Five minutes. Then ten. The sound in Titan’s chest faded. His posture shifted—one shoulder dropped, then the other. His ears tilted fractionally outward. Wren hadn’t moved, spoken, or reached out. She was simply present in the dog’s space like a fact he had to accept.
At fourteen minutes, Titan sat down. In three years, the dog had never sat voluntarily near a stranger. He looked at Wren and released a long breath through his nose— something almost like a sigh. Titan was a dog arriving, with great caution, at the possibility that stillness might be safe.