All the dogs in my life have had names that begin with B.

In PRAYPREY, the “mercy-bound hounds” are called Belenor, Benedrix, and Brindle—three supernatural guardians born when Titans kneel to mercy, surrendering their own lives so the cities carved inside their bones can continue.

In my real life, the hounds came first.

Their names were Butch, Bones, and Blue.

This was not a branding choice or a neat thematic device I engineered from the start. The “B” pattern only revealed itself later, the way a constellation appears when you finally step back far enough to see the shape between the stars. Looking back now, I can trace how each dog became the living blueprint for the creatures that walk beside the Vanguard in my stories—and how they taught me, in three different ways, what mercy actually costs.

Butch: The First Kneeling

I met my first French Bulldog in Thailand a few months after the tsunami in 2004.

Her name was Butch. In my world, that wasn’t an insult or a stereotype—it was a term of endearment. She was tough, squat, and stubborn as a brick wall. The name fit.

At that time, my life in Thailand was a patchwork of teaching, volunteering, art, and trying to make sense of the devastation the wave had left behind. Butch was my constant. She followed me through city streets and village alleys, through monsoon rains and dusty seasons. My Thai family fell in love with her, feeding her grilled chicken until she was happily round, laughing at her appetite.

Butch was not an easy dog. She was grumpy and mule-headed. Her bark was a verdict, not a threat. If she decided you were “no good,” she would not relent. She guarded my circle like it was sacred ground.

When her time finally came, years later back in the States, the vet told me I could put her down that day. I asked for one more night.

I took her home and broke every rule. I fed her the grilled chicken she wasn’t supposed to have—a farewell feast to honor the life she had lived. The next day, in the exam room, I found myself—a six-foot-three man—weeping, holding this small, aging bulldog and singing to her in Thai. It was the only language that had ever truly calmed her.

That was the first real “kneeling” in my life. I couldn’t fix her body. All I could do was choose the most compassionate ending I had the power to offer, and kneel to it.

Years later, when I wrote the scene where a Titan kneels to give birth to the first mercy-bound hound, that creature carried Butch’s spirit: a fierce voice, a gentle heart, and a goodbye sung in a language only the two of us understood.

On the craft side, Butch changed the way I approach endings. Before her, I wrote toward plot resolutions; after her, I started writing toward acts of care. I became less interested in clever twists and more interested in whether a character’s final choice honored the life they’d actually lived. That shift shows up everywhere in PRAYPREY: I linger more on last meals, last conversations, and the small rituals characters create for each other at the edge of loss. Butch taught me that how a story lets someone go matters as much as the fact that it lets them go at all.

Bones: The Dog Who Taught Me to Stay

After Butch died, I fell into a deep depression. Grief layered on top of older pain from the tsunami years, and I withdrew into my own head.

My father, seeing this, surprised me with a new Frenchie. His name was Bones.

Where Butch had been independent, Bones was singularly bonded. He would skip meals if he thought refusing to eat would get him closer to me. He had extraordinary eyes—a mix of green and gold that looked like someone had trapped sunlight and moss inside a single gaze. He became my service animal in truth, if not in immediate paperwork. He went everywhere with me.

Then came the crisis. Bones contracted a severe illness that left him paralyzed. The emergency vet gave me an ultimatum: expensive intervention I couldn’t afford, or death. I applied for the loans. I was denied.

But Bones refused to quit.

For two years, he lived in a canine wheelchair. I watched him fight for every step. It was heartbreaking and astonishing all at once. Slowly, he regained his mobility—imperfect, limping, but walking.

In the wake of that struggle, I wrote the PRAYPREY trilogy. I poured twenty years of world-building out of my skull and onto the page. The mantid cities, the Verdant Rain, the Mycothal Web—this whole mythic ecosystem took form during that stretch of grief and determination.

If Butch taught me how to kneel, Bones taught me how to stay—with the work, with myself, with a vision that required years of commitment without any guarantee of reward.

Bones didn’t just influence the themes of endurance and sacrifice in my writing; he changed my entire process. Before him, I tended to abandon projects when they stopped moving quickly. After fighting through two years of rehab at his side, I stopped expecting my drafts to “walk” on the first try. I allowed myself limping pages, broken outlines, and characters who needed time to find their legs. Structurally, that’s why I wrote all three PRAYPREY novels before releasing the first one: I wanted the long arc to be as faithful and stubborn as he was. Bones taught me that some stories aren’t built in sprints—they’re built in stubborn, daily returns to the page, even when the work drags a leg.

Blue: The Hound Who Went Home

Years later, the books were written, and the screenplay was under evaluation. I was in another season of waiting when I found Blue.

She was a stray Frenchie I found wandering the streets. I took her in, fed her, and waited. My anxiety had been spiking again, but Blue’s presence cut through it with an uncanny calm. She felt like the third mercy-bound hound stepping out of the page and into my living room.

After three weeks, I saw a flyer on a utility pole. She had a home.

I had a choice. Legally, enough time had passed; I could have kept her. But someone else was out there wondering if their dog was alive.

I called the number. I returned her. It was a joyful reunion for them, but for me, it was a quiet devastation. Yet, in that loss, something clicked.

In my story, the mercy-bound hounds are not owned. They appear when needed, walk beside you through the fire, and depart when the work is done. Blue had done exactly that. She steadied me, then returned to the people who loved her first.

Giving Blue back was a rehearsal for giving my story to the world. For PRAYPREY to matter, it couldn’t stay hidden in my mind. It needed to leave my guardianship and become something shared.

Blue’s chapter taught me the craft lesson I resisted the longest: release. I had spent years clutching this world in private, afraid that notes, collaboration, or market forces would dilute what made it sacred to me. Returning Blue to her rightful home nudged me toward a different understanding of guardianship. My job as a creator wasn’t to keep PRAYPREY untouched; it was to prepare it well enough that it could survive other hands—producers, managers, directors, and eventually, audiences. On the page, that meant writing cleaner blueprints: clearer emotional spines, stronger character arcs, and themes that could withstand adaptation without losing their heart.

What the Hounds Taught Me About Story

Taken together, Butch, Bones, and Blue became more than companions. They became a kind of living syllabus for the stories I’m drawn to tell.

From them, I learned that I’m not especially interested in conquest myths or “chosen one” narratives. I’m drawn instead to what I call restorative myths—stories where the real victory isn’t domination, but repair. Where the bravest act isn’t killing the monster, but kneeling when your ego wants to stand. Where guardianship looks less like ownership and more like stewardship: of worlds, of characters, of the people who will eventually hold your work.

On a practical level, their influence shows up in the kinds of questions I now ask when I’m outlining or rewriting:

• Where does this character kneel, and what do they lose in choosing compassion over control?
• Who or what do they stay for when it would be easier to walk away?
• What (or who) do they have to release at the end, trusting that love doesn’t vanish just because their part of the story is over?

Those questions shape everything from my scene choices to my set pieces. They govern which battles I show on the page and which I let happen off-screen. They determine how I handle sacrifice, and whether a moment of mercy actually changes the world around it, or just the person offering it.

The Architecture of Mercy

Butch, Bones, Blue.

Belenor, Benedrix, Brindle.

On paper, they are just names. But for me, they are milestones in understanding the “restorative myth” I am trying to build.

• Butch / Belenor carries the lesson of a mercy that looks like a hard goodbye.
• Bones / Benedrix embodies the love that crawls back from catastrophe and refuses to quit.
• Blue / Brindle completes the circle with the mercy that lets go.

In PRAYPREY, the hounds are born when a Titan chooses compassion over conquest. In my life, they were born out of tsunami years, family sacrifice, wheelchairs, and a flyer on a utility pole.

If these stories ever offer courage to anyone, it will be because three very real dogs taught me how to kneel, how to stay, and how to let go—and because those lessons quietly rewired the way I build worlds, write characters, and move them through impossible choices.

The mercy you give is not lost.

It becomes the world to come.

Let's hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Got an idea for a post? Or have you collaborated with Stage 32 members to create a project? We'd love to hear about it. Email Ashley at blog@stage32.com and let's get your post published!

Please help support your fellow Stage 32ers by sharing this on social. Check out the social media buttons at the top to share on Instagram @stage32 , Twitter @stage32 , Facebook @stage32 , and LinkedIn @stage-32 .