Red winced and whimpered and damn-near howled as the storm raged on and on over her head, drenching her in rain and making her ears ring. It got so bad that she did not even notice when Magpie got up and twirled, or motioned with her head to ask who the coywolf was. In the span of thirty seconds, Red had gone from semi-okay to downright terrified, though she was just sane enough to know that she couldn’t go running around like an idiot all over again.
Gingerly, she rose her paws, taking the extra effort to hold her injured paw above the ground. If it had been one of her front legs that had been hurt, she’d have had a much easier time, but as it was, holding a back paw off the ground felt weird and definitely unbalanced her. Without even so much as a glance in the other’s direction — mainly due to her fear of the storm and the overwhelming need to get the hell out of and away from it — she turned and began hobbling very slowly along, searching desperately for a place to shove herself into for the night.
Eventually, she came across a small split in the rock face of a nearby mountain. It was an awkward fit and she accidentally banged her swollen ankle on the inside wall of her temporary shelter, but it would have to do for now. She just hoped the swelling wouldn’t be worse in the morning. Flattening her ears against her head to block out some of the sounds of the raging storm, she squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for kinder weather…