"Stop, please!"

"No!"

"Help!"

The sounds of a raid were familiar to Vol by this time, and he had long since hardened his heart to them. The cries and pleas for mercy were simply background noise to accompany his pillaging. By and large he tended to ignore them, and only took note of them when something out of the ordinary happened, like when they fell silent, as now. There were certain ways a conquered people fell silent, and most of them involved either death or unconsciousness, but at this point in the raid it was not usual for the people pleading and weeping to be dead.

Vol was in the process of looting through the largest den when he realized that no one was crying out anymore. If they were to the looting point, people ought to still be begging and pleading, trying to bargain. As if all their possessions, even their lives, were not already Stormborn possessions. They were offering the Stormborn their own things. It was laughable, really. But right now Vol wasn't smiling.

He emerged from the den with his usual confident stride, unconcerned about the possibility of ambush. He was a Stormborn Reaver out with his fellows and therefor had little and less to fear. Especially in a place where the inhabitants had already been subdued quite thoroughly. He began to reconsider that when the wind changed, however, and brought to him a completely unfamiliar scent that made him hesitate.

His stance shifted as he prepared for the possibility of attack, but he could neither see nor hear any form of enemy in the immediate vicinity. That was not nearly as much of a problem as the fact that he was also unable to sense any of his fellow Reavers, or their newly conquered captives. The evidence of the fight was still there, the blood, the destruction, and all the rest, but there were no people. Not a single lion, lioness, or cub was anywhere to be seen. Or heard.

The funny thing was, though, Vol could still smell them. And that was not actually funny, now that Vol thought about it. Funny was definitely too mild a term to describe the situation. There did not really seem to be a more accurate word that Vol could apply though. Most of the others which might have worked would have also assumed that Vol was frightened by what was going on, and as yet the Reaver only found the situation mildly disquieting, if that.

"Very funny," he said, pitching his voice to be heard at a distance without actually shouting. He was speaking as though his companions were somewhere nearby and hiding, perhaps as part of a joke or a prank. He didn't think that was likely to be the case, but he did not know what else he could attribute the silence and absence of his companions to.

Still no one made any reply. He took a few more steps out of the den and then made his way back toward the main living area, where the majority of the battle had taken place and where the captives would likely be held. As he walked he noted an unusual phenomenon: a pool of blood which had been oozing slowly out of a lion was spreading out. Not just spreading out like it would if the ground was uneven - which it was not - but spreading out as though someone was still bleeding into it.

Vol watched for several long moments to make sure that he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing. Then he began to move closer, treading with care since he was not seeing things as they were, it seemed. The possibility that he was imagining all of this did occur to him, but even if that was the case he did not have anything better to do than to go along with it for the time being and wait to wake up or to die. He rather hoped to be doing the former.

Suddenly his forepaw struck something soft and covered in fur - a body! He lowered his head to sniff at it, checking to make sure that the blood he was watching pool was coming from this body which he could not see. With his nose practically touching the lion he could feel the ragged breathing and almost hear agonized keening. He frowned and began to feel the least bit dismayed. He would have to touch people to see or hear them? That was just ridiculous.

"Enough," he declared and shook his head violently. If this was a dream, he was tired of it, and if it was not a dream, well, he would have to deal with that. He did not know of any ailment a Reaver might suffer which would render him incapable of seeing or hearing only lions. That seemed more like the curse of a god than any sort of thing sustained from an injury, even if it was a head injury.

Vol closed his golden eyes and focused on waking up. He was not a spiritual being, no priestess trained in the gods' ways, but he had never had any difficulty in waking up when he decided he had been long enough in a dream. Some lions, he was told, could simply change the events and people in their dreams without waking, but he was content to simply be able to leave a dream whenever he chose. When he opened his eyes again, he would be awake.

He opened his eyes with difficulty and found that blood had crusted one of them completely shut. Irritably he raised one paw to his mouth and licked the joint before rubbing it against the encrusted eye until he could crack both eyes open and be blinded by the sun. How nice.

"Ah, good. You aren't dead," said a soft tenor voice. "I wouldn't've enjoyed having to haul your ancient carcass back to the pride."

Vol growled at the young Reaver. "I'm fine. 'Tis but a scratch."

With a bitten-off groan Vol lurched to his feet and noticed that the green-eyed adolescent was still hovering nearby, apparently waiting to make sure Vol didn't collapse or something like that. With a half-hearted snarl Vol instructed Ru to bugger himself and began to make his way to join the rest of the Reavers.