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the angel of the underground howls like a dog.
they've attested to it before, between smiling teeth and a laugh that feels too big to reach from their chest.
they've admitted how they howl, always louder than they have to be, like how a child admits the honesty of their ways when they're young enough not to know to lie between their teeth, that their canines have more purpose than one would expect.
they've said how their laugh is too much like a bark, too loud to be something else but not wailing enough to be the howl, [it can be but no one likes it when they wail.] they've said how they bare their teeth and bare their chest like they're not all but broken ribs and moth-chewed wings, someone trying to be something it's expected to be in the eyes of the ones pulling the dog's leash.
the dog trying to be the harpy-faced owl.
Frisk howls like the hunting dog when it's kicked, cracked rib and splintered bone acting like they aren't what they are, and the wail that sirens through their throat more threatening than any gun could be when their teeth have always been what they've ever needed because where are you going to run when the hunter turns their back on you?
they've always been afraid of hurting.
not being hurt, there's a difference in the way that pain sparks like forks in electrical sockets. they're used to that despite how they shouldn't be, accustomed to bitemarks in the muscle underneath the patchy tan-coated fur, speared like fish with trident or bone alike it doesn't really matter much when your hanging from the other end. they're accustomed to the fire and the heartache and the way that brand of magic sticks to your skin.
they're afraid of hurting because Frisk's always been too full-bodied in that chest of theirs and too wide-eyed to overlook how many teeth they have in that maw even with the scarred jaw and bloody pink gums, they've always been too many in too little and they're scared if they started they wouldn't stop. like something in them would kick on like a lightswitch because hasn't humankind only been known for the lack of humanity in itself?
they look at their teeth in the mirror, look at their gums and the way their tongue rolls pretty and pink and all bitten lips, bite their nails like clipping down claws would change what the animal is. it never does but who says they've been ever deterred by knowing that they can't change something?
Frisk's been aware of how they're the hound set loose in a box of rabbits since the day they dropped, keen of how they're the hunter set loose upon the hunted and they're always the hunted but that doesn't matter when neither has anywhere to run, how the rabbits can shed their white fur to take a redder coat of the fox and bite back just the same and how rabbit legs might break under the dog's paws but that doesn't mean the hare can't break the hound's jaw with one good kick when the hound finds the den and digs it up without thinking of the numbers laid within the catacombs.
it doesn't matter whos the hunted and whos the hunter [it does but it doesn't] when they're stuck with Frisk the same way Frisk is stuck with themself.
it tastes like every time they've bit their tongue as a friend slams their head so hard against the wall they see stars as blood pours from an open head wound paired with a concussion like a devil on a dinner-date with himself when they ask Frisk that. it smells like their own blood mingled with the scent of ash when they sniff the air on the other end of hell. it feels like soot under your fingernails and calloused hands against ones that are too soft and fingers too dainty to be like yours. it sounds like wailing-
the same cooing call of the owl to the field mice, the angel to the monsters they're supposed to save in one way or another, the flap of wings propelling off the same half-doubt like thick air under pretty greyed feathers that reminds people of what the rain is like when they fall, almost rotten by the time they hit the ground but the fake blood treasured just as finely as fallen stars. Frisk's not the angel but they try to be, growing feathers to replace the fur, teeth turning to a beak and clawed heels turning to talons till they can't walk without the pain of being reminded of what they're not except half mimicking what they should be just enough to fool you into thinking better.
there was one before them, or maybe seven back, they can't remember, who was more harpy than dog. smiling beak and rosy feathers and red eyes. people say they smelled like flower pollen and their feathers never rotted when they fell and they shimmered like hot steam from fresh tea.
but they're not the harpy, and the first fallen isn't them,
no matter how hard the owl tries to take on the dog's teeth.
no matter how hard the hound tries to take on the bird's wings.
half mutt, half guilty, half savior.
it's close enough, even if they aren't feathered, no halo above clipped ears, no hallow bones under matted tea-colored fur.
the angel of the underground howls like a dog.
better luck next time.