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Usually Enitan wouldn't complain about a night feeling like it was too long. After all, he could get more done that way, as he rarely found use in the term "bored" as it was. However, this was one night he would have preferred to be just a tad shorter. It wasn't nearly close enough to reaching that advent, something Enitan grew painfully aware of each time he checked the sky for a hint of the oncoming sun. Each time he noted, it couldn't be darker.

Huddled at the foot of a tree, Enitan chipped away at a twig he found near his current rest stop in a half-hearted attempt to settle down. He was still revved up, adrenaline refusing to give him a break despite it being a good few hours since his last encounter. Unfortunately, he was still pretty sure he hadn't seen the last of the alkidike, and was trying in vain to formulate a plan to lose her trail completely. He didn't want to lead her to the others, nor did he want to head that way himself as of yet. He was even more restless now, so it would have made this whole situation for naught if he ended up waking someone up with his pacing or fidgeting.

"Lovely situation you've found yourself in, Eni," he grumbled to himself, exasperated. He didn't want it to be a case of separating every member of the tribe to pick them off one by one...

He could have sworn he still heard rustling through the leaves and brush. Shaking his head as though to convince himself otherwise, he placed his hands over his ears to drown it out. He just needed to settle down, and his pulse could stop emphasizing every little thing in the vicinity to sound like the huntress. He just needed to calm down!

"Great gods!" Enitan yelped at the sudden and harshly abrupt entrance of another encounter. He was immediately -- if unsteadily -- back on his feet as the woman came tumbling into view, and he pressed himself against the tree at his back for support. As soon as he was sure he wouldn't lose balance, he nearly bolted around the trunk to obscure himself from view as he analyzed his current predicament. However, he refrained; whoever it was that dropped in seemed to be having a hard time focusing, so maybe she was unaware that he was even here? She was certainly no alkidike...

The mud and greenery that decorated her body was enough to shroud the fact that she was from the leaf tribe, at least immediately. From her stature and height, Enitan jumped to the conclusion that she must have been another shifter who had been unable to sleep in all the excitement and apprehension of the expedition. Surely there was no reason a member of the leaf tribe would wander through such a dense part of the forest, alone, and during the dead of night...

His eyes were long since adjusted to the dim light, though it was still difficult to make out things like he could at home. Without the familiar, pale translucent glow that dotted the underside of the trees, his eyes had to work a bit harder at discerning detail. He inched closer, trying not to startle the newcomer that had most certainly been startled enough by now. He leaned over a bit to make sure she knew he was there and attempted to offer a hand, "Are you okay? That was quite the fa-- Yeegh!" He flinched back, realizing that she did not sport the same silvered skin of the shifter. Questions immediately began berating Enitan's skull, most pointed of which queried if she was also out for blood, as much as the alkidike Jerarda seemed to be.

Perhaps Enitan would have been a little more defiant in the face of such unfamiliar circumstance, defensive toward the remarks given and differences that may or may not have merely been skin-deep, but that same sort of reaction had only proven to be hazardous throughout the past few hours the shifter had been scoping out the forest on his own. He was teetering over whether to ignore the implications that his encounter with Jerarda had incited -- for this was not another alkidike he was currently dealing with -- or tiptoe very carefully around any possible conflict. Maybe he could get out of here quickly... but then, what if the battle-crazed alkidike came through this way? Came across this disoriented leaf tribe woman? Would the bloodlust make her so blind?

...Should he even care? She wasn't a shifter, so he had no attachment...

Her irritation snapped the shifter out of his dumbfounded state, and he was half-tempted to retort to her query with an ill-tempered 'not really.' He didn't really talk to those in his own tribe, and Jerarda... wasn't really what he would have considered a woman, all things considered. Upon reevaluation of the statement, that may just have proven to dig himself a hole... so he refrained in order to keep some semblance of dignity intact.

As though asking if he had seen a ghost had somehow kickstarted his grasp on the situation again, he jolted and glanced around the area. They had not exactly been the most... quiet of lurkers in the dark. If that blasted alkidike was in the area... Motioning for the woman to get up, Enitan hissed a hasty, "We have to get out of here; it's not safe. There's some sort of monster in the area, and I'd rather not be found again." So eloquent in how he referred to Jerarda... but maybe it would get her to hurry up. That is, if she could. "Er... you okay?" he repeated the question, this time with a little more even stability.

While Enitan was, indeed, a highly nervous bundle of energy at the moment, it caused him to feel a bit of relief that the leaf tribe woman wasn't dawdling with the direness of the situation. Honestly, he had half-expected her to start interrogating him about it, but she seemed to not want to take the chance at getting caught in a potentially-dangerous situation. He had to hand it to her, she seemed to know the proper response to a blind crisis. Enitan's anxiety, however, was a very volatile concoction against his better judgment, and although he was nowhere less visibly nervous, he still scoffed, "Seems the most adequate description."

Labels didn't make his sense of urgency any less imperative, and he offered a sharp nod in agreement to the option of making haste. He'd already had spent perhaps a bit too much time in hiding as it was, catching his breath after an arduous chase, and wasn't sure how close the alkidike may have been to discovering where the shifter was temporarily camping out. Or, really, if she had just given up... but she had seemed a bit too enthusiastic about continuing this little escapade for him to believe otherwise, not yet. It had been relatively silent in the area before the leaf tribe girl literally stumbled onto the scene, so he was almost positive that would only lead to more problems.

And speaking of problems... Enitan flinched in retaliation to the Tale native's observation of her leg's condition, but already his mind was attempting to rally the resources to come up with a plan. They had to work fast, but how to travel quickly with an injured associate? She couldn't very well limp the entire way, but what was there..? He fidgeted, blankly scowling, "How much weight can you put on it? ...I'm not going to have to carry you, am I?" While, logically-speaking, he was probably capable of it -- there wasn't an excessive height difference and the adrenaline was still making it possible for him to ignore the jammed shoulder and ribs to an extent -- he kind of preferred that to be... a last resort. Not that he was given too many options, when it really came down to it. "Unless you have a better idea on the spot," he added, silently hoping she had... and wasn't just being painfully stubborn about it. Having healers for parents, he knew well enough that walking around on an injured leg could risk further damage.

While Keilana's piercing glare was not lost on Enitan, his own irritated expression didn't falter in the face of it. Swell, they were already getting off on the wrong foot, this was going to be pleasant. Sighing, he let the visible agitation drop as his hand skimmed through his medium-length hair. He always seemed to be on edge under crisis, and while he regarded it as a better option to outright panicking, it was still a form of reacting to fear. He needed to keep from getting too snarky, at least until he could determine if they were safe from immediate danger; arguing wasn't going to help anything.

Watching as the leaf tribe woman tested the extent of the damage on her ankle, he sighed when he realized things weren't going to be going so smoothly. "At least it doesn't seem to be a broken ankle..." he grumbled. While that would lead to faster recovery later, a sprain was just as debilitating as a break in the here-and-now.

As he tried to think about how they were going to move about the forest with a 'monster' potentially on their metaphorical tails, he responded to Keilana with a simple nod. "Well, not much we can do about it now," he conceded, stepping closer and crouching down, hoping she'd take the hint and let him carry her without him having to grab her himself. He'd just... try not to think about it, and kept speaking in order to try to do just that, "I'll be able to cover more distance along the ground floor while carry-- um... with the added weight. Then maybe take it to the trees in an attempt to mask the trail if she hasn't caught up with us yet." It seemed he was blocking a little too many of his senses out at the moment, missing the fact he'd let on more than what he had initially planned to with his hint at what this danger might have been indicating.

Enitan fought back the urge to flinch as he felt Keilana's touch, unused to being anywhere within such close proximity to another being. In the heat of battle, his mind was more on survival than such a trivial consideration, but now that the situation had altered to be a little less dire, the thought surfaced with greater ease. His words were silenced as she accepted the offer, turning more inward. Best to make this as quick as possible, he noted, making sure he had a firm grasp on her before standing. It took a few seconds for him to readjust his center of balance to attribute the excess weight, but once he had, he wasted little time in making headway forward.

Just think of her as any other shifter... Enitan told himself. Those were the only others he really allowed physical contact with, regardless of how rare even that was. He just normally did not allow it, for he was so quick to jump to friendship. He winced slightly as his ribs reminded the shifter what it was he was suppose to be paying attention to, and he was tempted to be glad about the change in his current perspective. Just as long as the adrenaline held out, he could be out of this mess that much easier; the pain just had to stay numbed until he got back to camp.

It wasn't until Keilana asked about the 'monster' did Enitan realize he had been silent all of the sudden in his thought processing duration. While he hoped it hadn't been as long as it felt, he decided not to linger on the notion. His eyes turned upward, thinking how to go about explaining; he had no idea how much contact the leaf tribe had with the alkidikes, but considering their apparent dislike of males and the difference in living arrangements, he hazarded the guess that they probably had less with one another than the alkidikes had with the shifters. Augh, this was so complicated... so Enitan decided to go the simple route, even if the leaf tribe girl ended up hitting him over the head for 'overreacting' toward one; he could always explain that one, too. "Well... have you ever met an alkidike? Those really tall... plant-aligned women?" he asked, noting how terrible he was at explaining.

Enitan nearly stumbled when he heard Keilana's next question, holding back a snort of amusement, "...Yeah, one of those crazy women." He was grinning at that, finding the description to be rather apt to the one he had faced perhaps a half hour prior in the evening. It seemed the leaf tribe didn't have very good ties with the alkidikes either, which was a bit of a relief -- maybe he didn't have to delve into as much detail as he feared. "They don't seem to be the most neighborly of people, and are quick to jump to a more hostile stance," he growled. However, after another brief pause, he reconsidered that statement, "Well, at least the one I ran into was. Not sure if that's just because I'm male, or if they're like that with everyone they see as an outsider." As prone as he was to doing so, he knew it wise not to group an entire race under a single attribute. That wouldn't save him from being on the defensive when in the presence of any other alkidike, though, he was certain of that...

It seemed that the act of talking about the situation like this, when it caused necessary vigilance from all parties, kept Enitan from dwelling on how uncomfortable their current predicament had become. When his mind drifted back to the fact that he was carrying Keilana across the forest floor as he was, it was because he could tell he was supporting her more with a single arm than dispersing the weight more, wondering if that was a subconscious effort. Was that jostling her more? Should he readjust how the weight was dispersed? "How are you holding up?" he asked in a less eloquent manner. He really would have preferred getting more altitude in the trees, but didn't think they had covered enough ground for him to feel comfortable to try to hazard the ascent just yet.