POV - Chaos
I wasn't really sleepy, since I had slept most of the night, until Alpha had removed my block.
I had also forgotten about the Stay command, though honestly I wasn't sure if a command used on Kyas applied to me. It does. I shook my fur out. Stupid bee stings.
I heard movement outside and checked out the window. They were setting up my agility course? Well, cool, I love that kind of workout. Maybe Ethos could try it. They were doing all of it, hoops, sock, tunnel sock, hurdles, A- frame, bridge, seesaw, slalom sticks. This is going to be fun.
A few hours later I heard Alpha's footsteps. He walked right past the door, but from the hallway said "Chaos, HEEL." Alpha command.
I scrambled to his heel position. I got the tingles, but they didn't make me happy. I followed him downstairs to the dining hall. The pack was having lunch. Instead of going to our usual table, he walked to the center of the room, where everyone could see.
"Chaos, DOWN." He commanded. I dropped. He called for food and water to be brought to me. "Chaos, EAT." I tucked in. He really didn't need to do that, I have never needed to be encouraged to eat. "Chaos, DRINK." Then "Chaos, STOP.", Then "Chaos, STAY." Then he walked away from me to his seat where he called for his own lunch. Elias wasn't here, but Mama was.
"Chaos," she said from her place, "stop watching us, put your Head Down."
Immediately I did. Luna command. Geez. I listened with my ears. Kyas watched silently behind the barrier.
I heard their chairs scoot back.
"Chaos, Heel." Luna command. I scrambled up to her heel position. I followed her outside. Papa and I had run this agility course a hundred times. Lots of my trophies in Elias' room were from agility competitions. I was pretty good at it. It wasn't unusual to see lots of pack members come out to watch training sessions, and there were lots here today. But...I had thought I wouldn't have to be the family dog anymore.
"Chaos, Start." Luna command. I headed to the starting box.
"Chaos, A-frame." Luna command. The A-frame was straight across the field from me. I bolted for it. Halfway there. "Chaos, STOP." Alpha command. I tried, but I was going so fast, that when I tried to stop, I flipped over, and got beestings for still being in motion after Alpha command to stop. The pack members laughed.
"Chaos, Bridge." Luna command. I headed for it, up the ramp. I'm supposed to go up the ramp, cross the middle, and down the ramp. At the top, as I crossed "Chaos, ROLL OVER." Alpha command. My body dove into a roll over and fell off the platform. The pack laughed. So did Mama and Papa.
"Chaos, SLALOM. " Alpha command. I headed to the poles. I started through them, but again, halfway through "Chaos, Sit." Luna command. This didn't override the Alpha command, but as my body tried to balance the two commands my hind quarters dropped halfway down and I stumbled through the rest, getting beestings for not performing it correctly. The crowd laughed harder.
I was getting mad. They wouldn't let me do a single thing right. After the fourth time I started low key growling, my temper kicking in, and because they made me counter and get beestings again. And the crowd kept laughing at me. The fifth, and I was well and truly pissed off.
'Chaos.' Kyas said.
That's all it took. It clicked. This was a lesson, and a pay back.
'Oh.' I said back. 'What should I do? Should I play the fool harder then?'
'No' he said. 'Just surrender to the lesson. The pack needs this, and so do they. We can do it.'
All the fight and anger left me. I had agreed to submit to this. I concentrated on following each command as it came, knowing they would all be disasters. After a bit though, Kyas' blue aura brightened. He was happy.
'Happy? Why?' I asked as the tenth fail got me tangled in a sock.
'Colors.' He said back.
I looked and he was right. My bond colors with the pack had been mostly shades of anger when we started, they were mad at us, mad at us for playing the Alpha and Luna for fools. Now I am the fool. Many colors were changing to laughing and fun colors. More than that, the interconnected bonds, between all of THEM were showing bolder colors, getting stronger between the pack.
I didn't like this lesson. Every single move commanded, not one my own, some definitely timed to conflict and make me get the beestings. But for them, I would endure it.
After about three hours, I started getting more beestings as my body tired out and I made more mistakes. Finally I heard "Chaos, Start." Luna command. I returned to the starter box. "Chaos, DOWN." Alpha command, I dropped, panting hard.
Alpha approached, his command full strength, his expression stern. Kyas got scared, his light color fading to very light blue. He came to tower over us.
"This is how it feels to be made a fool of Kyas. This is how it feels to have your choices taken from you, made by someone else. Do you have something to say?" He said. He pushed my mind links fully open, so everyone could hear our response.
'I'm sorry, Ma-Alpha,' Kyas said. 'Thank you for my lesson. This one will remember.'
My heart broke a little when he said that. I had worked SO hard to break him of that "this one" habit. It had been years. I hope he doesn't keep doing it.
'Chaos?' Alpha asked
'I'm sorry too, Alpha. I realize that what we did was not ok.' I said.
'I'm not done with you. Five years of deceit is a lot to repay.' He said, anger clear in his voice.
'Understood. Accepted. We will submit, Alpha.' I told him.
Alpha closed the mind link.
"Chaos, OFFICE." Alpha command. I went.
I waited to see if Alpha would come. Meanwhile, Kyas had not yet recovered. His aura was still dim, he was still scared.
'Relax, Kyas.' I said gently. 'Alpha won't hurt you.'
'I know.' He said, with no conviction.
Change of subject. 'Kyas, check the colors now.' I told him.
His aura blazed back to deep blue. 'They are beautiful.'
Alpha came into the office.
"Kyas," Alpha said out loud, "I need to talk to Chaos alone for a bit. I'm going to block you for a while, ok?"
'Ok.' I heard him send back.
Alpha put up a block. 'Chaos, what the hell was that? Did he really almost call me Master? What was that reponse?'
I sighed. 'Caught that, huh?'
'Yes I did.' He said
'Alpha, Kyas is...unbalanced. That response is a conditioned one. He was a pack slave at Cedar River, I think he said that last night. He had to thank them, the way they told him to, after they hurt him. You didn't hurt us, but his fear response takes him back to what he knows. Due to us not being able to communicate, it's never been addressed. Cedar River had some seriously sick people there. I didn't live it, and he never had to again after we were bound, but they really messed him up. I've seen his memories. He took the physical stuff like a champ, he's afraid of it, but that never broke him. What's broken is his sense of self. Kyas doesn't have one. He believes he's a nobody. A thing. An it. Want to know how he was able to play ghost so long? Kyas doesn't believe he's a person at all.' I told him.
Alpha ran his fingers through his hair. 'Can we help him?'
'I think NOW we can. He needs to be SEEN. Being trapped with me, he watches the world through a window, but he needs to interact with it.' I said. 'Up till now, the only people that have made him feel seen, as a person, has been you, Luna, and Elias.
Always alone, in a dark room, in the middle of the night.
'You know we make a natural Gamma, right?' I asked him.
Alpha nodded. 'I put that together last night. Pack bonds are an obsession for him.'
'He needs to MEET the people we know so well. They excite him, they facinate him, he sees all of them - but they don't see him. He has no idea that they could value him, respect him, seek out his company and counsel. He needs to know he matters in his own right.' I advised.
Alpha nodded. 'I was already thinking along those lines myself, I just didn't know it was this bad.'
'He did treasure every second in your room though, you know that? He just considered the time spent with you as stolen, belonging to someone else, and not rightfully his.' I told him.
'Ok,' he said. 'I have some ideas that I need to discuss with the elders that may work out.'
He looked at me sternly. 'I appreciate your help, Chaos, but you know it doesn't change anything, right?'
I laughed. 'Keep up the punishment, I still say we deserve every bit of it. If I didn't know that before today, I do now, and it's not fun and I'm sorry we did it. But Alpha, if your plans work, and we can help him, it will change everything.'
Surprised, Alpha raised an eyebrow. 'How will we know if it's working?'
'Alpha, Kyas will rip out your throat without blinking if you even think about hurting his bonds, the people that forge them.. Once he realizes that HE is one of them,and has just as much worth as any of them, he's going to get REALLY angry at anyone that ever has or does try to take that from him. He'll be a walking thunderstorm raining cactus plants. And that's right now, with most of the bonds being mine and barely any of his own.'
I warned him.
'Between you and me,' I said, 'when that happens, you might want a security detail around Elias.'