Lunar Heart, Shadow Bound ✓ [when the moon lies]

Ch.19: Chase and Run

"King and Shaman?" Deel's loud voice echoed in the cave.

"Shush." She scolded him. Her ears pricked at the sound of something fluttering in the back of the cave. Had they woken something? "Do any of those names sound familiar?"

"Never heard of such a thing."

"I thought you were doing research on this stuff." She narrowed her eyes.

"I'm not an archeologist. That was Lalina. Neither of us know about that. Neither of us were interested. And we relied on Lalina to look for that stuff on history."

What nonsense was that? She blinked. "Who is 'us'? You and Lalina?"

"No. She's the archeologist kind of anthrolopologee... I don't know, anyway, it's me and—"

"Wait." Her ears twitched, finding a tiny sound somewhere in the depths of the cave. "I hear something."

"I don't hear anything. As I was saying, me and him, but not really—" He smacked his lips shut.

"Mm!" He groaned and seemed to be struggling to open his mouth.

Now what? Shaking her head at his antics, Pinti blocked out his voice as best she could and focused on the other sounds around her. There it was—a fluttering sound like little wings flapping. Maybe some kind of bird?

"Ffffu!" Deel suddenly swore and Pinti turned to glare at him.

"Finally, you let me tal—mm!" He struggled with his mouth again. "Mm! Mm, mm!"

"Can you stop that!" She bared her fangs at him, and he did stop. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. With a grunt she went back to listening to the sounds of the cave.

"I only have one pill left. Idiot." He muttered. "No, I won't shut up. You can't make me." Out of the corner of her eye, Pinti saw him take the purple pill out but then he threw it across the cave. A tiny clatter echoed. Deel stared at the direction in shock as if he didn't just do that himself.

"Nooo!" He shouted. "Why did you make me do that? No," He grabbed his right arm with his left and began to wrestle with himself. A few times his right arm reached for the necklace. "Stop! No, I won't be quiet!"

"Shut the feigat up, will you?" Pinti hissed at him.

Then he stopped and grinned. "You said the exact same thing he did at the exact same time!" His smile grew wider. "That's awesome." He chuckled and began to dance around. "I won't shut uh-p," he sang.

The fluttering sound was wings flapping and a strange high-pitched, scratchy chatter could be heard as well. Whatever was coming towards them, the sound made her fur bristle on instinct responding to the anger it carried.

"They don't sound angry," Deel said and Pinti whipped her head around in surprise. Had she said something out loud without realizing it?

She could hear them. The creatures were getting closer. She couldn't smell them for some reason, but their chatter was getting louder and louder.

"We should go," she said to Deel.

"But I want to explore." Deel stuck out his bottom lip. "We just wanna be friends!" He called out. The creatures shrieked making the entire cave shudder. Deel let out a squeak.

"Now look what you did." She hissed. One of the creatures flew down from the ceiling with a high-pitched shriek. But it wasn't exactly flying. It was spinning.

It was in the shape of a comb about the size of her paw. Each spike on the comb had little pointed teeth on them. Where a thin film of flesh connected to its main body, Pinti could see its guts attached to the film and stretching throughout the main stick part of the body. The creature whirled around, spinning in the air, making that fluttering sound she had heard.