A week later, and the weather had turned horrendous. It was by sheer luck that Kalos had gone hunting that early morning and spotted the storm forming violently over the lake, as they were wont to do. The ensuing panic of prey animals gave him the opportunity to take down a wildebeest, which he promptly dragged all the way home. He tucked it away in one of the deeper caves that were notched here and there into the steep outcroppings that surrounded his mock-valley. He hadn't made it back before the rains began, of course, nor the winds, but only just.

No surprise that there was no sign of Doxa when he'd returned either. She didn't like the storms, and never had. It only took once, during the first storm when she'd arrived, for her to decide they were not at all for her. She'd nursed a bruised wing for a while that time, he remembered ruefully. He'd never seen her as grumpy as she'd been that time. A grounded raven is not a happy raven, no sir.

He'd taken the time to eat the freshest parts that go bad easily, then left the gutted carcass for later meals. These storms, sudden and riotous, sometimes lasted days, so it might be important to make his hunting last a while. Yes, he'd be able to hunt during the storm, but it wasn't likely he'd find much roaming about, asking to be hunted.

He'd chosen a high perch from which to watch the theattrics of the storm, for he enjoyed the play of lightning within and below the clouds, when movement caught his eye. Someone was coming through the entrance to the valley! He rose immediately, not feeling threatened but alarmed for whomever might be trying to come in from the storm. He leaped down and went bounding across the valley floor, ready as always to lend a helping paw should it be needed.


Ewo scurried beside and around his friend with admiration and concern mixed heavily. How anyone managed all this and still smiled, he didn't know. Who else but his friend and cohort Brolly? He did another anxious circuit of the wild dog, as if he could somehow be of some use. The mud that coated his paws and belly didn't faze him, being so focused on Brolly as he was. "Are you sure? You'll make it? What if this place is guarded?" Well that was a stupid question, Ewo chided himself. They were fighters for the right! They'd defend their need and right to shelter, that's what!

Brolly grinned down at the masked ratel as he fussed at him like a nursemaid. "Oh do stop, Ewo! I'll be fine, we just need shelter right now." That was undeniably true... this storm had blown up out of nowhere and soaked them both almost instantly. Or at least, that's what it felt like to the wild dog. He wasn't willing to admit it to his short friend, but he wasn't feeling too focused or cognizant of their situation. It had been Ewo who pointed out that there might be shelter ahead, and it was Ewo's directions he was following. It could hardly be said that he was following the ratel himself, for he kept going round and round Brolly, as like to make him dizzy and lead him anywhere safe.

But sure enough, there was a jutting of rocks and a buckling of the ground just ahead. He eyed the drop down into a passageway with resignation, but was saved from just jumping down by Ewo's more attentive brain. "This way, this way!" the smaller creature barked at him, almost physically shoving him away from the drop and towards the shallower end of the ravine. Or was it just a pathway? Unable to even rub his eyes with a forepaw, Brolly obligingly hopped along until he could turn onto the pathway that led into the rocks without having to jump.


It didn't take long upon catching sight of the wild dog and his companion to realize that this pair needed help. Not only was the canine hopping along on three paws, but he was reeling drunkenly and looked likely to keel over before he got somewhere dry. Kalos bounded up out of the pouring rain, causing the ratel to hiss at him in startlement. "No harm, little friend," he rumbled in his deep voice, "you'll only find help here." Giving truth to his words, he sidled up beside Brolly and lowered his shoulder to be a more solid place to lean. "Here now, brother, lean on me and let's get you out of this rain." The thunder crashed overhead suddenly, which seemed to snap the canine out of his stupor a bit. He complied, putting some of the weight on the side of his injured forepaw against the lion. It made it marginally easier to move, though slow and awkward.

Kalos cajoled the wild dog to a dry corner of the nearest cave before allowing him to sink to the floor in a daze. This wasn't good at all. The moment his chest touched the floor, the ratel was all over the place, trying to ensure his comfort and that he was okay. Kalos took one large paw and drew the frantic critter aside. "Tell me friend, what happened?" The wild dog's paw was grotesquely swollen up into a caricature of what a paw should look like. Something clearly was very wrong, but how it happened made all the difference. Somehow, Kalos sensed it wasn't something relatively simple like a sprain or even a broken bone.

Ewo kept his eyes glued to his friend, but knew it would only help to tell this solicitous stranger what was going on. "Well you see, there was this snake," he began, and heard the lion give a wordless grunt. He flashed an anxious look at their host and saw nothing good in the lion's expression, so he hurried on with his tale.

"The snake was caught in a sandpit, you see. Brolly and I, we help rescue people. It's what we do." He refrained from calling them heroes, for that was entirely too pretentious. Others had called them so, some mockingly, but it wasn't a term a hero would apply to himself, now was it? "He was stuck and couldn't slither out, because the sand just kept filling in behind him. So... Brolly offered him his paw as a means to get out."

He paused to show his own stubby paws to the lion. "It wasn't something I could help with, and there wasn't anything nearby that could have helped either, or we'd have done that instead." Though if he'd been truthful, they probably should have not acted so hastily, and taken the time to to hunt up something that provided a less dangerous solution. However, he and Brolly tended to be trusting and expect the best of others.

"Would you know, that ungrateful snake BIT my partner! Poor Brolly jerked his paw up and out and flung that snake quite a distance, but it slithered away immediately, having gotten what he wanted out of the bargain." The little ratel glowered angrily, the fur standing up all around his face and down his spine. What kind of person would bite the hand that rescued it?!

Kalos, though, was more dismayed than outraged. "So... it was a snake bite?" he asked for verification, his heart sinking. Snake bites, if venomous, were dangerous things indeed. He'd lived here long enough to have seen the gruesome results of untreated snake bites.

Brolly, meanwhile, was seeing the weirdest things. A rainbow striped giraffe stalked in and gazed down at him disdainfully. The many colored spots squirmed and shifted, and eventually formed a spotted feline face, which also sneered at him. "Weak. Useless. Worthless. Pah." It was the feline spot-face that spoke, not the giraffe, which made Brolly blink in surprise. The giraffe wavered, then collapsed into splashes of rainbow water that pooled on the ground. Out of it crawled a grinning crocodile, his grey skin glisteningly wet. "Hello, meat," it rasped at him cheerfully. "ARE YOU READY TO BE EATEN?" it suddenly boomed with the voice of a god, opening its jaws wide. He tried to yelp and scramble away, but all he managed was a weak whimper and a twitch of his uninjured forepaw.

How his other paw burned! It sent shivers of hot and cold up into his brain, making his eyes blur again, and the crocodile was gone when he looked back, though a flash of lightning outside sent crazed shadows leaping about the brush and rock walls outside, dazzling and terrifying him. "They'll get me," he whimpered, closing his eyes and cowering as best he could. "They'll get me!" he repeated, meaning to howl it, but barely managing a whisper. His world slowly melted around him, leaving him alternately on fire or freezing cold and quite, quite alone.


Both Ewo and Kalos looked over at his whimper, then looked at each other as he mumbled incoherently. Both eyes widened, as both realized they had a lot less time than they thought. "I have an idea," Kalos told the ratel quickly. "I'll be right back... try to keep him calm!" The lion turned and sprinted into the rain, calling aloud for someone.

Ewo was no longer paying any attention. He scurried over and attempted to nestle himself up against the restless and now unconscious wild dog. "Hang in there master," he said softly, calling him by the title he'd always felt in his heart, but had only voiced once. Brolly had chided him, saying he was no one's master, least of all the master of his dear friend. But Ewo served Brolly faithfully out of love, and considered it a title of affection rather than subservience. "Hang in there, help is on the way."