Phoenix the Metal Werewolf and the Electric Corgi

This is Phoenix.  He is made of metal. He is full of lights and wires and dreams.

But outside, he is hard and covered in spikes.

He met people sometimes, but not very often. It was hard to be close to someone who is cold and sharp on the surface, and has such big teeth.

He liked to go outside and try to be friendly, even in strange weather conditions.

But sometimes he got into fights. People didn’t understand him.

He became frustrated. He wanted friends.

He walked around with lots of strange creatures, but often got pushed to the back, because people didn’t know what he was, or where he should be.

"You are this!" they would say, and be wrong. Or "Aren’t you this?" they would ask, and then ignore his answer.

He got lonely.

One day, when he had had enough, he walked into the woods. There were no friends here to ignore him, and nobody to tell him what he was not. He wanted to get lost.  ”If they cannot find me, they cannot ignore me,” he said.

The trees were tall and the ground was wet.  It was not a place to be made of metal.  The rain dripped into his joints and sparked on his wires.

Being alone was uncomfortable. Sometimes, when the rain fell heaviest, it hurt. He still thought of his friends, and sometimes looked over his shoulder as if to go back, but he kept walking.

It was getting dark. His metal was cold, and his hinges creaked with water and rust.

As he settled under a tree to rest, he saw a something ahead of him. It was small, and mostly black, and had a fluffy tail.

"Are you a friend?" he asked.

There was no answer, but the tail wagged.

"I do not trust friends," he said to the dark shape, which moved closer.

In the light from his eyes, Phoenix saw the creature. It was a dog. A small, mostly black, dog with floppy ears. She was cold and wet.

She sniffed him. Her tail wagged. Phoenix stroked her fur. It was long and wavy. She looked like she had been alone for a long time.

"You look too nice to have no friends," he said. "You are too small and too happy to be alone."

She did not reply, but rested her head on his leg and laid down. As she fell asleep, he wondered if she had walked into the forest because she was lonely too.  Even though he was tired and aching and his lights were going dark, he picked her up and took her back home.

"You shall be warm and I will find you a friend," he said. "You need a person to love you."

It was dark when they returned.  His pistons and rotors were seizing up, but they had made it to his old stone house, on the top of a cliff. She ran around playfully, and barked and sniffed.

"It’s not much for someone like you, but stay here a while while I find you a friend."

He pulled down an old bed, one that he no longer needed (as he was metal), and laid it on the floor for her.  She romped and she bounced and rolled in circles on it, till her fur crackled and stood on end. Phoenix smiled as he sat on his stone chair, and the lights began to fade from his eyes.

The dog sat up and sniffed and walked to his claw.

A bright blue spark shot from her nose, danced up his arm and into his chest. His lights burst on and his gears crunched free. He sat for a second and wondered what happened.

"Did you zap me?" he asked. "My lights were all gone."

The dog tilted her head, and he was sure that she smiled. He could not help but smile at her back, with all of his teeth, silver and bright.

He picked her up in his arms, and against his chest he heard a tiny metal clank. On her collar was a name.

Tohru.

"So that’s who you are!" he said with a rumble. "Tohru, you gave me my spark. Thank you, little one."

She licked a raindrop from the end of his nose.

As they fell asleep under the rain on the roof, Phoenix thought with a smile: it takes the right person, or thing, or moment, or all, to recapture that spark that you lose over time. You don’t even know it, until it’s all gone, how much light you can hold. And when it’s all back, as a gift from a friend, it’s like it was never even gone, not even at all.