Redhawk Caldera Stray away from the forces that make you

He lifted his head when she answered, and heard her stir. The scrape of claw against dirt, the shuffle of limbs under bodyweight, chased by the irregularity of breath that signalled that something was amiss. He heard the harsh, soft sound of Fennec sliding back to the ground and the short, choked breaths that followed. He tilted his ears forward at the sound of his wounded friend, and panicked. What had he done? "Nonono," He murmured in a crackling voice, rising to his feet and for a moment he was ushered forward by his concern, and into the darkness only to skip backwards with a hopping motion, yanking his head back the way a horse will under a cruel bit. He shook his head wildly, flinging a few flecks of spittle through the air. 

Indecisively, he approached the dark opening and then shuffled backwards with a high pitched whine. Several times he did this, and each time he got no closer. The den got smaller every time he approached it, an artery growing smaller and smaller, closing in on itself. He touched the sides of the entrance with his nose as though to test it for durability but came away with dust on his nosetip; a sure sign, he thought, the earth was dry and likely to crumble. But Fennec had not emerged- and it seemed now that she hadn't come out because she didn't want to. What he had just heard implied that she hadn't come out to see him because she was in worse shape than he thought. 

He was too possessed by his fear to wonder if he should even be trying to see her. He'd doubted himself the whole way there, but despite how much he felt that Fennec begrudged him for caving in her first herb den, he couldn't simply walk away from her.

So he moved forward once more- this time avoiding the center of the den, and instead, he pressed himself against the side. One step after another, he passed the line of shadows and quivered as the darkness passed the curve of his hip, falling over his haunches and past a tail that was tucked tightly between his hind legs. He crept with his head, neck, shoulders and entire body pressing constantly against the side of the den as though to hold it in place, though he felt at any moment he might feel the rest of the den crowd him the way he was snaking along the wall. The whites of his eyes showed and he panted in short, panicked breaths, saliva dripping from the tip of his tongue that poked just past his tight lips. It began to foam at the corners of his mouth. 

He didn't speak when he saw her, but he likely reeked of stress as he came to a halt, staring almost blindly at her prone, weakened form as he tried to separate reality from paranoia. He uttered a soft, trembling whine, as though to ask for help from someone who was no more capable of helping him than he was himself. Slowly, he mustered the courage to pry his muzzle away from the wall where it had been pressed, and reached out to touch the tip of her nose with his- before he jerked it back, and leaned heavily against the den's wall again, staring around with a wild, bewildered look, expecting the world to collapse in on him again at any moment- 

But at least this time, he wouldn't be alone.