The fight really hadn't gone the way she thought it would. Then again, when did fights ever go the way they had been planned?

All Lidiya could think as they dashed out amid Jeb's cries for help was that he was now blind. That, and they had to get out of here.

And Kodak was, again, wounded. Which meant a scent trail.

Maybe if they crossed the border they wouldn't notice the trail? Lidiya didn't know, and honestly could only hope for good things. That was at least until-

"Lidiya!" A voice called out for her, close enough and so familiar that she halted all of a sudden.

Her mind told her that she had to run, now else they'd be caught. But... it was her younger brother. For some reason, she had completely overlooked him.

And here he was. Looking at he with the puppydog expression he had always looked at her with, from the time he was a little child in their mother's embrace and she was the juvenile in charge of keeping him in line, to... now. With an escaped prisoner at her flanks, and she... was now a traitor to her own pack.

But she couldn't let him die. Or anyone. And thankfully, Jeb wasn't dead. Just incapitated for a bit.

"Deverick." Lidiya rarely used her younger brother's full name, but... here they were. She said it so softly, only Kodak and Dev would have heard it.

He younger brother's face was really pale as his gaze frantically switched between Kodak and herself. "Lidiya, is that... no. It can't be!" His voice rose in an agonizing wail, and Lidiya's instinctual response was to go and lick her younger brother's cheek in comfort. Like she always had done.

But she couldn't. Not today. Distantly, she could hear the howls of some of the night guards responding to Jeb's cries, and that Kodak stood as tense as a bowstring, like he wanted to run but couldn't leave her here.

"Dev..." Lidiya was close to tears - in all the havoc, she hadn't thought about her younger brother. Her younger brother, who looked up to her. Her younger brother, who she had always looked after, even past her mother's death. Her younger brother, who had no-one else he could cling to. Apart from her.

And now she was tearing it away from him.

"Lidiya - " Dev finally undestood what his older sister was going to do. The one that had raised and nurtured him, comforted and guided him through the pain of losing their mother.

"I'm sorry." Lidiya's voice was barely a whisper. "I'm so sorry."

"- don't leave me here! You can't leave me here alone!" He younger brother's voice wailed out into the night, passing the howls of some of the pack getting closer to them. They had to move... now or else.

But her younger brother was here.

"I- Dev... I'm so sorry." That was all she could say before she turned her back on the younger brother that she had loved since he had been born, wailing about the world.

She dashed the remaining distance to the tree-line, Kodak at her heels, and only her younger brother's sorrowful howls echoing within her, long after she moved out of hearing range of them.

Maybe, if she ran fast enough, she could outrun her broken heart too.

Lidiya didn't want to talk about it, and she silently shook her head. Kodak needed this time with his friends - they had been mourning him, after all, up to that point.

"No... it's fine." she finally said as she looked through the dark trees at the two wolf forms. The mist that had gone away with the morning light earlier today - god, that felt ages ago - was finally creeping back, and while deachedly, Lidiya thought that was a good thing, her mind was still stuck on Dev.

"It'll be fine, " she staid, not actually realizing she was mindlessly repeating what she had just said. "Go... I'll be fine. If you want me to go over there later you can yip for me and I'll go over." She was most definitely not fine, but she'd work her way through it.

Lidiya was stubborn like that.

Plus, she needed this time to think. Firstly there was the stress of Kodak almost dying, then the threat of Jeb right next to Kodak for hours on end, and now... she just needed a break. Now that Kodak was free.

An insiduous worm of doubt crawled into her mind. What if, despite everything that she'd done, Kodak just left her here? Or lured her into a trap and killed her? While Lidiya's morality said that wouldn't happen - Kodak, from what she'd seen, was far too honourable for that - it was still in the small realms of possibility.

She didn't want to know. She just needed some time out, time alone, for the first time in the day, and she needed to think. In silence, and cold.

Lidiya was far away enough that she didn't hear Kodak's words to his friends. But she wasn't far enough that she couldn't see them through the gaps of the trees, and as they talked, she inadvertedly looked away. It wasn't her business to look at them, just as Kodak had given her space to recollect herself.

It wasn't long until she heard the undergrowth rustling, and the two of them took off into the slightly misty night once again. Kodak had, thankfully, stopped bleeding, but that didn't mean she could stop.

Doubtlessly, there'd be some of her former pack that would be chasing them. And... at that moment, she couldn't concentrate. She just couldn't.

She was just so sleepy-

-but she'd have to keep going.

And so they ran.

~

Little did Lidiya actually know what exactly was going on in camp.

Dev had sat, watching the place she had vanished into the trees, until suddenly something shocked him out of his reviere. A heavy shoulder suddenly slammed into him, and he found himself at the mercy of Alpha Cooper.

ALPHA! his instincts screamed at him to submit. And he did - only... it wasn't enough.

"Did you know?" The alpha's words were little more than a growl as his canines hovered far too close to Dev's neck for his liking.

Dev shook his head, his eyes still wide. "No. I swear, I had no idea-"

Alpha Cooper wasn't hearing any of it. "I'll talk to you about it later." His canines retracted, and for a moment Dev thought he was free - until he was picked up by the scruff of his neck and dumped into the very den that the prisoner had been held in earlier.

Although it didn't look much, Dev could smell things in here. Jeb. Her older sister. And some unknown wolf that smelled like pine.

There was blood on the ground. And a rabbit skeleton - neither of which had been here last time he had peeked into it.

Another enforcer - Dev couldn't remember his name in the heat of the moment - glowered threateningly at him, and Dev forced himself to appear small. Unintimidating. He wasn't a threat - he didn't even know anything about what his sister had just done.

But he was the closest thing that the Alpha had to a scapegoat. All he could do was cower at the end of the falling-down den, and hear snatches of convesation, whispered rumors. By that point, most of the pack was awake from the noise that had been created.

"Who was that prisoner wolf?"
"I heard that they were someone important in the othe pack."
"Didn't Alpha say they were a loner collaborating with the other pack? I thought..."

"What really happened with the two of them escaping?"
"Alpha said the prisoner wolf had wooed and tricked her into following him away from us. Loner wolves," the wolf had spat with disgust.

"Did Alpha say what's going to happen?"
"He said they'd be sending a party after them. And..." the voice trailed away as it got too hard for Dev to hear it.

"... where Dev is? I haven't seen him yet."
"Alpha said he might have collaborated with his older sister in the hours leading up to the escape. You know how close they are." Never mind the fact that he had had no chance to talk to her during the day!

"You think they'll catch them?"
"Oh, absolutely. They blinded Jeb, after all, and Alpha said... "

"... think Alpha's right? It's a bit far-fetched for Lidiya, isn't it?"
"Since when did anyone ever know Lidiya well? She could have gone into heat, and from how distanced from us she is, we'd never have known."

Dev was powerless with the enforcer beadily eyeing at him. And he was absolutely screwed.

Well, so was his sister.

Lidiya nodded a drenched head. Practically asleep on her feet, there were a couple of spots here that - due to her independence - she had found.

Lidiya was reaching the extent of her previously thoroughly explored territory, but then she wanted to sleep. And to not have any rain.

Two of which both felt impossible at the moment, but this was still - technically - her pack's territory.

No, not your pack's territory. Your former pack's territory. Because it was true - she now... no longer had a pack. Unless you counted Kodak, which, at the moment, she didn't.

The rain pelted down and obscured her vision as she blindly made her way to the big tree that was just visible through the rain. At least it'd provide some cover from the rain - although, she'd never actually explored the territory in the rain.

Heart panging inwardly for her little brother that she had left behind, she went into the cover of the tree.

Well, "cover" wasn't really a good word for it. Rather than the pelting rain, fat droplets of water consistently dripped down from the leaves - really, it was not better at all, just the rain was reduced from pouring from all directions to fat droplets.

It was at that point that she discovered a little hole at the bottom of the tree. Supported by roots, the tree seemed to have a little hole underneath it. Big enough for maybe two small wolves, but - Lidiya glanced at Kodak's big form, heart rate inwardly speeding up slightly at it - Kodak definitely wouldn't fit with her inside it.

Unless they really, really tried squeezing in together. And wouldn't that be awkward.

"Kodak?" She inwardly trembled - in cold, or nerves, she couldn't tell. A fat droplet of water hit the top of her head as she continued. "There's a bit of a shelter here. But..." she trailed off slightly. Gathering her courage, she said it as quickly as possible. "If we both want to fit in it, it'll be a tight fit." There. She said it.

(I've seen this kind of thing before, not sure what it's called but you get it right?)

Kodak's movement towards her instinctively made Lidiya drop her gaze, before turning away from him and looking at the opening below the tree.

Well... it'd be a tight fit. And it'd be incredibly awkward. Strangely enough though, she also kind of wanted Kodak in the hole with her - she'd feel a lot safer.

She couldn't really explain why, and even then, the argument sounded weak to herself. But she was dead tired, had been up for almost a full day, and she just wanted rest, and a sense of protection.

"I- I..." Lidiya kept her face away from Kodak's as so that he wouldn't see any of the dangerous emotions playng out on her face.

Those were some sketchy feelings playing out in her head right now. No doubt, despite how good she usually was at controlling them, after so long up, and such a draining night, they'd still be as clear as day on her face.

"I think - I think... it'd be better if we both squeezed in there together." Not that it would mean anything, she quickly reminded herself. If he asked, she could always say to conserve body heat, or she was just too tired to make another decision that would make Kodak suffer.

He'd suffered enough because of her.

"... yeah. I think it'd be better if we were both in there. We can conserve and share body heat," she added lamely, still unable to meet Kodak's gaze, which was no doubt drilling a hole in the back of her head.

Finally managing to control herself, she looked back at Kodak, who was standing behind her. Desperately hoping that he hadn't picked up in the change of her scent or anything, she kept going - either digging herself into a deeper hole or covering the hole in the first place, she couldn't tell. "Does that... sound alright?" If only her voice didn't waver slightly in uncertainty.