"What I am doing here with my counterpart’s girlfriend? I shouldn’t be and yet I am because of that damned potion is making me think that this is the right thing to do. And why am I going to this dance with her under the guise of this ridiculous illusion?" Dale thought to himself as Mary led him down the hallway to her dorm room. "My friends and I should be trying to find a way to deal with Dr. C and find a way back to our own reality."
"Are you okay, Dale?" Mary asks him.
"Am I okay? How can I be okay when I have this leash imposed upon my friends and I by some fickle goddess out for some kicks?" He thinks to himself as he settles himself into a reassuring pose for her sake.
"I am fine, Mary." He tells her while trying to avoid eye contact.
"Are you sure? You smell upset about something."
Dale looks down at her and feels a profound sense of wrongness about his current situation despite the potion’s attempt to make him more like his counterpart and less like his true self. He knows that he should be happy to what he is now, an anthro Old English Sheepdog disguised as a Grizzly Bear/ Sheepdog hybrid. He knows that he should be happy that he was given a chance to take a path that he didn’t take back in his own reality. To actually date a girl and fall in love with her.
"So why can’t I allow myself to be happy right in this time and place? What’s holding me back?"
Time slows down for him as he ponders those two questions. And as they start to fade back into the murky depths of his subconscious mind, he reaches down deep inside himself for an answer. And he finds his answer.
"I am not happy because it wasn’t us who brought forth our true selves and made them real for us to sense in every way. It wasn’t our spell that brought the dog out in each and every one of us, it was someone else’s doing. We’re aren’t being allowed to be our true selves. We’re being led along on a leash. Being told to act this way and to speak these lines when asked to speak. Where is our free will in all this mess? Why does it feel like everything has been scripted out for us?"
"Dale?" Mary asks him with a look of concern in her eyes and in her scent.
Dale shakes his head to pull himself out of his self-imposed funk and to throw off the metaphysical leash around his neck. He then carefully herds his emotions and thoughts back into kennel of his mind so that Mary can no longer catch his scent. He looks down at her again and smiles convincingly to reassure her that he is all right. As he smiles, he realizes that the potion’s mental conditioning has worn off of him prematurely.
"Sorry about being elsewhere, Mary. I was just thinking about this costume that Stacy gave me and this dance we are going to." Dale lies to her.
Mary looks at him for a minute and for a minute, Dale wonders if she had managed to sniff out his little white lie or not. But instead of catching onto it, she smiles and happily leans into him before replying.
"Let me guess, you don’t like the costume she had given you. And you would rather prefer a quiet night for two in my dorm room. I’m right, aren’t I?" She asks while playfully running her paw against his shaggy chest. Dale pants contentedly at her touch and at that moment he realizes just what his counterpart saw in her. And he wonders if he should confide in her about who he really is. He holds onto her and while she is busy being affectionate with him, he uses one hand behind his back to pantomime the action of throwing a script away. He then finds himself feeling free for the first time since he and his friends arrived here. That he is doing something that he doesn’t feel like it has been written for him to follow. He smiles and hopes that his act of free will here totally slots off the being who brought them here for their own sense of twisted amusement.
"Does my scent make me that transparent to you?" Dale growls pleasurably at her.
She chuckles and smiles at him before nodding her head.
"Oh yes it does. And you know what Dale?"
"What?"
"I never did like her idea of a costume for you or Mitch." She teases him.
"And what would you have me as?" He teases her before nuzzling her.
"Why you, of course, as your shaggy sheepdog self. How else can I be a shepherdess without someone to herd my sheep for me?"
Dale chuckles, smiles and kisses her on the head.
"Well your idea for a costume sure sounds a whole lot better than what Stacy gave me here. And we do happen to have plenty of time to do some shepherding before the dance. If you know what I mean."
Mary chuckles and smiles again. And with one gesture of her hand she undoes the potion’s current illusionary effect and redoes it to make Dale into a shaggy fawn-colored Briard.
"Better?"
"Hey if you can make yourself into a very attractive shepherdess for the dance and for me, then what you have done is certainly much better for me." He smiles. "Now how about that shepherding before we go to that silly dance and fool our friends."
"Well that depends."
"On what?"
"Well if you do a really, really good job shepherding for me, I might decide to forego the dance and stay with you the entire night."
Dale chuckles. And with a smile, the two pick up their pace and walk up to the door to her room. She giggles as he tickles her gently down her back. She then unlocks the door to her room and herds him inside. The door closes behind them and the sound of two dogs making love can heard up and down the hallway.
Elsewhere and deep in shadow, the being who brought Dale and his friends to this world for her entertainment frowns.
"Oh great, one of my pets has slipped his leash and is being a bad dog. I wonder if I should do anything with regards to that. Or should I just let him roam free for awhile and let him have his fun with Mary? Decisions, decisions, decisions....