Her heart had started pounding in her chest, a roar of blood between her ears. It felt like every brush against a blade of grass was as loud as the crack of thunder overhead, like at any moment, like at any second, a whole horde of giant, angry wolves might appear and swallow them whole. It was like this every time, no matter how many times Little Crow had trespassed. This was nothing like the desert, and she couldn’t run home to Crow’s Crossing…but she couldn’t run home to the Crossing anyways, because they’d disown her anyways.

Zig, and zag, and zig, and zag.

She swallowed hard, sparing only the quickest glance to make sure she hadn’t lost her new partner. Still here. A niggling thought reminded her that maybe he could betray her – but not yet. He wanted dinner. So did she. And the telltale scent of rotting meat (seasoned, really) led them quickly to the cache nearest the borders. It looked relatively undisturbed, as if it hadn’t been tended to in quite some time…perhaps an emergency cache, or perhaps it belonged to someone gone now. Little Crow really hoped for the second one.

“Dig,” she hissed. “Quick, for anyone sees.”

Wow.

She hadn’t meant for the guy to do all the digging himself…though she supposed it made sense, in retrospect. All the knowledge had been hers, she was doing all the teaching. Only seemed fair that he did his part of the work, too. Yeah. That’s what it was. Big Buzzard earning his keep. She wasn’t gonna keep feeding him like some weird pet.

Little Crow kept her ears strained forward, twitching violently every time the wind shifted the fog or whistled through the grasses. Those imaginary wolves were still breathing down her spine, nipping at the tip of her tail, howling at her ears – but they were still the imaginary wolves. For now. The anxiety might not be foreign for the female loner, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

“Good,” she whispered hoarsely, barely above the shift of grasses around them. She hadn’t lifted her head, not even her ear tips – couldn’t risk getting caught. Couldn’t risk losing Big Buzzard to something to stupid, so early on. They hadn’t even found Fallen Tree Cave yet!

It wasn’t a big cache, but there was definitely enough for two wolves to have a decent meal. Catching Buzzard’s eye, she nodded silently and swept in, picking up a rabbit, waiting only long enough for him to do the same.

Yeah, this is the part where they ran like all hell.

Little Crow’s jaw clenched, digging in a little further to her rabbit as her muscles started to coil. The cache was left empty and she spared it a glance, wondering if covering it up would spare them more time in the long run – it hadn’t been disturbed in a while, so maybe the owner wouldn’t even bother looking? If she pushed the dirt back into the hole, would it matter?

Nah, probably not. Better run.

The best defense was long miles between her and the next wolf, the wolves hanging out somewhere around here. Her tail whipped from side to side, and then the small desert wolf was off like someone had shot her from a canon. Her ears flattened against her skull, her stride lengthening and lengthening as she moved, coming to a full stride in only a few seconds. When truly let out, Little Crow was a champion sprinter – not unlike her mother had been, years and years before (before the injury, before the anxiety). Her heart still roared like a locomotive, her heart hammering in her throat…but no one howled, or barked, and her and Big Buzzard were almost in the clear, almost out of the borders – and then they just had to run to the water and wash, again.

Mmm, yeah, it would be pretty humiliating if Big Buzzard lost his rabbit somewhere in the grass. It was already dead for fuck’s sake. How hard was it to keep it with him?

Namir chanced only the briefest of glances over her shoulder, just enough for her beady yellow eye to catch sight of her burly companion. A bit slow, yeah, but they could work on that. He was keeping enough pace. She didn’t look for long, lest she miss something out in the obvious and fall flat on her face. It’d probably trip up her partner in crime, too. It’d probably alert all the wolves (imaginary or not) that something fishy was happening just along the borders of the rye fields. And it’d probably make her look like a goddamn fool, too.

And Mama didn’t raise no fool.

The very thought left Little Crow bristling, pouring on a little extra speed as she opened her gait again, the veritable afterburners sending her flying over the finish line of a race only she was running. Her chest heaved, and they went sailing over the borders, but they couldn’t stop yet. It wasn’t like a fence that would keep pack wolves in. They had to keep running for the water, and lose any trace of rye wolf scent on them. Only then could try rest.