Grouse Thicket thou bleeding piece of earth

Her legs were burning, thrashing as she finally broke the surface. Dimly, the voice of another, but that was of no concern. Now her muzzle broke through, air, glorious air, relieved her lungs. Somehow, her paws found purchase, and she dragged her limp comrade slowly toward shore, tired greatly by her rescue attempt. Attempt. Was he alive? But as she stood beside him, regaining her breath and eyeing the lump that was Nico, her gaze fell on another.

The voice she had heard returned to her, the words echoing in her mind as she slowly turned to the other. Expression, emotionless. Truly...not so much. Rage, rage bubbled within her. This...this bitch was attempting to stop her from checking on the silver soldier.  Her gaze was flame as it burned into the other drawing her words beneath her like arsenal for the verbal spew she was about to deliver. She was slipping into the rage that she kept carefully under check most of the time, which she couldn't. She could not afford to beat up this stupid woman while Nico potential died in the background. She drew herself up, staring at the other. "No. You stay away, bitch. Some fucking pack you are. Had I not been here, Nico would have died." Her formal, collected composer dissolved, and she lapsed into silence, trembling once at the extent of her temper. 

But worry for Nico far outweighed her anger, in a sudden, swift moment, she spoke again, tongue lashing as a viper. "Do not come near. You have no place here." she said, before half turning, eye still on the other as she attended to Nico. Memories of their past meeting flooded her, and her gut twisted with a fierce worry, and she simultaneously came to terms with a few things, which, she perhaps knew all along. Tenderly, trembling the slightest with barely restrained emotion and exhaustion, she nosed his fur his wounds, detecting the rise and fall of his chest, the tremble of a pulse. Had he inhaled water? She was no medic, but she knew that water in must come out. She nudged him, carefully, attempting to flip him onto his side, a better position in which to recover and in which to enact her plan should she discover that he had, in fact, swallowed water. She did not know of the extent in which she trembled as she did her best to help him, with worry and emotion and exhaustion, with the hope that the other would not attack, with rage.