Truce with Duke

“Sometimes the fiercest resistance doesn’t come from the wounded—it comes from the ones who guard them.”

The tent flap’s soft rustle broke the tenuous quiet, a reminder that time was still moving, even as the world outside felt distant and half-formed. My attention snapped back from the blur of thoughts I’d been juggling—the mental inventory of Jamie’s condition, the creeping worry about Luke’s return, and the persistent awareness of being under the watchful gaze of a creature who had already made it clear I wasn’t welcome.

Since Luke’s departure, Duke had taken up sentry duty beside Jamie, his small frame rigid with purpose. He didn’t growl or bark; he didn’t need to. His silence was heavy enough—a quiet declaration that Jamie was his, and I was merely a tolerated presence, at best.

It was Jamie, of all people, who had insisted I try again, urging some kind of détente between the dog and me. His words, though sharp at the time, carried a weight I couldn’t shake. And so, here I was—kneeling on the canvas floor, the chill of the dust-filtered ground seeping through my clothes, trying to make peace with a Shih Tzu like he was a territorial warlord. Perhaps he was.

I pulled a small treat from the stash someone—Paul, I assumed—had left nearby, my movements slow and deliberate. The dog’s eyes followed every one of them, unblinking. I held it out, palm open, body angled away slightly to seem less threatening. A peace offering. A professional attempting diplomacy outside her field.

The absurdity of the situation was not lost on me. I’d performed an emergency extraction with no anaesthetic and no surgical tools barely an hour ago. I’d been bitten, barked at, and shouted at—and now, I was locked in a silent stand-off with a dog who saw me as the villain in the narrative he couldn’t explain.

The treat remained untouched. Duke didn’t move. Not a snarl, not a sniff—just that same unwavering stare. His eyes flicked briefly to Jamie, still asleep and healing, then back to me. As if to say: He might trust you. I don’t.

I let out a quiet breath, trying not to let the small, silly sting of rejection get to me. It shouldn’t have mattered. It was a dog. But in this world of shifting alliances and uncertain outcomes, his defiance felt oddly personal.

And yet... I couldn’t help but admire him. There was something noble in his stubbornness, something fierce and loyal in the way he guarded the man he loved. In some ways, I understood it more than I expected to. We were all protecting someone, clinging to roles that made sense in the face of everything else that didn’t.

“Alright,” I murmured, placing the treat gently on the ground between us. “We’ll call it a draw—for now.”

He didn’t move. But I imagined, perhaps foolishly, that his gaze softened by the smallest degree.

Paul’s entrance was like a ripple through still water—quick, slightly clumsy, and full of purpose. The water sloshed in the bucket he carried, threatening to spill over with each careful step. His face bore the kind of concern that made people forget their own discomfort in favour of someone else’s. I could see it etched across his brow, tightening the corners of his mouth, pushing his questions forward before I even had a chance to breathe.

"I'm fine," I said quickly, raising a hand as if to physically deflect his worry. The lie was small, but necessary—an instinctive reflex I’d honed in triage rooms and trauma bays. “It’s just a surface wound. This shirt is just a precaution until Luke gets back with some antiseptic.”

I tugged the edge of the makeshift bandage with one hand, trying to downplay the irritation beneath it, though the burn of the bite had begun to pulse steadily. A hot throb, more inconvenient than dangerous—for now.

Paul opened his mouth to press further, but before he could finish the thought, Jamie cut in with the kind of bluntness that silenced the tent like a gunshot.

“Duke doesn’t like her,” he said flatly.

The insult wasn’t surprising, but it still landed like a slap. “And neither do I.”

The venom in his voice was unmistakable—icy and deliberate, as though each word had been chosen not just to distance, but to wound. For a moment, the space between us seemed to shrink into something tense and fragile.

“Jamie!” Paul snapped, his voice low but fierce, indignation flaring behind it. His instinct to defend me—though appreciated—sent a jolt of unease through me. This wasn’t a man who needed more friction.

I caught Paul’s eye and gave him the barest shake of my head—a silent appeal for caution. Jamie was injured, disoriented, and—judging by his glazed eyes and stammering moods—perhaps not entirely in control of his own emotions. We didn’t need another confrontation, least of all one fuelled by pride.

But Paul wasn’t having it.

“If she wasn’t here, you’d be bloody dead within a few days!” he shot back, the words like flint against steel.

Jamie flinched—not from the words, perhaps, but from trying to shift his weight beneath the blankets. The effort was too much. He groaned, eyes squeezing shut.

“You’d best stay on your back for now,” I told him, my tone even but edged with firmness. Despite everything—his attitude, the bite, the tension—I couldn’t bring myself to meet his bitterness with anything other than clinical compassion. It was the only anchor I had left in this strange world.

The tent was thick with unspoken things: resentment, exhaustion, the aftertaste of pain. It settled in the corners like damp air, unwilling to lift.

Paul moved again, just a few steps forward, nudging Duke gently aside with his foot as the dog attempted to reclaim his post. “I’ve brought you some clean water,” he said, setting the small bucket down in front of me.

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and ducked out of the tent, the flap falling closed behind him. I was alone again—with the patient who hated me, and the dog who guarded him like a dragon over treasure.

The silence that followed was not peace. But it was something like clarity.

Submerging a fresh t-shirt into the bucket, my fingers met the water with an unexpected jolt of sensation. The liquid was startlingly cold—shockingly so—and for a fleeting moment, it sent a spark of exhilaration coursing up my arms. It wasn’t just the temperature. There was something else about it—something other. A purity, perhaps, or a vibrancy that made the water feel alive in a way I couldn’t quite explain.

"How interesting," I murmured, half to myself, watching the shirt darken and swirl beneath the surface. The words escaped before I had time to filter them. There was a quiet awe in me that I hadn’t anticipated—an awareness that Clivilius might hold its own subtle magic, even in something as simple as water. Perhaps it was the absence of noise, of machinery, of sterile white walls that made this feel so sacred. Or perhaps it was the sheer contrast to the blood, sweat, and pus that had filled our world mere minutes ago.

I wrung out the fabric, rivulets of water dripping back into the bucket in delicate trails, their rhythm soft, soothing. The faint sound was a balm in the tent’s strained silence.

Turning, I caught sight of Duke—his dark, expressive eyes tracking my movements with a mixture of caution and loyalty. He hovered between Jamie and me, circling slowly, his paws making the faintest sounds on the canvas beneath. The tension in his small body was unmistakable, the kind of bristling watchfulness that came from a place of fierce protection.

"Do you want to hold him?" I asked gently, nodding towards Duke. The suggestion was both practical and symbolic—an invitation to shift the energy in the tent, to channel Jamie’s attachment into something stabilising.

Jamie responded without a word, patting the bed beside him, his fingers curling in a silent command. Duke didn’t hesitate. With one fluid motion, he leapt onto the mattress, curling into the crook of Jamie’s arm as though the two of them had never been apart. The dog's small frame pressed close, tail flicking once in satisfaction, his breathing soon syncing with the rise and fall of Jamie’s chest.

For the first time since I’d entered this tent, the space felt… still. Not quiet in the absence of sound, but in the absence of resistance.

I stepped closer, my damp cloth in hand, the clean scent of water rising faintly as I knelt beside the bed once more. Jamie watched me but said nothing, his hand absently stroking Duke’s head. There was a ceasefire in the air—fragile, but real.

The cloth met skin, and I began to cleanse the wound site with deliberate care, moving slowly across the expanse of his chest. The angry red and grey tones were a stark contrast to the clarity of the water. Each gentle wipe felt like an erasure of pain, of panic, of the chaos that had preceded this moment.

There was a strange intimacy in the act—not romantic, not even tender in the traditional sense—but intimate in its vulnerability. In the trust that had, however reluctantly, been extended. In the shared silence, thick with meaning. I said nothing, and neither did Jamie. There was no need.

This wasn’t just medical. It was ritual.

A beginning.