Kan a dog plead for Mercy? (Private)

[Sawyer]

((ooc - ha, you used my name in your last post ;D))

Kana's words were true, they needed to cover ground fast before the storm hit. He jumped down onto the wide ledge that jutted from the otherwise steep rock wall. Studying the black storm cloud, he knew that they would leave them with less usable daylight than they should have. Fabius would have cursed at this if it wasn't for his natural canine night vision.

He was glad the rocky path was wide enough for two dogs, it allowed them to move at a quick pace and not have to tiptoe along, at least for now. He was so focus on the road ahead, he faltered slightly when he felt something cold land on his black nose. Slowing to a standstill, his eyes crossed and he twitched his nose as the white speck melted from the heat of his foggy breath. 'Snow..'

Sparce flakes floated down from the heavens, swirling whenever nature's breath touched them. Fabius broke out into a lope and spoke over his shoulder, "We need to get as far as we can before the snow covers the path, it will get slippery after that, especially for me," he made the comment in referrence to his metal appendage, even with synhetic pads it didn't have the same traction on slick surfaces. "Then we need to find shelter as soon as possible. Keep a look out for a cave or at lest something big enough for us to fit." The wind howled against his back, almost pushing forward. When this storm finally hit, it was going to hit hard, he could feel it...

[Kana]

Kana flew along the path after him, her paws sliding easily into footholes and giving her good traction besides the slowly growing amount of snow. This was what she had trained so long to do back where she once lived. Being both assassin and tracker made this kind of skill important. The female flitter easily over the rugged trail, ignoring the gathering snow and focused on the cliff edges.

With a shockingly powerful bound she swerved around Fabius and took point in the run. Her narrow body let her cut through the increasingly hard wind with ease. Now... where are we going to find shelter? she thought worridly. Then her eyes locked on it... a ledge with a gaping hole at its end. The bad part... they had to make a hell of a jump to reach it.

Kana slowed her run, coming to a walk, "Fabius... in the middle of the canyon there! It seems to be a large out cropping of rock. Weird how it's right in the middle of the canyon, but if it'll get us out of this mess without losing a limb to frost bite it'll have to work right?" A large billow of snow flushed around her, making her claws slip a bit, but she kept a good hold. "I hope you can jump with that," she barked loudly over the wind motioning to Fabius's leg.

[Sawyer]

Snow blew into his face and he was forced to squint his eyes to see. fabius watched as kana passed him and pricked his ears when she talked about the shelter. Sure enough, right in the middel of the canyon was an out cropping a rock. In saying "I hope you can jump with that" Kana unknowingly offered Fabius a challenge, and throughout his life he had never backed down from a challenge.

Digging his metal claws into the path for support, he sprinted forward, running dangerously close to the ledge and the ravine below. When he felt he was close enough, he took a few longer strides before planting his feet on the edge and leaped. All of his muscles bunched close, giving him extra spring. Was he smaller, the wind could have helped him, but he was too large and his body too dense to get any additional assistance. He was relying on his own strength now.

He closed the distance between the ledge and the rock in front of him, eapidly losing altitude. Missing the rock by an inch, he threw his robotic arm forward and dug his claws into the rock. With a grunt he managed to secure his other paw onto the edge and pulled himself up. Lightly panting he looked back to see how kana took the jump....

[Kana]

Kana stood on the cliff watching him jump to make sure he made it. She almost lept after him when he missed the edge, but tensed for her normal jump when his metal claws gave him a good grip. While he dragged himself up she got ready.

The wind swirled past her and she calculated her jump. With three fluid-like bounds she slammed all fours paws into the ledge and pushed off. She looked like a bullet, plumeting through the thick snow. With a serve in her body the wind pressed her perfectly towards the rock.

Kana landed softly in a pile of snow... by softly that means quietly. Well landing on the other hand... Kana pulled her head out of the snow and spat out a large mouthful of it. She had landed face first into the drift and had gotten from her shoulders to her nose stuck in the bank of snow. With a shake of her pelt she fled into the cave lithly. The snow instantly whipped away her tracks in the snow as she headed into the small cave.

"Come on... you'll freeze and then I'll have to explain to the Boss how you died. By how we met she'll think I killed you," she barked from inside the dark cave. Kana curled up tightly against the wall of the cave, a couple of feet from the entrance.

[Sawyer]

Fabius snickered under his breath when he saw how Kana stuck her landing. He shivered slightly, and followed her into the cave, taking a glance behind him to see the snow falling heavily. With a good shake just inside the entrance, he rid himself of any remaining flakes that stuck to his black pelt. "Damn. If it keeps this up, we'll be stuck here 'til morning."

Padding slowly into to the cave, he looked over at Kana curled into a ball. Basic survival instincts told him to join her so they could keep themselves arm with each other's body heat. But common sense told him she'd probably do worse if he did. After a moment of hesitation, he walked to the back of the cave with a couple feet between them and made his own ball. "The packs gonna think we're both dead, or we ran off together, which means they'd be out searching to kill us." After shifting slighty to a more comfortable position he continued with. "But I think they'd know better than to think the latter." Shutting his eyes, he settled in to go to sleep. He left mother nature to decide whether he would live or freeze to death....

[Kana]

Kana shuddered as a deep, an icey wind winded its way into the cave. Being closer to the entrance it coated her and chilled her to the bone. She leapt up from the entrance and moved towards the back of the cave with Fabius, thinking it better to stay from the snow dripping wind. She kept about three few away though, she wasn't about to let him think she wasn't capable of lasting on her own.

She laid with her muzzle under one paw and her hind legs curled to her stomach. Her ears flattened against her skull in the uncomfortable and cold position. Kana tried to suck up as much heat as she could, but her body heat and the cave floor wasn't a good suplier.

She glanced at Fabius and ruled him out almost instantly, though her instincts wanted to kick her over towards the warmth coming off of him. Kana wondered it his instincts told him the same... course there were many (ehem)instincts males had issues dealing with. Kana bared her teeth making her jaw hurt as she curls tighter into the small ball.

[Sawyer]

Fabius had drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep, until...drip..drip..drip. Some of the snow was melting on the roof of the cave and running through a crack and falling on the top of his head. Drip..drip....drip. His brow furrowed above his closed eyes. Picking himself up he wandered half asleep to another place near the back of the cave. His paws dragged and and his steps were fumbled as he did their best to find their way across the floor.

Finally, he found a dry place and flopped down, once again forming a tight ball. However, his rear foot brushed up against something warm, standing out from the rest of the cold rock. Brain numb from still being half asleep, he was relying on pure instinct and inched closer to the warm object. Ears twitching as he settled back in, he reliquished himself back into the confineds of his subconscious.

[Kana]

The cold was still heavy in the air and it still seeked bone and flesh to chill. Kana wasn't bothered, half way through the night she felt warmer and had resisted moving at all... afraid it would disappear and that it was only hr mind playing up again. When her eyes fluttered open to the sound of snowless winds through the canyon she figured out what that heat was.

As her cold numbed brain came to match what her eyes saw she gotter hotter... this time in fury. "YOU BASTARD! Taking advantage of me in my sleep! YOU IDIOT! I wish you had frozen instead of using me like your own personal heater!" she snarled furiously after giving him a sharp jab in the ribs to wake him up.

Despite her relentless fury... she was kind of glad he had moved to her side. It had ensured both of them would last through the night, but her temper was unleashed anyway. Kana doubted he would try anything after she threatened to go Hiro-style on him a few times so she relaxed a bit.

Her pride was inwardly hurt though. Being an assassin and not noticing someone curled up next to them was pathetic. She felt like a dim-witted pup at that thought. However she didn't exactly feel like chewing him out more, she actually wanted to take back her insults seeing as if he hadn't she might have frozen. She let out a regretful sigh, "Thanks..." Kana swallowed her pride and touched her nose to his cheek before turning and heading towards the entrance of the cave, her head low and body stiff from the cold night. "Don't let it go to your head brute," she said over her shoulder kind of bleakly.

[Sawyer]

Fabius twitched in his sleep, a small smile spread on his face. He was dreaming about chasing after a bunch of wooly, black sheep. He was plastered against the side of the flock, the bodies felt warm against his skin. A predatory gleam shone in his eyes as his closed in on a small lamb. All of a sudden, out of nowhere and ram butted against his side and the sheep vanished.

When he opened his eyes, he was in the cold damp cave in the Alps, no sheep, but a painful bruise was forming on his side. He rolled on his back and snapped his head in Kana's direction. Looking at her upside down, she seemed to be sputtering something about taking advatage, him being an idiot, and a frozen personal heater. As his thought cleared and he tried to piece together her rantings, it became all too clear how he had obtained the bruise.

Suddenly, he saw her approach again and he tensed, prepared for another wallop. Instead she thanked him and he felt her touch her cold nose against his warm cheek, his feet tingled, but maybe that was from the blood draining from them as they suspened in the air. He flipped himself upright on his stomach and she said, "Don't let it go to your head brute." Fabius layed there blinking, and as he watched her walk out of the cave, all that he could say was a raspy, "No problem...?"

[Kana]

Kana slid out of the cave and looked around with a blank expression. A breeze caught her off gaurd and she shuddered, her jaw quivering. Her long, needle sharp teeth clicked together in the small shudder. Both purple orbs traced the canyon. "Damn it..." she let out sharply.

The canyon walls were higher around them than she thought. Below the canyon streached on a bit and a raging river of melted snow gushed below the large pillar they were on. A dpressed sigh escaped and she hung her head, cussing under her breath again. Kana moved along the end, passing where she had landed and the area where Fabius's metal claws cut into the rock.

Her eyes desperatly searched for a pathway that would get them out of the canyon's belly. Kana's ears swivled backwards to catch his "no problem" and she rolled her eyes. Though he would jump over that. Hehe, maybe it's finally getting through his thick skull not to get me pissed. Her thoughts faded as the state of their well being came back. Two dogs, one hell of a canyon. "This isn't going to be easy," she growled from the sharp ledge marking the end of the island of rock.

[Sawyer]

Fabius rose to his feet, his side still throbbing from the punch Kana had thrown him. Exiting the cave, he saw pacing like a caged tiger at the edge of the rock column they stood on, swearing. For a moment, he wodered if it had something to do with him, but when he glanced around them, the sight of the high rock walls surrounding them made him think differently.

"This isn't going to be easy," he heard her growl from the end of the island. Assuming that she was out of ideas, he bagan to make his own rounds to figure a way out. There were no trees, no additional columns between them and freedom, nothing that could be fashioned into a bridge. Fabius began to walk back to the cave when he noticed something, the cave. Caves couldn't be caves unless they had rooves. He ran behind the cave, which didn't have much of a behind to work with since it practically dropped off from there. There were a couple of large boulders he had to jump onto, but he then he found himself climing the small slope that was the roof of the cave. At the top he saw a different picture. The wall wasn't any closer, if anything it was further, but he was at a higher vantage point.

After dusting some of the snow off of the roof with his paws, he walked back as far as he could. He closed his eye and took a deep breath. Snapping his eyes back open, he gazed at his goal landing point with determination. With a burst of adrenaline, he spirinted forward and dug his feet into the edge of the cave's roof for extra spring, taking the giant leap. There was almost no wind this morning and he was glad, it would've been near impossible under different circumstances. Soon could feel rock under his pads, his front feet planted themselves onto the edge, though his hind legs fell a little short, but he was able to pull himself up the rest of the way.

For a moment, he stood there panting, before he looked back at Kana on the island, turning his body to see her better before shouting, "Kana, use the roof of the cave to get a higher starting point. If I can do that," he paused to pant, "you should have no problem."

[Kana]

Kana turned to look at him prowling the ledges as she had done. It looked like he was about to give up, but it seemed he had thought of somthing. She watched with a purple gaze as he went back into the cave.

A bit later she heard his voice and suggestion so she followed the paw prints left in the dusty floor of the cave. Her long legs gave her easy bounds and long claws gripping at the boulders as she leaped up them. With little to no effort she climbed up the roof like slope and saw Fabius. He had jumped.

Kana backed up, not to be out done, and raced forward. Power built up in her legs in anticipation and she pushed off. Her claws met the ledge near Fabius, scraping loudly. Kana bared her jaw a bit, "Sheesh. That's what I get for landing on my claws." She twitched her nose. Then her nub of a tail. "Heh, that was fun." In truth it had felt like a game to her. Streaching her legs in large jumps always made her get pumped with adrenaline... especially with the possible fall always looming as a consiquence.

Kana looked towards the upriver area of the canyon and perked her ears. Her nose tilted into the air and she met a lofty breeze. A strange buzzing filled her ears. For a moment she was confused... the next in shock. "We need to get to even higher ground... I'm not sure this is good enough for what's on its way," she growled lowly. Before he could ask what she continued, "Flash flood."

(OCC: Ohhhh more drama! Isn't it weird flash floods can happen in canyons without it even raining >: D That's my kind of canyon! *evil laugh*)

[Sawyer]

((Yeah. (rolls eyes) Weird flash floods like that only happen when they come out of your mind K. ;)) ((fabius - ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME WOMAN! you did it on pupose, you know i can't swim!))

Fabius heard her growls and looked into the ravine. Where there was just rock and dry dirt, and at one point snow, there was a deep river running through it, and rising. The sight made his blood run cold. There was no way he would survive if the water overtook them before they found higher ground. Anxiously lifting his front legs he said, "Ye..Yeah lets get outta here."

Sweeping his gaze in every direction, he spotted a large mesa ((ooo school words ;D)) in the distance. However, Fabius' stomach sank, it looked like it was miles away, but it was the only thing tall enough unless they could cling to trees like squirrels. He looked back at the ever rising water and the decision was pretty much decided.

"We're gonna have to run for that," he told Kana, nodding his head in the direction of the large mound. Wasting no time, he bolted, legs a blur of black, brown, and silver motion. It was a race againsty the clock and the elements, and death seemed to be nipping at his heels.

[Kana]

Kana saw his reaction and the metal leg and laughed. "Weird time to laugh, but... I find this entertaining," she snickered. She took off after him, her perifrial vision keeping tabs of the rising water. There was another roar of water. The small raise in the water level wasn't the only issue. The body of the flash flood was just around the bend.

Her keen gaze caught the small overflow as the wave of water flew down the canyon like a chute. There was a downhill slope, speeding up the unsteady current. She cursed and ran faster. If they didn't make it to the mesa quick enough she would have to act as a float to keep Fabius from sinking like a rock.

"The thick of the flood is catching up fast. If we don't make it fast enough grab onto me as fast as you can. I'm not letting you die," she barked to him, running only a foot ahead. While she spoke she didn't even look back, Kana was to focused on the water level rising up the canyon.

(here it cooo-oooomes! =3 Kana save Fabius if needed yus yus)

[Sawyer]

Fabius was reasured by her statement, thinking it was nice that she at least respected him as a packmate enough to let him die. "Glad to hear it." They were making good time, the mesa looked to be no more than a mile away. However, despite his chmeically enhanced muscles, they were no match for a downward slope, the roaring water creeping closer.

Suddenly, he felt a chill in on his hind leg, it was touching water! He glanced back and the watter was about to over take him. Kana's woulds replayed themselves in her mind. "If we don't make it fast enough grab onto me as fast as you can." He surged ahead to follow her insturctions, but he was so focused on reaching her that he made never saw it coming. He about to grabbed onto his packmate when his leg fell into a sinkhole that was invisible to the naked eye. Missing his mark completely, he stumbled and fell, an easy mark for the flood.

Fabius felt the water surround him and continue to carry him down the hill with it. He was panicing, it was just like being in an avalanche. He struggled to keep his head up, but it wasn't long before he couldn't tell which way was up or where the ground was. By a sheer stroke of luck, the water tumbled him just right so his head was thrown out of water momentarily. I tgave himthe opportunity to take a shallow breath of air and shout, "KANA! Look ou..." before he disappeared into the wave.....

((This is getting good!))