"I can't keep you safe if I only care about being petted!"

(This is a mildly absurd statement to come from a puppy the size of Sasha's hand.)

"If something came up one of us would tell you to stop, but you aren't wrong." 

"But what if I need to react quickly to bite them?"

"...I really can't think of anything that would be taken out faster by you biting them than by me punching them." 

Leo's tail thumps unhappily. Marlo is right-- especially since he's a unicorn-- but Leo doesn't have to like it.

Why did they make him so small? 

"We should test more magic," Leo says, "and then maybe there will be something that makes me BIG, and then I can bite people that might hurt Sasha."

Sasha looks at the list of dog commands. "How about... play dead." 

Leo turns into a corpse. His fur is matted with blood and there's a smell like he's starting to rot.

"— stop playing dead!" 

Leo turns back into a fully alive puppy.

"That was gross. I don't want to do that one."

"Yeah. I don't want to do that one either but it's good that we know about it." 

"I guess it might ever come in handy."

(He sounds suspicious.)

"There's gotta be some point to it or it wouldn't have been included, you were designed on purpose, but I have no idea what the point would have been." Sasha picks up the very alive non-bloody Leo and cuddles him.  

"I guess if someone is trying to kill me..."

"Yeah. That'd probably be it." He's just going to bury his face in Marlo's shoulder. 

Leo snuggles up against him and tries to be comforting.

Leo is warm and alive and Marlo is warm and solid and there and all three of them are safe and yeah, that is comforting. 

Leo feels a traitorous sort of happiness about Sasha being distressed when it looked like he was dead. (Or maybe Sasha just thinks corpses are gross.)

Marlo pets Sasha's hair. "Have you tried fetch yet?" 

"No," Sasha says into Marlo's neck. "Leo, go fetch." 

Nothing happens.

"Okay, so it isn't literally every command you might give a dog. — or maybe it's just that there's nothing for you to fetch, we can try again sometime if you want." 

"It feels like it doesn't do anything."

"Then probably it doesn't." He looks at the list again. "I have no idea what this does for actual dogs, but. Leo, off." 

There is suddenly a soft, curly-haired, completely naked boy pressed between Marlo and Sasha and staring at Sasha.

"...You're really pretty."

"— I guess that makes sense as a feature! Hi!"