There are paths in the Night Market that aren’t listed on any map. They don’t twist through alleys or spread through the Underbloom, they bridge between planes of existence, and then further down into the older places and states of being.

  A fierce inbetweener found one such path.

  No one called to her. No one asked her to go. But she *knew*, it was time to walk the path and take her place.

  So she walked.

  She passed the artifact dealers and sooth-sayers, trotted past the spore-mongers and speakeasy halls. No one stopped her, no one that could see her dared.

  Because sometimes, the Market knows when something sacred is passing through.

  She reached the gate without hesitation. Old stone, polished black obsidian from millenia of use. Beyond it, the hereafter. An aura of nostalgia and the sense of raw emotion, returning to whence one came. The threshold to the Underworld.

  And there, blocking the gate, three heads snarling in unison: Cerberus, the Watcher, the Maw of the Dead. Bone-collared and massive in presence.

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  But she did not flinch. She padded forward, slow and steady.

  Cerberus growled. All three mouths, snarling and snapping.

  This defiant mutt gave him a long, unimpressed look and stood squarely before him.

  “You’re in my spot.”

  A staring contest ensued, the lone French bull dog versus the three headed hellhound. She took a step forward, and the hellhound hesitated. The great beast blinked. All six eyes. One of the heads whimpered, while another flat out whined.

  She stepped again, locking eyes while inching closer.

  Cerberus looked left. Then right. Then, with a mighty yawn and a sagging of his tail, he turned and slinked off into the smoke. After thousands of years and billions of souls... it was somehow this encounter that made the beast lose its nerve.

  She crossed the threshold and took her place at the gate.

  She turned, parking in place to great the new arrivals from here on. Her gaze was calm, patient. Steady as the stone beneath her. She would not pass through, not yet.

  Not until her master arrived. One day. Eventually. She would wait until then.

  Time passed differently down there, but it need not pass alone.

  After a while, a German Shepherd Husky appeared from beyond portal. Whiny, but goofy and good natured. He nodded to the new guardian and sat beside her, letting out a soft whine as if relieved not to wait alone.

  Next came a Mini Schnauzer, wiry and bouncing with nervous energy. She nestled herself into the new guardian’s side like they’d known each other forever.

  Then a Border Collie, proud and precise. She didn’t speak, but when she sat, it was with reverence and patience. She had waited the longest.

  A Jack Russell Terrier showed up next. Bug-eyed and tongue panting, he pranced about before laying on his back, smiling widely.

  And so they sat. Together. Guardians not of the dead, but of the one to come. Because good dogs wait and this pack had all the time in the world.