Have you ever tried to remove a Retriever —Labrador, Golden, Flat coated, Nova Scotia Duck Tolling… you pick your poison— from its favorite spot? Be it a sofa, your bed, or a local body of water, you are faced with a herculean task. It’s not only about how much they weight or the resistance they offer during the initial removal: it’s a battle of attrition. You get the dog down or away from wherever you want to place either your ass or a pleasing amount of void, and then you blink, and he motherfucker has manifested back there, and looks at you, and wags its tail, and yawns with a high pitched noise, as if mocking you and your tired arms.

I tell you, Mateo felt like he had battled a Retriever to get me off the throne. I won’t provide further details, but Mariana expressed she was proud of my stubbornness.

And now, after fixing ourselves something to munch on, we teleported to the headquarters of the Intercontinental Dog People LARP Convention.

Their buildings were placed along the lush plains. They sprawled in a long, meandering succession, like the links of a dog chain. By our side, a giant kibble dispenser filled with live pekingeses stood as proud as such an aberration could. The poor dogs were so compacted the only fair description of them would need to be plagiarized from the one about dragons at the beginning of Guards! Guards!

“Insert a gold coin to get a delicious ball of inbreeding and breathing issues.” I read out loud the label of the golden construct.

“Can I get one? I promise to eat it before it shits on the carpet, please. Please, ” begged Mariana.

“Mariana, they are dogs.”

“But the label says ‘delicious’, and they are in a food dispenser! Logic dictates they must be edible.”

“I’d be edible too by that logic.”

Mariana looked at me like she would at a giant steak. Then licked her nose. It was high time to change the subject.

“We need to enter,” I lazily gestured at the glass pane doors of the first link.

“I want a Pekingese to eat.”

“No dog of mine will engage in cannibalism!”

We went through the door and entered to a carpeted, well lit world of high and clear ceilings and a perfumed atmosphere that didn’t quite manage to hide the smell of dog urine.

“Walter, is shitting on the carpet allowed?”

“We may ask that smiling man there.”

We approached the tall and well-dressed man. A Borzoi of a person.

“Hell-o, welcome to the ICEA, how can we help you?” His tone was merry and sycophantic.

The Karen within was pestering me to demand to see the manager.

“My dog wants to shit on the carpet. Is it self-cleaning?” I asked mockingly

“Yes, it’s magical.”

I stood there, dumbfounded.

“Scat ahead, Mariana,” I said, my voice dying, tears building up in my eyes. I had been defeated by a carpet.

“Yay!”

Mariana scuttled away, sniffing for the perfect spot to defile the place.

“Listen, good man…”

“I’m all ears.”

He was lying. One could tell by counting the ears, that, approximately, added up to two. And by percentage of the total body mass, they were negligible.

“I’d like to know about the competitions held by your esteemed organization. Pageants, races, tourneys, whatever can grant me and my canine friend some recognition.”

I accompanied the words with subtle hand gestures to show some confidence.

“What have you trained her to do?” he joined his hands and put on his most heinous shit-eating grin.

Battle was out of question. Not because we would win, but because Mariana was a machine of causing collateral damage, and I wanted to make some damn good crumbs with the ICEA.

“Well…” I remembered the conga in the desert. “She can dance.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Heelwork to music? Magnificent. We have had some Golden Retrievers as winners over the years, even if most of the champions are Border Collies.”

“I guess heelwork to music is all right. Any date for the next contest we can enter?”

“Three weeks from now. Do you want me to inscribe you two? Or are you not her handler?” he inquired without losing his hideous smile.

“He is my owner!” said Mariana, who had finished defiling the carpet.

“Are you not going to comment on how the dog talks?”

The man didn’t shrug, but seemed to battle against his desire to do so. “I have seen weirder.”

He gave a quick glance at Mariana, then steepled his fingers. “Follow me to the desk, I have some forms for you to fill, Walter Gallardo.”

I stepped back and reached for my dagger.

“Was it the face, the dog, or the pheromones of absolute macho-man?”

“The belts,” he said, plainly.

“Fine,” I crossed my arms. “Will you guys try to kill me?”

“Not our job. Furthermore, you are a dog owner, and Mariana looks well-cared for. You are welcome here.”

“I am going to fucking help to destroy your world.”

“And I make minimum wage!” he answered, his eye twitching.

I scanned the carpet for Mariana’s most recent turd, and I couldn’t spot it anywhere. It was magical, after all.

“Well, I guess apocalypses are deflationary, in the end.”

“Apocalypses can only be in the end, Walter”, commented Mariana.

“Follow me!” he screeched like a youtuber who is being constantly denied access to minors.

We obliged, mainly because we had no time to lose: with only three weeks to master a choreography, messing around wasn’t an option.

By the end of the day, we were official contestants of the Bi-Monthly Heelwork to Music Contest of the International Cynological Experts Assembly.

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How does a bitch dance a chacarera? Bitch as in the female of dogs or wolves, not “want you to pay child support for a child that could never be yours” bitch. Because, well, a male dog could tap their toes on the floor to the rhythm, and fitting them with a hat would be relatively easy. But a bitch needed to do the female part of the dance, with the long dress and the wing-flaps of it. There was nobody to ask for advice, as I doubted anyone else had picked Chacareras as a rhythm, and they probably didn’t even exist in Planet, unless some Argentinian had brought some from Earth. Given Argentinians were being isekaied lately, it wasn’t far-fetched. But that begged the question: how many compatriots were there, or had been there and died, like Matador did. How many were Escapists? How many had gone mad and became outcasts? But, most importantly: How does a bitch dance a chacarera? They have no opposable thumbs to hold the dress, nor the necessary level of articulation in the shoulders. Most lack the intellect to learn such a complex dance, which gave Mariana an advantage. Still, I would need to figure out the dress thing. The forelegs were out of question, useless for the task. And yet, I knew that once I figured out how to solve that problem, the rest of the dance would fall into place without major problem. Even the claps, which could be replaced by headshakes or teeth-chattering.

Then there was the problem of the music, which was much more easily solved, because Mateo surely had contacts with musicians able to play guitars, violins and percussions. I could use Mariana’s announcers to show them how a chacarera sounded, and then make them compose one for us.

I would make my outfit with the belts, so that was no issue. I’d just need to get the boots to tippity-tap. As for learning the dance, our father had taught the basics to all of his children. That included me, because I am my father’s child. Unlike you, reader.

Your sad “family” history due to the unchecked whoreness of your mother notwithstanding, the thing is, I am better at dancing chacareras than you will ever be.

Given Mariana wasn’t my father’s child, I needed to figure out how to solve the dress issue quickly, as I would need to take that solution into account during her training.

That’s why I found myself in front of Mateo’s bedroom, that, to my surprise, was a real place that existed.

Mariana, who was undergoing an aural tick inspection carried out by her disgruntled owner, rested upon the dark bricks and stared intently at the gold and red door. It surely had a monarchical look, but the contrast with the dark and imposing atmosphere of the castle was jarring.

An ectoparasite thick like Sci-fi exposition found itself being torn from its feeding ground. Put between a fingernail and a hard place, its HP stood static until, passed a critical threshold of pressure, his life, innards, and last meal got smeared on the bricks.

“You have the power to fend them off now, why do you let ticks hang like eggplants from your ears?”

“Shut up, your species uses non-organic earrings. Mine are bloody fashionable and environment friendly.”

“Green, you mean?”

“For the last time, Walter Ignacio Gallardo, that is a fucking shade of gray,” barked, quite not in the literal sense, Mariana Ursula Gallardo.

The slave kept on performing his task, nimbly removing arachnids as her majesty complained about delicate subjects pertaining the chromatic wheel. About half an hour passed like that.

“… and I say, most black people should be called chocolate people. White people should be called yellow people, but I would allow cream people, just to be gentle. Using Labrador coat classification is clearly the superior system…” she kept on ranting as I killed whole tribes of ticks. I could imagine the tick’s news stations, with their vile propaganda depicting me as the enemy of the bloodsucking people.

Finally, a very sleepy Mateo, one you could have confused for some kind of walker, came out of the chamber. He had bags under his eyes, and a good night’s sleep was a concept you couldn’t possibly find in the same room as him.

“Morning. Or, should I say, evening.”

“It was a nap, okay? Just a nap.”

A female gasped inside the room.

I crossed my arms and approached him, “Sabrina or Violeta?”

“None of your business.”

“I will leave you to your santiagueñan ways if you, degenerate, elf-fucker, friend of mine, can point me in the direction of someone capable of composing chacareras, and can lend me Sabrina for brainstorming a dress for Mariana.”

“Lend you my daughter for what?!”

“Dress, for Mariana. We got inscribed in the heelwork to music contest.”

He blinked and then slapped himself.

“Walter, with all due respect: stop visiting the recreational drugs cabinet before making requests. How do you expect to win a dancing pageant without cheating?”

“Mariana and I danced conga in the desert, that raised our dancing proficiency decently.”

He blinked again, adjusted his gown and went back inside the room.

“I have no patience for this shit today, go to sleep, we will discuss it tomorrow.”