~o-*-o~
Nychta snapped her jaws shut, pressing them together she could feel her teeth grinding together. She'd stopped breathing once the voice sounded, and she really did not want to be found by whatever was standing a couple of centimeters from her; it could be dangerous, after all. She was now holding her breath, and she hoped the thing could move on and never come back.
True enough, soon there were the sounds of paw steps heading away from her, a couple of meters, then silence, indicating whatever it was had stopped. Nychta let out her pent-up breath and tried to breath again, still attempting to get air as silently as possible.
"Hello?" The male voice repeated itself, further away now. Nychta heard some scuffling as if someone had bumped into something, and then a hiss of pain. In the heavy darkness and silence of the tunnel, the next muttered words were very easily heard by Nychta's sensitive ears. "I could have sworn I saw them here..."
Her breathing hitched once again; he'd seen them? But he'd only come after Blood started hiding! Nychta shifted backwards a couple of steps, trying to seek out Blood, and relaxed slightly when she felt something silky smooth like a feather under one of her paws.
"Nychta?" The voice spoke again, this time right next to her ear, and Nychta, not suspecting it, yelped, revealing her position. "Ah, thought so. Nychta, you're here, right?" Something warm poked at her ear, and it felt like a muzzle. "Okay, you're definitely here. I found you! That's great!" The voice sounded very happy as the source bobbed up and down. "I've been looking for you, for, like, nobody even knows how long! I know you're hurt, but come, come!" An excited tug to her ears caused Nychta to stumble and trip, faceplanting into whatever creature stood before her. To her relief, she felt soft fur, but she knew it wasn't Blood. It could possibly a puffadore- her mind told her. Another tug game to her ears urged her to get to her paws; she did, stumbling.
Everything was extremely confusing to her right now; this male apparently knew her name, and he also knew she was injured. Maybe Blood had told him beforehand? But Blood had claimed she had no friends; she apparently had no acquaintances too, according to her tone of voice when Nychta had mentioned the friends topic. As she thought more of it, things became more and more confusing. How had Blood known about her? Why did Blood bother to save her from the griffi? All of the unanswered questions swum around in her head.
Another tug, this time on one of her antenna. "Come on!" The excited voice squealed, nearly turning Nychta deaf. Not knowing what to do, Nychta decided to blindly trust this one, and she took a tentative step forwards. The moment her paw touched her ground to step forwards, a flash came from the side of her vision. In the moment of the flash, Nychta saw clearly what she was facing; a sand-coloured zolnixi.
Surprised and dazed, she whipped around, blinking furiously to clear the after-image in her eyes. What she saw slightly intimidated her. Blood's markings were flaring a bright white, and the nytekrie had drawn herself up to her full height, eyes narrowed. Nychta gulped, and followed Blood's gaze to the zolnixi. The zolnixi, however, did not seem to be fazed.
"Nychta is with me." The nytekrie hissed calmly yet dangerously, eyes blazing red in an inferno. "Who are you, and what do you want?" Her feathers were sticking out, making her seem like a large porcupine of terror, and Nychta shrunk back a bit, even though this was her companion.
"Oh, you must be Blood, amirite?" The zolnixi yelped happily, bounding forwards to stand beside Nychta and tilt his head upwards at the nytekrie. It seemed as if he couldn't see the intimidating facade Blood was putting on; either that, or he was really good at playing cool. Upon a closer look, which Nychta shifted closer to him to see, Nychta found that the zolnixi's eyes appeared to be a dull milky yellow colour- probably he was blind. Ignoring her and Blood, he continued to speak in a hyper way. "I knew it! I was somewhat suspicious when I only found Nychta! I did, after all, see that you were here with her!"
Nychta's confusion deepened as she frowned a bit. The zolnixi was talking about seeing, but he apparently didn't have 'sight' as normal people put it. He couldn't see out of his eyes. To test her theory, Nychta waved both antennae in front of his face to find that indeed, there was no reaction whatsoever from the zolnixi.
"Blood," Nychta began in a slightly shaky voice as she looked at the nytekrie and tried to coax her to calm down. "I don't think he means any harm; should we just go with him? Please? I'm really hurt. He's blind. I don't think he can see your intimidation show."
"Blind-!" The zolnixi cried indignantly but was cut off by Blood.
"Yes, I am aware he cannot see." The nytekrie stated coldly. "We do not know who he is, therefore, we are not going with him." She ignored the statement about Nychta being hurt or herself being intimidating.
"Please, Blood? We have no way to go either." Nychta huffed impatiently. Her paws and muscles were starting to ache again, and she really wanted to just get over with whatever drama was happening; she wanted to rest.
"Yeah! Listen to Nychta!" The zolnixi barked, stepping forwards. "You're one of us, aren't you, Blood? One of those who paid the price!"
Although the zolnixi said his words with a smile on his face, Nychta felt the temperature of the place drop by a lot of degrees, into a freezing type of cold. Blood's markings had now stopped flaring but were now glowing the normal kind of glow they normally emitted, but her face showed an incredulous expression. "So," The nytekrie began, then paused some time, letting her feathers and facade down, striding elegantly towards the zolnixi and towered over him. "You are also one? I see quite obviously." She brought her head down and scrutinised the zolnixi carefully. "You lost your sight. Exchanged it for foresight and prophecy, I see." She ended with a snarl and lifted her head back up.
"Uh, is everything okay?" Nychta was suspicious by the sudden change in attitude and tilted her head sideways, hoping Blood wouldn't suddenly fly off the hook and murder the zolnixi in cold blood.
"Yeah, don't you worry, Nychta!" The zolnixi turned his head towards her and lolled his tongue out leisurely. "We'll be leaving soon," he turned back to Blood. "Right?"
Blood muttered something incomprehensible in return.
"She said we're going! Come on!" The zolnixi dashed right by Nychta and paused. "Come on!"
Blood glided after him, picking Nychta up on the way. "His name is Santare, apparently." She said in a low voice. Nychta could see that she didn't trust this 'Santare'.
As the small group continued down the tunnel for some time, a faint light appeared in the distance before them.
"What's that?" Nychta asked, squinting and trying to see.
"Oh! Our friend is here." Santare looked at her, gave her a wink, and smiled mysteriously.
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