The Hunt is On

Storms and Seclusion

"No, no that's not secluded enough."
Ember sighed and rubbed her forehead with her hand. She turned and walked away from the patch of trees we had found that had, until now, looked like a great shelter.
"Are you sure, what about just for tonight? It's getting dark, we can always move on it the morning." I reminded her. "Plus, we need something to eat."

Ember thought about it, and then walked back to where I was standing.
"Alright, just for tonight. But if Jago finds us in the middle of the night, I'm blaming every bit of it on you. Okay?"
I nodded. "Okay. But he probably won't, I'm still hurting from that fall and we didn't fall nearly as much as he did. He's probably out for a few days."
Ember laughed at the memory and shook her head. "That was too funny, he actually fell for it!"
I rolled my eyes and put my hand on her shoulder. "You know who to thank for that." I told her. "Now let's go catch our dinner, we didn't even have lunch, I'm starving."

Fortunately, we had spotted a flock of birds a little ways down from our shelter and within the hour we had caught three and had made a small fire. We were careful about not sending the trees up in flames while we fixed our makeshift dinner, but Ember knew what she was doing.
I shifted my weight to my right leg as I took another bite of my bird.

"So why do you think Jago came after us like he did?"
Ember froze at the question, her mouth still full of meat. Then she shrugged and went back to chewing. I frowned at her. "Come on, you must have some idea." I pressed. She swallowed her food and rolled her eyes at me. "Not really. He's probably just still grumpy that we got away from him on his property. And now a second time today"
My frown deepened. "Yeah but why would he be that mad at us running around in his forest? We didn't do anything wrong besides the fact we weren't supposed to be there. It's not like we attacked his pack or anything." Ember nodded, still eating away at the cooked bird. "True, but some people hold grudges."
"This might be a little more then a grudge, Ember. Who knows what he would have done if he had caught us." After the two of us had escaped Jago for the second time, the reality of things were beginning to set in like this. We had no clue had mad he still was at us, or if something else was making him act like this.

Ember sighed deeply, indicating her exhaustion, and threw the bird bones into the trees behind her.
"I think you're working yourself up." She told me. "Relax, he won't find us for at least a few more days. We are both tired and we need to sleep. Tomorrow, we can move out early and try to find those girls we had talking about before Jago found us, okay?"
I nodded, thankful that Ember was able to still come up with a reasonable plan through all of this.
"Alright, good plan. I'll talk to you in the morning." I pulled her into a close hug and she put our fire out, leaving us in darkness.
We were both asleep in minutes.

~~~<<<~~~>>>~~~<<<~~~>>>~~~

The chirping sounds of small birds in the trees above us brought me awake the next morning. It was hit and humid, and I shifted uncomfortably on the forest ground. Ember was still asleep next to me, so I reached over and pushed her shoulder gently.
"Come on Blue-Haired-Beauty. Rise and shine." She groaned and swatted at my hand, but she soon sat up.
It was humid enough that I was comfortable without my light sweater on, so I pulled it off and tied it loosely around my waist.
I stood up and stretched my hands above my head, the way they do in the infomercials. Except I felt nothing like that. Ember stood up besides me and flashed me a quick smile. I returned it, and we set off together for the day.

Our plan was that we could hopefully be able track down at least one other female we would be able to stick with. As Ember said, there are power in numbers. Hopefully, as many girls already do, there would be more then one of them staying together.
A scent was the first thing we needed to be able to find anyone. So Ember and I shifted into our wolves and fanned out, trying to pick up a scent of anything. Once we had cleared an area without finding a thing, we moved a mile or so in one direction to keep things moving. This went on for a few hours before I heard Ember bark. I lifted my head in her direction and trotted over.