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Miss was one of the ones who was lucky enough to hear the shouts of other displeased kimeti before he himself heard the snick of tiny claws. The tiny claw-clicks led him to step back in attempt to evade whatever it was that was biting. Still, with a stumble into something else, he ended up feeling a sharp set of teeth against his front leg.

"Bloody hell, what is that?" he asked, resisting the urge to kick back when the thing bit him, just in case it was a pet of someone's. After all, he didn't want a small creature's life on his consciousness, especially not if it was someone's beloved little companion. Still, he wasn't about to sit around idle. The thing... or maybe things, he wasn't sure, had to be stopped. But how? Maybe if he managed to figure out what it was, he could stop it. if it was a foxbun or a mongoose, he was pretty sure he could pick it up by the scruff of it's neck. If it was something a little bigger, though? Well, he'd have to improvise. He listened to the clicks, trying to figure out exactly... where... the source of everyone's annoyance was.

"... c'mere, you little bugger," he muttered, trying to keep quiet as he attempted to track the small creature through the shuffling and yelping of all the other bodies in the room, letting himself slide in-between everyone else as he tried to follow whatever it was that was biting.

"I don't know if ghosts have feet, at least not ones that could touch anything... I've always thought of them as having no substance, not being able to leave marks or trails." He responded, keeping up with her pace and trying not to wince as things brushed against him and tickled his ankles. At the yelps, his ears shot up, and he froze, muscles tensing.

"No... Something's in here." His voice was a low growl now. He slowly dipped his head down to knee-level, brandishing his horns defensively at the darkness ahead. "I don't like the sound of this, River. It's no ghost, that's for sure."

And then he felt it - a set of teeth on his ankles. He flinched, resisting the urge to kick out at whatever had bitten him. Lashing out in tight quarters was NOT a good idea, especially with others in the room.

"Hngh-... Yeah, that's no ghost." He glanced around to try and spot it, with no luck.

"A noghes?" she repeated quizzically at her brother's query. She had never heard of a noghes and there were very little species left she hadn't heard of. Perhaps it was an animal from the deserts of their Acha kin, or... "naugas, perhaps? They're relatively small, bipedal, sharp-toothed creatures with soft leathery skin, widely held to be mythical. But what," she said plaintively, not yet having felt a swish nor n** against her ankle, "do naugas have to do with this cave?"

Her good fortune might well be attributed to the ever-vigilant Stealjaw, sadly unnoticed by his beloved mistress as he prowled and growled around her hooves, guarding from the sharp bites of the unknown assailants. But duty is its own reward.

He didn't know why, but Hero was actually getting a little worried about Adventure at this point, especially when the others started yelling and moving around so much. If these bites could get through his fur, could they get through the caiman's thick hide? He knew Adventure could move fast when he wanted... but he so rarely wanted to move fast. The buck swatted with his tail, almost afraid he was giving himself bruises, and stomped hard as he moved around.

One stomp was a little too hard on the slime, and Hero went crashing down with a dismayed and horribly undignified cry.

"Oh, Adventure! Where are you?" He called out, trying to gather his hooves beneath him.

As if to answer, the caiman growled again angrily and moved in the direction of his usually annoyed friend. But there was one furry leg in particular that was in his way. In the frustration of trying to get to Hero, he bit the leg a little harder than intended, and definitely could not be mistaken for one of the smaller bites.

"Oh!" Re-wind exclaimed as a sharp n** finally landed on her ankle, "ah, I see! Why, yes, naugas are infamous for their toothy grins, and a bite from one might not feel unlike this - if they weren't mythical, of course. But - but even the finest minds could be wrong...we could be surrounded by naugas right now!"

If Stealjaw had been fully alert, Re-wind would never have had cause to become unnecessarily excited over mythical creatures, but he was not. He was distracted by the new sharp scent of an owlcat in their mix - and he did not like owlcats. That the momentary lapse in his guard had caused his mistress to be marked, however, aggrieved him deeply, and he went for the unidentified perhaps-nauga with a frustrated snarl - but, no! That infernal owlcat was after the very same prey? That does it. Dismissing the unknown creature as the lesser of two evils, he leapt into the path of the owlcat instead, loosing a volley of ferocious barks.

"Oh, have you caught a nauga, then?!" Re-wind practically hopped on the spot, "Imagine, a real live nauga, right here in the Swamp! Very good, Stealjaw!"

"Yes!" she was, more or less, prancing by now, "we'll be able to see what it really looks like in the light! Bring that nauga out of this cave, Stealjaw!"

Stealjaw was normally too well behaved to attack creatures that might be another kimeti's 'pet', but Re-wind's declaration sounded, to his eaglehound mind, like permission enough to lay fangs on the offending owlcat. Ha! Seizing it by the scruff of its neck, he was out into the light in a flash, his excitable mistress not far behind.

Sure, Doom liked to ******** with other kin and animals, but it was becoming surreal. It was beyond her or anyone's comprehension why the caiman was still biting her legs and precious tail. She thought of crushing the skull of both the caiman and Hero but didn't want them haunting her, Gloom and Look-See for the rest of their lives. She wasn't one for ghosts but given the holiday they were celebrating and those odd, burly shapes...

Doom had the grace to not stomp out, but walk did she out of the entrance and of the cave. She had had enough. Goodbyes be damned.

Miss finally got his teeth around what felt like a bristley scruff. He lifted experimentally - too heavy for him to try lifting by it - probably an adult. But by the swamp, he could drag it. He started marching out with a chorus of indignant growls, hisses, and yowls.

He only hoped the fiery doe would follow.