hornets out.

"Don't play games with me halfbreed!" He snarled, his sudden turn giving Aleu a start.

"You've been playing games with the clan for too long! They don't have time for you to finish your little 'discovery' quest! Don't you get it, you selfish house-pet? I'm doing you a favor by cleaning up the mess you made, because the mess you made happens to be my pack! I would die before I see the likes of you destroy it with your little games!"

Aleu was still momentarily shocked speechless at his sudden flare- but a glimmer of hurt flashed across her finely featured face.

"So don't you forget that…If you know what's good for you. Shut it and follow my lead from now on." He heavily finished, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.

In his anger, he'd forgotten that nothing but her self-righteousness was keeping her here. As the hurt in her eyes dissolved into seething rage, he remembered. Woops. But he couldn't apologize- he wasn't sure his mouth could even form the word sorry. Especially not to her. Besides, she needed to hear that anyways.

" Oh yeah? You're just jealous because Aniu didn't choose you! Yeah! That's right, she chose me! Me! I bet you'd give anything to be the chosen one! You- you tried to trick me into leaving! She chose me for a reason, and I'm going to find out- one way or another! Don't think you can just boss me into leaving the pack that she put me in charge of!" Aleu screeched at him, her emotions raging inside. Now it was Niju's turn to look vexed.

"What about all you raved on about last night? I couldn't have agreed with you more. Mostly the part about you…oh, what was it…" He mocked her. "Oh yes, not knowing how to hunt a caribou. Face it collar-neck…You're obviously way out of your league." Niju could see the color rising in her delectable cheeks and he loved it.

"Well things change. I might change my mind and stay, or I might go." She added half out of spite and half out of honest indecision.

Nava…Grant him strength to not rip her to shreds right there. "After all you've done- it'd be a crime to let you lead them." His tone was flat yet full of threat.

To his surprise she nodded at him. " I was just going to stick around until the clan starts begging me to come back to power. After a few weeks of your control- I probably won't seem so bad." Oh. So she did have a quickwit side to her, a more mature alternative to her usual meltdowns. Pity he was going to tear her apart for it.

"Why you-" He never got to finish. A bear seemed to just about materialize from the dark insides of the charred woods. It was dark now- which explains why they hadn't seen it, but the funny thing was neither of them could even smell it. To many animals, bears are just a normal part of the forest, but the clan had a bit of a "war" going on with the bear clan long before Nava was alpha. The bears were territorial and so were the wolves, needless to say, there was conflict.

The bear, groping its way through the burn, seemed distressed and panicked. These emotions made bears even more dangerous to wolves, especially because wolves could be a potential threat in a weakened state.

They fled, trusting their senses to lead them somewhere, the wordlessly followed each other just like they had done in the fire. A flash of brilliant stripes contrasted with the darkness overhead. A snowy owl soared high above to two- almost running with them before rising up and sitting atop a ledge. Their eyes could make out it's brilliant white coat in the darkness. It was a fairly warm summer night for Alaska, but neither of them wondered what the owl was doing there, they just rushed passed it as they scrambled up the rocky ledge.

Their eyes following the owl, they noticed the space between the rocks above that yielded into a cave. That would do. The owl, giving a soft hoot- took off into the darkness, seeing its work was done.

There would be no following them, at least not for a bear anyways. It was doubtful the bear would even pursue the two, but the way it seemed to come from nowhere at the height of their anger had given them reason to want to put as much distance between the bear as they could. The last time they almost physically fought each other, the forest was sent ablaze.

"You know what…We're getting pretty good at that whole 'running for our lives' thing." Aleu panted incredulously as she slid to her belly along the stone floor.

She could feel the coolness against her warm coat and it sent tingles down her spine. Ironically, for the first time in a long time she felt a little relaxed. Maybe it was just the exhaustion.

"If we sleep now, we will need to move twice as fast tomorrow." Niju didn't share her humor, or her uncharacteristic relaxation. He sat rigid, facing the opening.

Maybe her words still bugged him, she admitted she hadn't know where they had come from but she was damn proud of herself for saying them. Maybe he was afraid. Maybe he was thinking about how to kill her while she slept. Maybe that was his plan all along, if so she was glad he found her that much of a challenge that he would have to cheat and wait until she was sleeping. Maybe he was just a stiff, pigheaded, chauvinistic, battle-axe of a male who didn't want to fall asleep in front of her. Yeah. Maybe that was it.

Aleu and Niju

Cliff-side Cave

Before falling totally asleep, Aleu remembered smelling something akin to a sweet saltiness. Like that of a sea. Upon waking, she smelled it again- coming from inside the cave. Moreover, if she craned her neck just so and perked her ears just a bit, she swore she could almost hear it too. The faintest echo of a soft tide coming from...Inside the cave? On account of what happened the last time she went into a cave, she was always a little cautious.

Aleu smiled thinking about the day she first met Muru, but the bear waiting for her afterwards was enough to make her a little paranoid. That's why fate had "given" her Niju for a little while she guessed. It wasn't that she needed him, god no. It's just that the bear would probably find him a bigger threat and dispose of him first, giving her time to plan an escape. At least that's what she kept telling herself as she padded her way over as silently as she could to his sleeping mass.

He still wore a stubborn frown even in sleep, and snored softly. Otherwise he didn't really look all that different, just unguarded. Crouching down, she noticed how his whiskers twitched when her breath tickled him. She thought about giving him a scare, but when he suddenly shifted, she lost her nerve.

"…Niju…Niju!" She gave him a shake.

He grumbled and cracked his eyes open in the morning glow. She couldn't make out what he said. Suddenly aware he snapped to his feet.

"What? What's going on?" She could tell he was embarrassed at sleeping in, enough to make him cranky. "Well, out with it!" He stared wide-eyed at her, expectant.

"There's something inside the cave, I think." She sounded a little unsure of herself, and a little…fearful?

"Alive?" He stood to his full massiveness immediately, sounding concerned.

"Well...No- it..It sounds like the sea."

He gave her a glare. She bothered him just to tell him she was hearing things. "It's just the wind. We should go." He was impatient already and turned towards the door.

"No, wait a minute! I can smell it too." She said while lifting her nose to the air for proof.

Well he'd give her that one- she wasn't totally nuts because, truthfully, he smelled it too. A faint sea breeze inside what was otherwise a fairly dank cave. He slowed his moments to leave but didn't stop them entirely.

"Let's go check it out." Oh- she had to be joking.

Terrible time for it, but there was no possible way she could be serious. For starters she had said "let's" giving him the impression they were some kind of a team. He called her on it.

"If you want to come back here with a sled team to go exploring and play games with, I won't stop you. But you have a job to do, starting with my pack. Move it!" He turned back to bark at her, but she was truly relentless- already heading back into the darkness.

"Have you lost your mind?" His voice echoed on the walls.

"No…I- I just have a really good feeling about this."

He scoffed and rolled his eyes scornfully. This morning was starting out bad, and would continue to be such until she planted herself by his side and they were walking in the right direction.

"I'm sure you do, mutt. That's why I'm heading the other way." He sounded a bit more desperately impatient than he meant to. The truth was he hadn't moved in the other direction since he had lost sight of her from within the cave.

Her voice was more distant and echoed now. "Just come on Niju…" He gritted his teeth as her voice reverberated.

He heaved a sigh containing every curse known to wolf and tore after her. His eyes promised murder as he found her in the murky darkness. The cave was very tight and had many winds and bends.

The sound of their claws softly hitting the stone floor below them was the only sound between them for a moment. There was no light now, but they could still sense each other in the dark. Niju thanked his accursed whiskers (the subject of many a taunt in his

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