"Somewhere we can restock," I said, clearing my throat a little as I reached into the creek and took a few testing swallows. I winced at the taste, but hydration was hydration. I turned to face her. "I didn't have a chance-"

I paused as I stared at her, Layla adjusting the duffel bag around her and presenting it with a small smile.

"I grabbed it as soon as you sent me into the bathroom," she said, her smile widening. "Ready for anything, right?"

I sputtered a small laugh as I sat on the ground, reaching for it and rifling through it. "So you do listen. Good."

"Of course I listen." She wiggled her pointed ears a little as she grinned. "It's why I'm with you anyway, right? To listen?"

"And to learn." I pulled out two packets of food and handed one to her. "Eat up."

"Are we camping here?"

I glanced around. Listened. Sniffed. Looked back at her. "You tell me. Is it safe here?"

She looked around and I could see the wheels turning. Her ears twitched. Her eyes flicked to the grass and the mud and the veil of night surrounding us.

"We'd have to make our own cover," she finally said. "Hide our supplies…and we'd be exposed. But we'd also be able to see anyone coming from a mile away."

She glanced at me and I gave her nothing, simple watching her work it out.

"Probably not," she decided. "We've got them on our tail and we want to put as much distance between them and us as possible, and we can keep going. So long as we recover during our break." She raised the pouch of food and fished out a bottle of water. "Which means food, hydration, and rest."

I nodded. "Very good. Tired or hungry prey only benefits the hunter, not the hunted." I glanced around for a moment. "But we should find shelter so that you can get a proper sleep. We'll see what we can find out here. How do you think we should start traveling once we have eaten and rested?"

"Up the river," she said, pointing.

"Creek, but yes. Because?"

"Water can muddle…" she thought a moment, taking time to chew and sticking out her fingers once she began counting off, "scent. Obscure visual tracks. And some magics."

"All water?"

"No," she said after a moment. "Moving water. The faster the better, but it can't be so fast that you lose footing and fall face-first."

I laughed. "Good again. Now eat. We likely have a way to go."

She did, practically beaming at the praise and digging into her meager meal.

It felt unfair, in a way, that such a pup was being hunted by her own kind. But life was often unfair, especially to ones such as Layla.

"Those were others like me," she asked softly. "Weren't they."

It was less of a question and more of an understanding, but I nodded anyway.

"Ones that have been here for a while, I would imagine."

Layla looked up at me. "But…they didn't have…" She touched the top of her head and looked back at me, a blush fighting to come to the surface.

I shook my head. "I'm not sure. The hoods stayed up most of that fight. But they didn't move like they still had them." I glanced back out at our open surroundings. "Likely sawed them off in an attempt to blend in with the humans."

"But what about the ears? And the wings?"

"Wings can be bound and covered with clothing," I answered. "Ears can be covered by hoods or hats. Horns of any kind are hard to hide unless they're close the skull and can be hidden by hair. The kind your people sport are…" I grunted. "Well. They're hard to hide."

She stared at her pouch for a long while, and I knew what she was probably thinking about. The same things she'd voiced to me before. Wondering why, if her people grew in antlers, she had no evidence of any. Why her wings were so small. I had no answers to give, only theories…and even those were limited at best. The truth was that I simply had no solid answers, and eventually she had stopped asking.

There was only one individual that might have answers, and he was the one that dropped her in my arms and disappeared. He said it was to find answers.

It had been long enough to find said answers. And he had not resurfaced. I was doing the job he'd asked of me, but I was unsure to what end. I'd only agreed to do this until he returned. And if he never did?

I let out a sigh and shook the thoughts free. I could be pestered by them later. Right now I needed to watch. To listen. To guard.

**

We sat in silence after that, my senses trained on our surroundings more than they were on her and Layla clearly deciding to eat instead of talk. I did not blame her, and was glad for the moment of relative quiet. Eventually she crumpled her pouch and finished off a bottle of water, crushing the pouch and twisting it until it slipped into the bottle and stowing both inside the bag. We would take care of it later.

After a moment more of resting and taking a few breaths, Layla finally indicated she was ready. I instructed her to carry the bag and tighten it around her as much as possible, then turned and motioned for her to climb on my back.

"Wait…aren't you going to turn back?"

I shook my head. "I make less movements in the water as a two-legged than a four-legged. Plus it will make tracking us harder."

Layla blinked. "How?"

I grunted and motioned for her to climb on my back and despite still being confused, she did so, squishing the bag between us as she did. I made sure she was secure before walking into the creek and heading upstream.

"If they manage to track us to this spot, they will have a choice to make," I explained as I kept my steps careful but firm. "If they manage to trace us into the river, they will also trace that the trail is left by a single two-legged and not two two-leggeds or one Onishiki. If it were one Onishiki trail they could easily assume that I carried you the same as I did when we fled. But a single trail of two-legged will make them question."

I hesitated, my footing a little awkward. It took me a moment to readjust my steps and I grunted, making sure each step was solid before I took the next.

"What happened to the Onishiki? Did the pair split up? But then where is the other set of tracks to follow? Do they have the right trail or were they misled? These are questions a skilled hunter would be forced to stop and ask themselves before proceeding. It will buy time."

"What if they just assume that you turned human and gave me a piggy-back ride?"

"They may consider this as an option," I agreed, "but it will be low on the list. Onishiki do not usually give piggy-back rides."

Layla managed a small laugh, the sound making me glad. Anyone who could go through the events of her life and still find time to laugh was a strong one indeed.

We carried on, small conversations and questions along the way kept as quiet as they could be so the sound did not carry. I quizzed her on survival and training and fighting and swordplay, about half of her answers correct. She was learning, thank The Five, but still had a ways to go.

**

Eventually we reached a point where it was safe to leave the creek and leave little evidence in doing so, and it was an opportunity I took with little hesitation. I continued with Layla on my back, the girl mumbling half-intelligent gibberish thanks to being nearly asleep. And by the time I managed to find an abandoned barn that had no attachments any way I could sniff out, she was out cold.

I managed to find a spot that seemed soft enough, laying Layla down and adjusting her a little so she was hidden before I trotted around the barn once more, looking and listening. There was no reasonable way for us to have been followed. But I didn't have the reputation I did for thinking hunters followed reasonable expectations.

Thankfully my inspections turned up nothing, so I figured out a good watch point on a bit of roof that wasn't broken and settled myself to watch and to wait.

And, at the very least, I could glance up at the stars every once in a while and take them in. They were brighter out here, in the apparently middle of nowhere. Brighter and more like home. The closest I'll ever get, most likely. At one point my home and earth were connected. It was accidental connection, sure, but it's how I got here in the first place. One minute you're off on a hunt through the snowy plains and thick reeds, the next you're falling through a crack in space and land on a different world entirely.

I stared for as long as the memories would let me, eventually shoving them aside to focus on the now. We were still being hunted, and I had a bone to pick with the guy who promised me that we'd be home free once he took care of those pictures.

**

I let Layla rest for as long as I could before climbing down and waking her. At least enough so that I could hike her up on my back again, trotting off at an easy pace so as not to jostle her too much. I trotted us past the nearest town and on, the sun finally starting to rise when I picked a small sleepy highway city to get lost in. There were just enough people to camouflage our presence, and enough travelers passing by to not notice a pair of strangers wandering in.

I woke Layla up enough to slide off my back so we could walk together, rifling through the duffel bag before taking it back and adjusting it so that it was tight up against my body instead of hanging down. We got into the nearest fast-food place and waited in line while I flipped through one of the wallets I'd stolen and dumped the cards out of. I wasn't interested in the things that could be traced or reported missing, just the cash and any gift cards that might be inside. I liked to keep them in the wallet whenever possible to minimize suspicions.

We ordered and I watched the dollars disappear, mentally tracking how many more wallets I had and how much cash was in each. I might have to steal a few more while in town just to keep the money flow up. I hated to do so, but being among humans helped keep up our camouflage, and that usually meant some form of trade was also necessary.

I still hated it.

I would be happier if I was able to at least think of it as reward for a good hunt, but unfortunately killing people tended to attract more attention from authorities, both human and otherwise, that I didn't want.

Perhaps I could commission my 'friend' for some extra cash once I caught him. My sense of honor rejected that notion less than stealing it myself, so I decided that once I was done making him pay for lying, I'd hit him like a pinata until the money came out. Two birds, one stone as the local saying goes.

Layla started heading outside as soon as we got our food, but I grabbed her shirt and motioned to one of the tables. She gave me a confused look.

"Shouldn't we take this to go…?" she said, holding up the bag.

"We should blend in." I motioned to the humans around us, pairs and small groups having stopped in their day long enough to sit and eat. "Plus I need a phone to check on something."

She tipped her head. "…but you don't have a phone."

"I know." I took her arm and started to lead her back inside and down one of the makeshift isles, eyeing potential targets before making a move. My mark was walking by us, phone sticking out his back pocket like he was secure in the notion that nothing could possibly happen to it. And soon enough it was in my fingers, and we moved to one of the out-of-the-way tables and sat. I glanced up long enough to see that he was going to the bathroom and down at the phone.

It was one of those flat ones and thankfully left open to the internet page he'd been scrolling. Shoes. Athletic, apparently.

"Isn't your nose…?" Layla asked. "There's a lot of smells here, even for me."

"If I couldn't filter my senses on command I wouldn't have lasted very long on this planet," I answered, managing to find my way to a new page and started searching. I started scrolling. "A good hunter knows how to use all of her resources, and this includes how to focus or widen her senses on command."

It was true, and the smells were not the only thing that threatened to overwhelm me if I did not exact immediate control. Snapping wires onto my nose and ears and running an electric current through them would have been a more painless experience. But I had resolve. And a goal.

"I am fine," I told her. "Eat."

She stared at me for a moment longer before shrugging and opening the bag.

I scrolled through various reports and posts, social media gossip, and so on, narrowing down the chatter to a string of people complaining of items going missing that shouldn't have been, taking out a pen and a pad of paper and writing down locations. I quickly glanced at a map on the phone and sketched out locations until I had a small zig-zagging line of progression that gave me an idea of where my target was heading.

The phone's owner came out of the bathroom and started making his way back to the table with his friends, and I knew that was my time limit. I followed an intertwining of instinct and logic and just as the mark got back up and started mapping his trip back to the bathroom, much to the raucous laughter of his friends, I found it.

The next town over was a college town. A student newspaper had drawn up a piece on a pair of old vases the college had acquired, and while the journalist clearly had no interest in them whatsoever, I knew the one I was hunting would. They were just his type of heist, and it being in a college town meant he would be easy pickings. His defenses would be down, as he'd be thinking it would be a quick in-and-out before he absconded to his next hideout.

He'd have no idea that I'd be waiting for him.

I flipped back to the web page of athletic shoes and put the phone on the ground as the phone's owner came back out of the bathroom, giving the phone a good enough kick to send it sliding across the floor towards his table. As he made his way back, his head sweeping from side to side in slowly-increasing desperation, one of his friends picked it up and waved it at him, calling out. They had a good laugh about it and I had a few fries.