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"I'm glad," she said, in between bites. She would have been horrified to know how much trouble the mutt actually had caused. Emelyn didn't actually relish the thought of returning to her cave- although heading back into her long-abandoned duplex was not an option. Most of why she was so anxious to leave... was the fear that she was putting Lucas out, inconveniencing him. Emelyn could barely meet his eyes- already embarrassed that he had seen and heard as much of her weakness as he had. Already, she worried about what he must think of her- and how tired he must be of her inability to care for herself. It kept her eyes down, and her thoughts rampant.

For the first time in over a half a year, the rains fell around Emelyn... and she was not so near to it that she could feel the moisture hanging in the air. Thick duplex walls separated the hedgehog-girl from nature- and, for the longest time as the storm raged... she slept. Nature could not touch her- not as she slumbered in the comforts of Lucas' duplex. She was warm and encapsulated in blankets... in walls... in caring concern.

But nothing could save her from herself.

Emelyn's eyes opened- and the peaceful look on her face remained for another minute longer as she let herself drift calmly out of sleep. She heard the rain pattering against the window, and the whistling of the wind. For a moment, she was peaceful. But then- her eyes seared open, and a gasp caught in her throat. She realized what the storm meant.

"Mizzie... the jewelry box... I'm not there to protect them!" She jerked herself up to a sitting position. A gnawing pain chewed in her gut, and she cried for the sake of it, but continued to try and force herself to stand. Her words slurred from the disorientation. Something more than the attack was causing Emelyn to heal so slowly.

"The rocks. I haven't put the rocks down. The basket is near the door." She cried, hating herself for having not moved the basket with the only connections to her past before she left that morning. She had been airing out her cave- cleaning the stray leaves and dirt out of the corners- and had been intending to move everything back to the deepest corners of her cave when she came back that night. But now, Emelyn knew- everything must still be sitting there, lingering nearer to the entrance than she would have ever allowed overnight- without even being weighted down by the rocks that she'd slip into the baskets when the winds picked up.

Emelyn fell off the bed- for even though her eyes were as clear in the dark as they were in the day, her coordination was still poor, and her stubbornness keeping her from ever staying still and letting her wounds heal. She crawled back to her feet, and stumbled towards the door. She'd leave- she'd save the last connection to her sister that she had.

She only managed a step or two before Lucas stopped her- held her back.

"I have to go back. I left... everything.. that matters on the edge of the cave. I didn't know to put it in the back- I didn't know I wouldn't be back that night. ...I have to get Mizzie's picture, and the jewelry box.. my journals. Oh, god, my journals will get wet!" She pushed against Lucas.

When he held her back even as she shoved against him, Emelyn realized that she couldn't possibly fight her way to the door. She let herself quaver to a standstill... and accepted his help in a delirium not caused by a fever, but rather- by fear.

"It's... if you go to the beach, right next to the drying rack I have set up, there's a steadier slope that goes up the mountain. If you just follow it up- and go a little to the right once you reach a crooked tree, then keep going up- there's a ledge... it... it's at the point where the trees choke out completely on the other side, if you've ever been up the other side of the mountain. That'll tell you how far up you'd have to go. But there are barely any trees on the beach side. There's a ledge- and the cave... it's about ten feet deep." She didn't stop to think that she was rambling- or even to realize that Lucas should not be out in the storm any more than she should. Too much had happened to the girl- and too soon. Her mind was not her own, in the ways that mattered.

"There's a basket- it has a little jewelry box in it, and a picture with beaten-up glass in it. And my journals. There are five."

She breathed heavily as a response, only letting herself be guided back to bed because, despite her fear and jolt activity, drowziness still weighed heavily on her. The hedgehog in her was insistant: if she would not hibernate, at least a great deal more sleep than a human would require was in order for her recovery.

"Thank you... Lucas," she said in halting breaths as she was lowered back into the covers. "...Thank you."

Following Emelyn's directions, Lucas hurried through the rain toward the cave. The ground had turned to mud and he nearly lost his footing on several occasions. Fortunately trees nearby helped him arrest those falls.

As he searched for the landmarks Emelyn had given, he tried to shake off a feeling that caused him discomfort. Nothing physical, just a nagging. His skin did tickle, though, but he shrugged it off, believing it had something to do with the humidity and rain while he was wearing his coat.

Finally reaching the mountain, he climbed. He wished he could go faster, but everything was slick and he didn't want to risk slipping. When he spotted the ledge his heart began to pump faster and he prayed everything of Emelyn's was safe and undamaged. He feared he would find everything in ruins.

Relief washed over him when he found everything relatively untouched. The picture frame had a crack in it, but the picture inside was safe. The only thing unaccounted for were the journals. He looked around a bit outside, then carried everything inside the cave. There he found Em had been wrong about where she last left her journals. He found them safe and dry near the back of the cave. He heaved a sigh of relief and sunk to the floor. There he would catch his breath and then head out shortly. If he was lucky the rain would start to let up.

The first thing he noticed was that it was really humid in the cave. Even after he took off his coat he still felt warm. Looking around, he saw a bit of food lying to one corner, and realized that he was rather hungry. He had no idea how old it was, though, and he couldn't bring himself to eat strange fruit. Even if it was in Em's cave. He would wait. It was after a few minutes he noted an itch on his upper arm. He scratched at it, but didn't really bother to look at it. He just wrote it off as a bug bite.

After a short and rather uncomfortable break in the cave, Lucas prepared to leave. Carefully place all of Emelyn's things into the bag, he closed the bag tightly, then slipped it under his coat. He wanted to hurry back to Em and put her worries to rest, as well as head on back to bed.

On his way down the mountain, he was forced to pause so he could reach under his jacket to scratch at an itch at his elbow. Before his hands could scratch at the itch, it suddenly spread to his legs and his face. It was driving him nuts! Pushing his hand further into his coat, he started to scratch at the itch at his elbow, then stopped when his fingers brushed against something odd. Then a pain hit him. It felt as if something was yanking on his ears, trying to tear them away from his head. It disoriented him for a moment, and he started to slip. One knee landed hard against the rocks and he threw out his free arm to grab onto something. It succeeded in smacking against another rock, but he kept himself from falling.

"The Hell?"

Gritting his teeth against the pain and irritation, he focused on biggest problem and moved quickly down the mountain. Before he reached the bottom his nose started to feel strange. He was struck with new smells that disoriented him. When he reached a hand up to wipe at it, to get the smells out, he couldn't understand what he was feeling. It was wet. But that was just the rain making it feel that way? Right? Right?

It was then it hit him. He was changing.

"Oh, God." At that realization he lost his footing and slid down the rest of the rocky face. He landed on his back and groaned. Just as he picked himself up, his teeth started to hurt and he let out a cry. Grabbing onto a nearby tree, he pulled himself up, his mouth open while the changes occured. After a few more seconds it was over. Worried something else would come, he stood in the rain for what seemed like forever, his arms wrapped around a tree. His gums and teeth were tender and they tingled. Lifting his tongue, he brushed it against his canine teeth and his eyes widened. Examining both teeth with his tongue, he couldn't believe what he was feeling.

Finally he shook his head and started back for his duplex. He could check everything out then. For now he had to get Em's things to her. While he walked he found himself growing tired. Had the change worn him out or was it the interrupted sleep that was getting to him?

When he finally made it back to his door, he stumbled in. Shrugging off his warm coat, he tossed it aside.

Lucas' ear twitched at Emelyn's voice and he winced since it was still sore from the change. When he entered the room he noticed smells that hadn't been there before. Were they always there? As he kicked off his muddy shoes, he brushed the back of his hand against his nose, then immediately pulled it away. Too weird... He wondered what he looked like.

He avoided the question. "I got your stuff. It's all okay."

"I guess they have." He ran a finger lightly along his ear. It tickled and his ear twitched again in response. "I'm okay. Just a little cold and wet. Nothing worse than..." he felt his arm, "wet fur." Especially when said fur was on him.

Truthfully, his body was still a little sore from the transformation, mostly around his face. The tickling over his body had passed, but had been replaced by the odd sensation of fur brushing against his clothes or the rest of his body. Talking was also strange now that he was sporting two, sharp cuspids.

Moving over to Emelyn, he held out the trash bag that contained her things. "The glass of the frame is a little cracked, but it can be replaced."