Took a short break from my commissions to draw a new boy for myself.  Been a little obsessed with Dogo Argentinos lately so I thought I needed one.  Even wrote him a little introduction story >.>

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“Your name is Hushpuppy.”  They were not her first words to him, but they were - to be certain - words that would fasten his soul to hers.  

He was dying. Should have been dead. Deserved to be dead.  Begged the nameless energy to cease its flow through him.  Yet…  

Her blurry visage hovered over him backed by the inescapable sun.  Pain from the two bullet holes in his chest made the touch from her hand almost imperceptible.  Yet…

He remembered it as the first moment of his life.  Paralysis prevented him from moving, shock terminated his ability to reason, pain fueled his anger. Yet…

Her words calmed him, then his vision swam as the skyline became unfixed in space.  Protests of the weakest sort gurgled over his tongue with the blood and spittle.  Sky, ground, sky, ground, sky.  One eye focused for the briefest of moments, in that clarity the ragged form of his former master took shape.  Misshapen and nigh unrecognizable save for the vague hint of four twisted limbs lying in a muddy red swatch. His Master’s rancid sweat and metallic blood still lingered in his mouth.  Blackness seemed to close in on him from all sides and crush his vision into a singularity. 

Hushpuppy stood beside his Mistress, a year healed and as hard as he had ever been.  Harder for the fact that he knew his purpose in life.  No longer was he a tool, a weapon to soak the dirt in blood. No longer would he be the terror that struck eyes cold.  No longer was he a nameless drone without a self. His life was hers. He stole a glance up at her chocolate visage and the explosion of hair that framed her face. Lips set in a smile that was matched only by the light in her only eye.  They were tattered souls. 

His Master, a poacher, a thief, a murder, a liar. Carelessness with life had cost him his seasoned hunters to a quarter-tonne boar. Scruples were never weighed him down so he stole a pregnant bitch from a hearty Dogo line generations deep.  Hushpuppy never known the bitch that whelped him on that backwards stretch of the wild Argentinian plains in the dead heat of summer.  No name had been given him, no number or status that would declare his individuality. Referred to only as Bastard - as were his two brothers and four sisters - training began early. Beaten and exercised to exhaustion molded his body like forged iron.  His only thought was to serve his master, fear drove him, work motivated him, and the hunt later thrilled him.  

Hushpuppy looked away from his Mistress to the lanky saluki and the stout pitbull on her far side.  Neither had faces that seemed welcome even after a year, but he understood.  She loved both of them as much as they both loved her, perhaps even more.  He understood, but huffed at the pair regardless.  The saluki frowned with his eyes and turned his nose up, the pitbull cracked a grin and wagged his tail. 

He had never known an animal he had not been set to kill outside his sisters and brothers.  They had acted as one a predatory entity trained to descend upon prey to deliver the swift, often brutal finality of death.  His siblings had all died.  One by one over the few violent years had seen them gored, torn, shot, stabbed, and beaten until all that remained was him.  The Last Bastard.  He had tried to rebel and was fixed with a nose ring.  A relic that was once used to control him, now a symbol that he was no longer controlled by any living soul. A rivet in his jaw held the steel reinforced incisors that made any hide permeable. Killing was his art, blood was his medium, and the world had been canvas. Try as they might he could not be killed.

There were those that knew of him, knew his Master and his dirty work.  They spoke in hushed tones about the Poacher’s living weapons. They wanted weapons of their own.  His Master bred him to his sisters, stolen bitches, and sold his seed to the highest bidder.  Pups were sold for favor and finances. Elder Machi blessed a heavy bronze ring with a boon to fertility set around his scrotum to invigorate the life carriers.  Even now he could feel its comforting weight swinging with every step.  In his sheath was set a superstitious artifact to ensure strong offspring from his countless compilations.  Bastards of a bastard.

Hushpuppy stole another glance up at his Mistress.  Clueless was his nature in the means of what to do when not on the hunt.  Why he looked he could not answer.  To see her smile? Reassurance of his existence? Perhaps even he could be loved in time, but he truly doubted it.  Those two were loved, even he had to admit a fondness for them in some respect.  She smiled at him and reached down.  Muscles reflexively steeled themselves for a blow that would never come.  After a year he still flinched at her touch and felt shamed for the involuntary reaction to someone who cared.  Fingernails traced their way across his scalp leaving tingling paths to his tattered left ear - taken by a boar when he was a year old - rarely had he been touched without hostile intent.  His Master had never regarded him as anything more than a weapon, a tool, a gun you needed to feed.  Scratches around the base of his ear sent a wave of relaxation through him.

He was not dying.  Flying, high above the land below his face pressed up against the glass of the car.  Life had been given him, she had touched his soul.  Only death could separate them now, and even he would struggle to part their bond.