Butterflies in Winter

::Chapter 8:: Ally

Kit awoke to sunlight seeping through the entrance of their little den, and the feeling of being smothered.

For maybe half a second, the young wolf panicked. Thinking that he had been attacked, and that death was imminent.

Then he remembered where he was, and he allowed himself to relax.

He opened his eyes to find a large amount of dark hair covering his face. He shifted a little, trying to move the object from off his chest. Only to find himself pinned down by an immoveable object.

Shifting beneath a pile of people who were very intent on continuing to sleep as long as they could, wasn't the easiest thing that Kit had ever undertaken. Yet by some Godly miracle, he managed the feat.

Pulling himself out of the pile of sleeping bodies, until his upper abdomen was free from the burden. He looked down to find that Romany had found her way over to him in her sleep, and had decided that his wolf pelt made the perfect pillow. Max had apparently joined her at some point.

As much as he wished that he could have stayed there forever, in the warmth of the den and safe. He knew that they had already lost too much time as it was, and that they needed to get going as soon as they could.

Balancing himself carefully, he moved the hand which he had been using to keep himself upright and prodded Max's wing. The eagle stirred a little, but otherwise didn't move very much.

Great, Kit chuckled. The one time I don't have a water bottle on me.

Now regretting thinking about water, as he realised how incredibly thirsty he was feeling. Kit attempted again, prodding and pulling but to no avail. The eagle seemingly had no intention of moving an inch.

"Rom," he hissed under his breath. Nudging the woman with the underside of his knee, trying to get her too move. "Romany, get up," he continued, insistently pushing at the woman with his leg, trying to get any response.

The younger woman moved a little, blinking an eye open. She jerked upwards suddenly, almost head-butting Kit as she leapt to her feet. Apparently remembering a little too late as to where she was.

"Sorry," she muttered. Clearly embarrassed as her cheeks flushed a light red.

"Don't worry about it," Kit responded, and he truly didn't care. "You're talking to a man whose lived the last decade of his life isolated on an island. There is little anyone can do to surprise me at this rate."

His attempts at a joke didn't seem to go down very well. Yet thankfully, Max had awoken from his death like snooze. A little annoyed at first, then he too remembered where he was, and sprang to his feet. Only narrowly missing smacking his head against the bark of the tree above them.

"What's the plan?" Max asked, looking to Kit as though certain that by now the wolf would have come up with a plan.

"I don't know, you?" was the best response Kit could come up with, looking back at Romany expectantly.

For a moment she didn't speak, thinking. "You don't happen to have a map, do you?"

Looking back at Max, with an attempt at a smile now that things had returned to serious. "Do you want to demonstrate?"

Max didn't need to be asked twice. He pulled himself from the den and snapped a twig from a nearby branch. There was little dry ground due to the rains and wind from the day before, but the young shifter was able to find some and settled down.

He worked swiftly and efficiently, etching into the ground with the end of his stick, Kit watched carefully before explaining to Romany. "He knows the island better than anyone, we don't have a proper map, I haven't seen paper in years. However, we do have the next best thing."

Romany didn't answer, she simply watched, a little awe struck as Max worked in silence.

After a few moments, the young man returned to his feet and indicated the 'map' with a proud gesture. The young man was obviously happy with his creation, and Kit was happy with his friend's achievement, if it had not been for the eagle. It would have been difficult to otherwise keep a track of where they were.

For he had an advantage that Kit and Romany couldn't have dreamed of, the freedom of flight.

"This," he pointed to an x at the centre of the image. "Is the main power plant, or rather what remains of it. This here, is where we kept our main camp, where you took our friends from, and if you travel a mile east from there is where lookout camp was. Just west of there is our main source of water."

He was mostly showing off now, but Kit didn't take him up on it. He only watched in an amused manner, keeping silent as he carefully watched. His patience beginning to surge through his veins, desperate for the younger man to finish.

Drawing his finger around the edge of the image in an overly dramatic manner, "From edge to edge, the island is 28 miles wide and 37 miles long. There are really only three main ports that could have been used."

"When we drew into port on the boat, we were within sight of one of the power plants, there were trees a few metres away from the shoreline." Romany interrupted almost instantly, eager to help wherever she could.

Max paused for a moment, his finger hovering for a moment as he thought. Then his finger lunged into the ground as he pointed to a cross in particular. The one which was thankfully closest to where the trio stood.

"If I had to guess, you mean here." He said in a low voice, the excitement all but bubbling up in his tone. He seemed to hold himself back due to the seriousness of the situation, the fear that should have been overtaking them. "A twenty minute journey, at most by foot."

"By wing or paw?" Kit's words sounded harsher than he had meant them to, but he didn't care for the time being. He had more important things to concern himself with at this point in time, they were getting closer to saving their friends.

"Five," the eagle responded with a shrug of his shoulders. "But it doesn't matter how long it takes us to get there, if we don't have a plan of what to do when we do."

"You might not have the time to really think about a plan, their intention is to either kill your friends or take them away for research. That's why we're hear in the first place," Romany said quietly.

Kit paused, looking up at her with a frown. "Will they not come searching for you if you don't get back soon?"

Romany snorted loudly at this, a hardly elegant noise. "Like hell, they don't care about who gets left behind. As long as they get what they want."

Part of Kit pitied the woman in that moment, if that was the world she was involved so deeply with. However, he didn't have a chance to say anything before Romany continued speaking. "If you want to see your friends alive, your going to want to be quick."

"Let's go then," Max said almost instantly, barely allowing Romany to get the words to leave her throat.

She nodded, "Just leave me by myself. I'll find my way their as best as I can, just hurry, I don't know how long your friends will have."

"If things go wrong, you cant be left on the island alone. They'll know someone on the inside helped us, and they may well go looking for you. You're coming with us," Max said quickly, with a definitive tone. He wasn't going to be argued with.

"But you need to be quick," Romany insisted, shaking her head.

In one swift movement, Kit was on four legs once again, he bowed down so that he kneeled. "Be quick then, and get on."