my amazing hair," Ravi calls back, stumbling into the main area and gaping when he sees what Major has.

It's like a flood coming back to him. "Minor," he says, suddenly, because it looks just like Minor, only much smaller, but that brings back all the history and the heaviness that goes along with that dog. In the pit of his stomach, he knows that they haven't talked much about Major being the Chaos Kidnapper (or Killer, per the papers), but Minor punts them right back to talking about this, doesn't it?

"Please tell me you didn't steal this one," Ravi begs.

[majorlyugh]

"You okay in there, bro?" Major shouts in reply, hearing the loud thud on the ground. He thinks to get up and check on his friend, but .. well .. there's a puppy. In his arms. Whining and licking and nuzzling. Sorry, Ravi - you're going to have to get used to taking a back seat to this furball for a while. Maybe forever. At least in minor (haha) incidents like this.

He glances over his shoulder, having set the puppy on the exact spot they always say to keep clean - the table - at the approach of Ravi's footsteps.

"Oh man, if we somehow break all laws of science and have a kid, I hope to hell he has your amazing hair. I mean, mine's okay, but yours! Yours is a gift from the gods!" he says, scratching the puppy behind the ear. But the tone of Ravi's voice pulls Major away from the cute softness of the puppy immediately, and he hesitates at seeing the expression that washes over his friend's face. He knows exactly where his mind's gone, the topic of conversation that he's trying hard to avoid. The corner of his lips twitches into a half-smile before he showers the puppy in affection again. It's a good distraction.

"Oh, ha-ha. No. It seems the Box Gods have heard my attempts at praising Zeus and Poseidon and seen fit to give us this lil' guy."

[zomboligist]

Ravi is still a touch wary because he was lied to last time about Minor and where the dog had come from, but he's been paranoid and as much as he hates to admit it, he's been lurking and watching Major's patterns and he hasn't done anything too suspicious and none of the population had a dog like this and have gone missing, so he thinks that they're in the clear.

God, that dog is outlandishly adorable. Ravi feels himself folding instantly, drifting closer and knowing that all his suspicions are melting away. "If this is some kind of 'stay quiet' dog to try and keep me from investigating things, it's not going to work," he says, out loud, like he's needing to convince any would-be experiments.

"That said," he goes on, "can I hold him?"

[the_scandal_of_italy]

It was her good fortune that she was crossing along the path just by Major's home. There was a sudden brown flash and then the feel of something small colliding against her skirts. Lucrezia looked down in shock, kneeling as she heard the poor creature whining, its tail wagging excitedly.

"Hello there," she murmured, kneeling so that she could pet it properly. "What are you doing out here alone?" The sudden cry and appearance of Major was all she needed to put the pieces together. "You should be more careful. He might have run to the woods alone." He was so small, the thought of him getting lost was heartbreaking.

"What's his name?"

[majorlyugh]

Major's finally caught up to the small, bounding fur ball - who's significantly faster than Major could've ever anticipated - and he's glad to see a familiar face when he does. Between a few breaths as he attempts to catch that, too, he oscillates between trying to offer a firm look at the puppy, a grateful look to Lucrezia, and a non-chalant attitude of how out of shape he feels.

He shouldn't be this winded, right?

"Door was open," he says, in between breaths, "He ran out. Tried catching him. Thank you." Once his breathing returns to a more normal pace, he exhales and tries that again. "He just arrived in one of those boxes. I was trying to check and see if there was anything other than a puppy in the box when he wriggled his way out of my arms and flew out the door. He doesn't .. have a name .. yet."

[the_scandal_of_italy]

It seemed as though the wind was taken from him, but she didn't want to call attention to that. Babies and puppies were the two creatures that could exhaust anyone. As none seemed to have the former, the latter would have to substitute and run Major ragged. She gave a conciliatory smile, hoping he wouldn't feel too embarrassed about his state.

Still, she was concerned, even if only a little.

"I think he only wished to say hello." She continued to stroke the puppy's ears, allowing it to lick her hand and jump on her excitedly. "He's very eager for attention. Did he just arrive?" She wasn't even certain it was a boy yet, only assumed. "He's fast as the wind. You will have to train him."

[majorlyugh]

"Like, just arrived. Not even five minutes ago. Or maybe the box had been sitting there for a while, but I only just found it on the porch," Major explains, dissociating just enough to remember how insane this all sounds, yet how casual and accepted those kinds of phrases are. Mysterious gift that isn't a prank or a bomb or a flaming bag of poop, given by unseen Observers no one is certain exists, nothing weird here.

"I will. I think I have my work cut out for me. I - ugh, sorry that he's - jumping all over you. Lemme just -" he bends over and scoops the furball up, adjusting it in his arms so that it can face Lucrezia and attempt its puppy bark. "There you go. You can pet him, if you want."

[unmakeme]

He's not screaming at her. He can't be. She doesn't know him, so he can't be calling her back to anywhere. Barely half a second later, she sees a small puppy come running down the road, previously hidden by some low brambles. So he's chasing the dog. Good for him.

Except now he's seen her, and he knows that she's seen him, and this town is too damn small. So this is what they're doing. They're hunting a puppy.

Natasha slips her backpack off her shoulder, leaving it near the side of the road. She takes the few steps into the middle of the packed dirt, right into the path of the puppy. If she's very lucky, the man will chase the little thing right to her, and if she's very still until it gets even with her, she should be able to grab it.

[majorlyugh]

Major thinks to shout something to the red-haired woman up ahead, something about how to corner and capture the escapee currently flopping in her direction, but it doesn't take much for him to realize that she's doing just that - without any sort of instruction. Major isn't going to complain about that. For some reason, he feels like if he'd shouted the plan to the stranger, the dog would've somehow understood and completely thwarted it anyway.

So Major continues chasing the small pup, hoping that all will go according to plan.

But, of course, that'd be asking too much. At the last second, the puppy realizes what's going on and suddenly veers to the right, straight into a thicket of trees. Major slows to a jog as he watches the sudden change of direction, exhaling a disappointed sigh.

"Ah, crap," he says, stopping at the spot where the puppy disappeared. His breathing is a bit hard, having chased the thing half the length of the village, but he tries to act as though it isn't. He looks to the stranger. "Thanks for trying. Thing's too smart for its own good."

[unmakeme]

"What's its name?" She's only giving Major half of her attention, having move to the edge of the treeline, watching carefully. Dogs don't generally just run. They run to something, from something, or because they want to play. The dog hadn't been scared, and nothing specific had drawn its attention. So it's playing. It wants to play. Which doesn't mean it won't get itself lost or hurt, it just means that it doesn't actually want the two of them to stop chasing it. They can work with that.

Might help if she has a name to call, though.

[majorlyugh]

"It .. uh ... doesn't have a definitive name yet?" Major reveals sheepishly, ducking his head as though expecting to be pelted with something. He offers a half-shrug. "I mean, I haven't officially decided on its name; it literally just showed up in a box on the porch. Like, just. But the thing looks eerily similar to a dog I had back in Seattle, which Ravi named Minor, so I have a feeling we're just gonna end up sticking with that. Minor 2.0, officially. That's what I'd write on the vet papers if there were any. But we can call him Minor for now, I guess." He glances towards the brush where the small thing had disappeared, crouching down a bit to see if he could catch sight of him.

There's nothing but leaves and grass, of course.

"Not that the thing knows its name yet."

[babyhunter]

Clary really hated this place. Izzy was gone and she was stuck in the Red Versus Blue canyon alone. Okay, she wasn't completely alone but she didn't have anyone from home, anyone to talk about her new Shadowhunter life. There was a long list of people that she missed and she doubted that she'd see them again.

Working out and training was a way to channel some of that frustration. Today she was dressed in black yoga pants with one of Isabelle's purple sports bra's. She was showing more skin than she liked but these were Izzy's and it made her feel a little bit closer to her lost friend. She was swinging around a machete and shifting through the forms that Jace had taught her.

It wasn't doing a great job of distracting her. What did distract her was the most adorable puppy running towards her. Clary dropped the sword and ran to meet the basset hound. She dropped to her knees and gathered the puppy into her arms to give him all the affection that he desired. This was exactly what she needed.

Her head turned up when she noticed that Major 'hippie parents' Lilywhite was running after him. "Lost something?" She asked with a grin. Yup, she has commandeered your puppy.

[majorlyugh]

Major's traversed the length of the village, probably twice over, in his pursuit of the puppy. Something so small shouldn't be so fast, right? Or is Major really that out of shape? Granted, he hasn't been doing the same kind of highly structured regiment he used to do back in Seattle, but .. he's been staying active. He still works out and runs whenever he can.

The little guy is too small, is his conclusion. Able to fit into tiny spaces that human-sized Major cannot. He worries for a second when the sound of his paws hitting the ground is no longer heard, but the fear is soothed at hearing the cooing. He isn't sure if he feels better or worse to know that Clary's scooped the puppy up in her arms. He has a feeling it's going to be a time trying to convince her to let the thing go.

Still, he smiles when he sees her - catching sight of her active clothing, the, uh, machete on the ground behind her. He thinks to ask about it, but first thing's first:

"It seems you've found it already."

[babyhunter]

Clary laughed as the puppy licked her jaw. It was adorable and she didn't want to let it go. She wobbled a bit before sitting down on the ground with the puppy in her lap. She scratched behind his ear with renewed vigor as she addressed Major.

"If it isn't Major Nathan." She was tense and needed the outlet. She'd find a way to thank him later. "This guy yours? He's cute. You guys have the same chin." She said as she scratched under the puppies chin.

"Well. I think this little guy has the chance to grow a beard when he's older." Yeah, Clary will have to find a way to apologize for Major for all the lip. It's been a very rough couple of days.

[majorlyugh]

"Nathaniel," he gently corrects, letting out a quiet laugh. "Middle name's Nathaniel." He shakes his head to dismiss the unimportant detail before focusing on the puppy again. "Yeah, just arrived this morning in one of those weird, creepy, unmarked boxes." He isn't going to get into how it looks eerily like the dog he'd stolen from the guy he killed that one time back in Seattle, but there's a certain .. tenseness to his movements, his tone that would indicate there's something going on underneath the surface. He doesn't seem nearly as enthusiastic about the puppy as Clary does. Part of him thinks to just let her keep it, but he knows Ravi will never forgive him if he does.

"I'm gonna take that as a compliment, I think. People love puppies, right? So if I have a similarly flopping, dangly chin, I'll consider it a win," he says with a twinge more humor in his voice. "Hopefully one like Ravi's, if he's lucky."

[3ofswords]

Sometimes, Kira swears the canyon comes with a must love dogs stipulation. And the dogs must love dogs also, Aurora gone from his side in a flash when she smells a new friend. Between her innate friendliness and his innate lack of a shit where she runs off to, he's lucky he hasn't been saddled with a litter of puppies.

That burden falls on someone else, apparently.

The little hound is all wrinkles and ears, appealing and ugly in the way most actual babies are. Even Kira has to drop to a weary knee and get a hand on surprisingly clean fur, if only to crowd his considerably larger dog away from rolling the thing over eight times in greeting. "Someone must be taking good care of you," he says gently.

Major, when he arrives, is a bombastic spark at the edge of Kira's amplifying powers before he's a person, crashing through weeds, shouting for a puppy. All Kira can do is let it wash over him, swallow any immediate reaction, and call, "He's over here," when there's a lull in the search.

[majorlyugh]

Major's half-unsure of whether or not he's straight up hallucinating the puppy. He's heard the stories of the insects that came out of nowhere, stinging with a vengeance, sending all who were unlucky enough to be caught in their path into a delirium full of visions and memories that weren't real. Or, at least, weren't real anymore. He can't help but wonder, as he continues to fight his way through thicket and brush, whether this is what's happening - where the puppy is a startling reminder of Minor, the grown Bassset Hound he'd stolen from one of his victims when he'd been blackmailed by Du Clark into doing his dirty work. Did Minor come back as a puppy? Is he imagining what the dog might've looked like or been like before he'd inserted himself into the thing's life, killing its owner in the name of safety?

It's only at hearing Kira's voice cut through the mental fog - he's over here - that Major snaps out of it, realizes that the flash of brown and white he'd been chasing all morning is, in fact, real.

He doesn't attempt to hide the relief on his face as he finally sets eyes on the little thing again. He gets close, thinking to intervene with the older dog, but stops for a second to let them sniff each other out. Socialization, or something. It's supposed to help dogs, from what Major can remember.

"Thanks," he says, finally getting on the ground to lure the puppy away from the dog. It considers Major's hand for a second, glancing back towards the grown dog shoving its nose into its belly, before coming over. Major scoops the bundle up and scratches its head gently. "I left the door open. He wriggled himself out of my arms and out of the door."

[3ofswords]

"They do that," Kira agrees, glad that if he must make contact with the villagers in this state, at least it isn't very fraught. He can do meet-cutes with friends of friends over mutually saddled pet-parentage. Earthquakes and possible threat of zombie viruses, not so much.

It's a cute dog, as far as Kira can tell: despite having one for most of the last year, he's not much for them. Aurora is the beautiful and talented exception, who spends most of her time herding Bodhi into some semblance of a routine and chasing bees.

Talented: not intelligent.

He keeps his crouch to hold her around her shoulders, enduring her reoriented affections as they lick and nip at his jaw. "It's a little odd, how safe the place seems for them. But I guess they're engineered by whoever's in charge, why waste them in a fight with a badger." It's a little odd that they get dogs and cats, that they get gifts at all--that they're here. But after nearly a year, he's fixated on--the lack of pet injury.

Early October! --- I HAD TO FIND A PICTURE!

[scepterschild]

Arado was running around outside of the house when he caught the scent of a new puppy. Without telling Wanda or any other residence of the house, Arado went bounding off towards the new smell. His path twisted and turned until he found the young basset hound at the end of it. A puppy! Someone to share the wisdom that he had gained from his months in the village.

Or someone to play with.

Arado barked at the puppy and went running over, his tail wagging happily at the new addition to the village. No one else looked to be around though Major might recognize the puppy that he had met close to his arrival and the home that it belonged too.

"BARK!"

SO CUTEEEEE

[majorlyugh]

The space is weird and full of smells. None of them seem familiar or recognizable, no matter how hard the tiny Basset Hound puppy shoves its nose into the dirt. He's trying so hard to dig up some kind of smell that he gets too much of the granules into his nose and lets out a big sneeze, effectively causing him to fall over onto his side from the force of it.

Ugh!

Wait a second! That's -! It's -! ANOTHER DOG!!

It bounds over in its clumsy way, falling over itself, the ground, its ears, and sometimes nothing at all in its enthusiasm to go and greet the older dog that's come over to say hello. His tail wags so hard that it's hard for him to remain standing on his back legs, but he manages to let out a scratchy, high-pitched "bork!" in reply to the larger dog's greeting, completely unaware of the exasperated man who comes up behind it a few moments later, breathing hard and sighing.

XD

[scepterschild]

Arado was only vaguely aware of Major's arrival. His focus was on the little pup.

It was eager, that was good, and it smelled of dirt and other curious scents that clung to it's paws and nose.

As large as Arado was, he almost ran the basset hound over in his excitement. He needed to fully inspect and smell the new puppy. His nose sniffed the hounds belly and then ears before nipping playfully at the skin on the back of its neck. He was excited to have another puppy to run around with.

Where was Arado's owners? No one could say.

Oh shall we?

[pretendtoneedme]

Clint's apparently been up early to get in some hunting; most of the village hunters go out during the day, which makes sense since they need to be able to see what they're aiming at and not risk breaking their necks by tripping over a tree root or something, but he's got a suspicion that at least some of the animals in the forest are aware of the routine by now and are hiding during peak hunting hours. Whether that's true or not, his eyesight is good enough that going out in the early hours isn't nearly the risk to his own neck as it is to others, and he has indeed brought down a few rabbits, which are already gutted and tied in a line with an improvised string made of the inner parts of some reeds. He's hoping some day soon, he'll get a young buck. The bow he's carrying and the makeshift quiver slung across his back are fairly commonplace in the village, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a comforting sight.

Especially not when a fuzzy ball of brown wrinkles and long ears tries to clumsily shoot across his path, causing him to stop suddenly and Arado to stand at attention and bark. The silver-grey dog is almost full grown at eight months old and under all that fur it's hard to see how he's still slightly "unfinished" in the way of a gangly teenager, but the basset hound puppy is still small, slightly uncoordinated, and has short legs. Even as the puppy flops past Clint, he's saying a word and Arado, still barking, is sprinting off to the left to block his path. The puppy tries to veer off to the right but Clint drops the bow and lunges forward, grabbing the puppy by the back of the neck and easily lifting him from the ground in a way that looks a lot more uncomfortable for the dog than it really is. "Where's your owner?"

SORRY FOR THE DELAY

[majorlyugh]

"Oh, uh - that'd be me," Major exclaims, coming out of the brush and foliage to the sight of a stranger apparently strangling the dog by the back of the neck. Or .. can puppies be picked up like that the way cats and kittens can? Major himself hasn't ever attempted it, especially as his prior pets have gotten larger and bigger, so the sight of it in front of him does make him wince a little.

He looks a twinge uncomfortable with the scene, shifting forward with outstretched hands to take the puppy away from the man, clutching both the furball and a weapon.

"He sorta got away from me, ran out of my arms and out of the door when I was trying to see if he'd arrived with anything else." His gaze flicks from the puppy, who seems unharmed and unfazed, to the man, and back again. "I can take him."

MWAHAHAHAHA

[pretendtoneedme]

It's not advised to hold them like that for long, but it won't hurt the dog for short periods. The puppy's obviously unhappy about being caught, paddling the air with its little paws and giving the Big Puppy Eyes and a slightly plaintive whine, but it doesn't seem to be in pain for the few seconds Clint has it by the back of its neck. Major tromping through the bushes makes him look up, tucking the dog into the crook of his elbow and letting go of its neck as he does so. When the new arrival claims the dog Clint looks down at the puppy for a moment, almost like he's thinking about something, before turning and extending his right arm as much as he can so Major can grab the little ball of wrinkles.

"Is he new? You might wanna think about working up some sort of leash for him - it's not that hard to braid some cord out of reed or the inner bark of trees, and then he couldn't take off without you." Arado doesn't have a leash on, but Arado's also obviously a lot older and a working breed of dog, which almost always take training well. Bassets are cute but Clint's not familiar with what their job is supposed to be, and so he's assuming they don't have one. Once Major has the puppy - and has a firm hold on him, so he can't get away again - Clint bends down to pick up the bow, having not dropped the string of rabbits or let them touch the ground through the whole mini-adventure. Another word to Arado and the dog drops his guard position, trotting over to Major to give him a sniff and a happy tail-wag. Major's one of the nice people he's met!

"You've met my dog? Looks like he knows you."