Rushing through the streets Gabriel bumped with many people but he was too worried about his sister to pay them any attention. He couldn’t help but imagine what could’ve happened to his sister and where she’d lay.

But before his nightmares came true, he saw his sister walking into the alley right before he rushed after her to check the house at first but now that he saw her, he slowed his pace down and checked if anyone had followed her or him.

But something was strange about her, and it wasn’t necessarily that she had covered herself with a brown cloak, but rather her form of movement, carefully moving and quite slowly which was a big difference from her usual hyperactive activity.

He decided to keep following her all the way to their home before making his presence known to her but if she were paying attention to her surroundings, she would realize that someone was following her, so it also worked as a test to see if she was following his lessons or not.

Turns out she wasn’t but he also found that she was carrying something on her arms, and she seemed to really care about it. Gabriel was also curious but, unlike his sister, he could hold it in and waited for her to reach the door of the house… which was still booby trapped against forced entries.

And Gabriel had configured it so that anyone but him was considered forced. So, before his sister or the package she was carrying got damaged he rushed to her and moved her out of the way and controlled his mana through the earth to the defense mechanism and turned it off.

He managed to do this in a rush, even before he and his sister fell to the ground but when they did Gabriel heard a whimper, which caught his attention and he immediately stood up. On the ground Arabelle had now covered the thing she was carrying with her arms, and she seemed to have protected it.

She slowly opened them, and a black puppy walked out of her arms, slowly treading and looking around the place. It had been sleeping all the way to here and was now awoken in a violent manner, although it didn’t suffer much as Arabelle caught most of the impact.

- What’s that? – Gabriel asked, curious of what his sister would answer.

- Uhhh… A pet! Our pet! New pet. – She quickly scrambled for an answer, the whole situation catching her off-guard, how his brother DIDN’T want her to be.

- Oh yeah? I don’t remember giving you permission to do so… - He didn’t want anything that could bring trouble. What if the dog was sick? Or what if it was someone else’s? What if it was a trap to make them spend time outside their home, unsafe… He decided to enter with his sister and the dog inside his house, even if there were other dangers included.

- But you didn’t forbid me to become friends with animals either! You just said that no person could be trusted and that if anyone approached her, she should first tread away from that person but if it relented with its efforts, it should kick it on different fragile parts of their bodies and make an even faster run for it. But you never mentioned animals… And Piti here looked so afraid, cold and lonely… I couldn’t help myself!

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Gabriel glanced at the small dog which was in turn looking at him at the moment. Even though Gabriel didn’t want the pet he could see it being useful, if managed correctly. It could serve as an emotional support but also anchoring her to him if it lived on his house, helping him keep an eye out for her.

- Alright, it can stay. But you’ll have to fully take care of it and if it makes a mess it will turn into your responsibility. Also, I don’t want it to… Wait did you say, “and pity”? Did it give you pity to see it in such situation or did you already give it an important things like its name. And it’s a noun as well… I don’t know what I expected, to be honest, but I can’t help but feel disappointed…

- No, no, its not like that… - Arabelle hastily replied but Gabriel just looked at her as if she had to explain herself, so she did. – I… did give it a name. But it’s not “pity” as in the feeling. Instead, it’s Piti, it ends with an “i”.

- And what difference does it make on the name? It sounds the name, so why not just call it Pity. It’s not like it is going to participate in a competition where we have to put her name in… It doesn’t look like it would win anything either…

- You… You don’t know! Maybe it will be very beautiful when it grows! Or very strong! – Arabelle didn’t want to know that she had ended up with something mediocre.

- Why was it on the streets, then? No one would throw away a strong or beautiful dog and it was born from somewhere… Dogs can’t just poof into existence.

- I…. it doesn’t matter! I will take care of it! I will feed it, I will clean it, I will teach it, I will do everything necessary to keep it! – Arabelle promised with a big smile in her face forming as she realized that Gabriel would most likely let her keep the pet.

And so, she did, tending to Piti’s every need, cleaning her every week and cleaning after its residues, even if they were made out of the house. According to his brother they contaminated the ambient and his experiments regarding mana became harder and more dangerous.

But this situation only lasted for a two weeks before some flaws in her attitude started showing. Slowly but surely Arabelle was getting bored of the pet, probably not being what she expected. Although Arabelle wouldn’t admit this because it would mean that Gabriel wouldn’t let her make more choices, at least for a while.

So, every time he mentioned the pet to his sister, she immediately moved to do something with it, albeit each consecutive time with less energy than before. Gabriel realized that he needed to do something before she left the house without telling him and something happened to her as a consequence.

So, Gabriel decided to make a move to control both his sister and the quickly growing dog. It was also quite muscular, and this was what gave Gabriel the idea. His sister would train the dog in the nearby planes and young forest while he advanced on his own projects not too far away to be always ready to come in and help her if anything happened.

- Hey Arabelle. – She quickly put her attention on him as he only started conversations with her when it was “serious” business which was less than once a day. Most of the time she started conversations and even then, many times his brother didn’t answer. – I have an idea.

- Yes? What is it, then? – She queried curiously.

- You see, I realize that you’ve been getting bored with Piti. – Arabelle opened her mouth to talk back but Gabriel opened his hand to show her to let him finish first. – It may not be because you don’t like the dog and just because you’re doing the same thing over and over so… I decided that every weekend we’ll go to the nearby planes, and you can teach Piti to hunt while I work on my own things nearby. – Needless to say, Arabelle was surprised.

- !!! Yes! Thank you! – She immediately accepted and hugged Gabriel – Can we go tomorrow? Even though it’s only with one day of anticipation I’m sure you thought of this and have an answer ready.

- Hmmm… Your room is quite messy… and you know how I like order and all… I just don’t know if you’re prepared to go out if your room is such a mess… - Gabriel hinted at her and his sister got the hint. She stood up and started organizing her room so that his brother would let him explore more, just like she wanted.