Coming into the animal shelter for that first day, Val planned to work as a volunteer for her own selfish reasons. One of the employees guided her inside, and she assessed the rows of dog cages with a surveying gaze.

In return, a big dog set his beady, black eyes on her. The claws at the tips of his paws clattered against the cement as he jumped to his feet, alert. That dog was the first one barking deep, menacing woofs at her. His sharp appearance, all hard lines, made his alert barks all the more imposing.

Many of the other dogs followed his lead in barking too. None woofed as fervently as this one dog, though.

"This one is Foofy!" the shelter worker called over the dogs. "He would make an excellent watchdog, for sure!"

"Foofy?" Val asked. She narrowed her eyes at the paper sign tacked to the dog’s kennel. The information showed that the Doberman Pinscher’s name was indeed Foofy.

"Yep. He is a really beautiful dog, just came in two days ago. I sure hope that he can be adopted."

Did the shelter workers have favorites among the animals here? Val tilted her head in wonder at this. "Do you hope that he can be adopted more so than the other dogs?"

"No, no, of course not," the shelter worker said hurriedly. "Only, Dobermans have a reputation for being an aggressive breed, so that makes them harder to adopt. This one is a very good dog, though, not too sharp at all! You definitely would not have to work with Foofy, though, if you are not comfortable with a big dog like him. Let me show you to some dogs that you can spend time with—"

Just because Val happened to be a thin, young woman, the shelter worker did not have to assume that she could not handle a dog like Foofy.

It would kill her a little bit inside if she had to work on Keep the Peace for a month with small dogs like she had to do with pigeons. Impatient as she was to get stronger, Val wanted to skip right to a nice-sized dog like Foofy.

Simply put, Foofy’s appearance was awe inspiring. If a person could fall in love with a dog at first sight, Val just did so with Foofy. Her heart swelled up with the desire to spend time with this dog, and this one dog alone. She certainly would end up playing favorites with the dogs here.

Before the shelter worker could lead her away, Val said, "Wait! I’m good with dogs. Can I have a moment to sit here with Foofy?"

The shelter worker shifted in place, looking toward some of the other cages with anxiety.

Some of the other dogs had begun yapping in response to Foofy’s barking. Those dogs would probably be grateful to get attention from Val, the volunteer, but Foofy seemed in a particularly desperate need for some sort of attention, given the way that he paced back and forth in his kennel without rest. From his lowered stance, he appeared to glower at her with either hate or envy, Val being on the other side of the bars.

"Sure, I guess you can have five minutes to try to socialize with him," the shelter worker said. "See if you think that you'll be comfortable with handling him. I'll check up on you soon!"

"Thanks." Val crouched down in front of Foofy, seeming to drive him a little wild.

"Good luck," the shelter worker said as he wandered back to his work.

When Val had said that she was good with dogs, that could not have been further from the truth. This moment, right here, marked her closest interaction with a real, live dog, aside from petting some other people’s pets. The whole point of coming here was to find some dogs crazed in their abandonment, woofing at a stranger in the even stranger environment of the animal shelter. As sad as Val was to see Foofy, he was exactly what she had hoped to find here. He would make perfect practice for her, the perfect boost in difficulty level to further train her powers.

Val closed her eyes and called within herself. A calming energy started from within her at her very core. The tranquility flowed through every inch of every vein within her body. Then, the essence of her calming presence emanated outwards into the very air.

As her intended target, she focused solely on Foofy. The dog continued to bark like mad. The soft undertones of his growls slowly faded from his barks. With a final groan of a woof, Foofy lay down. The dog had been silenced.

"Goody boy," Val whispered to him. "Good Foofy." She raised her hand up as though she could pet him through the metal fence.

Foofy kept eye contact with her. Supposedly, dogs made eye contact as a form of aggression. The Internet had informed Val of that fact about dogs before she had come here. On the other hand, the way that Foofy—this Doberman with a regal appearance—lay there and gazed into her eyes, no aggression could be sensed from him. Furthermore, with her power Keep the Peace effectively laid over him, Val knew for certain that not an ounce of wariness remained in him.

First, Val looked both ways to see if the shelter worker was in sight. With no sign of him, Val felt comfortable doing whatever she pleased with Foofy. So, she put her hand against the metal fence, palm flat.

Foofy crawled forward with his forearms to approach her. His nose drew nearer, twitching as he sniffed her. The cold, wet dog nose nuzzled against her skin, followed by the warmth of his tongue.

"Yes. Hi there," Val said. "See? We can get along just fine."

Foofy shifted his weight back onto his shoulders and haunches. His tongue lolled out of his mouth in what Val could only interpret to be a big, doggy smile in response.

Val grinned back at him but restrained herself from smiling with her teeth. Another thing that she had read on the Internet: dogs could interpret showing teeth as a sign of aggression. Dogs themselves barred their teeth in a form of warning, after all, so Val wanted to communicate in the doggy language as politely as she could.

The shelter worker returned with a quick and excited voice. "You really have a knack with dogs, after all! Foofy looks like your best friend now."

"I know. Dogs are man’s best friend, after all," Val chimed. "Can I take Foofy for a walk? He has calmed down now, but I bet that he could really use some exercise."

The shelter worker hesitated. "It is true that Foofy seems to have taken to you," he drawled out. "Yeah, sure. Let’s see if you can hold onto him." With jangling keys, the shelter worker unlocked the door to Foofy's kennel.

The door screeched open on its hinges. Foofy dashed forward from his kennel, charging straight for Val. He leaped up with his paws landing over top of her chest. The force from the jump of that fine, lean Doberman would knock any ordinary high school girl to the ground.

Val, however, did not fall into the camp of an ordinary young woman. She easily could have stood against Foofy’s assault.

With the lift of a knee, she could make him fall to the ground by his own fault for trying to jump on her. In front of the shelter worker, though, she could not give Foofy any rougher form of reprimand. Even if they were alone together, Val would not want to try any sort of physical contact with him. The power differential between Val and Foofy spanned so great that she suspected if she drove her knee into Foofy too hard, she might just crush his ribcage inward.

That aside, Val could not even feel any malice from Foofy to warrant any self-defense. The calming effect of her Keep the Peace still held over him, so he could not lash out at her in aggression of any sort. To maintain her guise as a fully mortal human, Val allowed Foofy to knock her backward onto her butt. From there, Foofy set on her.

"No, Foofy!" the shelter worker cried. He grabbed at his collar to hold him back, but not enough to restrain what must have been eighty pounds of Doberman.

Foofy leaned over her, snout drawing uncomfortably close to her face. His pink tongue darted out to lick her. The long, sloppy dog tongue slapped onto her cheeks again and again.

Val found herself laughing as she received the doggy kisses. One hand covered over her mouth while the other shielded her eyes. "Aw, Foofy, thank you!"

He settled down quickly and stood nicely between the legs of the shelter worker, whose hand still latched onto his collar.

Val sat up properly and picked herself to her feet. "Foofy is such a good boy. I have no idea why you were so worried about him," she said with a laugh.

A big, relieved sigh came from the shelter worker. "Foofy has been wary around new people coming into the shelter, but he seems to have taken to you remarkably well."

"I can tell." Val wiped the dog saliva from her face with the sleeve of her shirt. "And here I thought Dobermans would be exactly like his first impression." This time, she laughed more nervously at the admittance of her doggy stereotyping.

"Oh no, not at all," the shelter worker said. "Dobies can be big goofballs around people that they are familiar with!"

Val made note of that term: Dobie. What an endearing nickname that Dobie made for a Doberman Pinscher. Looking at Foofy standing tall, he looked like a full-grown dog all right, but apparently a puppy still at heart. "How old is he?" Val asked.

"Just over a year old, we think," the shelter worker said.

That too, was written on the information sheet that hung Foofy’s kennel door.

"Do you think that you will be able to handle him from here?" the shelter worker asked.

"Yes!"

With a leash hooked onto his collar, Foofy walked with Val outside of the shelter. Together, they stepped into the fresh air and the sunlight. Val and Foofy headed out on what was likely his first proper walk in a while.

Character Update:

* New information is marked in cyan.

* All entries are based on what Val knows.

Valentine (Val) Title: None Rank: Demigoddess Attributes: None Abilities Name Class Description

Keep the Peace

tactical

- calm agitated creatures

- can sense the baser emotions of others

- works on animals up to the size of dogs

- can manage multiple animals at once, according to their strength

Past Insight

cognitive

- watch a replay of the past

- four pieces of initial information are required

- can stay in the tunnel of time for up to thirty seconds

- real time passes slower in the vision

- one day cool down after a failed vision