I saw it, I swear!

Through the darkness, Kumiho diligently followed Kitsune as the small girl led him back to the location of her apparitional assault. Although he was still highly skeptical of what the Ashen princess claimed to have seen, he would go if it made her feel better. Following Kit's splashing footsteps was easy enough, and once they were on the opposite side of the stream near the Ashen border, the fiery little girl declared that they had arrived. Iho looked around the barren area, putting his nose to the ground and sniffing. Only traces of Kitsune could be found, and he only saw her tiny tracks. No signs of any coyote here.

Kumiho was about to state as much to Kitsune, but then the Ashen girl corrected herself, pointing to an area further down the bank and up on a mound. Iho followed her directions, arriving at the spot and finding more nothing just as Kit pointed out another location. The arctic wolf raised a questioning brow at his littler companion. Did she have any idea where she had been when she'd seen her ghost? This was starting to turn out to be a wild goose chase. "Near here" was not exactly helpful in locating tracks or a scent, but he didn't blame Kit. She was young, she'd been scared, it was dark, she'd gotten turned around. There were many adult wolves that would have a hard time recalling finer details from an encounter like that.

"Well, there's no signs of a ghost or a coyote up here," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. But just as Iho turned to start following the slope back down to the bank from the mound he was on, the young brute found himself face to face with a pallid white coyote, its eyes empty and blank. A cold chill emanated from it, taking Iho's breath in a shocked gasp. The coyote bared its teeth and lunged for Iho, making the wolf yelp and stumble back in an attempt to defend himself, only to wind up tumbling down the mound head over paws. He hit something on his way down, making him yelp again as a pain seared through his leg. A few seconds later, Iho came to a stop crumpled up on the bank of the river.

Iho gasped and thrashed about to right himself in preparation for a fight, turning steely eyes back up at... nothing? There was nothing where he had been standing a moment ago. Confused blue eyes narrowed as his head jerked about, looking all over for his foe. But... that was impossible! Where did it go?! A stinging pain in his foreleg made the man wince and glance down, seeing the cut in his leg from whatever he'd hit on his way down, most likely a sharp rock. Blood was oozing down his leg, and in the moonlight it almost appeared perfectly black. Shit! "Kit!" he called out for the princess. "Kit, I need your help!"

WC: 498
Total: 2512 / 2500

"Speech"