yunxu was not born to the woods, but he had some small amount of instinct, and the longer he ran the more important it felt that he continue running. but the pains from his last misadventure- his plunge off the cliff- made themselves known almost immediately. his legs ached, and his lungs still burned like there was water left pooling in them.

he kept running. head down, chasing after scent more than sight, paying just enough attention not to ram headfirst into a tree and knock himself out.

the forest broke. he skidded in the mud, launched himself over tumbled logs. that was more familiar, and easier to navigate, though as he did- and the gasping breaths he was taking faltered- he was suddenly aware of another rhythm of pawsteps behind him.

yunxu bristled like a pufferfish. his tail snapped up, a low snarl rolled from his throat, and he sped even faster, knowing he didn't have the time to turn and bite and that two sets of teeth were better than one, if he could get to the woman who'd run off to begin with. something was chasing him. was this the voice, or what the voice had been talking about?

he didn't know.

sodden and filthy, aching in places he didn't even know he could ache, yunxu cursed every part of this place- the old woman, the fisher, the thing chasing him, the forest itself- under his breath. it was a good rhythm to run to, muzzle bent, until finally his eyes caught on some sort of...wooden den, and the flash of an orange tail disappearing inside.

it was shelter.

that warred with whether yunxu wanted to be trapped in a little space with a stranger who clearly did not like him, but that sounded better than being trapped outside with the voice and whatever the thing chasing him was.

he dove after her. she was crouched in the shadows, teeth bared and fur bristling, but yunxu had only a moment to consider this before his ears caught the steps outside. he whirled, snarling in panic, and lunged for the next thing that entered the den.

Myna disappeared into the building, and the strange black and white wolf followed.

Had they also heard the voice? Were they running for cover, or chasing Myna? Or—

A growl echoed in Mal's chest as his paws pounded the ground, flattening twigs and sending water and pine needles flying in his wake. It didn't matter. The danger the voice warned about—hell, the presence of a disembodied voice at all—was enough to push Mal forward regardless.

No time to slow down, or approach carefully in case it was all some sort of trap.

Throwing caution to the wind, Mal leapt through the gap in the doorway and into the gloom beyond. Before his paws even touched the floorboards, a flurry of snarling, snapping teeth and fur launched itself at his face, and a body collided with his.

If he'd had the time or presence of mind to reflect, Mal might've found it morbidly amusing that this was now the third time in barely a day that he'd been in this situation. Or similar enough situation.

That had to be some kind of record for truly abysmal luck. Maybe he was cursed. Either way, he definitely should've stayed in bed.

Mal twisted, snarling and swearing, and tried to avoid being pinned or boxed in against the partly-closed door. Jaws snapping, he lashed out at the stranger, teeth ready to catch whatever he could. Normally, Mal would've showed a little more restraint. Said something, at least, in case this was another misunderstanding. But panic and current circumstances left him on edge, primed to face some ambiguous threat.

For all he knew, this one.

So Mal hit fast, and hard, hoping the vicious display might at least intimidate the stranger into thinking twice about continuing this particular fight.

If they didn't back the fuck down, mysterious voices were gonna be the least of their problems.

The Cur blinked, such a sudden outpouring of aggression from the invading stranger doing nothing to quell her skepticism of him.

She didn't join the fray. Not yet. Mal seemed to have it well-enough in hand, anyway, and if the blue-eyed boy was a cursed blue-eyed boy, she saw no reason to risk getting bitten or bewitched or... whatever it was the noisy ghosts were on about. She also knew how easy it was to lose a good morsel in a bit of chaos, and wasn't going to risk her fish without a right proper need for it.

She did, however, consult the short lexicon of words she knew from the language Blue-eyes had greeted her with for anything of use in this particular situation. She settled on shrieking in heavily-accented clamour, BÙ-BOO! (不, "NO!")

Like scolding a naughty pup!

Slightly less helpfully, she appended in perfect intonation, CÀO NǏ MĀ! (操你妈, "FUCK YOUR MOTHER!")

---

i am making a light assumption mal stops attacking when yunxu does given the rest of his post but if not let me know and i will edit, i just didnt want this post to be utterly dialogueless LOL

yunxu had no idea what was going on.

he'd hoped the thing chasing him was a figment of his imagination too, but when another body crashed into his the defensive snarl- which had been meant to scare more than it was meant to start a fight- it was clear it very much was not. fear twisted immediately into deeper panic. he snarled again, with all the force he could put into it, but the creature on top of him just snarled and snapped in turn and any higher function to yunxu's mind- that might have helped think over the situation- immediately shut down.

he could not flee. the thing was in front of him, blocking his escape. which meant fight.

teeth raked across his muzzle. his leg protested as he twisted, writhing and snapping for an escape. yunxu bit for anything he could possibly reach with the frantic terror of a prey animal, backed into a corner, knowing there was a slim chance to make it out alive.

they were no skilled fighter, despite their aggression. but panic was a powerful motivator.

something else caught him. sharp, scything through the skin on his leg. yunxu snapped for it, whether it was face or paw or something else, still snarling wildly.

the shrieking in heavily accented Chinese behind him was... unexpected.

yunxu stopped dead mid-lunge. he looked at the woman, utterly bewildered- too bewildered to feel particularly offended by the colorful curse she followed up with- and retreated from his attacker with bared teeth and flattened ears, glancing warily between both of them.

"那個聲音," ("that voice,")he panted. "你聽見了嗎?" ("did you hear it?")his hackles bristled, as much as they could, and he turned his sea-blue stare on the man- another wolf, he could see and smell now, without the terror to blind him. his leg and muzzle throbbed. "是你嗎? 為什麼追我?" ("was that you? why did you chase me?") yunxu demanded, feeling bolder than he should with the presence of another who spoke his tongue, no matter how accented.

You're good. And correct in your assumption xD

---

Mal tasted blood. Not his, which meant one thing was looking up today. Not much of it either, but he hadn't really been aiming to do anything but discourage the aggressor.

The sting of what felt like teeth sliced through the thin, outside edge of his ear, drawing blood. He ducked his head with a snarl, ready to bite, when—

Myna started shrieking. Again.

In some foreign tongue. Again.

Whatever she'd said had a tangible effect though, other than nearly deafening Mal in one ear. Everyone stopped, attention jarred enough to reassess. Now that Mal wasn't blindly lashing out in rage and panic, it was easy to see this wasn't some otherworldly creature, but another wolf. The same one he'd followed into the cabin.

Oh.

Maybe this was a situation closer to his initial misunderstanding with Myna. Mal couldn't write off any potential explanation, but if the stranger was willing to back down, Mal was willing to stop and listen.

Letting out a warning growl, Mal held his ground but stayed his next attack. After a tense second, he relaxed his posture into something more neutral. Confident. Guarded. But no longer openly hostile. Hazel eyes flicked uncertainly between the stranger and Myna as they exchanged words, and when the stranger seemingly addressed him personally, Mal just blinked.

Uh, I don't— A questioning glance at Myna. You understand what he's saying?

Vaguely. She answered Mal with an irritable lilt. A huff. He though ye were that damned ghost. Which I'm guessin' felt the need t'offend all of us wit' unhelpfully opaque advice jus' now. Would it have hurt anyone to let them know what they were meant to be fleeing? Unless this newcomer was the danger, as she suspected, and was playing dumb. In which case, the ghost was welcome to speak up again at any time, and clarify things.

But of course it wouldn't.

She turned eyes green as a stormlit sea on the boy, and used a paw to point at the door, Guǐ. (鬼, Ghost/Sinister Plot/Damnable.)

Then pat the wooden floorboards, Wǒmen de. (我们的, Ours.) She nudged her snout toward Mal, then let her gaze sweep the inn, indicating a dual possession.

Finally she sat and placed the paw on her fish, warning, Zhè shì wǒ de. (这是我的, This is mine.)

He'd greeted her in an easier tongue earlier. How well did he speak it? Or... anything else? Yīngyǔ ma? Rìyǔ ma? (英语吗? 日语吗?, English language? Japanese language?)

yunxu crouched and was careful not to move, conscious now of both pairs of eyes upon him and the fact that both appeared to know each other; that if anyone was likely to risk being torn apart by teeth, it was him. he needed no growl to warn him of that- though he was willing to (privately) admit, knowing himself, it was probably the smartest response.

nonetheless. he allowed himself to believe that maybe that would not happen. nobody was lunging now that words had been exchanged.

they were speaking. of what, yunxu was struggling to make out, because while he could understand the man well enough the woman's accent- already present enough in a few shrieked words to be noticeable- was even harder to comprehend outside the familiar shape of chinese. yunxu stared at her for several moments before the pieces fell into place, and then felt foolish for even taking that long.

ghost? so she too had heard it. so he had heard it too- the tenor of his voice was no match for whoever had been whispering in yunxu's ear. his eyes followed the jab of her paw toward the den's mouth and the short clipped sentences that followed, speaking of someone who'd spent long enough to pick up the basics of a tongue but not quite enough to speak fluently.

he was quite familiar with it.

"yes," yunxu said, with a habitual wrinkle to his muzzle. "english." japanese was not entirely unfamiliar either, but he was no better with it than she was with his own and had even less of a desire to converse in it. now he was here though, and well-trapped, so he straightened a fraction and cleared his throat. "jiang yunxu," he said belatedly, with a vague gesture towards his chest. "i come here from the sea, trying to get home...or to find someone who know where here is." his last interaction unmentioned. "i am sorry. i thought... you were voice. or what voice warned me about. do you know what it is?"

So this was another pointless scuffle brought on by their oh-so-helpful kidnapper's tendency to drop other people out of the sky on top of each other, or whisper ominous things in their ears until all of them were paranoid and snapping at each other's heels over nothing.

Great. What a fucking headache. Mal let out a sighed breath through his nose.

Well, at least they hadn't done each other any serious harm. Though the stranger — Jiang Yunxu, he introduced himself in accented English — clearly hadn't escaped the brunt of Mal's assault. Mal refused to feel bad about it. He hadn't done nearly the harm he could have, if he'd really been out for blood, and it wasn't like he'd had any way of knowing the other wolf was just as lost and confused as they were.

Still though. After getting a good look at the kid, Mal got the overwhelming sense he was just young and confused and probably pissing himself now that'd he'd been backed in a corner between ominous ghost voices and two actual cutthroats.

Myna seemed to have most of the negotiations in hand for now, but Mal figured it smart to clear the air on his side, too. With the threat of violence dwindling even further, Mal nodded at the explanation, then sat down, hopefully making it clearer he didn't intend to escalate as long as the talks remained friendly.

No harm done, Mal said, before Myna could answer. I thought you were the ghost too at first. We were all confused.

As for the rest...it sounded like the one common thread that tied most everyone in this land together. Being plucked from their home and stranded here. Wanting to go back, to get answers — Mal related. He'd leave that explanation to Myna, though, since she seemed to have a stronger grasp on the strange magic of this land, and had seen more of it than Mal.

From the sea, like her. And Mal, too, a bit, though he'd only landed on the beach (actually, he'd landed on her, on the beach) so he didn't entirely count.

The Cur grimaced. Ghost. She repeated in English and pantomimed in an attempt to help convey her meaning, to answer Yunxu's question. Sends dreams.

Then she scoffed, voice speeding up again, Apparently t'a wide variety o' folks. Says we oughta be careful 'cause some Blue-eatin' freaks destroyed the damn world, an' now there's a lotta angry magic on the loose. Faeries'n'demons'n'shit. Dangerous. She stared hard a the boy, again, and his pale eyes.

Some asshole fished me outta the sea, too. 'bout a month past. She grimaced, thinking, then touched her chest with a paw, Yīgè yuè qián (一个月前, A month ago) Looking to Mal, she nodded, Zuó (昨, Yesterday)

Then she sighed, still gesturing as she spoke in a way she hoped was helpful, I crossed the damn continent, shore t'cursed shore. No way back yet. Maybe North. Or South. Maybe.

But if the magical forces at play were this intent on dropping poor saps into the ocean and pressing service to a world gone mad out of them, she didn't expect they'd be eager to let any escape marooning...

"yes." he coughed, feeling marginally better to know that everyone was perplexed as he was and that it might not look too much like the fumblings of a still-growing child. "still, i must apologize for…" his eyes traced the beads of blood arcing down the auburn man's ear. at least he was better off than yunxu was.

it did not escape him that neither of them gave their names in turn, but he had not exactly been the picture of courtesy.

the woman continued, and yunxu allowed himself, for the first time since the beach, to believe that he was being told the truth. that this wasn't some freak accident, but a different world entirely.

he did not at all like the feeling.

what was he supposed to do? yunxu didn't know himself without the contours of duty. moreover, he did not know what to do with himself. he had lived among a pack his entire life and now- what? he was meant to find another? they wouldn't know what to do with him. he didn't know what to do with him.

and that was not the worst part.

"magic?" yunxu repeated tentatively, with the ringing disbelief of someone who considered the idea absurd but was stilling their tongue from saying so aloud, given the stare directed at his face. and the wounds still aching on his leg and muzzle.

he cleared his throat instead. upon second thought, it was…not as preposterous as he wanted it to be.

"i fall from cliffs…two days ago now. i should be dead. surviving does not make sense." a wry smile. "maybe that is magic." or the hand of a god, though that truly seemed as ridiculous to him as spells or ghosts or faeries or demons. no matter what that old woman had said, yunxu knew he was not worth enough for a god to scoop him from the sea and put him…here. something angry or spiteful...that he might be able to believe.

he looked between them both.

"i have no dreams," he said. "but- the angry magic, the faeries and demons. have you seen them?"