I need to see Nava.” She subtly amended her second statement. He noticed.

“No. You said you needed-“ His voice broke into an obnoxious scoff. “You needed me to take you to him.” His words mocked, his implications of her incompetence blatantly clear. 

She lost it, submitting to the flare of her temper. “ I-you…Ugh! You’re just jealous and a bully! I’ll have you know the clan’s never been better without you, Yak, Nak and Sumac especially! They can’t believe you tricked them into thinking they were your friends; they now see how you only used them to better yourself! They see you for what you are! Just a big-fat bully and a cowar-“

She had gone far enough. He was never a coward. Niju always stood his ground. Always. He would never be called that by anyone, especially her. Now it was time for his blood to boil as his voice boomed with barely controlled rage- cutting her off before she could even finish the last ‘d’.

 “Hold your tongue, mutt! Or I’ll make you regret the day you were born, if it’s the last thing I do before I join Aniu!!” He took two menacing steps towards her.

This was out of control; Nava would never want such a fate to befall his kin. But he just couldn’t stop.  He urged just to tear at her, knock her down physically and rip her masked persona to shreds.  Finish her, while she was at his mercy. Like felling a caribou, there was a sordid thrill in winning against something that was fighting for its life. Knowing full well that he held the jugular vein between his mighty jaws, it continued to fight on until the end. So Aleu would fall. Nava- gone or alive couldn’t stop him now.

It may have been her sudden shrinkage, the fear in her eyes, or the faint smell of burning spruce that stopped him in his tracks, before he could strike. Her fear had nothing to do with him. Aleu’s doe-like baby blues seemed glazed with shades of orange and splashes of yellow, all a reflection of what was behind him.  Whipping his head around, his eyes too, widened with unabated horror. The forest behind them was burning. 

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Swiftly, the flames danced in front of their panicked eyes, soon the spread in front of them and all around them. They could do nothing for a few seconds but stare dumbly as the flames threatened to consume them. Engulfing tree after tree, the smoke descended in an inky black curtain around them. If they could somehow navigate their way back to the sanded beach, they stood a chance.

As they inhaled smoke collectively, panic set in and clear reasoning seemed to flee. In the inky, heated darkness illuminated by flaming trees, bushes and shrubs; herds of deer may have run past them thinking the same collective thought: Run.

Niju had one thought and one word pass his throat- Nava. He never knew if he actually said it aloud as he tore through the burning pines, singeing himself.  His thoughts did not once stray to Aleu, who yelped and gasped as her lungs took on smoke. Intoxicated with panic, she literally tore after him blindly. Not thinking of where she was going, and not being able to discern which way the sanded oceanfront was from the circle of flame engulfed trees in which she had found herself.

The fire was fast and furious, coming upon the two suddenly. Things had been so dry- that all it took was a little ignition before it turned into a raging inferno. In their distracted anger they had missed all the early warning signs from other animals and their senses, their disoriented panic wasn’t helping them now either.

Somehow, he scrambled into the now burning hillsides. Nava would still be inside the caves that jutting from them, his fate sealed now. If Nava wasn’t gone before the rush of inferno, the heat and choking smoke would be the end. There was no saving him anyways, Nava was too gravely infirm and ill, but there would be definitely no saving him now. Niju stopped dead when he looked up at the glowing hills- Aleu slamming hard into his side from her dead run. “No…”

Niju was too late, but he never bothered asking himself why he tried at all. There had been no chance at all. Aleu’s chest pounded as she could feel the flames- the white-hot burning ones catch up with her. They had to move. She followed his gaze for the briefest of moments- to the higher hillsides. She could make out the outline of caves. Had Niju been trying to get Nava out? Is that why he ran here?

With the sound of fresh whistling from the wind, and the crackle of flames drowning out all reason, she knew they had to run. Niju just stared with his mouth slightly agape before tearing after her. Blind of their direction they could have very well ran in circles. Smoke clouded their eyes, and it felt like they were exhaling as much as they were inhaling of the inky burning vapor. Trees succumb to the flames and crashed down, sending an angry army of sparks and embers showering down around them.

They tore through the burning at the same pace, moving like a school of fish, when one made a random blind turn- the other followed the movement, almost like it was a planned dance. Aleu cried out when a particularly sizable tree fell in front of them and blocked their path, this happened a number of times and eventually Aleu had run out of energy and oxygen to make but a squeak. She had been running on empty before the blistering run from the flames. For a wild fire, this seemed to have no end to its burn.

They had been running for hours, they were sure. Not one of them had diverged from the other for even a second, mainly because they were both running down the only path there was to run down. Just ducking flames and burning shrubs, jumping blackened and enflamed logs, the other’s presence made no difference. Had they been here individually they would be making the same path regardless; it was the only way to live without being burned alive.  

The smoke was absolutely impossible to navigate, and the flames were impossible to escape now. Niju was on his last legs and Aleu was beyond that, strength drained by smoke and heat that burned at them. Collapse almost seemed like a better option now, they bumped against each other, dodging through the flaming underbrush until the ground suddenly seemed to give way under their paws. Down they tumbled for a short period until their world seemed to go truly black and silent after a loud splash.

A dark and icy shock to their systems awaited them below. Water. The river had taken them in. Plundering and disoriented, they floundered towards the orange glow of the burning forest that was the surface. The icy wetness was a welcome sensation, but the river was strong and fast here. They tumbled blindly, the river sending them head over heels and backwards down violet bends in the river. Fighting the undercurrent, they battled their way to the surface before they were dragged down again. This went on again, and again. All energy to swim was gone- not that there had been much to begin with. Drowning was on both of their minds, but they hadn’t the energy to think of how ironic it would be. Adrenaline was gone, leaving them with the pain of their bodies fighting to survive. Aleu had already been through this once in the past 12 hours.

Finally the river ended their prolonged suffering by leveling out, and slowing down into a small creek with a rocky bank. Once of the many divisions of this river passed its rushing point, they found themselves struggling onto the bank. The stones wedged themselves between their paws, as their legs shook violently. Aleu and Niju collapsed as soon as the water was low enough to allow them to breathe on stony bank.

Copious amounts of river water welled up and out from their throats as they communally hacked, sputtered and panted together, their faces merely centimeters apart.  As the water left their insides, the ragged panting set in. It was as if they feared they would never breathe again and they must store up, they hadn’t been able to breathe right for hours and now they were filling the void as fast as possible. Air, they just couldn’t get enough of it. Not that the air here was all that great. It was smoky- so much so that it covered the sky in a dark cloud. It was probably dark by now anyways, though, they couldn’t be sure.  Faint embers glowed in the air around them; charred stumps emitted strange red and orange light amidst the velvety darkness. They could see in the distance, upriver, where the fire still actively raged on.

 The reflection on the surface glistened faintly as their breath finally caught them. Wide eyed, they just stared at each other and their reflections, almost unbelieving that either of them were there. Their location, currently unknown was the least of their worries. Each second of safe breathing and cool water against their fur felt like an hour of relief. Their bodies went into immediate convalescence, before they could feel their eyes growing heavy…

They passed out.

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The noise of a charred tree crashing down somewhere in the distance startled them both awake.

Niju wasn’t sure how long they’d been out for, but it didn’t feel long enough. He could lie there forever. Aleu’s eyes- bright and reflecting embers in the orange glow caught his attention, partially because they were about a centimeter from his own and partially because they were open- meaning she was awake….or possibly something more sinister indeed.

 It never occurred to him