many a taunt in his youth) for guiding him in the dark. They would brush up against stone walls and pillars to let him know what was coming next, though they did little to help him when the floor seemed to give way into sudden dips at times. Aleu, though he couldn't see her, seemed to somehow be holding her own all right. The smell and steady "whooshing" from the sea grew stronger and louder as they pressed on. But it was a very gradual increase- just slow enough to make him wonder why he was going with her. They should have been going the opposite direction hours ago- how long had they been here anyways?

He started when she broke the silence. "Niju?" Her pace slowed as well. "How do you catch a caribou?"

That drew a long exhausted sigh from him. "You're asking me?" The familiar obnoxious guffaw.

" I thought I'd never see the day…" The laugh continued in the dark. "This is just too much!" His ego- despite the injuries it had received in the last few days, had probably just grown large enough to fill the entire cave and then some.

Her head- covered with a lovely soft down-like fur, butting hard against his chest was enough to shut him up for a minute, if not nearly knock him down at the sudden blow. The soft fur yielded a rock hard skull under it. That'd hurt.

Undeterred by his taunt otherwise, she demanded. "Niju, that was a question. If you're such an expert, than surly you must know. Or maybe…I shouldn't ask you. I could probably find a better hunter to tell me anyways. Sorry for the trouble."

Any creature with less pride would have been able to catch that she was clearly egging him on. But Niju only heard the challenge in her voice. "No, I can assure you, my methods are quite superior to your average clan member." He strode up to her in the darkness as they followed the dark path ahead.

"Well then- let's hear about it. If you can't show me, at least tell me what you do." And so he did.

While he bragged- Aleu found many of the things he said to be fairly educational. Having as much pride as Niju had could be a very dangerous trait- but right now Aleu was finding it very useful in tricking him just a teensy-bit. Plus she needed to know that her control wasn't totally gone, the cave was making her nervous.

He told her all about the subtleties of hunting and stalking prey, but every other sentence he would proceed to tell her "You really can't learn it by just hearing about it, you know. You have to experience it, that's the only way you'll ever get better." But then she would inquire about something further, and he would continue on. She did her best to look through his obvious brags, and get into the basic principles of hunting.

"Boy- Yak sure didn't see that one coming… The doe hit him straight on." Niju trailed off.

"So I guess you should always stay…Uh..Downwind from your prey, huh?" Aleu tried her best to keep up, and understand the principles of upwind and downwind as Niju had explained before.

Niju, however, seemed to have little patience for her mistakes. "Well, obviously you do, anyways, Yak and I went down to the lookout ridge for a better look next time and…"

He immersed himself back into his stories. His impatience didn't deter her, they'd been walking for hours and had little else do to.

After a while, Aleu noticed the salty smell becoming much stronger and a faint glow ahead, as it seemed.

Cutting Niju off mid-sentence, she trotted ahead. "Niju! Look! The other side must be getting closer!"

In his attempts to keep up with her, his tail somehow seemed to get tangled up in the process and he came down on his face. Startled by the noise she turned around just in time to see him on the cave floor. He hadn't tripped over his own tail since he was a pup.

When she couldn't suppress a giggle, he glared at her before getting up and charging after her. She stopped giggling abruptly and started running, she was lithe and a little faster than him, given a head start and all. She didn't run like she was afraid of him, but rather like she was playing…With him.

However, he vocally assured her that she was dead meat when he caught up with her, what he would really do- he wasn't sure. He'd really like to rip some tufts out of her luscious and delightfully soft looking fur. Yes, that'd do nice.

She wasn't just running from him, she was also running in her excitement to reach the end of the dreaded cave. As the glow become brighter and brighter, it was almost blood-red. It was clear they had been in that case for quite some time- the sun was dipping below the horizon in a brilliantly colored sundown. Aleu looked out and saw the sparkle of an ocean that lay hundreds of feet below.

Still running, she almost didn't notice how the exit of the cave led to a ledge that stopped abruptly. Her pretty blue eyes grew wide in shock as she desperately tried to skid to a stop, sliding on the rocks. Niju stopped just before she did- almost slamming into her.

Aleu managed to stop, but not before she caught a glimpse of the terrifying fate that awaited any who were unfortunate enough to drop off the edge. Sharp rocks whipped the sea up into a frothy churn hundreds of feet below her paws.

Gasping, she immediately backed away from the edge as quickly as she could, but not before backing into Niju. She noted how Niju had made no move to catch her when she had nearly skidded over the edge.

Now it was his turn to smile. Niju didn't giggle, but it had the same effect. "Impressive, mutt."

Aleu gritted her teeth at him, but managed to look like nothing more than a peeved teenager- though she was grown fully for the most part.

"If I'd fallen, Niju, who'd have taken you back to the pack? Who's going to get the pack to listen to you? Huh?" She got in his face, but his smile didn't waver. "Huh?"

Finally his grin slowly slide off his face and turned to a scowl at her insistence upon irritating him so.

He snorted brutishly in response and ignored her comment. It's been a while since he'd last eaten, and all the recent events had been quite straining on his body…but wolves could potentially go weeks without food if need be. He was just starting to consider prey, but he didn't feel the need for it. Yet.

"I wonder if there are any crabs down there…?" Aleu stepped towards the edge. He guessed she felt the same.

When part of the rocky edge gave away and crumbled a bit more under her weight, she immediately let out a "Yipes!" and stepped back away from the edge for good.

Niju rolled his eyes and turned to look at her. "Hungry?" He spoke dismissively.

Her soft yet intense blues hardened up once again. "No! But a meal would be nice…." She looked far off.

Niju shook his head. "Bad idea."

She was a little angry and alarmed at the simplicity of his statement and took a step towards him defiantly. "Oh? And why is that?"

Niju shrugged his broad shoulders a bit. "I'd rather make that swim in the morning on an emptier stomach, instead of a full one. Apparently there should be plenty of food on that "chosen land" across the way, anyways. " He gave her a cold glare.

Aleu nodded her head. The sun was almost fully down below the sky. Looks like she'd be spending the night next to two rocks. One of them being the cliffs, the other being her most disagreeable counterpart with the cooperation abilities that mirrored that of a rock and his chiseled features made him all the more rock like. They were also blocks that occasionally got in her way.

"Alright." She finally responded before heading back towards the cave entrance once again.

He followed suit. He sat down a few feet away from her, both faced the mouth of the cave. The day's beauty- they missed most of it, was on its last legs. The sun gave one last glow, before it dipped below the horizon. Aleu lay her head down, from the experience of her last journey- she was going to need the rest. Niju held his head up in a silent vigil.

Aleu knew telling him to sleep would be useless, so she remained silent. She could only wonder if his head was as overwhelmed as hers was. These had been some rough few days, and the morning's light would yield their toughest challenge yet.

Just before she surrendered to the world of dreams, she thought about how funny it was that she was with Niju throughout the worst of times- even when he wasn't directly the cause of it...Funny. Niju felt himself begin to drift. He soon joined her. 

 

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