All inside your head

Tethys wasn't feeling so well.

It happened slowly at first, and felt no different than a common cold. Not that she got sick often at all - living in the north tended to breed strong immune systems, no doubt strengthened by the rise and fall of temperatures with the seasonal changes - but at first it hadn't felt like much of anything.

Just a few days ago she'd awoken with a start, feeling unusually hot. The early morning was cool at best, but she felt an unmistakable heat gripping her and she began panting before she even managed to sit upright. Strange, but not anything worth panicking over. She could fight off a cold without issue.

Not the type to lie around and wait to get better, she was determined to push through. Occasionally the fever that initially gripped her would subside, only to return again, accompanied by other general feelings of malady; her body ached in a way she wasn't quite used to, but she was far too stubborn to seek help for it. She'd be fine, she was fine, just fighting off some kind of sickness... right?

That wasn't the only thing wrong though.

At first she thought maybe she was just being paranoid, but it became quickly obvious as the day went on that she wasn't - or so her mind, riddled with sickness, thought. She was being followed. Had been for the better part of the day, as she made her patrol across the col, each step growing more and more tiring than the last. God, her muscles ached, in the deep sort of way like after a good fight or hunt. Only she hadn't been doing much of either these last few days, and certainly not today...

Every time she turned her head she saw them. One wolf, or maybe two? Or was it three? Black, looming shadows, everywhere in her peripheral vision. Somehow they evaded her attention no matter how fast she turned to find them, and somehow they kept up her pace as she quickly turned and hightailed it back to the pack's common area. Feeling panic begin to rise up in her, she stumbled into the large field where the obelisk stood, and let loose a call for help. They were being invaded, there was no question about it - someone, a group of someones, had infiltrated the Armada and no one was safe.