Our Lady of Canine Compassion by heget

Chapter 1

Craban, who claimed the forest adjacent to Faron and Faelindis’s cottage as his to tend, was the one to engineer this unsettling meeting. Aglar's brother did so out of a sense of compassion, and Faron would never begrudge him. The afternoon was sunny, the weather perfect, and Faron stood at the edge of his garden at a loss for chores to occupy his time until Faelindis returned from the bakery. He had been fanning himself and contemplating his flowers when Craban had wandered out of the underbrush that skirted the forest with his giant hound Lairë beside him. Craban called out to Faron to meet with him and his guest. He often wandered out of the forest with a story or trinket in hand to show to Faron, leaving his canine companion to lounge in the meadow as he partook in tea and gossip with Faron and Faelindis. Craban’s hound stayed out of the cottage, due less to his imposing size and more to do with Faron’s lingering memories of imprisonment in Angband as a wretched warg-keeper. Lairë was no werewolf, and yet the grey fur was not the only similarity between warg and a great hunting wolfhound of Oromë. Faron could not suppress his involuntary flinching when the canine lingered in the periphery of his senses.

Only when Lairë halted as his owner walked forward, watching Faron with yellow eyes and the open-mouthed smile of all happily panting dogs, could Faron see that a second animal was following Craban. Craban also stopped well before the low stone wall that delineated Faron’s garden and the small meadow that shifted into forested lands. Their third companion paused, then walked up so that the overhanging trees no longer blocked any sunlight on its fur. It was another hound, much smaller than Lairë, with body and legs too short to run with Oromë’s packs, round eyes above a small muzzle, and large pointed ears covered in cascading hair. It looked fuzzy, delicate, most of all nonthreatening, and yet by the hunched posture and tentative way it crept forward, and the sense of nervousness underlying Craban’s causal greeting, Faron was suspicious. “Who is this you wish me to meet? Has Lairë and his siblings tired of you and yours, and you wish to replace them? Or has Lord Oromë tasked you to raise new hounds? This one does not look like His normal coursers. I doubt its skill at hunting much of anything.”

“She was a hunter once,” Craban admitted, “and once one of Lord Oromë’s, but it is you that she requested to meet, if you would be willing.”

“What mean you by once? And why I?” Faron no longer reached for the door of his garden fence, suddenly thankful he had not yet opened it. “What business does a Hound of Oromë have with me?”

“To thank you for your kindness. For your pity.”

Faron sputtered. “What? When would I have met another Hou- How?”

The smaller hound approached the fence, tail held low and tucked between her back legs. Several of Faron’s strange suspicions were confirmed as the dog opened her mouth to speak words. The hound's voice was both old and young, and shy but clear as a bell. “I implored Mistress Nienna to learn of where you might be, and requested this elf’s assistance in approaching you so I may speak to you. I promise I shall only come this once, if you so wish, but beg that you hear me out. I understand if my presence disturbs you, but I felt my duty to come to you and express my gratitude and remorse. This form is new to me. For years unnumbered since before the awakening of elves I was confined to another most dreadful body, one of ...His wargs. I do not …like those memories, that form, the terrible thing I was. Fear I inflicted and fear I lived with. I know I was cruel, and yet I remember you. You were kind to us and needed not be. You tended my wounds, even as my teeth wounded you. We did nothing to deserve it, and yet your heart was moved by pity for us. I kept that memory, though I wish I had not the others of my time with Him. You wished for us peace and joy, freedom from terror. I wished to show you that I am free.” The tail wagged strongly at that last word. “I am too accustomed to wearing a material body of four legs and a good nose, but I desired a body that would no longer threaten elves. There are so many types of hounds, I have learned. I picked one that was not bred for hurting others. Something to be loomed over by elves, something weak. Something a hand would reach to pet. I have discovered I like pets!”

Lairë had barked in agreement. Faron laughed and felt natural to do so. 

The ex-thrall of Angband searched the features of the canine before him, seeing nothing in the brightly patterned clean fur, round brown eyes, wet dark nose, small muzzle and tiny hare-like feet that resembled the monsters he had been forced to tend during his enslavement. He remembered that moment of pity, those last words to the oldest warg bitch. There was no maddened red to those soft eyes, just a tentative hopefulness. A touch of wisdom, too, Faron thought, though that might have been the mention of Lady Nienna.

“I am glad,” Faron said, and was surprised at the truthfulness of his words. As the courtier he had once been, Faron asked, “If it…could you tell me your name?”

The former Hound of Oromë pulled her tail up to drape over her back like a flag, large ears perked towards Faron and wrinkles creasing her brow. “Will you give me one? I will not use my old one, and I forgot the one I entered Eä with. You who gave me food and compassion - I want you to name me and no other. If you please. I understand if you wish not.”

Faron nodded. 

Chapter End Notes

Craban is the epessë for Mornaeu, second son of Herenvarno and younger brother of Aglar. Astute readers can guess he is based loosely off of Bran Stark, as Lairë, his Hound of Oromë, is the direwolf, Summer.

Huan and other Hounds of Oromë, I fully believe, are Maiar, and no one can dissuade me.

I don't know what name Faron gave the former warg, but I know that she thought it was perfect. As for what breed she is, I could not decide either, though I would recommend the reader pick their favorite from the Toy Group.