Aleu and Niju

Cliffside Cave Above the Sea

The day had come and they awoke. Every move they made was in silent preparation for the plunge. Neither thought about the actual jump, for they feared if they thought too hard, it would seem like willingly jumping into a watery grave.

They climbed down from the cave, and moved boldly to a less rocky edge in which to enter the sea. The climb itself was full of peril, with them starting from hundreds of feet above where they needed to be. When they finally made it to the desired edge, they both hesitated.

"Okay…" Aleu futilely muttered under her breath. She seemed lost in thought, as was Niju.

Niju was doubtful of this plan, as he had been all along. He thought he must be crazy to jump into the icy depths, to jump into uncertainty when he had solid ground right beneath his feet. He was bringing his dealings with Aleu and all of the near death experiences over the past few days to full circle now.

As a loner- he could scrape an existence, maybe. Live on rabbits for the rest of his days. He also had the curse of being a wolf, a pack animal. Even as infallible as he saw himself, he couldn't deny the void in his heart now that Nava was gone, and his pack had gone with some strange mutt. It was an existence he couldn't survive past the physical meaning of the word "survive", he'd become more empty that he feared he might already be.

He could escape this life, become what he knew he deserved to be, and gloat over his rival- but in moderation, Nava had taught him to restrain himself somewhat. Said Rival was standing next to him on the cliff right now. This plan of hers would involve him trusting her to know what she was doing. It was true she had survived the swim a few days ago, but if she could do it again was a question they both had.

"Aleu, I don't see any icebergs." He tested her, he wanted to see if she was just as doubtful as he was.

"Niju, I know!" Aleu snapped. " I-I don't see any either, but we have to take a chance. I made it last time… We'll just have to try for it!" She tried her best to sound experienced and seasoned at this. Her voice wasn't cooperating.

"Aleu, I found you collapsed on the beach… Or did you forget?" His temper flared as he faltered back a few steps. He tried his best to hide his uncertainly and blatant fear in a mask of misdirected anger at her.

"I know, Niju, I know!" She saw him take those hesitant steps backward.

"Niju, just- just trust me. We can do this. We survived a bear, a river and a forest fire. The water is calm- the time is now!" Her desperation was evident in her voice.

He walked forwards silently as did she. Reaching the edge, they took the plunge together- perhaps for the first time truly as a team.

The depths were icy now that their fur was drenched. They both came up for air, gasping with the frigidness of it. The morning sun warmed their coats as they surfaced. The way was clearly forward, but they needed to find some scrap of an ice floe. The sea wasn't nearly as cold as it would be in the winter, but without the sun even the summer temperatures could be lethal to those succumb with exhaustion. They swam forward silently for a few minutes, settling into the shock to the system.

"How long did this take you?" Niju asked Aleu first.

"I don't know …We just have to keep swimming on." Her beautiful eyes were pinned ahead, but she momentarily turned around to look at the landmass behind them to make sure they weren't accidentally turning.

Finding a very small island of ice gave them a glimmer of hope. They stopped for the briefest of moments to cling to it. Their bodies comfortably numb.

"So, now what?" Niju came off impatiently, while catching his breath. "Does this look familiar?" He added in between breaths, a little less crossly than his last statement.

Aleu shook her head. "No, not yet. But I think if we keep going we should find the big ice floes in the middle. They are sparse, but there is enough left to get from the middle to the pack-lands. That's why I tried to make it to the old-lands in the first place. What I didn't know was that the sparse floes would be almost completely gone after a certain point."

She still felt a little foolish- having arrived at the old-lands half-drowned and collapsed on the beach. Of course Niju had to be there to see it. In the cold water, Aleu felt her face burning. Niju smirked, and Aleu wanted to nip him until he bled.

Thankfully the smirk was replaced with an honest question. "Do you think we could just float on this one until we got closer to the center- where the ice floes were apparently greater in number?"

Aleu who was looking off into the distance with her paws and head resting on the ice-buoy, finally regarded him. "No, that'd take too long, and it may push us in the wrong direction. Plus the water will be much too cold for us at night."

He nodded. "Yes, it's much too small for either of us to climb on, and it would take a while."

Aleu looked off in the distance. "Yep. I'd really like to get out of here before that hits, too."

Niju's brows knitted in confusion. For the first time in a few hours he regarded the sky, but the low rumble in the distance already confirmed his fears before his eyes could. There was undeniably a storm beginning to brew in the distance, a frequent occurrence in the summer. Big black and blue clouds were piling up; Niju could even feel the wind pick up as they moved at a dooming crawl- set on covering up the sky.

"Yes… We'd better keep moving." He swallowed audibly in his fear; it was evident in his face that he was petrified.

He avoided her gaze, damn her sympathy. Little mutt should be apologizing for her horrible planning. He berated himself mentally for listening to her, against what must have been his better judgment.

Finally letting go of the ice floe, they swam with a new energy between them- Niju could feel his hate for her bubbling up once more. Keeping optimistic, he thought of all the ways he could humiliate her when he reached the new lands. He wanted her to stick around- every pack needs an Omega, after all. Entertainment, stress relief and knowing someone was always worse off than you were very important in keeping a pack healthy and all an essential part of an Omega's role. Traditionally, clan members were encouraged to humiliate and taunt the Omega. Of course, when Nava came to power he eliminated the role of Omega completely, he found it too cruel. Niju yearned to change that rule.

They kept going until the landfall they had come from became a very small dot on the horizon.

After the blue-blackness and soft rumbling had covered up the sun, the water churned more and more. They could both feel the wind biting at them as it whistled past them- sealing up their fate as the clouds blew together and fully cloaked the sky in a darkness that preceded most storms. The sun was just beginning to show the signs of its late afternoon glow, when it was smothered by the storm clouds.

Saltwater filled up Aleu's mouth as she and Niju were bounced up and down by the water which was rapidly working itself to a rolling boil in its wild frothiness. They had to madly paddle under waves before they crashed on top of them and work their way back to the surface when they didn't make it underneath the crashing wave crest in time.

Colliding with something solid, Aleu called out to Niju just after bobbing to the surface. The thunder was becoming less and less distant now as she struggled to make herself clear over it.

"Niju! Over here!" He fought the water to make it over and cling to the solid chunk of ice she'd found. It was almost as small as the one from before- but big enough for both of them to cling on using their paws.

She'd kinda just saved him- but he'd have figured it out, he liked to think. The ice floe made the fight to stay afloat a bit easier, but the iron grip they had to apply to keep from slipping off in the choppy sea was almost painful.

They both turned at the sound of what sounded like a hundred waves crashing. In the distance the horizon blurred as one by one the clouds above them burst and released what seemed to be a second sea above their heads. They winced as the torrential downpour came closer and closer, until it was finally upon them. The storm was here.

Twisting and turning, the way the wind blew the rain against their faces made it almost impossible to tell which way was underwater and which way was the surface. Thunder cracked deafeningly and the lighting was a spectacular sight. Aleu kept calling out for Niju, but never quite finished before the water would crash down upon them. She could barely see him amidst the chaos, but she could feel his paws underwater.

"Niju! Whatever you do-" she was cut off by a wave sending them underwater again. The ice-buoy proved most useful as it rocketed to the surface while they clung to it.

"Don't let go!" One of her paws gripped his. She had lost her grip on the icefloe under the water, and was clinging onto him. He shouted above the thunder from the sky and the waves.

"I'm not! I promise!" He promised before he could think of who he was promising to.

Despite all of their past experiences, letting go didn't cross his mind for a moment. Even while his mind was lost in the chaos, his body seemed to still remember his plan, and how Aleu was instrumental to it.

Lighting cracked as the sea seemed suck them forward infinitely. The water had gone still for a moment but as the lightning