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Alaala, Szeth's new pink brindle axehound, was a gift from Kaladin.
It seemed to please the Windrunner, when he learned that her name was the Shin word for ‘gift’.
Szeth felt it was only polite to allow him to carry on believing that he was grateful for the creature, something Kaladin described as a therapeutic aide. He didn't need to know that the Shin language had many words that sounded identical, while holding profoundly different meanings based on context.
He certainly didn't need to know that Alaala was one such word.
Gift, yes. Momento.
And worry. Anxiety. The source of one's fear.
Because the truth was that Alaala terrified Szeth in a way that even the screams that haunted him could not match. Szeth found her so distressing, so profoundly unnatural, that Nightblood offered to destroy her on a daily basis.
The problem was that the axehound was anything but evil. She was loyal, and followed him constantly. She was gentle, nuzzling into his hand as they walked and nudging his cheek as he slept. She was obedient, following all of the commands her trainers had taught her with such open eagerness that Szeth felt like a monster for recoiling in disgust.
No, she was not evil.
But she was also the furthest thing from a hound that Szeth could imagine.
In Shinovar, there were dogs. They came in all sizes and shapes, or so he had foolishly believed as a boy. Some had short, coarse coats. Others had long, luxurious fur that gleamed in the sun. Some had long, floppy, rounded ears, while others had short, upright, pointed ears. They all had bright, eager eyes, wet noses, lolling tongues, and tails that swayed when they were happy.
Absolutely none of these descriptions applied to the Alethi axehound.
As with all other wildlife of the region, they had a carapace rather than skin or fur. Some parts were hard and shell-like, while other parts were rubbery or like leather. It grew in segments, layered over each other like armor - if armor was an unnerving flesh tone. Veins marbled some, called brindle, and the branching streaks of pink and violet reminded Szeth of the lividity of a fresh corpse.
Their bodies were similar to a dog's, but only in the vaguest, most uncanny sense. Their heads had pointed faces, but rather than ending in a wet nose or lolling tongue, they ended in an unsettling tangle of mouthparts. A set of longer, arm like appendages called palps flanked the mouth. Like tiny, armored limbs, they moved constantly, bringing any and all stray detritus inward, filling the background with a constant, though mercifully quiet wet clicking.
And their eyes - they were so unlike the eyes of a proper dog that Szeth could only assume that whoever had named them had never actually seen a real hound. Jutting up on short, splayed stalks, their eyes looked like gleaming black spheres. Rather than rolling within the skull, the stalks swiveled. And behind them, long antenna twitched, exploring the world with touch. Szeth was horrified to learn that these antenna could also taste, which made what he thought was a gentle caress from his new pet feel far less endearing.
The legs ended in small, three pronged claws that pinched every surface they walked on slightly. This allowed young axehounds to climb walls, and to even skitter across ceilings. Blessedly, Alaala was far too large for this, but her size did come with other concerns.
Her abdomen ended in a tail that looked like a fan of four flower petals. When she was excited, it lifted high off the ground and curled over her back, something the Alethi insisted was charming. Szeth thought she looked quite like a scorpion trying to attack when in this position.
Worse, her abdomen dragged on the ground when she was relaxed. A scuffing, heavy dragging noise signaled her movements around his quarters in the morning and evening.
The sound was so unnerving that he had tried to wad up wax and put it in his ears.
This was helpful, at first. After close to a week of disrupted sleep, Szeth had finally managed to drift off into a deep, restful slumber. So deep, in fact, that he did not notice the unfamiliar weight that suddenly leapt up on his bed.
He did not notice the light caresses of curious, exploring antenna as they tasted the skin on his face. He did not feel the soft brush of her palps as they swept up every stray skinflake or fallen eyelash. Nor did he hear the rustling of mouthparts as she devoured small pieces of his body.
He did, however, notice when her attention turned to his left nostril.
He had learned to lock his door after that.
Szeth no longer slept. His old nightmares, fever dreams of blood and screaming, were a distant memory.
When Kaladin learned the nightmares had stopped, he called it progress.
No. Szeth no longer had nightmares.
He had hallucinations, in the hazy twilight between waking and rest. He felt the gentle brush of antenna. The curious exploration of chitinous palps. And the low, soft, wet clicking of a mouth that was forever searching for its next meal.