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retroellie · 2 years ago

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Breed Me

Summary: After babysitting, you have massive baby fever and would kill for Daryl to get you knocked up. Surprisingly, Daryl isn't completely opposed to that idea.

A/N: The number of pregnant smuts i do just shows my mommy and daddy issues but i crave daddy Daryl so :). Also, me posting 2 fics in the course of 2 days?!?! Unheard of....

Warnings: Breeding kink, Unprotected sex, spitting, squirting

Word count: 5.6K

"Shhhh" You whispered

You rocked Judith in your arms, bouncing her slightly up and down as she cooed softly. You had promised Rick you would watch her while he fixed up at a farm that was once again being eaten up by bugs and animals small enough to get in the fence. You didn't mind watching her, you actually enjoyed it. You were holding the baby up with one hand and the other you were making her bottle, shaking it up so it was nicely mixed and there was no dry formula to be seen. When you felt the formula was all mixed in with the hot water, you placed it in the little one's mouth and she took it like a hungry man would with food.

"Oh you're hungry aren't you? Huh?" You chuckled

You held the bottle for her as she sucked down the milk, only stopping to catch a breath every once and a while. You rocked her once more, walking over to sit down on one of the picnic tables that were sitting underneath the makeshift roof you guys had put there so the food was protected by rain. You watched her with admiration, her eyelids too heavy to keep her blue eyes open. Her little hand wrapped around your much bigger finger, almost as if to thank you for the bottle you just made for her.

You weren't the biggest baby type gal but Judith was the cutest baby you had ever held, her little features and her soft tiny wisps of hair. You got really bad baby fever when you watched her, seeing as you too could have a small child in your hands but it would be yours to call your own. It sounded like a dream to you, if only the world hadn't gone to complete shit when you were just starting to get your life in check and you found the love of your life. Life was unfair to you like that.

"Good morning Y/N!" You heard, looking up to see who the voice belonged to.

It was Carol, she walked towards you with a smile on her face. Carol was your best friend, she had been with you through thick and thin. A lot of people would question your relationship with her, saying how a young woman in her 20's shouldn't have best friends with people as old as her. There was Maggie or Beth, you guys would definitely have something in common. But no, you chose to hang out with carol. She was more of a mother figure to you, especially since you had lost your mom to the virus and she lost her daughter.

"Mornin' carol! sleep well?" You asked, shifting the baby slightly in my arms.

"It was alright, still getting used to all the people and the noise. Every little sound i heard i grabbed for my knife, it's torture." She explained

You watched as she made her way to the makeshift counter that held all the makeshift kitchen appliances. You would have to agree with her there, it was usually always just the small group y'all traveled in and now there's so many more people to worry about. At night you would hear other's snore, groans and moans, babies crying? It was a bit overwhelming for you, especially when you got so used to glenns sleep talking and Carl's soft snores. The only thing that stayed the same was daryl, his firm grip on you as you slept in his arms will always be there. No matter the place you slept or how many people were in the room, Daryl would always be touching you in some way.

"I made coffee and by the sound of it, you need it." You chuckled, drawing your attention back to the baby now sleeping in your arms. "I made it before this little one woke up." You said, each word becoming more and more like a baby voice.

"Ugh, you're a lifesaver Y/N!" Carol said, going right to the steaming coffee in the makeshift coffee maker.

The bottle had gone empty, not a single drop left to be drunk. You were genuinely surprised of how fast she drank it but the smile that crept on your face as you saw her small features at rest dropped all the thoughts you had. She looked calm, peaceful. It created a deep twinge in your heart that made you desperately want a baby, you're not sure if it was your motherly instincts or it was the purity that a baby brought into someone's life that you craved. You had seen a lot in the last couple of months, you're not even sure how long it had been to be honest but a baby's purity is what you needed in your life.

You couldn't make it through college or buy a house or even marry the person of your dreams, the world had gone to shit and there was no government left but you still had a body and a man who would get you pregnant in a heartbeat if he could. 'If he could' was the key, if it was the old world, he would make sure you got pregnant in the old world but it's just different now. not only is he so much older than you, which would've been a problem anyways, but he wouldn't want his kid to grow up in this world. It was too gruesome, too risky and he didn't want that for his kid.

"How long do you have the little angel for?" Carol asked, bringing you back to life.

You got up to place her bottle in the sink which was made from a bucket. You rocked her gently, you didn't want to wake her up from her peaceful sleep.

"Uhh, only a couple of hours. Rick needed to fix up the farm and I told him I could watch her." i replied

The wind blew softly under the roof, blowing on the child's bare face which caused her face to scrunch up and then relax back when you wrapped her blanket closer to her face. I smiled down at her, turning over so the wind wouldn't disturb her slumber.

"Well if you need help or a break, you can come find me! I don't think I'll be going out today, I might stick back and help with fence duty." She smiled, pouring some coffee into a plastic cup.

"Thank you, but we'll be okay! I plan on sitting out in the field to write a bit today, though jude would like to help me." you said, smiling down at the baby as she cuddled closer to your warmth.

You wondered about how you would be as a mother, it was only a small amount of time that you babysat Judith so how could you actually know if you'd be a good mom. Were you even ready for a kid or was it the baby fever that was starting to rest in the pit of your mind. There was always fear with the process of it all, especially now with the world being what it is. You're starting to think you should stop baby sitting so much, because recently, especially when babysitting, you have found yourself thinking about having kids.

"Morning sleepy head!" You heard Carol say cheerfully, almost annoyingly. It was evident who she was talking to, you know she liked to annoy only one man.

"Mornin'..." Daryl grumbled back.

You looked up from the baby to be met with Daryl walking over to y'all, his signature vest was the first thing you saw. Then your eyes scanned down his body, all the way down his hair covered face to his toned arms and then finally to his crotch. You bit your lip as you watched him walk to the counter, grabbing a bowl to pour some food into it. Everything he did was a huge turn on for you, it could be something simple as literally just walking.

Carol had been chatting him up, probably asking for some special requests for when he went out today. You were too enthralled by him to even register what they were talking about. You could see the hickeys on his neck from last night which had you blushing. You weren't going to lie, he was touchy, yes, but you were just as bad, maybe even worse. You couldn't keep your eyes off him let alone your hands, he was just so arousing in the best way possible.

You always felt so annoying with how needy you were when it came to him, you were always asking to be kissed or held or even fucked mercilessly until you couldn't walk the next day. Daryl loved it though and he made sure you knew it too because honestly Daryl felt embarrassed about being older than you, so you begging him to touch you only gave him confidence.

Daryl grabbed his crossbow, throwing it across his shoulder, still conversing with Carol about whatever they were talking about. You had stopped staring off into space and watched as Daryl picked up his bowl, walking off to you. He smiled at you, reaching over to you to grab your hip.

"Morning' sweetheart." He whispered, bringing you in for a kiss.

It was a quick peck, only lasting seconds but somehow it still had you melting into him. When he pulled away you bit your lip, looking up at him. He chuckled, even trying to be sweet, he still got you all worked up.

"Morning dar..." You smiled, going to peck his lips once more.

This one was longer, one of your hands cradled the baby and the other wrapped around his neck to keep his lips interlocked with yours. It felt where you needed to be, in his arms as you cradled a baby between the two of you. That housewife mentally you had never quite gone away, especially with daryl. If he wanted a housewife, you would bend over backwards just to be the perfect housewife for him. You pulled away from him, lips red from his facial hair rubbing against them. He licked his lips, chuckling as he looked down at Judith, touching one of her cheeks with only one finger and rubbing her soft skin.

"Hey there little ass kicker..." He said softly as she shifted in her sleep, cooing and letting out a sigh before going completely limp again. He chuckled slowly. "You stuck watching her today?" He asked you

"mmhmm" You nodded, comfortingly brushing her hair back so her hair wouldn't tickle her small nose. "We're gonna go to the big oak tree and write, maybe have a little picnic together while we're there."

You looked up at him, catching his eyes already at you. His hand, which was placed on the small of your back, made its way further down, resting on your ass as he bit his lip down at you. You so badly wanted to rip off his clothes and take him now, just everything about him made your stomach do turns.

"You look so sexy right now, you being so..." He whispered, stopping when he couldn't find the word he needed in this case.

"Motherly..." you whispered back, giving him doe like eyes.

He nodded, hand tightening around your ass as his breath hitched. He could already see you all filled with his baby, it made his hands shake violently and his mouth go dry. You then reached up, moving your mouth to his ear and whispering.

"If you come back to me in one piece, i just might let you fuck a baby into me..." You whispered so quietly; he thought maybe he didn't hear it at first.

He then choked on his own spit, looking down at you in horror and arousal all at the same time. The thought made all the blood in his body go straight to his cock, trying to swallow down his gasp.

"Okay, I made the list! Just look for the tiny red pills, that should be Alberts heart medicine" Carol called out.

This caused the both of you to jump, daryl hurriedly retracted his hand from your ass and shoved it in his pocket so he could fix himself. You giggled as he did, he turned to carol. She was presenting him a paper. You just continued to rock the baby, watching down at the sleeping child. Daryl went to snatch the paper from Carol, but Carol pulled it away quickly.

She looked between the two of you, seeing how flustered Daryl had gotten in the span of a minute or two and how his lips were red from the small makeout session you had just had, maybe even noticing how tight Daryl's pants had gotten all of a sudden. She squinted her eyes at daryl, a small smirk played on her lips.

"Just follow the list, this is an important Daryl! I know you have some distractions..." she smiled over at you, who was cooing down at the baby. "But I mean it, don't forget anything okay?"

Daryl scoffed, snatching the paper from her. He just shoved it into his back pocket, not really needing a loss for the very few things that were needed.

"I got it" He said sternly, walking past her and to the gate.

To say you were excited for his return was an understatement, just thinking about it created a dull ache between your legs. You just counted to do what you told Rick you would do, which is watch his kid and make sure she doesn't get into any trouble.

Easy enough.

You love Judith with your entire heart but dear god that child was a little shit. She spit up all over you, pulled chunks of your hair out, and even ruined your book you had been reading by chewing on it. So now you are finally childless, in your small cell that you shared with daryl. You were brushing your hair out, you tried your best to wash the spit up out of it but it still smelled of it.

Although you came back a mess and your back almost broke from carrying her everywhere, the cute little moment you had with her made up for it. She would grab onto your hair when you fell asleep and she would giggle when you read to her, as if she knew what you were saying. you were still tempted with the baby fever, wanting nothing more than your own little one.

You had come back smiling, taking out your hair from the braid it was in and taking off your spit up covered shirt, putting on one of Daryl's much bigger ones. The room was cold, the stone cell causing you to shiver. You really just wanted to collapse on the bed right now, sleep until the morning but you were obviously going to stay up waiting for daryl like you always did.

You honestly forgot about your little promise you made towards him, you were completely and utterly with the child… no thoughts besides her in your mind. So you just went along with your night like you always do, cuddling up in bed with Daryl’s shirt on and a good book in your hand like always. You hadn’t been sitting there for 5 minutes before Daryl came bursting into your shared cell, the metal barred door screeching against the floor.

He held his crossbow on his shoulder, his backpack sitting on his other one. He looked dirty, completely bloodied and bruised. It was evident he had been through hell and back this time but he still came back to you. You looked up at him and smiled, dropping your book so you could greet him. Daryl set down his things, bending down to not break anything but when he stood back up he was met with you.

You jumped on him, bringing him into a hug as if you hadn’t seen him in years. He hugged you back, hands wrapped around you roughly. You were trying to have an innocent moment, the babysitting duty you had creating a softness in you… but Daryl had other plans for you. Your words haunted him the entire trip, his dick so painfully hard against his jeans that he sometimes had to take a minute to just breathe. It tortured him, the words carved into his brain. His hands were rough, gripped into your hips bruisingly hard. You loosen your hug, his hands still attached to your hips.

“You smell like shit..” you joked, smiling up at him. Daryl chuckled, reaching down to peck at your lips and bringing your hips closer to him once more.

“Shit or not I still came back… and in one piece.” He started, pecking your lips here and there as he spoke. “And I’m pretty sure I was promised something if I came back in one piece.”

That’s when you remembered your teasing promise you had made, how could you forget? Maybe you had forgotten so the ache was less painful or maybe your mind was completely shut off, you have no idea but the thought coming back to you had your cunt clench. You needed him, you fucking needed him so badly. You lust for him suddenly coming back to you all at once.

“Then what are you waiting for…” you said, voice soaked with lust.

Daryl let out a grunt, a low deep grunt that he didn’t know came out until he heard it. He didn’t waste anytime, engulfing your lips with his as he massaged your hips. You tightened your arms around his neck, bringing him so close so your stomach was hitting his. You could feel every twitch that came from his dick, it hit your stomach perfectly and you couldn’t help but squeeze your thighs together.

Daryl’s kiss was rough, rough enough to bruise your lips, be bit and lapped his tongue around them. He had waited all day for this moment and he was going to savor it. He bent down, grabbing at the back of your thighs and lifting you up with ease. You wrapped your legs around him, gasping slightly as his cock was now pressed around your cunt that was only covered with a thin piece of fabric.

Daryl led you to the desk that was in your room, slamming the door shut before making his way over. He placed you on the wooden surface, your legs still wrapped around him tightly.

“Thought about this all fucking day…” he moaned, his cock twitching once more… thinking about your sweet cut being filled with his cum. “Can't wait to fill you up.”

You moaned at his words, hands lowered to unbutton his shirt so you could see all of him. He knew what you wanted, taking his hands off you so he could help you but not breaking this kiss. The kiss became sloppier as you both focused on getting his shirt off, you could feel his tongue massaging yours roughly and your teeth clashing.

When his shirt was successfully unbuttoned, you attempted to pull it off but it was getting caught on things, frustrating you. You wanted to feel his chest against you, while he fucked you roughly. Daryl pulled away from the kiss, pulling his shirt off for you when he realized how frustrated you were getting. He dropped his shirt to the floor, seeing your kiss bitten lips as you breathed heavily watching him.

It was the first time he actually looked down at you, admiring you for the first time that night. You just looked back at him, eyes scanning over his cut and bruised body. You were shaking with lust, you couldn’t control your body if felt and Daryl just chuckled at how much you craved his body on yours.

“Dirty slut…” he spit out, moving his hands down to the hem of your shirt to pull it up over your head.

He didn’t hesitate to attach his lips to your nipples, you gasped as his warm mouth wrapped around one of them, hands grasping onto the edge of the desk. He licked and sucked at them, even rolling one of them between his fingers. You could cum from just this, the heat of him and his mouth on your sensitive nipples. You tried to muffle your mouths, embarrassed by how needy you had become for Daryl that you didn’t want anyone else to hear.

Daryl noticed your shyness and only sucked on your tits harder, wanting to hear your pretty moans as he fucked you hard and deep. A particular hard pinch made you moan out loudly, back arching up into his mouth. He looked up at you, watching your head thrown back as your pussy clenched around nothing. You needed him so bad that you could beg, you wanted to feel his cock pulsating inside you all the while he fucked your baby into you.

“Please Daryl just fuck me… stop teasing…” you moaned, louder than you wanted too but you couldn’t hold back anymore.

Your cunt had dripped onto the table beneath you and had made a mess out of your favorite panties. Daryl couldn’t deny you when you begged like that, he was so worked up he just couldn’t with the begging. So he did what you wanted him to, he stopped his abuse on your tits and picked you back up in his arms, plopping you down on the bed.

He undid his belt, his hands fumbling with it and then he ripped it off. You watched his every move and he watched you, he watched as you tried to hide your wet pussy away from him simply because you were embarrassed about how wet he made you. He then bent down to capture your lips in a kiss, your already kiss bitten lips trying their best to keep up with his lips.

Daryl set his knee on your aching cunt, allowing you to buck your hips on it, you attempting to dull the ache. He let you occupy yourself with that while he grabbed your hands, pulling them tightly together above your head as he wrapped his belt around them. You were too focused on humping his knee to realize what he was doing, which was exactly his goal… he didn’t have time for you to squirm.

“You know the safe word bunny?” He asked, sitting back down on his knee while he unbuttoned his pants. You whimpered at the loss of friction from his knee, you had quite literally became a whimpering mess and a completely fuck toy for him.

You nodded at his words, it took a minute for you to comprehend his words but you made them out eventually. Your body was hot, your face red and your eyes glassy. You watched as Daryl pulled his pants down his legs, his underwear being the next to go. You struggled against your restraints, the leather of his belt rubbing against your soft skin.

“Daryl??” you breathed out, the words coming off as a whisper. He looked up at you, holding his cock in his hands and pumping it lightly. You watched as he tried to hold back his hips from bucking up into his hand.

“Yeah? Is everything okay? You need me to loosen the belt?” Daryl asked, rapidly questioning you while you squirm underneath him. You shook your head, breath heaving up and down.

“Just…. Don’t hold back please.” You stated, doe eyes boring into Daryl’s.

This made his dick twitch, it felt so unbelievably hard it was starting to hurt now. He sent a smirk down at you, leaning over you once more but this time it was to do exactly what you needed him to do. He peppered you with light kisses, making sure you felt as comfortable as he could make you.

“Oh don’t worry bun… I won’t.” He growled out, continuing his light kisses on you as he ran two fingers down your body. “Gonna fuck you so hard… cum inside you over and over and over again until your tummy is full of me.”

His fingers dragged down to your panties, hooking two fingers underneath the waistband to tear off of you. You shivered as your cunt felt the cold air of the room, your wetness dripping down your legs. His words and his actions had you on edge, knowing with only a few touches from him your come undone. It was strange how only a few touches, kisses, and words from Daryl could have you cumming in minutes.

“Gonna breed you like the slut you are…” Daryl grunted, moving your legs to rest above his shoulders. “God… the things you do to me Y/N!”

Daryl could have stopped at this position, it would definitely have you cumming in only seconds… but Daryl almost completely folded you in half. Your knees were brought down to rest by your ears and your feet by your hands that were tired with only a belt. Daryl watched your face, making sure this position was okay with you. You were too lost in lust to even acknowledge the painful position, so Daryl kept you like that but slowly spread your legs further and further until you were in full display to him.

Daryl brought his cock up to your heart, slowly thrusting his cock along the wetness of it and hitting your bundle of nerves. You gasped as he did this, slowly teasing you with his cock until you could literally not handle it anymore. You were cock starved, you were going to go crazy without it. Daryl smirked at what he was doing to you, he brought his hand down to your mouth.

“Spit” was all he said and you did exactly that.

You let your saliva drop down into his hand and he gladly took it, rubbing it on your cunt along with his cock. He needed all the lube for this position, not wanting to hurt you or make it painful for you. You bit your lip hard, blood being drawn as it slid down your throat.

Daryl lined himself up with you, pushing himself into you until he was fully inside you. You went cross eyes for a minute, moaning as he had already found your sweet spot. Daryl stood there for a minute, letting you take him in and feel every inch of him. He wanted you to know thats what you will be filled up with for the rest of your life, no other cock with fuck you anymore, only him from now until forever. You squirm underneath him causing him to press down on your legs more, bending them until they were resting against your chest.

He moved finally, starting off at an animalistic pace and not even giving you time to breathe before he started abusing your cunt. You couldn’t even help the moans that fell from your lips, they were almost screaming as his dick was quite literally inside your guts. Your hands grabbed for the metal pole of the bed, grabbing into it for support. You grabbed on it for dear life as if it was the only thing keeping you down on this earth.

“Fuck so fucking tight for me, huh, bunny?” He grunted out, hips snapping back and forth violently. “Your pussy was made for me… your pussy was made for me to fuck a baby into.”

His words only made your moans louder, strangled moans coming from deep in your chest. You wouldn’t be surprised if someone thought you were being murdered, walking into your room to only see you folded in half while Daryl abused your cunt. That only added onto the fun though, Daryl would get a power rush from that, knowing that the person that walks In now knows that he’s the only one who can fold you in half like this and you would simply let it happen because you were such a slut for him.

Your cunt clenched around Daryl, he knew that meant you would be cumming soon so he set his hands on your thighs and applied all this weight onto them, lifting himself up using them. This position allowed him to fuck you deep, feeling him deep in your cunt and causing something to just flick deep down in you.

Your back arched into him, your head being thrown back as you screamed. It was too much, his full weight being on top of you and his animalistic pace… it caused you to lose your vision and I not being focused on Daryl grunts. You could see static, light white dots dancing across your eyes as you gripped whatever you could get your hands on. You were fighting against the restraints, rubbing your skin raw.

“Da…i…. Fu… i ca…” you could literally not get a single word out, Daryl knew exactly what you were trying to say though.

“Go ahead bunny, cum on my cock…” he grunted, giving you permission to soak his cock.

The coil down in your belly couldn’t take anymore of it, your toes curled and your hearing went… it was mere seconds before it snapped and your cunt pulsed violently on Daryl’s cock. Your juices came shooting out, soaking Daryl and his cock. This didn’t stop him though, he kept his animalistic pace while fucking you through your orgasm. He was so close himself, his nails digging into the back of your thighs.

“Gonna cum… can’t handle your fucking pussy anymore…” he grunted, his voice coming off in choppy moans.

You were so high, you were somewhere not on this earth as Daryl’s thrusts sped up and became messy. His moans got a bit deeper, grunting as he made one last fast movement than cumming deep inside you. His hips trembled as he came, filling you up to the brim with his cum. He stayed there for a minute, allowing every single drop of cum to fill your insides, he then dropped onto you. His cock still filled you, your legs shook as they slowly dropped beside him.

Daryl trembled on top of you, his skin on your slowly bringing you back to earth. You both laid there, sweaty and sticky. Your hands still above your head, Daryl’s face buried in your neck and his cock nestled deep inside you. You have fucked many times before but it never was this good, it never left you both speechless like this. It felt there were no words to speak, there was nothing to say other than small curses and moans.

It was about 5 minutes you stayed like that, until Daryl pulled himself away from you and pecked you on the lips. He slowly took himself out of you, watching as his cum gushed out of you. He stuck in two fingers, trying to keep it all in but you winced… your abused cunt not able to handle it.

“Sorry…” he stated, reaching over to untie you.

You lowered your arms, shakingly placing them on your stomach. Daryl watched you, feeling as if he needed to take care of your exhausted body. He made you feel good, yes, but he wore you out and he felt bad. He just rubbed your hips softly, watching you blink slowly. You were sore, your hips feeling like they were run over by trucks but you were content. The thought of having a baby rushing your mind.

“You with me bunny?” He asked softly, his voice raspy.

Your eyes trailed to him, his hair tangled and stuck to his sweaty forehead. You smiled, nodding your head weakly. You wonder if these moments will ever stop when you're big and pregnant or when you have a baby in your arms. Will you both be so in love with each other? Will you have small moments where you just stare into each other’s eyes while coming down from your highs? Will sex even be an option?

“You think it worked? I mean did you knock me up?” You joked but genuinely wondered. You didn’t feel any different, will you even feel different when it happened? Daryl dragged his eyes to your core, cum still seeping out of your cunt.

“I mean it should, I filled you up pretty good.” He said, almost proud of himself. No, he was proud of himself. He not only fucked his girlfriend until she literally fell off the face of the earth but he also probably most likely fucked a baby into you.

“Don’t act all smug asshole…” you rolled your eyes.

He chuckled, bending down to peck your lips but you wrapped your arms around him so he had no choice but to stay on your lips. You once again wrapped your legs around Daryl, already ready for another round and Daryl was completely okay with giving you it too. His lips were soft against yours, hands caressing your thighs that were placed delicately on his hips. You should be wore out, you were wore out but Daryl being on top of you like this… watching his face as he came deep inside you… you needed more.

You rutted your hips against Daryl’s, feeling his cock get hard again. You ran your fingers through his hair, feeling the knots that laid within his brown locks. He pulled away from your lips, looking down at your kiss bitten, red and puffy face.

“Bunny…maybe we should take a break.” He said, moving a hand to move a piece of hair from your eyes. “ I don’t want to completely exhaust you.”

You knitted your brows at him, rolling your eyes as you gave him the dirtiest look. He really thought he would tire you out that much?? You could literally never turn down Daryl’s attempts to make you feel good, like ever. You could be in the softest mood ever and than Daryl shoves his cock down your throat… than suddenly your a dirty whore for him. He had that kind of effect on you, it was inevitable.

“Daryl… this is probably the only time you will ever allow yourself to cum inside me! You think I’m going to stop at one round?” You replied, acting as if he was crazy for thinking something like that. “Plus I want to make sure it works, I want to make sure I’m knocked up by the end of the night.”

“Jesus Christ woman you’ll be the death of me…”

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zooinformblog · 2 years ago

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В США составили рейтинг самых лучших кормов для собак

В американском журнале Insider опубликован обзор лучших, по мнению редакции, кормов для собак. Авторы, среди которых и ветеринарный врач, назвали по три лидера в каждой из групп. Среди представленных на рынке США сухих кормов для взрослых собак самыми лучшими были признаны Wellness Complete Health Adult Lamb and Barley Recipe (производитель Wellness), Merrick Classic Healthy Grains Real Beef and Brown Rice Recipe от Merrick и Nature's Logic Canine Chicken Meal Feast от Nature's Logic. Самые полезные и вкусные влажные рационы — Go! Solutions Skin + Coat Care Shredded Chicken Recipe, Wellness Lamb and Beef Stew with Brown Rice and Apples и Merrick Limited Ingredient Diet Real Turkey and Brown Rice Recipe. В категории свежих кормов в тройку лидеров вошли Turkey and Whole Wheat Macaroni от компании Just Food For Dogs, Turkey Recipe от The Farmer's Dog и Chicken Recipe от Ollie. Среди бюджетных сухих кормов лучшими названы Beef and Brown Rice Recipe With Veggie and Fruit Blend от Rachael Ray Nutrish Dish, Original Ultra Chicken and Barley Formula от Natural Balance и Life Protection Formula Adult Chicken & Brown Rice Recipe от компании Blue Buffalo. В категории беззерновых редакция отдала пальму первенства Purina One True Instinct Grain-Free with Real Beef, Merrick Grain-Free Real Duck and Sweet Potato Recipe и Nulo Grain-Free Adult Turkey and Sweet Potato Recipe. Лучшими сухими продуктами для пожилых домашних питомцев авторы сочли Purina Pro Plan Bright Mind Adult 7+ Chicken and Rice Formula, Merrick Healthy Grains Senior Recipe и Nutro Senior Dog 7+ Years Lamb and Brown Rice Recipe. Три лучших корма для собак мелких пород — N&D Ancestral Grain Lamb & Blueberry Recipe Adult Mini Breed от Farmina, Wellness Small Breed Complete Health Adult Turkey & Oatmeal Recipe и Nulo Frontrunner Ancient Grains Small Breed Turkey, Whitefish, and Quinoa Recipe. Полный список победителей рейтинга опубликован на сайте Insider и в журнале Американской ветеринарной ассоциации. Фото: LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS / AdobeStock Читать по теме: Лидеры зообизнеса: какие корма для собак пользуются большим спросом В США выбрали топ-10 лучших городов для владельцев животных В США завершилась «эра лабрадоров»: они больше не самая популярная порода собак Read the full article

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petareonline · 2 years ago

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What is the best type of food for a puppy?

Best Type of Food for a Puppy: A Comprehensive Guide

Bringing a new puppy into your home is a joyful and exciting experience, but with it comes the responsibility of ensuring that your furry friend receives the proper nutrition to grow into a healthy adult dog. As a pet parent, it is essential to understand the nutritional needs of your puppy and provide them with the best type of food to support their growth and development. In this article, we will guide you through the factors to consider when choosing the best type of food for your puppy.

Factors to Consider When Choosing Puppy Food

Age and Breed Puppy food is specially formulated to meet the nutritional needs of young dogs, as their dietary requirements differ from adult dogs. It is essential to choose food specifically made for puppies, depending on their breed and age. Larger breeds have specific dietary requirements as they grow differently from smaller breeds. For instance, large breed puppies need food with a balanced calcium and phosphorus ratio to prevent bone problems. On the other hand, small breed puppies require food with higher fat and calorie content to fuel their fast metabolism.

Read more – “Happy birthday Quote for dog”

Nutritional Content The nutritional content of puppy food is vital to your puppy's growth and development. Your puppy's diet should contain adequate amounts of protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals to support their energy, immune system, and overall growth. The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) sets minimum nutritional standards for puppy food, so it is crucial to read the labels to ensure that the food meets AAFCO standards. Look for food with high-quality sources of protein, such as chicken, lamb, or fish, and avoid by-products, fillers, and artificial ingredients.

Food Type Puppy food comes in various forms, including kibble, wet, and raw. Kibble is the most common type of food for puppies, and it is easy to store, serve, and monitor portions. Wet food has higher moisture content and may be more appealing to puppies who are picky eaters. Raw food is a controversial option that involves feeding puppies a diet of uncooked meat, bones, and vegetables. While raw food enthusiasts claim it is more nutritious, it poses a risk of bacterial contamination and may not provide all the necessary nutrients for puppies.

Feeding Schedule Establishing a regular feeding schedule is essential to ensure your puppy gets the right amount of food and prevents overfeeding or underfeeding. Young puppies require more frequent feeding, about three to four meals a day, while older puppies can be fed twice a day. The feeding amount and schedule depend on your puppy's age, breed, weight, and activity level.

Top Recommended Puppy Foods

Royal Canin Puppy Food Royal Canin Puppy Food is a well-known brand that offers breed-specific formulas tailored to meet the nutritional needs of different breeds of puppies. The food contains high-quality protein, vitamins, and minerals to support your puppy's growth and development.

Blue Buffalo Life Protection Puppy Food Blue Buffalo Life Protection Puppy Food is a popular choice for pet parents looking for high-quality puppy food. The food contains real chicken, brown rice, and vegetables and is free from by-products, fillers, and artificial preservatives.

Hill's Science Diet Puppy Food Hill's Science Diet Puppy Food is a veterinarian-recommended brand that offers puppy food with high-quality protein, antioxidants, and DHA to support brain development and immune system function.

Conclusion

Choosing the best type of food for your puppy is essential to ensure they grow into a healthy and happy adult dog. Consider your puppy's age, breed, nutritional requirements, food type, and feeding schedule when choosing puppy food. Always consult your veterinarian if you have any concerns or questions about your puppy's dietary needs.

Read more : What kind of exercise is best for senior dogs?

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meowk9 · 2 years ago

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The 6 Best Budget Dog Foods of 2023

As pet owners, we all want to provide our furry friends with the best nutrition possible. However, not everyone can afford to spend a fortune on dog food. The good news is that there are many affordable options available that still provide high-quality nutrition for our dogs. In this article, Meowk9 will be discussing the 6 best budget dog foods of 2023 that you can feel confident feeding to your furry friend.

What to Look for in Budget Dog Food

When looking for budget dog food, it's important to keep in mind that price doesn't always equate to quality. Here are some factors to consider when selecting a budget-friendly dog food: - Quality ingredients: Look for a dog food that has high-quality protein sources, such as chicken or beef, as the first ingredient. Avoid foods with fillers such as corn, wheat, or soy, as they provide little nutritional value. - No artificial additives: Avoid dog foods that contain artificial preservatives, colors, or flavors, as these can be harmful to your dog's health. - Nutritional balance: Look for dog foods that meet the minimum nutritional requirements set by the AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) to ensure your dog is getting all the necessary nutrients. - Digestibility: Some dogs may have trouble digesting certain ingredients, so it's important to choose a dog food that is easily digestible for your pet.

Best Overall: Purina Pro Plan SAVOR Shredded Blend Chicken & Rice Formula

Purina Pro Plan SAVOR Shredded Blend Chicken & Rice Formula is a great budget-friendly dog food that doesn't sacrifice quality for affordability. It contains real chicken as the first ingredient and is free from artificial preservatives, colors, and flavors. It also includes antioxidants to support a healthy immune system and natural sources of glucosamine to support joint health.

Best Grain-Free: Blue Buffalo Life Protection Formula

If you're looking for a grain-free option, Blue Buffalo Life Protection Formula is a great choice. It contains high-quality protein sources such as chicken and fish, as well as wholesome fruits and vegetables for added nutrition. It is also free from artificial preservatives, colors, and flavors.

Best for Small Breeds: Wellness Complete Health Small Breed

Small breed dogs have different nutritional needs than larger dogs, and Wellness Complete Health Small Breed takes this into account. This budget-friendly dog food contains smaller kibble sizes to make it easier for small dogs to eat, and it includes high-quality protein sources such as turkey and chicken. It is also free from artificial preservatives, colors, and flavors.

Best for Large Breeds: Nutro Wholesome Essentials Large Breed

Large breed dogs require a different balance of nutrients than smaller dogs, and Nutro Wholesome Essentials Large Breed takes this into account. This dog food contains high-quality protein sources such as chicken and lamb, as well as natural sources of glucosamine and chondroitin to support joint health. It is also free from artificial preservatives, colors, and flavors.

Best for Puppies: Diamond Naturals Puppy Formula

Puppies require a different balance of nutrients than adult dogs, and Diamond Naturals Puppy Formula is a budget-friendly dog food that meets the unique nutritional needs of growing puppies. It contains high-quality protein sources such as chicken and fish, as well as added vitamins and minerals to support healthy growth and development. It is also free from artificial preservatives, colors, and flavors.

Best for Seniors: Hill's Science Diet Adult 7+ Small Bites

As dogs age, their nutritional needs change, and Hill's Science Diet Adult 7+ Small Bites is a budget-friendly dog food that takes this into account. It contains high-quality protein sources such as chicken and barley, as well as added vitamins and minerals to support overall health in aging dogs. It is also free from artificial preservatives, colors, and flavors.

Conclusion

Feeding your dog a nutritious diet doesn't have to break the bank. There are many budget-friendly dog food options available that provide high-quality nutrition for your furry friend. When selecting a budget dog food, look for quality ingredients, avoid artificial additives, ensure nutritional balance, and choose a food that is easily digestible for your pet. The 6 best budget dog foods of 2023 that we have discussed in this article are excellent options to consider for your dog's diet.

FAQs

Is budget dog food safe for my dog?Yes, budget dog food can be safe for your dog as long as it meets their nutritional needs and doesn't contain harmful additives.Can I switch my dog's food to a budget option?Yes, you can switch your dog's food to a budget option as long as you do it gradually and monitor your dog's response to the new food.Can budget dog food still be high in protein?Yes, budget dog food can still be high in protein if it contains quality protein sources such as chicken or beef.Is grain-free dog food better for my dog?Grain-free dog food is not necessarily better for all dogs. Some dogs may have a sensitivity to grains, but for others, grains can provide important nutrients.How do I know if my dog's food is providing the necessary nutrients?You can check the ingredients label to ensure the food contains quality protein sources and meets the minimum nutritional requirements set by the AAFCO. You can also monitor your dog's overall health and energy levels. Read the full article

#Meowk9 Dog_Products Best_Dog_Food

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anncanta · 4 years ago

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Horses of Carfax Abbey

Fandom: Dracula (2020)

Characters: Count Dracula, Agatha Van Helsing

Relationship: Dracula/Agatha

Rating: Teen and up audiences

Warnings: None

My thanks to my reader Lanovh94 for making me think about this.

Read on AO3

Or read below

The clock in the living room chimed melodiously at noon.

Closing the glass door that protects the dial, Agatha took a step back and checked the chronometer on the chain she held in her hands.

That's right, she noted with satisfaction.

A large mahogany grandfather clock with an exquisite copper dial was delivered yesterday morning, but only now Agatha has the opportunity to set the correct time on it and check how fine-tuned the delicate internal mechanism is.

This Scottish antique clock by Joseph Taylor was chased by Agatha for probably two months. Maybe a little less. In any case, when, after a long search, she finally bought them at auction, intercepting at the last moment from the owner of a hosiery factory in the West End, the owners of all the antique shops in London (not to mention the sellers) knew her by sight.

Taking another step back, Agatha glanced at her acquisition. It was beautiful.

‘Agatha, return my pocket watch!’ a demanding voice from the hallway made her flinch and turn around sharply. Clicking on the silver cover, she hid the chronometer behind her back.

‘Why did you decide that I have them?’ she asked Dracula who appeared at the door in the most innocent tone possible.

‘By the method of exclusion,’ Dracula went up to her and, hugging Agatha with one hand around her waist, with the other pulled out the desired object from her palm. ‘The housekeeper does not understand anything about it, the coachman considers it a pointless trinket, and the maid is afraid of it.

‘I’m the only one left,’ Agatha admitted, following the watch with her eyes.

Dracula nodded silently.

‘Finally, perfect exactly?’ he asked, hiding the watch in his waistcoat pocket.

Agatha turned in the direction he was pointing.

‘I hope so,’ she drawled thoughtfully. ‘I thought yours was in a hurry,’ she added absently.

‘On the contrary, it is falling behind,’ Dracula laughed, pulling her towards him. ‘This is my peculiarity, I would say – my style.’

Agatha smiled, running her fingers over the velvet fabric of his vest.

It has been a little over a year since both of them set foot on the English coast, and they lived together for about the same time.

After Peter, Olgaren and the captain had left Demeter, which had lost half of the crew and all the passengers, Agatha sat in Dracula's cabin for a long time, until the sun began to sink into the horizon. She could not say what exactly delayed her – the desire to postpone the moment of the explosion, or simply the tiredness that had accumulated over the long days. It must be both.

In any case, she did not reach the hold.

Dracula intercepted her on the way, and before Agatha had time to recover from surprise at the fact that he survived, fear for the lives of people whom she tried to save from him at the cost of her own life, and an incomprehensible relief – all together – she found herself on deck in the midst of a hideous quarrel, screaming curses and crying.

Dracula later told her that he did not remember the last time he was so angry. ‘Suicide, seriously?�� he growled at her, as if, having conceived such a plan, she encroached on his personal self-esteem. ‘Double murder is better,’ Agatha hissed, looking at the flashes of fury in his dark eyes.

Somehow they managed not to sink the ship and get to the shore, after which Dracula, without saying a word, stopped the first cab that came across in the port, shoved Agatha into it, and sat down behind. They spent all the way to the count's London house in silence, and when they were in place, Dracula, having paid the cabman, dragged Agatha into the living room and, sitting in front of him on the sofa, said:

‘I'll be honest and won't hide anything from you. You saw who I am and you know me. I will always be like this, more or less. But I want you to stay with me. If for this I have to feed on... rats,’ without looking, he caught the animal running by (Agatha asked herself how long the house had not cleaned) and, after looking meticulously, let it go; the rat instantly disappeared in one of the dark corners, ‘then I ask you one thing: promise, that over time my menu will improve. I don't care how.’

He came close to her.

‘Promise.’

Agatha remembered that she was so amazed that for a couple of minutes she could only sit, looking at him and blinking silently. She didn't even really know what she finally answered. It probably meant agreement, otherwise, she wouldn't be here now.

A year and three months have passed since that day, and during this time Agatha managed to learn many things, some of which she never wanted to learn, the other, as it seemed to her at first, would haunt her in nightmares until the end of her life, and the third, although not become a discovery, still did not stop surprising her.

The danger posed by the sun and the cross, as it turned out almost immediately, was nothing more than a fiction – another legend about vampires, in which Dracula believed so long ago that he himself did not remember what for and why. It scattered like dust from old ceilings when they, examining the house, climbed into the attic, and the roof that had not been repaired for years collapsed on them. Agatha remembered how, lying on the floor, covered with debris, they looked up at the rays falling through the holes in the ceiling, gently caressing them, and how they whispered at the same time: ‘It should be the same with the cross.’

And so it turned out.

Much more effort was needed in order to solve the problem of vampire hunger. After sequentially going through several options and making sure that the blood of mammals close to humans in their physiology was the most suitable for Dracula, Agatha conducted a series of experiments and, discarding goats, sheep, pigs, and cows, settled on horses.

Dracula added a large stable to the west of the house and ordered ten thoroughbred riding horses from Yorkshire. And since Dracula needed food, although daily, but in small quantities, after a couple of months, in order to save noble animals from the blues and inactivity, Dracula began to put them on the races. As a result, his capital doubled in a short period of time, and after another three months, having looked through the settlement books, he called his attorney and acquired a stud farm in the suburbs of London.

Agatha looked at it all with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. At first, out of habit, it seemed to her that Dracula was having fun, striving, as he once told her, to learn to live among civilized people and study them properly, before tying a napkin and picking up a fork and knife. However, days, weeks and months passed, and nothing changed: Dracula was kind, led an active social life, went to libraries and theaters and rode horseback, in the evenings he went to the laboratory, which he equipped in the house at the request of Agatha, in order to give her a couple of ideas regarding the properties of horse blood and the similarity of its taste and the effect of influencing to him with human one and, in general, did nothing else.

Agatha tried to convince herself that the count lived for four hundred years, waiting for a convenient opportunity to enter the civilized world and that another two months meant nothing to him at all, but every day it became more and more difficult to believe it. And she had less and less desire to do it.

Agatha perfectly remembered the evening when it disappeared completely.

She was sitting in the living room and writing something in her diary – a new experiment with horse blood was in full swing, there was a lot of data and a theoretical basis, but the formulas did not agree. Deciding to take a short break, she put aside her notes and began to clean the dull nib. Agatha did not know what was the reason – whether the knife was not sharp enough, or the hand lost its dexterity from fatigue, but even before she could understand what exactly was happening, the blade proportioned the skin of her right hand and got stuck at the base of her fingers.

Agatha spent a moment looking at the scarlet streak of blood that stood out in her palm before a long shadow covered the chair in which she was sitting.

Looking up, she saw Dracula standing in front of her.

For a second, nothing happened. As if spellbound, they watched the blood dripping from her hand. Agatha wiggled her fingers to test. Finally reaching consciousness, a raw pain swirled in her hand.

Without looking, pulling up the second chair standing to the side, Dracula sank into it and, taking Agatha with one hand by the forearm, pulled out a knife. Then he took out a handkerchief and, wiping off the fresh drops that had come through, tore a flap from the sleeve of her shirt, and quickly bandaged her palm.

He did all this in silence, without looking at Agatha, and only when finished he raised his head and leaned back. His pupils were bloodshot, but he himself was absolutely imperturbable. Letting go of Agatha's hand, he went to the fireplace and threw the dirty cloth into the fire. The fabric hissed, cringing in the flames.

‘Tomorrow, samples of the second negative will come,’ said Dracula, glancing into the opened diary of Agatha, thrown on the sofa, ‘you can check the calculations,’ and, turning around, left the room.

Agatha sat for several minutes, listening to his steps, and then got up, climbed the stairs, went to the door of his bedroom and knocked. And he opened.

… ‘There will be guests in the evening,’ said Dracula, distracting Agatha from her memories. ‘Two stud breeders from Australia and a professor from Cambridge.’

Agatha raised an eyebrow questioningly.

‘He has ideas on how to improve the breed,’ Dracula shrugged. ‘He is unsociable and usually does not go anywhere. I promised him dinner in a pleasant company and access to a reprinted version of On the Origin of Species. I had to somehow lure him. We met several times in Cambridge, but apparently too briefly. I invited him to participate in the experiment, even offered a small stake, but he refused. I hope today I will be able to persuade him.’

Agatha sighed. She knew well what it meant to ‘persuade’ in Dracula's language.

Dracula handled business with the same careless ease and a certain mocking touch that were inherent in him when dealing with people in general. Not that he disliked or disdained them: watching him day after day, Agatha came to the conclusion that it was just convenient for him – as if, not being able to eat them, he nibbled them with words and a look, held some time in his teeth and let go.

‘The hunting instinct is not going anywhere,’ Dracula smiled in response to her remarks after another visit to another salon or to a party, on which behind him, like on a battlefield covered with black velvet and silk dresses, there were glades of silent condemnation and bloody spots of flaming cheeks.

What a truly warm relationship he had, was the one with the horses. Which at first puzzled Agatha. ‘You drink their blood,’ she said hesitantly when Dracula asked her what exactly she thought was strange about it. He gave her a long look, and, muttering something like ‘who would speak of it’, took her hand and led her into the stable.

There Agatha witnessed one of the most incredible things in her entire life.

She knew that Dracula can communicate with animals, can control wolves and bats if desired, and is able to establish contact with most mammals.

But it was more than contact, communication, or control. Standing in the stable doorway, Agatha watched as he opened the corral and, clasping the head of Lissa, a young mare that Dracula was one of the first to acquire, stood for a long time, pressing his cheek to the smooth skin, smiling and whispering something before embracing becomes stronger, – and after five minutes he opens his hands and, gratefully patting the horse on the withers, leaves the corral.

Agatha never thought it could be so... beautiful. Then she did not dare to ask, but later could not resist.

‘Do you hypnotize them? Fool? What are you doing?

Dracula smiled as if he was waiting for this question.

‘Horses are stronger and tougher than humans. The portion of blood that will cost you a serious illness or put an adult young man to bed is almost imperceptible for a horse. I had never tried drinking their blood before and therefore did not know how sharply and deeply they react to contact. Amazing animals.’

‘But they can't like it!’

‘They like closeness,’ Dracula said thoughtfully, ‘and they are incredibly generous.’

Yes, and also sincere and discerning. Resistant to Dracula's charm, they seem to have loved him for no reason.

During the time that they lived together, Agatha managed to find out that Dracula had two types of charm. The first is the very vampire charm that was written about in books and legends warned about. It was powerful, bright, and beating on the spot. It reminded Agatha of the scent of flowers that appeared in early spring in Holland – hyacinths. Thick, heavy, enveloping odor. Among the peasants, there were stories that if you fall asleep in a tightly closed room, in which there is a bouquet of hyacinths, you may not wake up.

Dracula used his vampire charm mostly for entertainment, or when he wanted to quickly get what he needed. He lavished it generously at balls and appointments, signing contracts with business partners, on walks and social events such as theater premieres and horse races, while sparing no one.

Once they were at the performance of the famous opera diva who came to London on tour, either from France or from Germany, – Agatha did not remember, – and after the performance, Dracula invited Agatha to go into the diva`s dressing room, – ‘to express our admiration for the singer,’ as he said... Agatha agreed, not suspecting a catch. The performance was really beautiful, the diva sang magically, and there was nothing surprising in the desire to personally pay tribute to her talent.

So they did, and everything went well until Dracula – the very kindness and the embodiment of secular courtesy – asked the diva if she would be an encore. Diva replied that, alas, she would not, as she was tired and would like to go home as soon as possible.

And then it turned on. Vampire charm. In vain the unfortunate singer babbled something about how exhausted after the performance she was, – when dark eyes flashed and a soft smile lit up the cramped dressing room, the diva's fate was decided. Hearing the words spoken in an intimate tone about how much his companion loves opera and how happy she will be to hear such a delightful performance again, the singer turned around and silently wandered onto the stage.

Agatha did not speak to Dracula after that for three days. She hated violence in any form.

But there was also another charm, the one that Agatha remembered from Demeter, the same, probably, that made her believe in a cozy living room and soft conversation at chess – more than vampire illusions and drug intoxication.

Agatha called it ‘a charm for his own’, and if she quickly learned to resist the charm of a vampire, and soon completely lost the interest, then she was powerless against this one.

Dracula looked at ‘his’ people with a gentle warm look and smiled with a cheerful, almost boyish smile. It was physically impossible to deny him anything when he was like that, which he shamelessly used during quarrels.

He did not ask, did not demand, and did not scandal. Did not push and did not try to confuse. He just smiled and said: ‘As you say, dragostea*.’

‘Better vampire charm,’ Agatha moaned and vowed to buy a bell so that she could inform him in advance and without words that he had crossed the line.

...Agatha pulled away from Dracula and, smiling, went to the sofa.

‘The poor professor deserves a second chance,’ she said, leaning back.

‘I gave him everything possible,’ Dracula answered, ‘he missed them.’

‘So maybe we should just leave him alone?’

‘No, I need him.’

Agatha waved her hand. It was useless to argue. All she could do for the Cambridge pundit was to arrange for a good dinner and a relaxed, friendly atmosphere at this very dinner. All the rest was, alas, beyond her power.

The clock struck a quarter to one. Agatha thought idly that she should go to the kitchen and discuss the menu with the housekeeper. And let her cook the steaks with blood, she decided vengefully.

***

Professor Theodore Clifferson was a great scientist and no less an idiot. A combination that Agatha did not believe existed until today. But after spending three hours at the table with the aforementioned professor, she had to admit that sometimes intelligence and learning are depressingly different things.

When the door finally closed behind the venerable merchants and the Cambridge celebrity, and it became possible to remove the kind smile from her face and give vent to the irritation that had pursued her all evening, Agatha wandered into the living room and, groaning with relief, fell on the sofa.

‘Why didn't you warn me?’ she asked Dracula, who came in after her.

‘About what?’ he sank down beside her and pulled her to him.

‘How can you know so much and be such a cretin?’ Agatha continued without listening to him.

‘A common story,’ Dracula chuckled. ‘You look from the point of view of someone who, for the sake of knowledge, was forced to fight the circumstances and mine them like gold,’ he said. ‘And your inquiring mind cannot imagine someone who, from his youth, having access to the fruits of progress, does not realize their value. And worse – to whom they are not useful.’

Agatha covered her face with her hands and shook her head.

‘I want to forget this.’

Dracula buried his fingers in her hair and sat for several minutes, fingering the thick strands.

‘Forget this or what he said at the end?’ he asked quietly.

Agatha, leaning back in his arms, straightened.

‘What did he…’

‘Agatha.’

She knew that look too well. Freeing herself from his embrace, she sat up straight, as if in a theology lesson. Come on, she never visited them. Although it might have been worth it. At least, she would have learned – if not to quote freely from the holy book, than to look calm and confident, when she had not a penny neither the first nor the second.

Damn Clifferson.

‘Dracula, you shouldn't, really…’ Agatha began.

He sighed.

‘I thought so. Should I say it myself, or, as before, do you perfectly understand where you are?’

Agatha shivered at the reminder. But he was right – the situations in which it sounded were too similar. And something had to be done about it.

She tried to smile.

‘Of course, I know. But that hasn't... Look, he's just a stupid boy. Saw something and said tactlessness.’

Well, if you could call it that. Agatha briefly thought that the dinner was already as unpleasant as it could, so that...

‘Clifferson said that you and I are lucky,’ Dracula said slowly, ‘since our age is not too different. And that means,’ he added in the deep silence, ‘we are not threatened to live the rest of our lives in separation, without another who has left this mortal world.’

Well, Agatha thought. Well, he said it. It will no longer be possible to pretend that what the unlucky professor blurted out does not exist or none of them heard him.

Turning away from Dracula, she began to look at the copper dial of the clock, which she was winding in the morning.

Time. Over the past year, she and Dracula were absorbed in settling in the new world, taking care of the house, experimenting, in the end, each other, so much that they forgot about time.

Anyway, she forgot. She hadn't thought about it at all. Looking at Dracula again, Agatha suddenly realized that she would not believe for anything, that he hadn`t.

‘I'm forty-two,’ she said quietly. ‘And if I'm lucky, I'll live long enough to bore you terribly.’

He was silent.

‘And even when I... When you live with people, time does not drag on as long as when you spend it alone,’ Agatha felt how with every step the ground beneath her becomes less reliable. ‘When it is filled with events... and meetings…’

Dracula still didn't say a word.

‘In fifty years, I will be…’ she made another attempt, in an almost inaudible voice, knowing perfectly well that it made no sense.

In fifty years, a decrepit old woman will be with him, but he will remain as young, no older than the same forty-five or fifty.

Pulling herself together, she finally looked into his eyes.

‘Sorry,’ she said in response to the silent gaze that met her, and, quickly getting up from her seat, left.

When Dracula went up after her into the bedroom, he pretended to believe her awkward attempts to pretend to be asleep, and Agatha spent the time until dawn, staring into the darkness, trying to figure out how to be and what to do next.

‘How could I forget that you are a vampire?’ having entered the next morning without knocking into the parlor and resting her palms on the table at which Dracula was sitting, she asked.

Dracula looked up from the settlement book, in which he was writing something.

‘Yes, that's my omission,’ he said, leaning back in his chair.

Agatha looked at him for a minute, then turned on her heels and left the parlor.

They did not see each other for the next two days. Early on Saturday morning, Dracula went out of town to choose a place for a new stud farm, warning her through the housekeeper that he would not return earlier than Monday evening, and Agatha, not knowing whether to enjoy the unexpected respite, or be angry with him, considered it best switch to something else, and completely immersed in experiments.

‘Why is your face black?’ were the first words that returned Dracula greeted her with. He stood at the door of the laboratory and surveyed the surroundings with curiosity. To tell the truth, a lot has changed here since he visited it three days ago: then there were many more whole flasks and jars and less broken glass on the floor.

‘When heated to the boiling point, horse blood explodes,’ Agatha said calmly and carefully placed the test tube she was holding in a tripod.

Dracula nodded and, looking out the door, took out a scoop and a broom and began sweeping soot, stone dust, and debris that covered the floor in the middle of the room.

Armed with a rag and a jug of water, Agatha joined him in cleaning the table and chairs from the burning.

‘I'm not angry about your silence,’ she said after about half an hour, distracted from polishing the gas burner. ‘I understand that the problem is not that this question has no answer.’

Dracula looked up. They both knew very well that the problem was that the answer was too obvious.

‘You know it can't be my decision,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Agatha nodded. ‘Give me time,’ she added after a short pause and began scrubbing the alembic.

***

‘Sir, I swear I would never…’

‘Remove your pockets.’

Agatha glanced into the living room.

Dracula stood by the fireplace with his back to her, in front of him was a terrified coachman, drawn to the line.

‘It's a mistake, sir. I beg you…’

‘It was a mistake to keep the silver cigarette case in the dresser. However, so was hiring you,’ Dracula's voice was cold and indifferent. ‘By returning it voluntarily, you will save time for all of us.’

‘I…’

Dracula tilted his head.

‘It's in your right pocket. Next to old tissue paper, dirty silk ribbon, and flakes of tobacco.’

The coachman hiccupped and recoiled.

‘How…’

Dracula held out his hand.

‘It rustles deafeningly,’ he said, taking the cigarette case from the coachman's shaking hand. ‘If you are attracted by the career of a pickpocket, then first learn not to stomp like an elephant when you take someone else's, and not to rattle with loot. You will come in the evening for the calculation,’ he finished, gesturing to let go of the unfortunate man.

Dropping his shoulders, the coachman nodded and went to the door.

‘Vampire hearing,’ Agatha said, letting the unlucky thief pass and entering the room. ‘Strongly interferes with maintaining faith in people.’

‘Those who had the one,’ Dracula smiled. He put the cigarette case on the mantelpiece and turned to Agatha. ‘Looking for the benefits of being a vampire?’ he asked innocently.

‘I'm conducting surveillance,’ Agatha said.

She went to the fireplace and looked at the cigarette case.

‘You knew he stole it because you heard it rub against the lining of his pocket.’

Dracula rubbed the bridge of his nose.

‘He dragged around with it for a week. He had been looking for someone to sell it for so long that I could hardly resist not offering myself as a buyer, just to get rid of this annoying sound.’

Agatha walked around one of the armchairs by the fireplace and stood in front of Dracula.

‘Have you been waiting for his nerves to break down and he confesses, or for the right occasion when you can show me once again the benefits of being a vampire?’

‘How can you,’ Dracula was sincerely offended.

Agatha grinned and sank into a chair.

‘Okay, what else?’ Decently folded her hands on her knees, she asked.

Dracula shrugged.

‘You know all this. After all, you've been watching me for a year. I'm sure you wrote it down and sorted it into categories in those notebooks of yours.’ He nodded at Agatha’s diary on the table. ‘It is unlikely that I can add something else.’

‘Okay, then let's go over the main points,’ Agatha nodded, without changing her pose.

Dracula smiled.

‘You are strong and enduring, you have an increased ability to heal wounds, you can stay awake for weeks and understand some animals.’ She paused. ‘You can control some of them. You can climb walls and send fog.’ Noticing his approving nod, Agatha continued: ‘Let's add to this the ability to keenly smell and hypersensitive hearing…’

‘...tirelessness in bed...’

‘Um, did you notice that I fall asleep in the middle?..’ Agatha got up and walked over to him.

Dracula smiled again.

‘I'm working on it,’ he said, hugging her.

Agatha was silent for a moment and turned away.

‘Is it normal? I mean, how... how right is that?’ absentmindedly running her hand over his shoulder, she said.

‘What exactly?’ Dracula asked.

Agatha frowned and rubbed her forehead thoughtfully.

‘The world works the way it works, for a reason,’ she said slowly. ‘All living beings die, replacing each other. How natural is it to be immortal?’

She lifted her head and looked at Dracula.

‘Vampires are mortal,’ he said. ‘Agatha, the time when I offered you eternal life is over,’ he added after a short pause. ‘But it’s obvious that I would rather live long before I’m ready to face death. I do not know how much this is against nature, but I still have not heard of heavenly thunder punishing parrots, sequoias, and turtles.’

‘Oh my God,’ Agatha laughed. ‘Of the above, I know only sequoias. And then according to the pictures.’

‘And the parrots?’

‘Are they centenarians?’

Dracula shook his head.

‘The oldest ones are four hundred years old. Turtles can live twice as long. Ask Clifferson about sequoias, but as far as I remember, their exact age cannot be determined.’

Agatha grimaced, demonstrating her attitude to the need to learn something from Clifferson.

‘I will not become immortal,’ she said, summing up, ‘but I will lose the ability to eat human food, sleep at night, and breathe.’

‘A matter of habit,’ Dracula shrugged.

‘But I will learn to understand bats.’

‘What scope for your work on small rodents and nocturnal insects!’

Agatha sighed.

‘Are you kidding?’

‘Yes, I am.’

She nodded.

Everything is the same as before.

‘Decide yourself.’

***

‘Please, try to be more restrained in the future,’ Agatha said with a sad smile, holding out an envelope to the boy standing in front of her. The young man nodded, drooping guiltily, cautiously, as if afraid that his touch would burn her, took the envelope from her hands, and, saying goodbye, left the room.

For a minute Agatha looked at the door that closed behind him, and then she also left the parlor and went into the living room.

She managed to persuade Dracula to give the coachman decent recommendations, and a couple of weeks after the unpleasant incident, Agatha found a good place for the guy. Dracula watched all this with restrained skepticism, but remained silent and did not interfere. Agatha suspected that he had threatened the poor coachman with some terrible punishment – the boy was in too much haste to leave their house. But in the end, even she was forced to admit that he got off easy.

In the living room, on the sofa with a book, sat Dracula. When she appeared, he moved, making a place next to him.

Approaching, Agatha climbed onto the sofa with her legs and leaned back, resting her head on his lap. Several minutes passed in silence, broken only by the measured ticking of the grandfather clock.

‘Will it be like with Harker?’ Agatha asked. ‘Will you break my neck and sit down to wait for me to wake up?’

‘God, Agatha, no, of course,’ Dracula put down the book. He looked shocked. ‘Where did you get that?’

‘The first thing that comes to mind. I mean,’ she said, looking sideways at him, ‘the most obvious and simplest.’

‘Didn't you say that you would beat the barbarism out of me?’

She looked up at him.

‘Is that when you burned a five hundred pound electric kettle? I was on edge.’

‘I noticed.’

He brushed a lock of hair from her face.

‘How could you think that I…’

Agatha shrugged.

‘It must somehow... I mean, if in order to turn a person you need…’

‘No damage. This is out of the question,’ Dracula said in an unchallengeable tone.

Agatha looked at him thoughtfully.

‘There are other ways,’ she said, scratching her nose. ‘Strangulation, various poisons. Drowning…’

Dracula bent down and, choking with laughter, buried in her shoulder.

‘Agatha,’ he moaned, ‘your imagination is really scary.’

‘I'm trying to solve the problem,’ Agatha said. ‘That's what the smart do,’ she teased.

‘The smart ones like to complicate things,’ said Dracula, straightening up and looking at her. ‘The most obvious is not always the simplest. Why, of all imaginable and inconceivable ways, did not the most humane one come to your mind?’ He rolled his eyes at her puzzled gaze. ‘Which one of us is the prince of darkness and the lord of shadows?’

‘No one encroaches on your laurels,’ Agatha grinned. ‘Wait. You want to say…’

Dracula bent down again and brushed his lips lightly over hers.

‘My love, you forgot that a vampire's kiss can be very long.’

***

The fabric was red and the earth was red. Heavy woolen floors flowed like a scarlet stream over the horse's white rump, crumpled from above, and ended in a silver fox collar. The rider's long hair was messed and matted with blood, and crimson dawn caked in his wide-open eyes.

Bending down and grabbing the horse by the neck, the rider rushed forward, as if not making out the road, through the black and red forest, in a straight line, to the ancient castle, frozen on the rock.

Bursting into the courtyard, the rider stood up sharply, pulled on the reins. Dismounting, he threw them to the frightened horseman who ran up, unfastened an oblong large sack from the saddle. He walked with a quick step through the gate, dragging his load along the ground. In the great hall, he stopped and threw the sack on the floor in front of him. He raised his head and brushed the dirty, wet strands from his forehead.

‘I said he would be here before sunrise,’ he turned to someone sitting in a dark corner.

‘Is it really him?’ asked from the darkness.

Pulling a knife from his belt, the rider bent down to the sack and cut the thick cloth, soaked and hardened in the frost.

A pale human face appeared in the narrow gap.

‘I said I’ll deliver him,’ the rider said again, put the knife back in his belt and left, not looking neither at the one he was talking to nor at the dead man lying on the floor.

...

Two thick long candles were barely enough to light the middle of the room. Hands were aching from the cold, and he felt as if Transylvanian soil was poured into his eyes. The younger heir to the old Count Dracul raised up, turned several times, on one side, on the other, and finally lay on his back, his meaningless gaze resting on the carved canopy above him.

There are no younger heirs. Neither for princes and kings from distant lands, nor for Wallachian rulers. From ancient times the eldest sons inherit the ruler who has died in peace or fallen on the battlefield. But what if both the ruler himself and his firstborn left God's world in one day? From the elder brother, if he has no male descendants, the younger takes power. The one that survived.

The heir moved his head and gritted his teeth. God knows he did not seek this power, he did not want to. In vain the courtiers grinned in disbelief, clinked their tongues, suspecting treason, the squad whispered in vain when they brought them, father and brother, on a narrow sleigh – without a drop of blood on expensive clothes and without a single paint on their faces. In vain the brother's widow sobbed loudly, rushing in the yard like a thin hungry bird, in vain screaming and howling – you did not keep him safe, you did not rescue him. In vain she threatened to curse.

He did not wish death to either his father or his brother. Never wanted to become a ruler. Perhaps that is why he was not touched by the piercing words of the courtiers, or the cries of his daughter-in-law, or the sidelong glances of the squad. Standing motionless next to the sleigh, he silently looked at the gathered soldiers and household, did not say anything, only wrapped himself in a warm cloak. And only when the wrong old steps were tapping on the stone slabs of the yard, did he turn around.

Old Count Dracul, a patriarch of eighty-seven years of age, dressed in a light marching cape over a simple linen shirt, slowly walked over to the sleigh and sat down beside it. With long fingers, white and hard as a January crust, he stroked the dead faces. Raised his head to the gray sky. Said, addressing the younger:

‘Bring me the murderer.’

The younger nodded.

He did it all, he did it, – the young Count Dracula got up and ran his hand over his face damp with sweat. It took five hours to search, three of which the heir spent on horseback, racing to the border, hurrying to catch up the defector who had surrendered the lord and his son to Turkish spies, and who was about to join the foreign troops. Almost drove father's stallion. Intercepted, managed.

The light from the candle flickered, swept as if alarmed by a sharp gust of wind. Dracula looked around and lay back on the pillows. What a strange night. It feels like there is something, moving in the corner... As if sitting in silence and looking, waiting for the moment when...

‘What's wrong, young heir, not sleeping? Do ya not satisfied with the blood of the enemy?’ a voice, deaf and raspy, rang out very close to him.

Dracula jumped up and backed away.

‘What scared you, noble master? Why don't you meet a guest?’ squeaked mockingly from the shadows. ‘Or are you afraid to look?’

Dracula turned in the direction from which the voice was heard.

A thin, tall man with an unhealthy blush on his sunken cheeks emerged from the thick darkness that began two spans from the bed.

‘Why are you silent, master?’ he asked Dracula, who stared at him in horror. ‘Why don’t you offer a glass, why don’t you invite me to the table?’

Without waiting for an answer, the man stepped forward and stopped at the very edge of the bed.

‘It can't be. I killed you,’ said Dracula.

‘That's right, you did,’ the man bared his teeth and opened the tattered, worn-out sheepskin coat he was wearing. A scarlet slit crossed the shirt underneath from throat to groin. The man lowered his head and, touching the cut, plunged a knotted finger into it. ‘It hurts,’ with a barely audible smack, removing his finger from the wound, he said thoughtfully, ‘it hurts, but you can live.’

Dracula felt sick.

‘How did you manage...’ He straightened up in bed and reached for his belt for a knife.

‘Take your time,’ the man rushed forward, grabbing Dracula's raised hand. His fingers were inhumanly strong and cold as ice. ‘We`ll have all night.’

‘What are you?’ Dracula, recoiling, whispered with his lips, already knowing the answer.

‘I am Grigor Vostritsa, Grigor-The-Traitor, Grigor, whom your gullible dad warmed on his chest, and the crazy grandpa ordered to catch and feed the mad dogs,’ the man replied, grinning. ‘Grigor, who missed the spoil, and came for it. And what a feast it will be...’

Long, sharp teeth gleamed in the candlelight.

Dracula screamed.

...

‘Dracula! Wake up! Dracula! Come on, wake up, it's just a dream!’

Agatha struggled to shake Dracula, who was rushing about in unconsciousness. Not needing to sleep in the usual sense of the word, at night he plunged into a semblance of numbness, which helped him not so much to restore physical strength as to give rest to his mind. This state was in every way similar to a human dream, with the exception that it was more difficult to end it.

Agatha moved closer to Dracula. He looked even paler than usual, shivering and whispering something in Romanian.

Sitting on the bed, Agatha took a deep breath. The sounds made by Dracula were not loud enough to wake her up. But after what happened on Demeter, already here, in London, Agatha sometimes began to sink into his dreams.

Most often they were just scraps of images and vague impressions – reminiscent of flat shadows on a gray stone wall. They were short and blurry, and after them, in the morning Agatha got up with a headache, a feeling of loneliness, and dull melancholy.

Today, for the first time, the dream was so real and clear.

‘Dracula! Wake up, Dracula!’ Agatha tried again.

Dracula groaned and reached for her without opening his eyes.

Agatha bent down and ran a hand over his sweaty chest. Gently stroked, sliding from shoulder to stomach and back, lingering to the left, where the heart was silent, softly touched his cheek. As if alarmed even more by this short caress, Dracula got up and sat up in bed.

For a while, he simply sat without moving, in the light of the moon falling from the window.

Agatha was silent, not daring to turn to him again.

Dracula winced and took a deep breath, and then suddenly opened his eyes and looked at her.

There was such pain in his eyes that it stabbed inside her.

Without a word, she stirred and, sitting down on his lap, hugged him tightly.

‘Everything is fine, everything will pass,’ she whispered, ‘everything will pass, it's just a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream, you killed him,’ she said, kissing his hot forehead and cheeks, ‘you won, he's gone.’

She was saying something else, snuggling up to him and feeling how the nightgown was getting wet from the heat, putting herself under the hands and lips that were taking possession of her – for the first time so strongly, furiously – and so unexpectedly good.

When the splash of pleasure dies down and she opens her eyes, the moon seems higher – the light floods the room, leaving no corner untouched. Agatha looks at Dracula, who is holding her with both hands, and just sits for a couple of seconds, admiring his tired, peaceful face.

The rest is seen as natural as spontaneous. Slightly pulling back, Agatha pushes aside the collar of her shirt, throwing her hair back and exposing her shoulder.

‘Come on. I'm not afraid,’ she says, moving closer to him again and screwing up.

For several long minutes, nothing happens at all.

Opening her eyes, Agatha stares blankly at Dracula. He sits motionless and looks at her, smiling openly and tenderly.

‘No, Agatha,’ he says. ‘Not today. Not this way.’

***

‘You're avoiding me?’

Agatha met Dracula at the entrance to the living room and stopped, blocking his path.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it's all because we haven't seen each other since last week.’ Agatha shrugged.

‘I have a lot to do,’ Dracula tried to walk past her into the room, but Agatha did not budge.

‘You leave home in the morning when I’m still asleep, and you come back after midnight,’ she said. ‘If you come at all. On Tuesday and Wednesday, you were not here, although the carriage did not leave the gate and all the horses remained in the stable.’

Dracula took a deep breath.

‘If I wanted to lead a secret life, I should have chosen someone not so observant,’ he said with a short smile.

‘At least,’ stepping aside, Agatha nevertheless cleared the passage.

After following Dracula into the living room and sitting next to him on the sofa, she was silent for a while.

‘I don’t believe it’s because of what happened that night,’ she said quietly at last. Lowering her eyes, she absentmindedly smoothed the folds of the dress. ‘You and I knew worse times, and I saw you in a much more unsightly light. If now...’

‘Agatha.’ She raised her eyes and met his gaze. ‘You know that's not true,’ he said.

‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘And I also know that you never lied to me or hid anything from me. Even on the Demeter.’ She waved off when she saw the protesting expression on his face. ‘You didn’t deceive me – all I needed to know about what was happening was in front of my eyes. I just didn't get it right away. Which, of course, doesn't make your behavior acceptable,’ she said immediately. And added: ‘You drank my blood and made me a favorite dessert, but you did not lie to me.’

Dracula was silent.

‘You were honest, although you fed on me, and took me to the ship against my will,’ Agatha continued. ‘That is why your behavior seems all the more strange to me... now when I said ‘yes’.’

Still silently, Dracula leaned back on the sofa. His lips were tightly compressed, and his eyebrows were furrowed, as if for a long time he had been trying to solve a problem that turned out to be too difficult, and could not bring himself to stop thinking about it.

Agatha regarded him thoughtfully.

‘Maybe…’ she began slowly, ‘maybe this is the whole point? That I agreed?’

Dracula turned his head and looked at her amazedly.

‘Count Dracula, the Wallachian ruler,’ said Agatha, ‘cannot choose the daughter of a merchant from a distant province as a life partner. Which has neither a title, nor a suitable name, nor a sufficiently well-born family.’ She looked straight at Dracula. ‘The laws of blood are harsh and unbreakable.’

‘Agatha,’ it was clear from his look that her suggestion took him by surprise, ‘Agatha, I have been living with you for over a year.’

‘It's one thing to live together, sharing leisure and bed, and even going out by the arm, and quite another,’ she smiled, ‘to enter into a relationship under the hand of the clan and under the coat of arms of the dragon. You could reject me when I become a vampire,’ Agatha said, not allowing him to object, ‘reject, as soon as I would bore you – but it was not accidentally that you called those you turned brides. Obligated to you with a new life – no matter how terrible and gloomy it might be – they have become part of your family. As I would. And even you wouldn't be able to change that. Wherever I went and wherever I lived my indefinitely long centuries, I would forever remain Dracula's companion, recognized and accepted by him.’

The silence that followed her words was long, but contrary to her expectations, it did not seem depressing. For a couple of minutes, Dracula just sat, still frowning and unconsciously rubbing the ring on his ring finger.

‘Four hundred years ago I was baptized in Orthodoxy,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘What?’ Agatha did not understand. She leaned back slightly and eyed him suspiciously.

‘I presume, you are a Catholic,’ Dracula continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘It is unlikely that we will be married under this condition, so, apparently, I will have to convert to Catholicism.’

Agatha looked at him in amazement.

‘Why not me – to Orthodoxy?’ she asked blankly.

‘Because considering what you just told me, it would be offensive to me.’

They looked at each other for several seconds until Agatha turned away, covering her face with her hands.

‘Am I making up nonsense?’ muttered, feeling him hug her.

‘You're too smart,’ Dracula smiled, kissing the top of her head. ‘I should have taken this into account when I suggested to you... I should have talked about it with you right away. Everything you said’ he pulled away and looked at her ‘is absolutely reasonable and absolutely real. Except that has nothing to do with you and me.’ He brushed the hair from her cheek and added: ‘I have not been a Wallachian ruler for a long time, Agatha. Not in the sense in which you described it. And even if I were still a sovereign medieval seigneur, I would be free to choose a wife to my liking. I would have offered you my hand and heart a year ago,’ he said when he saw Agatha trying to protest, ‘if I thought it meant anything to you.’

Agatha averted her eyes.

‘I thought... I thought after I agreed...’

‘I suddenly realized with all clarity how you would humiliate my good name,’ Dracula laughed. ‘This is perhaps the best thing that I have heard about myself in four hundred years.’

‘But still...’ Agatha did not stop.

‘You were right,’ Dracula interrupted. ‘That night I realized for the first time that it was serious. And I wondered if I really want this for you?’

‘You told me...’

‘Agatha,’ he said, burying his fingers in her hair, ‘it's a long life, Agatha. A life in which values, people, traditions, and customs change. The future and the present, as before, become the past. Only now you don't go with them. Others leave – relatives and acquaintances, faithful servants, and old friends. Not all of them you can take with you. And sometimes you just have to look after them. It hurts, Agatha.’

He fell silent again. Raising her hand, Agatha ran her fingers over his cheek. ‘You will be with me,’ she wanted to tell, but she held back. They both knew perfectly well what a world closed for two could turn into over the years.

Unexpectedly to herself, she laughed.

‘Changing faith can be easier than coming to terms with yourself,’ she said in response to his questioning look. ‘But if trees and birds can,’ Agatha added, remembering their conversation with Dracula about longevity, ‘then I can too.’

He looked at her uneasily and incredulously, and it was like their first evening in this house.

‘And you know what else?’ Agatha said. She hesitated. ‘I want to ask you: do not create any illusions by doing this. I want to know what's going on. I go for it with open eyes, and I want it to apply to everything.’

Dracula smiled and covered her fingers over his face.

‘As you wish,’ he replied.

***

November 15, 1898, Times

‘We are pleased to announce that on November 15 of this year in London, at Carfax Abbey, the wedding of Count Vlad Dracula and Miss Agatha Van Helsing took place.’

Agatha put the newspaper down on the dressing table and cast a thoughtful look at the ring on her hand. A thin strip of gold glittering in the twilight of the room seemed like a spark on the surface of the calm sea. Agatha chuckled shortly. A sea that she never intended to enter. It was not only about her past as a nun – her stay in the convent was short and rather forced than chosen at the call of her heart. Marriage as it was just never seemed attractive to her – or useful from any side.

She was distracted from the contemplation of the wedding ring and, straightening, began to remove the hairpins from her hair. Agatha hated complicated hairstyles, but for a sophisticated lady, especially in her current status, a wedding hairstyle was a must. Agatha sighed. It was already good that they managed to avoid a magnificent celebration, limiting themselves to a modest wedding in a local chapel.

The door to the room creaked softly as it opened and closed again.

Freed from bobby pins and hairpins, the hair fell to the shoulders in a heavy wave. Agatha looked in the mirror.

‘I look like a witch from old fairy tales,’ she said, turning in her chair, lifting her head and looking at Dracula standing in front of her. ‘Who appeared without an invitation to the royal palace.’

Dracula smiled.

‘Witches usually have a much more interesting past than the daughters of foresters and crown princesses.’

‘Maybe,’ Agatha agreed. ‘Did you let the servants go?’ she asked, getting up.

‘Gave them leave until next Wednesday.’

‘So long?’ Agatha, approached the bed and began to unfasten the hooks on the dress, anxiously turned around.

‘I think it will take less time,’ Dracula came over and freed a lock of red hair stuck in one of the fasteners. ‘Still, it’ll be better if you and I will be alone in the next week and we don’t have to look back at the door.’

Agatha nodded. Her fingers returned to the hooks and laces. Having straightened with them, she shrugged her shoulders, and the dress slid to her feet.

She did not see Dracula, but she knew for sure that he was watching her. Stepping over the dress, she straightened the lace shirt on her chest and, walking slowly to the bed, climbed onto it.

Slightly closing her eyes, she watches as Dracula locks the bedroom door, extinguishes the lamps one by one, leaving only the candle at the head of the bed to burn, and, going up to the bed, reaches for a silk scarf tied with an elegant knot around his neck.

Once next to her, he sits down behind and, holding Agatha to him, runs his palms over her hands. His fingers stop at the shoulders, freeze as if in thought, grasp the shock of hair that has been scattered down her back, and lift it up.

A slow, long kiss on the back of her head makes her arch and bite her lip. For a few seconds, Dracula does not move, and then he kisses her again and sinks lower, his hands slide forward, to the buttons of the shirt, lower the thin fabric from her shoulders.

Closing her eyes, Agatha completely surrenders to her feelings. From fleeting touches, the body burns and melts, filling from the inside with a silent ringing, opening and dissolving, almost disappearing, until it gathers again at one point to the left, where the neck passes into the shoulder.

...Soft darkness surrounded her from all sides. There was absolutely nothing frightening about it: Agatha stirred and tried to turn her head rather out of curiosity.

‘Don't resist,’ Dracula's voice rang through her head. And a second later – a chuckle. ‘You'll like it.’

***

The awakening was... sharp. And in a completely literal sense. Smells, sounds, colors were sharp. From the world hanging over Agatha, details seemed to appear and emerge at once.

Dust particles on the dark red velvet curtain of the bed. A scent of fresh varnish rising from a parquet floor painted three weeks ago. Spiky sheets that scratch the body with the skin of an ancient beast. Electric discharges from the back of the head and lost in the thick of long hair.

Agatha closed her eyes. The raging sea of spots of color disappeared and was replaced by a thin squeak.

‘When will the convulsions begin?’ Agatha asked into space without opening her eyes. Her own voice sounded low and hoarse, heavy in her ears.

‘So you want to try?’

Agatha opened her eyes. Dracula's pale face bent over her. A mosquito hovered carefree beside his right cheek.

‘Not that I wanted,’ Agatha said slowly, shifting her gaze from the mosquito to Dracula. ‘I just thought it was part of the process.’

‘Apparently, not always,’ Dracula held out his hand and helped her to rise and sit, leaning on the pillows. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Loud,’ Agatha muttered, wincing.

‘It's okay,’ Dracula leaned away and reached out to the side. ‘You are hungry?’ asked. Agatha lowered her eyes to the crystal glass that appeared in his hand. The dark scarlet liquid in it looked unusually tempting.

‘I don’t know,’ Agatha said barely audibly and looked at Dracula in dismay. ‘I can't,’ she blurted out and closed her eyes, once again dazed by the sound of her voice.

‘Agatha, this is not human blood,’ Dracula reminded her gently. ‘And if you're not ready, we can still wait. It's just that the sooner you satisfy your first hunger, the less strong and uncontrollable it will be later.’

Agatha nodded silently.

Swallowing shortly, she stretched out her hand to the glass – and immediately leaned back, groaning exhaustedly.

‘Agatha?’ Dracula asked worriedly.

‘So many... so many things,’ she said, shaking her head and licking her lips.

Dracula put his hand on her forehead. The rough skin of the palm felt like a touch of stiff paper, but it was cool and soothing.

‘You’ll get used to it,’ Dracula said quietly. ‘In the beginning, it is always like that.’

Agatha could not resist a skeptical smile.

‘It has advantages,’ Dracula whispered conspiratorially, bending over slightly. ‘And a lot.’

‘I remember,’ Agatha snorted. ‘The ability to hear rats scratching under the floor, to catch negligent coachmen...’ Hot lips, catching her earlobe, silenced her. ‘Give me a little time,’ she said with an effort, ‘maybe I can find more.’

He laughed.

Agatha turned and looked again at the glass on the nightstand.

‘Lissa?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Dracula shook his head.

‘Are you afraid that I will find out your secrets with her?’ Agatha teased him. She climbed higher on the pillows and made herself comfortable. The first shock receded, and the deafening world gradually became just unusually bright and clear.

‘Too much information confuses newbies,’ smiled Dracula. ‘Besides, Lissa is active and willful. Her blood may excite you unnecessarily. This is Richard, a stallion from Angola, who arrived four weeks ago. Gentle and meek like a sleeping child.’

Agatha reached for the glass. She held it in her hand for a moment, staring at the dark liquid inside. Then she raised it to her lips and took a quick sip.

Nothing happened, and the curtain of the bed did not collapse on her head. It felt as if she had taken a sip of old thick wine. The metallic flavor confused her at first, but the further she drank, the more acutely she became aware of her hunger and the satisfaction of being able to satisfy it. A piercing blue sky, humid winds, and a light rustle of hot sand were felt in the shades of taste.

Having drained the glass to the end, Agatha put it back on the nightstand and licked her lips thoughtfully. Neither the taste, nor the sight, nor the smell of blood made her lose her mind, which she most feared. Perhaps, she mused, the insanity of many newly turned vampires was not caused by the craving for blood as such, but rather a consequence of the ‘return’ and the wave of impressions and feelings that attacked them.

Suddenly the silence of the room was broken by a sharp, persistent rustle. Like someone... Agatha turned quickly towards the sound and saw a large rat crawling across the floor.

Agatha squinted at Dracula. He gazed at her in silence, without a shadow of a smile, but his nostrils fluttered in a very familiar way.

‘You will not get it,’ she said.

* Dragostea (Romanian) – love.

#dracula 2020 #bbc dracula #count dracula #agatha van helsing #dragatha #geth #drama #romance

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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How Science Fiction’s Ensemble Stories Humanize Space

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A close-knit crew of wildly different people ride around on a spaceship having adventures. If you’re a sci-fi fan, there are very good odds that this synopsis describes one of your hooks into the genre. That crew might be a dysfunctional band of space criminals and revolutionaries, or a clean cut team of scientists, diplomats and soldiers serving a galactic Space UN, but there is a core appeal to this set up across the genre.

“Ensemble crews are one of the quickest and most powerful ways to forge a found family. A foundational example for me was Blake’s 7,” says Paul Cornell, who has written stories for the Star Trek: Year Five comic series among his many speculative fiction credits. “They haven’t been recruited, they have relative degrees of distance from the cause, they’ve been flung together. The most important thing is that they’re all very different people.”

These Are the Voyages…

It’s a formula that has been repeated over and over for about as long as there has been science fiction on television—starting with the likes of Star Trek and Blake’s 7, through the boom in “planet of the week” style TV in the 90s and 00s with Farscape and Firefly, to more recent stories like Dark Matter, The Expanse, Killjoys, and the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Most recently Sky’s Intergalactic, and the Korean movie Space Sweepers have been carrying the standard, while last month saw people diving back into the world of Mass Effect with Mass Effect Legendary Edition. While Commander Sheppard is ostensibly the protagonist of the video game trilogy, few would argue that it’s anything other than the ensemble of the Normandy crew that keeps people coming back.

As science fiction author Charlie Jane Anders points out, it’s not hard to see the appeal of a family of likeable characters, kept in close quarters by the confines of their ship, and sent into stories of adventure.

“I love how fun this particular strand of space opera is, and how much warmth and humour the characters tend to have,” Anders says. “These stories have in common a kind of swashbuckling adventure spirit and a love of problem-solving and resourcefulness. And I think the ‘found family’ element is a big part of it, since these characters are always cooped up on a tiny ship together and having to rely on each other.”

Over the years the Star Wars franchise has delivered a number of mismatched spaceship crews, from various ensembles to have crewed the Millennium Falcon, to the band of rebels in Rogue One, to the crew of the Ghost in Star Wars: Rebels.

That energy was one of the inspirations for Laura Lam and Elizabeth May, the writers behind Seven Devils and its upcoming sequel, Seven Mercies. In Seven Devils, a team of very different women come together aboard a starship stolen from an oppressive, galaxy-spanning empire, clashing with each other as much as the regime they are fighting.

“So many of these stories are what we grew up with, and they were definitely influences. The scrappy people trying to make a living or rebel against a higher power, or the slick luxury communism of Star Trek,” says Lam. “What’s great and terrible about space is how you are often stuck on a ship with people, for better or worse. That isolation can breed really interesting character conflict and deep bonds. You have to have your crew’s back, otherwise space or alien plants are too large or dangerous [to survive].”

While the “Seven” duology is very much inspired by this genre of space adventure, it also brings these stories’ underlying political themes to the surface.

“What I enjoy most about space operas is taking contemporary socio-cultural and political issues and exploring them through a different lens,” says May. “I love to think of them in terms of exploration, analogous to ships navigating the vastness of a sea. And on journeys that long, with only the ocean and saltwater (space) around you, things become fraught. Yes, these are tales of survival, but they’re also tales of what it means to question the world around you. Aside from the cultural questions that [premise] raises, it opens possibilities for conflict, character bonding, and worldbuilding.”

In Yudhanjaya Wijeratne’s novel, The Salvage Crew, his ensemble don’t spend long on their ship. In the opening scene, they are plummeting through the atmosphere of an alien planet in a drop-pod piloted by an AI who is also the book’s narrator. But the book shares that sense of characters who need to stick close together in the face of a large and dangerous universe.

“What did I like about [space team stories]? Well, always the sense of wonder that the scale brought me: the feeling that Earth, and all our bickering, was just a tiny speck of dust – what Sagan called ‘the pale blue dot’ – and out there was an entire universe waiting to be explored,” Wijeratne says. “I treasured the darkness, as well: the darkness of the void, the tragedy of people in confined spaces, and a terror of the deep that only the deep sea brings me. It wasn’t the family attitude: it was more the constraints and the clever plays within terrifyingly close constraints. There’s a kind of grim, lunatic nihilism you need for those situations, and I loved seeing that.”

When asked for their favourite examples of the genre, one name kept coming up. Wijeratne, Anders, Lam, and May all recommended the Wayfarers books by Becky Chambers. The first in the series, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, concerns the crew not of an elite space naval vessel, or a renegade crew of space criminals, but of a ship that lays hyperspace tunnels for other, more glamorous ships to travel through. This job of space road-laying is one that I can only recall seeing once before, much more catastrophically, in the Vogon Constructor Fleet of Hitchhiker’s Guide the Galaxy. A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is a very different tale, however.

May tells us, “It’s a quieter space tale, a novel that feels very much like a warm hug. I love it with all my heart.”

Chambers doesn’t hold back when describing the impact this genre had on her growing up.

“I can’t remember life without these stories,” she says. “TNG first aired when I was three years old, and I watched Trek every week with my family until Voyager wrapped when I was sixteen. I can recite most of the original Star Wars trilogy word for word while I’m watching the movies, and I binged Farscape like my life depended on it when I was in college. This storytelling tradition is so much a part of my fabric that I have a hard time articulating what it is I like about it so much. It’s just a part of me, at this point. These stories are fun, full stop. They’re exciting. They can break your heart and crack you up in equal measure. They’re about small little clusters of people doing extraordinary things within an impossibly vast and beautiful universe. Everything about my work is rooted here. I can’t imagine who I’d be without these stories.”

The Unchosen Ones

Perhaps a big part of the appeal of these stories is that they are about an ensemble of people, each with their own stories and goals and perspectives. It can be refreshing where science fiction and fantasy frequently centre stories of “the Chosen One”, be it a slayer, boy wizard, or Jedi who is the person the narrative happens to. While Chosen One stories will frequently have a wide supporting cast, the emphasis for those other characters is frequently on the “supporting”.

“I very intentionally wanted to do something other than a ‘chosen one’ story with Wayfarers. I’m not sure I can speak to any broader trend in this regard, but with my own work, I really wanted to make it clear that the universe belongs to everybody in equal measure,” Chambers says. “Space opera is so often the realm of heroes and royalty, and I love those stories, but there’s a parallel there to how we think about space in the real world. Astronauts are and have always been an exceptional few. I wanted to shift the narrative and make it clear that we all have a place out there, and that even the most everyday people have stories worth telling.”

It’s an increasingly popular perspective. Perhaps it’s telling that one of the most recent Star Trek spin-offs, Lower Decks, focuses not on the super-heroic bridge crew, but the underlings and red shirts that do their dirty work, and that in turn echoes the ultra-meta John Scalzi novel, Redshirts.

Charlie Jane Anders’ recently released young adult novel, Victories Greater Than Death is a story that starts off with an almost archetypical “Chosen One” premise. The story’s protagonist, Tina, is an ordinary teenage girl, but is also the hidden clone of the hero of a terrible alien war. But as the story progresses, it evolves into something much more like an ensemble space adventure.

“I was definitely thinking about that a lot in this book in particular,” Anders says. “Tina keeps thinking of the other earth kids as a distraction from her heroic destiny or as people she needs to protect. Her friend Rachael is the one who keeps pushing for them to become a family and finally gets through to Tina.”

Seven Devils (and its upcoming sequel, Seven Mercies) is also a story that tries to focus on the exact people who would never be considered “chosen” or who have wilfully turned away from their destiny.

“I do like that most of them [the characters] are those the Tholosians wrote off as unimportant–people to be used for their bodies, and not encouraged to use their minds,” Lam says. “And Eris’s journey turning away from the life chosen for her and choosing her own, but having to wrangle with what she still did for the Empire before she did, makes her a very interesting character to write. In many ways, she was complicit, and she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to atone.”

Wijeratne also argues that an ensemble story is in many ways more true to life.

“Rarely in life do you find this Randian John Galt type, this solo hero that changes the world by themselves; more often you find a group of people with similar interests, covering for each other, propping each other up,” he says. “It’s how we humans, as a species, have evolved. Our strength is not in our individual prowess, but in the fact that three people working together can take down a mammoth, and a thousand people working together can raise a monument to eternity.”

While there are certainly themes and kinds of story that are more suited to ensemble storytelling, May points out that there is plenty of room for both kinds of story.

“Having written books that explore both, I find that Chosen One narratives are often stories of duty, obligation, and self-discovery,” she says. “Ensemble narratives often involve themes of acceptance and friendship bonds. To me, these serve different narrative functions and ask separate questions.”

A Space of Their Own

The spaceship-crews-on-adventures subgenre is one of the major pillars of science fiction as a whole, with the trope codifier, Star Trek, being likely one of the first names that comes to mind when you think of the genre. This means that the writers working within the subgenre are not only heavily influenced by what came before, they are also in conversation, and sometimes argument with it.

Paul Cornell is a huge Star Trek fan, and has written for the characters before. His upcoming novella, Rosebud, features the quite Star Trek-ish scenario of a crew of AIs, some formerly humans, some not, investigating an anomaly. It’s a story that very much intersects with the ideals of Star Trek.

“Rosebud is about a crew who are meant to believe in something, but no longer really do,” Cornell says. “They’re a bunch of digital beings with varying origins, some of whom were once human, some of whom weren’t. There’s a conflict under the surface that nobody’s talking about, and when they encounter, in a very Trek way, an anomalous object, it’s actually a catalyst for their lives changing enormously. I’m a huge fan of the Trek ethos. I like good law, good civilisation, civil structures that do actually allow everyone to live their best lives, and Rosebud is about how far we’ve got from that, and a passion for getting back to that path.”

Other stories more explicitly react against the more dated or normative conventions in the genre. Seven Devils, for instance, both calls out and subverts the very male demographics of a lot of these stories.

“For a lot of ensemble casts, you get the token woman (Guardians of the Galaxy, for example) and until recently, things were fairly heteronormative,” Lam says. “So we basically wanted to turn things around and have a gang of mostly queer women being the ones to save the universe. We also went hard on critiquing imperialism and monarchies with too much power.”

Indeed, the “space exploration” that is the cornerstone of much of the genre, is an idea deeply rooted in a colonialist, and often racist tradition.

I’ve written my own space ensemble story, an ongoing series of four “planet of the week” style novellas, Fermi’s Progress. One of my concerns with the genre is how often the hero spaceship will turn up at a “primitive” planet, then overthrow a dictator, or teach the women about this human concept called “love”, or otherwise solve the local’s century’s old, deeply rooted societal problems in half-an-hour and change in a way that felt extremely “white colonialists going out and fixing the universe”.

My solution was simple. In Fermi’s Progress, the crew’s prototype spaceship has an experimental FTL drive that unfortunately vaporises every planet they visit as they fly away. It’s a device that riffs off the “overturn a planet’s government then never mention them again” trope of planet-of-the-week stories, keeps the ship and crew moving, and leaves the reader in no doubt as to whether or not these “explorers” are beneficial to the places they visit.

Of course, not every effort to engage with these issues needs to be so dramatic.

“Since I tend to view space operas in terms of uncharted exploration, it’s crucial that the text addresses or confronts power issues in its various forms: who has it, who suffers from it, how is it wielded?” May says. “And sometimes those questions have extraordinarily messy and complicated answers in ways that do not fit neatly with ‘good team overthrows evil empire.’ One of the things I wanted to address was this idea of ‘rebels are the good guys.’ Who gets to be a good person? Who else pays the price for morality? In Seven Devils, the character of Eris ends up doing the dirty, violent work of the rebellion so the others can sleep at night–so that they can feel they’ve made moral and ethical choices. And for that same work, she’s also judged more harshly by those in the rebellion who get to have clear consciences because of her actions.”

“I had particular beef with the homogeneity,” says Wijeratne. “An entire planet where x race was of an identical sentiment? Pfft. At the same time, this naive optimism, that people can work together on a planetary scale to set up institutions and megastructures without enormous amounts of politics and clashes. I was most frustrated with this in Clarke’s work. [Rendezvous with] Rama in particular: it just didn’t compute with what I knew of people.”

As a consequence of the genre’s colonialist roots—not to mention the nature of most real spaceflight programmes—space in these stories can feel like an extremely militarised space. Even a gang of misfits, fugitives and renegades like the Farscape cast features at least a couple of trained soldiers at any one time.

“I didn’t want my characters to be just redshirts or ensigns, who get ordered around and seldom get to take much initiative,” Anders points out. “And I was interested in exploring the notion that a space force organized by non-humans might have very different ideas about hierarchy and might not have concepts like ‘chain of command’. I tried not to fall unthinkingly into the military tropes that Trek, in particular, is prone to.”

Chambers was also driven by a desire to show people who were working in space without wearing a uniform.

“I wanted to tell space stories that weren’t about war or military politics,” she explains. “These things exist in the Wayfarers universe, and I personally love watching a space battle as much as anybody, but I think it’s sad if the only stories we tell about the future are those that focus on new and inventive ways of killing each other. Human experience is so much broader than that, and we are allowed to imagine more.”

Getting the Band Together

Writing a story built around an ensemble, rather than a single main character, brings its own challenges with it. In many ways, creating a central protagonist is easy. The story has to happen to somebody. Creating an ensemble can be tricker. Each character needs to feel like they’re the protagonist of their own story, but also the cast is in many ways a tool box for the writer to bring different perspectives and methods to bear on the issue at the centre of their story. Different writers take very different approaches to how they put that toolbox together.

“I had some types I wanted to play with, and I was consciously allowing myself to go a little wild, so they get to push against the walls of my own comfort zone,” Cornell says of the AI crew in Rosebud. “I created a group of very different people, tried them against each other, and edited them toward the most interesting conflicts that suited my theme.”

Anders also went through various iterations in assembling her cast of characters for Victories Greater Than Death.

“I went through a huge process of trial and error, figuring out exactly how many Earth characters I wanted in the book and how to introduce them,” she says. “I wanted characters who had their own reason for being there and who would either challenge Tina or represent a different viewpoint somehow. I think that’s usually how you get an interesting ensemble, by trying to have different viewpoints in the mix.”

In writing Fermi’s Progress, I very much tried to cut the crew from whole cloth, thinking of them primarily as a flying argument. Thinking about the original Star Trek crew, most of the stories are driven by the ongoing debate between Spock’s pragmatism, McCoy’s emotions, and Kirk’s sense of duty, and so the Fermi’s crew was written to have a number of perspectives that would be able to argue interestingly about the different things they would encounter.

Others, however, focus strongly on the individual characters before looking at how they fit together.

“I gravitate much more toward writing multiple POVs than sticking with just one. Character dynamics are catnip to me, and I love to play with them from all angles. But building each character is a very individual sort of process,” Chambers says. “I want each of them to feel like a whole person, and I’m struggling to think of any I’ve created to complete another. I just spend some time with a character all on their own, then start making them talk to each other — first in pairs, then in larger groups. I shuffle those combinations around until everybody comes alive.”

In writing Seven Devils, May and Lam began with a core pair of characters, then built outwards.

“El [Lam] and I each started with a single character we wanted to explore,” May recalls. “For me, it was Eris, who also had the benefit of being an exploration of thorny issues of morality. Eris’ natural foil was Clo–conceived of by El–who believes in the goodness of the rebellion. From there, our cast expanded as different aspects of imperial oppression that we wanted to address: colonial expansion via the military, brainwashing, the use of artificial intelligence. Each character provides a unique perspective of how the Empire in Seven Devils functions and how it crushes autonomy and self-determination.”

“We started with Eris and Clo,” Lam agrees. “Eris is sort of like Princess Leia if she and Luke had been raised by Darth Vader but she realised the Empire was evil and faked her own death to join the rebellion. Clo has elements of Luke in that she grew up on a backwater planet where things go wrong, but it was overpopulated versus wide open desert with a few moons. She also just has a lot more fury and rage that doesn’t always go in the right direction. Then we created the other three women they meet later in the narrative, and did a combination of using archetypes as jumping off points (courtesan, mercenary, genius hacker) but taking great care crafting their backstories and motivations and how they all related to each other.”

Ensuring that every character has their own story to be the protagonist of is something you can trace right back through the genre- particularly with series like Farscape, Firefly, and the more recent Intergalactic, where the crews often feels thrown together by circumstance and the characters are very much pursuing their own goals.

Balancing all of these different perspectives and voices is the real trick, especially if you want to avoid slipping back into the set-up of a star protagonist and their backing singers.

“This was a bit of a struggle, especially in a book with a single pov,” Anders says. “In the end all I could do was give each character their own goals and ideals that aren’t just an extension of Tina’s. It really helps if people have agendas that aren’t just related to the main plot.”

“We have five point of view characters and seven in the sequel, and it was definitely a challenge,” Lam admits. “For the first book, we started with just Eris and Clo until the reader was situated, and then added in the other three. We gave each character their own arc and problem to solve, and essentially asked ourselves ‘if [X] was the protagonist, what would they journey be?’ Which is useful to ask of any character, especially the villains!”

Chambers has a surprisingly practical solution to the problem: colour-coded post-it notes.

“Some characters will naturally have more weight in the story than others, but I do try to balance it out,” Chambers says. “One of the practical tricks I find helpful is colour-coding post-it notes by POV character, then mapping out all the chapters in the book on the wall. That makes it very easy to see who the dominant voices are, and I can adjust from there as needed.”

A Ship with Character

One cast member these stories all have in common is the ship they travel in. Sometimes the ship is a literal character in itself, such as the organic ship Moya in Farscape, but even when not actually sentient, the ship will help set the tone for the entire story, whether it’s the sweeping lines and luxurious interiors of the Enterprise D, or the cosy, hand-painted communal kitchen of Serenity. When describing the Fermi in my own story, I made it a mix of real and hypothetical space technology, and pure nonsense, in a way that felt like the story’s mission statement.

Seven Devils’ stolen imperial ship, “Zelus”, likewise reflected the themes of the book.

“Our ship is called Zelus, and it begins as a symbol of Empire but gradually becomes a home,” Lam says. “They took it back for themselves, which I think mirrors a lot of what the characters are trying to do.”

The same was true of the “Indomitable”, the ship Tina would inherit in Victories Greater Than Death.

“The main thing I needed from the Indomitable was to be a slightly run down ship on its own, far from any backup,” Anders says. “I did have a lot of fun coming up with all the ways the ship’s systems work. In the second book I introduce a starship that is a little more idiosyncratic, let’s say.”

For Cornell, the spaceship at the heart of Rosebud was an extension of the characters themselves, almost literally.

“It’s a kind of magical space, in that the interior is largely digital, and reflects the personalities of the crew,” he says. “There’s an interesting gap between the ship’s interior and the real world, and to go explore the artefact, our crew have to pick physical bodies to do it in. Their choices of physical body again tell us something about who they are.”

“My background is in theater, so I am always thinking about what kind of ‘set’ I’m working with,” Chambers tells us. “Colour, lighting, props, and stage layout are very important to me. I want these to feel like real, lived-in environments, but they also communicate a lot to the reader about who the people within these spaces are. Kizzy’s workspace tells a completely different story than, say, Roveg’s shuttle, or Pepper’s house. I spend a lot of time mulling over what sorts of comforts each character likes to keep around them, what food they like to have on hand, and so on. These kinds of details are crucial for painting a full picture.”

Stellar Dynamics

When he was writing the cast of The Salvage Crew, Wijeratne fleshed out his characters by focusing on how they relate to one another.

“My cast tends to be more of ‘what’s the most interesting mix I can bring to this situation, where’s the tragedy, and where’s the comedy?’ I go through a bit of an iterative process – I come up with one stand-out attribute for the character that makes sense given the world I’m about to throw them into,” he says. “Then the question is: what’s a secondary quirk, or part of their nature, that makes them work well with the others, or is somehow critical? What’s a tertiary facet to them that really rubs the others the wrong way?

“Then I take those quirks and go back to the other characters, and ask why do they respond to these things? What about their backstory makes them sympathize with one thing and want to pummel the other into dust? By the time this back-and-forth is complete, I’ve got enough that the characters feel like they really do have shit to get done in this world, and really do have some beef with each other. They have backstory and things they react to really badly and situations they’re going to thrive in.”

In The Salvage Crew, this included Simon a geologist who crew up plugged into a PVP MMORPG and who hasn’t really adjusted to the real world, Anna, a wartime medic who has PTSD around blood, and Milo, who is a decent all-arounder, but has problems with authority, particular women in authority.

In the best-loved stories of this sub-genre, it’s not just the strong characters, but the relationships between those characters that people love. Spock and McCoy, Geordi and Data, Jayne and Book working out together in Firefly. Even in the protagonist-heavy Mass Effect, some of the best character moments don’t involve Shepard, but are the character interactions you eavesdrop or walk in on while wandering around the Normandy.

“I think we’ve all experienced being flung together with a group of workmates, and nobody asking us if we like everyone there,” Cornell says. “And how the smallest quirks of personality can come to mean everything over several centuries.”

Getting those relationships to feel organic and natural is the real trick, and it can take endless writing and rewriting to get there.

“For me, it’s usually a lot of gold-farming,” Anders says. “I will write a dozen scenes of characters hanging out or dealing with stuff, and then pick two or three of them to include in the book. I can’t write relationships unless I’ve spent a lot of time with them.”

Often it’s a question of balancing conflict and camaraderie among the group.

“It’s easy to want to go straight to banter between characters, which is a massive benefit of ensemble casts. But I also think it’s essential that they have moments of conflict,” says May. “Not just drama for drama’s sake, but in any friendship group, boundaries often have to be established and re-established. Sometimes those boundaries come from past traumas, and taking moments to explore those not only adds dimensionality, but shows how the character unit itself functions.”

For May and Lam it helped that their ensemble cast was being written by an ensemble itself.

“Having both of us work on them really helped them come to life,” Lam says. “Their voices were easier to differentiate because we’d often take the lead on a certain character. So if I wrote a Clo chapter, I didn’t always know how exactly Eris might react in her next chapter, or Elizabeth might change Eris’s dialogue in that initial Clo scene to better fit what was coming up. As co-writers, we were in conversation with each other as much as the characters, and that’s quite fun. We tend to work at different times of the day, so I’d load up the manuscript in the morning and wonder what’s happened next to our crew during the night and read to find out. We also did a lot of work on everyone’s past, so we knew what they wanted, what they feared, what lies about themselves they believed, how they might change and grow through the story as a result of meeting each other, and therefore the characters tended to develop more organically on the page.”

For Wijeratne, the thing that really brings the characters’ relationships into focus is a crisis, and it’s true. Across these stories, more often than not you want your space team to be working together against a common challenge, not obsessed with in-fighting among themselves.

“The skeleton of what you saw was the output of an algorithm. A series of Markov chains generating events, playing on the fact that humans are extraordinarily good at seeing patterns in random noise,” Wijeratne says. “But the skeleton needs skin and muscle, and that’s more or less drawn from the kind of high-stress situations that I’ve been a part of: flood relief efforts, factchecking and investigating in the face of terrorism and bombings, even minor stuff like being in Interact projects with people I really didn’t want to be working with. I find that there are make-or-break moments in how people respond to adversity: either they draw together, and realize they can get over their minor differences, or they cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.”

Found Family

Whether we’re talking about Starfleet officers, browncoats, rebel scum or galaxy guardians, these crews are rarely just colleagues or even teammates. They are family.

“I think it goes back to many space operas ultimately being survival tales: whether that’s surviving in the vastness of space or against an imperial oppressor,” May says. “These stories bring unrelated characters closer together in a way that goes beyond the bonds of blood. ‘Found family’ is a powerful bond predicated on acceptance and respect rather than duty.”

It’s a topic at the heart of Seven Devils, set in a galaxy where the regime in power has done all it can to eliminate the concept of “Family”, but Lam also believes the found family is something extremely important to marginalised groups.

“In ours, the Tholosians have done their best to erase the concept of family entirely–most people are grown in vats and assigned their jobs from birth. You might feel some sort of sibling bond with your soldier cohort, perhaps, but most people don’t have parents,” Lam says. “Rebellion is incredibly difficult, as your very mind has been coded to be obedient and obey. So those who have managed to overcome that did so with incredible difficulty, and found each other and bonded among what they had in common. You see it in our world as well of course–the marginalised tend to be drawn to each other for support they might not find elsewhere, and the bonds are just as deep or deeper than family you’re related to by blood (just look at drag families, where you have a drag mother or daughter, for example).”

“Found family is definitely a strong narrative thread,” Wijeratne agrees. “I think it stems from an incredibly persistent process in our lives – in human lives: we grow up, we outgrow the people we are born among, and we go out into the world to find our tribe, so to speak. And this is a critical part of maturity, of striking out on out own, of becoming comfortable with who we are and realizing who we’ll be happy to battle alongside and who we’d rather kick in the meat and potatoes.

“Space, of course, is such a perfect physical representation of this process. What greater ‘going out’ is there than in leaving aside the stale-but-certain comfort of the space station or planet and striking out for the depths? What better idea of finding a family than settling in with a crew? And what better embodiment of freedom than a void where only light can touch you, but even then after years?”

Of course, the “Found Family” isn’t exclusive to spaceship crews. It’s a theme that we see everywhere from superhero movies to sitcoms, reflecting some of the bigger social shifts happening in the real world. As Cornell points out, one of the very first spaceship ensembles shows, Lost in Space, was based around a far more traditional family.

“I think one of the big, central parameters of change in the modern world is the move from biological family being the most important thing to found family being the most important, the result of a series of generation gaps caused by technological, ecological and societal change happening so fast that generations now get left behind,” Cornell says. “So all our stories now have found family in them, and we can’t imagine taking old family into space. The new Lost in Space, for example, had to consciously wrestle with that. And even in the original, there’s a reason the found family of Billy and Dr. Smith is the most interesting relationship. It’s the only one where we don’t immediately know what the rules are meant to be.”

To make a huge generalisation, that sense of “not immediately knowing what the rules are meant to be” might be the key to the genre’s appeal. After all, if your space exploration is closer to the ideals of the Star Trek model than they are to Eddie Izzard’s “Flag” sketch, then it’s about entering an alien environment where you don’t know the rules. If there are aliens, your space heroes will be trying to reach out and understand them. But for the writer, whether those aliens are humanoids with funny foreheads or jellyfish that only talk in the third person, the aliens will still be, behind however many layers of disguise, human. We really struggle to imagine what it’s like to be anything else. Perhaps our spaceship crew’s efforts in communicating with and understanding those aliens is reflected in their efforts to understand each other.

Seven Devils, by Elizabeth May and Laura Lam, is out now, as is The Salvage Crew by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders, and A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Rosebud, by Paul Cornell, will be out in April 2022.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The first two parts of Chris Farnell’s serial, Fermi’s Progress, Dyson’s Fear and Descartesmageddon, are also out now, or the season pass for all four novellas is for sale at Scarlet Ferret.

The post How Science Fiction’s Ensemble Stories Humanize Space appeared first on Den of Geek.

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centralparkpawsblog · 5 years ago

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Blue Buffalo vs Fromm

https://www.centralparkpaws.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/519Mf59Ta9L.jpg Whether you’re looking to switch up your dog’s food or not, I think it’s always a good idea to know what’s available on the dog food market.

You never know when you might discover something that could be a healthier option for your dog.

For Maggie’s sake, I like to research the companies that have the most popular dog food blends.

In today’s market, that means Blue Buffalo and Fromm are major brands to be aware of.

Check out what I’ve learned about both brands and how they compare to each other.

You’ll learn which may be better for your dog and what stands out about each company.

Fromm’s Company History

Buying quality dog food is what’s most important for every dog owner, which is why Fromm was started five generations ago by the Nieman family.

Still run by the family today, Fromm cooks grains and meats together during the baking process for all their dog food blends[1].

This makes their dog food a true blend of kibble rather than a mix of ingredients that are thrown in together at the end.

Best Sellers

The blending baking process means that Fromm has more room to experiment with different grains and meats.

These kitchen experiments have resulted in many different kinds of blends that ended up being best sellers[2]. Some consumer favorites are:

Fromm Classic Adult Dog Food

Fromm Beef Frittata Veg Recipe Dog Food

Fromm Puppy Gold Dog Food

What may help make their food popular bestsellers is how they name them.

Instead of calling a flavor by the beef or chicken that it’s made of, Fromm names their kibble like it’s all on a doggy menu.

It makes the kibble and the brand much more appealing to consumers.

Curious how Fromm stacks up against other dog food brands? Check out our comparisons between Fromm and Acana or Orijen!

Blue Buffalo’s Company History

Blue Buffalo’s history tugs at my heartstrings.

When the founding family’s dog, Blue, got sick with cancer, they decided to be more proactive with his care than just taking him for treatment.

They investigated how a dog’s nutrition can help his health and came up with a kibble blend specifically to help Blue through his diagnosis[3].

Today, they sell their BLUE Life Protection Formula to dog owners around the world, so all dogs have the chance to receive optimal nutrition.

Best Sellers

While they have many different kinds of dog food, their BLUE Life Protection Formula is the top selling dog food in the country[4]. That’s why they’ve created different versions of the formula, so every dog can try it out.

Some of their best selling products include:

BLUE Life Protection Formula Adult Chicken and Brown Rice Recipe

BLUE Wilderness Nature’s Evolutionary Diet with Chicken

BLUE Life Protection Formula Small Breed Chicken and Brown Rice Recipe

I love that there’s a protection formula blend for dogs at all life stages, so your dog can grow up on the same kind of food and enjoy the different flavors.

You can find a more in-depth review of the Blue Buffalo brand here!

Recalls

As popular as these dog brands are, recalls are inevitable.

This is especially true when massive brands have so many different kinds of food being produced at the same time. Before you buy any dog food, always check to see what kind of recalls a company has had, and how many.

As far as recalls go, this one was relatively benign!

Fromm

Fromm has a relatively clean recent history.

In 2016, they issued a recall on their Gold canned foods[5]. The canned foods were found to have levels of minerals and vitamins that were so low, dogs wouldn’t actually benefit.

They adjusted the food as needed and continued producing it.

Blue Buffalo

Blue Buffalo has had quite a few more recalls in the past six years.

They issued recalls for chunks of aluminum metal[6], traces of salmonella[7], high levels of vitamin D[8], and even mold being present in food[9]. In 2017, toxic levels of lead were also found in their wet dog food[10].

What’s Important When Choosing a Dog Food?

Now that you know more about these two brands, here are some factors you should consider before choosing what your dog will eat.

Ingredients

Dogs with sensitivities will need their ingredients to be specific to their needs.

Owners should also look for ingredients that don’t contain fillers or chemicals, which bulk up cheaper food but aren’t actually good for your dog.

If only your dog could get a job to pay for its own food instead of lazing about!

Price

Consider your long term budget for dog food.

Figure out what’s best for you, given how often you’ll have to restock.

Also, be aware that cheaper dog foods are the ones that will have the lower quality ingredients.

Availability

You don’t want to get stuck having to buy your dog’s food at a high end boutique on the other end of town for a higher price.

Make sure that whichever food you pick is available in a place that’s easy to reach or can be delivered to your home.

Taste

Your dog may be the kind to go nuts on a full bowl of food, but they should still enjoy the taste of what they’re eating.

Read reviews on each brand to see how other dogs are reacting to the food to gauge if your dog will like it or not.

You can also see if the new brand has a flavor similar to what they’re currently eating.

Brand Reliability

Dog’s can’t change food easily, because their stomachs can get very upset if that happens too quickly.

They’ll probably stick with their food for a while, so make sure you can rely on whichever brand you buy from for quality food in the long term.

Comparison of Fromm vs Blue Buffalo

So how do these two brands compare to each other? Read on to find out some key factors about each of their products.

Ingredients

Winner: Tie

Both companies say they use only the best ingredients, but is that true? A closer look at the ingredients list will tell.

One of Fromm’s best sellers (Gold Adult Small Breed) lists duck as their first ingredient, which is great.

That means that’s what makes up most of the food. However, their second ingredient is “chicken meal,”[11] which is basically an all-natural filler that’s created by grinding up chicken flesh and skin[12].

Blue Buffalo has almost the exact same issue.

They have many recognizable ingredients[13] in their best selling blend, but their second ingredient is “chicken meal.”

Again, it’s different than the traditional by-product meal filler, but it’s surprising to see these quality brands not have at least a few more whole ingredients first.

Price/Value

Winner: Fromm

Some of Fromm’s fancier offerings are more expensive, though

Blue Buffalo, while being a major player in the quality dog food world, adds up to about $2 per pound.

That’s pretty standard, which means they’re actively trying to feed dogs healthy food at prices that many owners can afford.

Fromm is even more affordable. Their bags average $1.67 per pound.

This could be the better option for dog owners on a tighter budget, while still avoiding all the traditional chemicals and fillers in other mainstream brands.

Availability

Winner: Blue Buffalo

This wolf has stared at me from many different stores

Both brands are available online, so it’ll be easy to order a bag and have it shipped to your home no matter which brand you prefer.

If you’d rather pick up your dog’s food in person, it’ll be easier to find Blue Buffalo.

Fromm is more likely to be found at specialty pet stores, instead of the major chain brands where most dog owners shop.

Also, while you can find both Fromm and Blue Buffalo on Amazon, you can find only Blue Buffalo on Chewy.

Taste

Winner: Tie

There are many posts online that say dogs enjoy the taste of both Blue Buffalo and Fromm.

You’ll have to let your dog try them out too.

Stick with the same flavor they enjoy now and try to buy the smallest bag possible at first, in case your dog doesn’t enjoy the brand you get.

Brand Reliability

Winner: Fromm

Blue Buffalo has had many more recalls on their dog food than Fromm, which would make me trust Fromm more.

The longer a brand can go without a recall, the more comfortable I feel about buying their dog food.

Overall Winner

Winner: Fromm

After comparing these two brands, Fromm is the winner for me.

It’s more budget friendly and the company rarely has recalls.

That’s more important to me than going to a specialty pet store to purchase a bag in person, although depending on where you live, that could be the deciding factor for you.

Weigh the options that these brands present to figure out which one is better for your dog.

You’ll be able to make a decision that you know is researched, so your dog will be eating the best food possible.

Resources

https://frommfamily.com/about/our-history/

https://www.gofromm.com/dog-food-best-sellers

https://bluebuffalo.com/why-choose-blue/blue-story/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/meet-blue-founder-of-americas-top-natural-pet-food-brand-1519416803

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/pets/fromm-recalls-some-of-its-canned-dog-food/

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/index/2017/03/

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/02/24/FDA-issues-2-more-pet-food-recalls-listeria-salmonella-found/5171519499067/

https://news.vin.com/vinnews.aspx?articleId=51391

https://www.seviernewsmessenger.com/2016/05/31/blue-buffalo-dry-dog-food-recall/

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/does-blue-buffalo-contain-toxic-levels-lead/

https://frommfamily.com/products/dog/classic/dry/adult/

https://www.petmd.com/dog/nutrition/evr_pet_food_for_your_pets_sake

https://bluebuffalo.com/natural-dog-food/healthy-holistic-blue-life-protection-formula/dry-food/lpf-adult-chicken-and-brown-rice-recipe/

The post Blue Buffalo vs Fromm appeared first on Central Park Paws.

from https://www.centralparkpaws.net/dog-food/blue-buffalo-vs-fromm/

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mygreatchihuahuas · 3 years ago

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Wet Food For Chihuahuas

If you are planning to feed your chihuahua wet food, it is best to choose a formula that is grain free, prebiotic, and low in fat. This formula is also rich in vitamin and minerals. It has no more than 105 calories per serving, so you can easily feed it to your pet. It is a grain-free food, but it is not free of protein or fillers. Read more great facts on this company, click here.

If you're looking for a high-quality wet food for your Chihuahua, consider Royal Canin. This wet food for chihuahuas is veterinarian-recommended and has a stew texture. It is easy for small pups to chew on while their adult teeth are coming in. This food also has 7.5% protein, a great ratio for growing small breed puppies. For more useful reference regarding vitamins for chihuahuas, have a peek here.

Choosing a high-quality wet food for your Chihuahua is not difficult. It is important to look for a food that contains the right balance of protein, fat, and carbohydrates. A high-quality formula should also contain vitamins, DHA omega acids, folic acid, and essential minerals. Your Chihuahua's teeth will be healthy with a balanced diet.

If your Chihuahua has sensitive skin, you may want to consider a diet with less protein. Hill's Science Diet Adult Sensitive Stomach & Skin contains turkey and chicken broth, and is low in protein compared to other options. This diet is also free of fillers, and is highly digestible. It is best to choose this option for your Chihuahua if your dog has sensitive skin.

Besides canned and dry food for Chihuahuas, you can also prepare your dog's meals. While this may be more work for you, it's worth it in the long run. You can prepare meals in advance and store them in the freezer or refrigerator. Alternatively, you can buy pre-prepared meals at a pet store. The key is to choose quality and natural ingredients.

A good diet for a Chihuahua contains protein, complex carbohydrates, and fiber. Avoid foods that contain processed carbohydrates, as these cause sharp ups and downs in energy levels and may have detrimental effects on your dog's physical health. Instead, look for meals that contain whole grains or fruits as the carbohydrates. The best diet for your Chihuahua should include at least 40 percent of vegetables and fruits. Besides, it should contain fiber, which aids in the passage of food through the digestive tract. If you do not do this, your dog could experience bloating. Please view this site https://www.wikihow.com/Category:Chihuahuas for further details.

The amount of food your Chihuahua should eat per day depends on its weight and age. For example, a small chihuahua weighing four to 10 pounds may eat half a cup of wet dog food every day. If you are feeding a senior Chihuahua, you may want to feed less than this in order to maintain a healthy weight. You should also consider giving your dog healthy snacks and vegetables.

If you're choosing wet food for chihuas that is low in fat, you should look for a formula that has a high amount of protein, but is also high in fiber. A balanced diet is important for your dog's health and should be complemented by dry food. The Blue Buffalo Life Protection Small Breed Senior formula is high in protein and includes a healthy proportion of vegetables and fruits.

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simpledatainfo · 3 years ago

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Blue Buffalo Life Protection Formula Natural Adult Small Breed Dry Dog Food

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dogfoodbestseller · 3 years ago

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Top 10 Puppies of Dog Puppies Reviewed by Puppy Food Judge 🏆

CHECKOUT 10 most popular dog foods for puppies:

✅[ Wag Wholesome Grains Dry Dog Food]

✅[Purina Pro Plan Sensitive Skin & Stomach, High Protein Dry Dog Food]

✅[ Merrick Classic Healthy Grains Dry Dog Food with Real Meat]

✅[CESAR Small Breed Dry Dog Food Spring Vegetables Garnish Dog Kibble]

✅[Pedigree Adult Dry Dog Food, Steak & Vegetable, All Bag Sizes]

✅[Blue Buffalo Life Protection Formula Natural Adult Dry Dog Food]

✅[ Kibbles 'n Bits Original Savory Beef & Chicken Dry Dog Food]

✅[Purina ONE SmartBlend Natural Adult Chicken & Rice Dry Dog Food]

✅[IAMS Minichunks Adult Dry Dog Food, Chicken]

✅[ Rachael Ray Nutrish Dry Dog Food, Beef, Pea & Brown Rice Recipe]

✌️ Transcription ✌️

The dog's favorite food doesn't always look good, it sounds reasonable, does it? Yet sometimes it is true and sometimes it is not. I am a dog food judge and have reviewed 10 most popular dog food for puppies. To see the full analysis download my comparison table above. 10 Most Popular Puppies:

Natural Balance Puppy Formula The Natural Balance puppy formula is a very popular product but what about health? Organic puppy food produced outside: a) Storage. b) Grain. c) Wheat. d) Soy. However, these foods contain many plant-based proteins that are less acceptable.

Hill's Science Diet For Small And Toy Breed My analysis shows that Hill's Science puppy's diet is well balanced and there are no harmful preservatives and soy. However, I did find 4 problematic ingredients: a) Wheat. b) Maize. c) Peas. d) Dried beetroot plant.

Taste of Wild Dog High Prairie Venison & Bison Taste Of The Wild type of food is very popular online. However, the Taste Of The Wild puppy diet is the third but not the case in terms of health. It is perfectly balanced and contains a lot of animal-based protein.

Blue Buffalo Life Protection Formula Puppies The product is well balanced and the condition was good until I did an ingredient analysis. I found 6 problematic ingredients.

Puppy puppy growth and protection formula When I checked out the Pedigree product I was completely shocked. This is the fifth best-selling puppy product on the internet. This diet contains 12 ingredients that are problematic in some cancers and dangerous to the puppy's health.

Iams Proactive Health Iams puppy food is cheap but not very healthy. The diet is well balanced but still contains 6 problematic ingredients. My judgment is 65/100.

Purina ONE SmartBlend Natural Puppy Food There were 7 problematic ingredients in the analysis.

Okay, the next meal will show you something different.

Wellness Core Puppy Brand Wellness Core is actually a healthy and well-balanced puppy food.

Orijen Puppy Food Orijen Puppy's diet is becoming more and more popular, so why? However, it is produced as a biologically green fodder (BARF) and in my experiments, I found that the Orijen puppy is the best dog food for puppies. Oriental puppy food: a) It does not contain any harmful ingredient. b) It does not contain grain, wheat, soybeans or preservatives. c) Ingredients processed in a frozen form. d) It has a balanced texture full of fresh and raw meat.

Stella & Chewy’s Meal Mixers Stella & Chewy Foods is well known as the best ice cream products on the internet. It would be great puppies too. This puppy diet is balanced and healthy but expensive.

This presentation contains images used under a Creative Commons license. Click here for a complete list of photos and symbols: https://app.contentsamurai.com/cc/239756

#top 10 puppies of dog #dog food recipes #best dog food #dogfood #dogfoodsupplies #dogfoodfor

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10petfood · 3 years ago

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Blue Buffalo Small Breed Dog Food

If you’re looking for high-quality food for your small breed dog, Blue Buffalo offers a wide variety of options. Whether you have allergies or are concerned about the environment, there is an option that will meet your needs and preferences. Blue Buffalo Life Protection formula It all starts with Blue Buffalo Life Protection Formula—the wholesome natural ingredients in this formula provide…

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petskisswer · 4 years ago

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^^ ## Review #### Shop For Blue Buffalo Life Protection Healthy Weight Chicken & Brown Rice Recipe Small Breed Adult Dry Dog Food - 15lbs http://petskanwert.blogspot.com/2021/07/review-shop-for-blue-buffalo-life.html

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Blue Buffalo Life Protection Healthy Product Description BLUE Life Protection Formula Small Breed Healthy Weight Dry Dog Food is formulated with a precise blend of proteins and carbohydrates to meet a smaller dog’s higher energy needs and doesn’t contain the extra calories to help your dog achieve and maintain a healthy weight. It contains the ingredients you’ll love feeding as much as they’ll love eating. BLUE Life Protection Formula dog food is a product of the Blue Buffalo company. Based in the United States, Blue Buffalo makes premium-quality pet foods featuring real meat, fruit and vegetables. Size: 15lb. Age Group: adult.

Check price

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Blue Buffalo Life Protection Healthy Nothing is better than trying by yourself. This one Blue Buffalo Life Protection Healthy Weight Chicken & Brown Rice Recipe Small Breed Adult Dry Dog Food - 15lbs say its good the ones one tell it is great but it cannot make sure that it will be good for you. Never wait for long time. Right after trying, you will find the purpose in the future and love it. Tag Blue Buffalo Life : Blue Buffalo Life Protection Healthy Weight Chicken & Brown Rice Recipe Small Breed Adult Dry Dog Food - 15lbs ,Shop For , More Info ,Best Reviews Of , This Instant ,Price , Compare Price ,Where Can I Buy , Now Is The Time ,Buy , Top Quality ,Price Compare , Don'T Miss ,Where Can You Buy , Online ,Buying , Unparalleled ,Price Comparisons , Don'T Wait ,Where To Buy , Order ,Check Price , User Review

#pet #pet_supplies

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dailyhealthynews · 4 years ago

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The Best Puppy Food Brands For Delicious Nutrition and Healthy Development

Everyone loves a new puppy; With their floppy ears, big paws and their milky smell, they bring so much joy to a household. Plus, her big, dewy eyes will hold on to your heart every day. And don’t forget all the playtime you’ll have with your new favorite toys. But the question most people ask themselves when bringing home a new puppy is what to feed, especially if they are already home with older dogs. Can you feed them the same food? The answer is no, puppies need foods that are higher in protein and more vitamins and minerals than adult dogs. And depending on the overall growth and size of your new pup, the protein content of the food can vary. Check out our favorite puppy food brands below.

1. Wellness Complete Health Dry Puppy Food

Wellness is an excellent, preservative-free, health conscious brand that does not include any additional additives in your new pup’s food. Keep your pup healthy and grow up with a delicious chicken and vegetable recipe that never contains fillers like corn or any by-products. Let your pup enjoy fresh meat mixed into their food with this all-natural recipe. You can’t find a healthier diet for your new pup with oatmeal, ground barley, peas, salmon flour, and flaxseed. Let them grow and play while you enjoy a delicious meal each day.

Wellness Complete Health dry food for puppies, the best puppy food

Buy: Wellness Complete Health Dry Puppy Food $ 16.49

2. Merrick dry puppy food

Merrick puppy food is made with real meat, a delicious option for any hungry pup. Let your pup enjoy a good old-fashioned fresh recipe full of meat, fruits, and vegetables that will nourish them high in protein, vitamins, and minerals. With boned chicken, your pup will fill their daily protein intake with quinoa to aid digestion. Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids have been added to support healthy skin and coat, and glucosamine and chondroitin to support healthy hips and joints. Feed your puppy the right stuff Merrick’s dry food, he’ll love you for it.

The story goes on

Merrick dry puppy food, the best puppy food

Buy: Merrick Dry Puppy Food $ 39.99

3. Blue Buffalo Grain Free Puppy Food

A grain-free diet isn’t for everyone, but those who are keen to try it out for their pup will be happy with the Blue Buffalo recipe. With whole fruits and vegetables mixed with lots of protein, this gluten-free food is a great way to watch your pup grow. With DHA and ARA, important fatty acids found in breast milk, these add-ons support your pup’s brain and eye development. Blue Buffalo doesn’t add any by-products from chicken, soy, wheat, or artificial flavors to its natural diet. Give your pup the best with Blue Buffalo.

Connected: The best dog food

Blue Buffalo Grain Free puppy food, the best puppy food

Buy: Blue Buffalo Grain Free Puppy Food $ 55.98

4. Small Breed Wellness Puppy Food

A great choice for small breed puppies can be found in the Wellness brand, whose specially formulated formula can aid your new dog’s growth and wellbeing. With boned chicken, salmon, and oatmeal to aid in a high-protein diet, this puppy food is full of extra vitamins and minerals to aid growth. With salmon oils to promote brain development, antioxidants to support the immune system and balanced nutrients to promote optimal energy supply, this food will keep your puppy satisfied and happy.

Wellness Small Breed Puppy Food, the best puppy food

Buy: Small Breed Wellness Puppy Food $ 16.49

5. Royal Canin puppy food

Royal Canin’s recipe was developed to meet the nutritional needs of puppies and is rich in vitamins and minerals that puppies need to grow into healthy dogs. With an exclusive complex of antioxidants including vitamin E to protect your puppy’s immune system, this recipe also supports digestion and intestinal flora through high quality proteins and prebiotics. Help your puppy grow into a healthy, strong adult dog with Royal Canin Puppy Food.

Royal Canin puppy food

Buy: Royal Canin Puppy Food $ 126.99

To buy: Royal Canin puppy food $ 83.69

6. Nutro Ultra puppy food

Nutro Ultra’s puppy recipe is full of vitamins and minerals to help your pup grow. A bonus perk: it also comes in a large breed recipe. The all-natural recipe is made from boned chicken, whole grain rice, whole grain oat flakes and potato protein. Talk about a delicious, natural selection of ingredients! Your puppy will love this dry dog food no matter how big they are.

Nutro Ultra puppy food

Buy: Nutro Ultra Puppy Food $ 63.00

To buy: Nutro Ultra puppy food $ 59.98

7. Canidae all life stages wet food

Wet food can be a good choice for puppies to stimulate interest in their dry food. Just place it on a bowl of dry croquettes and watch them chew their way to the croquettes. Wet food can be served as a treat or as an addition to a dry food diet, and Canidae is an excellent recipe to start with. With chicken, turkey, lamb, and rice, this food is a delicious option for picky pups.

Canidae All Life Stages wet food, the best puppy food

Buy: Canidae All Life Stages Wet Food $ 35.88

8. Wellness Complete Health wet food

Another excellent selection of wet food is from Wellness, and when combined with the dry food, your pup will eat his entire bowl. Wellness is an all-natural brand that uses only the freshest ingredients in their puppy food. With high quality protein and antioxidant-rich vegetables, your puppy will thrive naturally with this special food.

Wellness Complete Health wet food, the best puppy food

Buy: Wellness Complete Health Wet Food $ 33.00