As the day turned to night, teams began returning to the alley. Wu-Ming and Sheegwa were soon joined by her parents, Hun-Hun, Lik-Lik, and Wing-Wing. By the time Dongwa entered the alley, Sheegwa was lounging by another cozy little fire. She had learned that its warmth made her injury sting, so she sat sideways trying to keep her side cool. Raising her head, she looked past the brightness, smoke and floating embers as her brother's vague form came slowly closer. It was only the firewood between them that prevented her from smelling what everyone else suddenly caught a whiff of; fish, berries, and sweat.

Dongwa sat stiffly beside the fire, as behind him Sagwa crawled underneath the board ramp and collapsed, with her back to the world and her tail poking out.

"I thought you and Sagwa left with Yao-Lin," Mama said, after observing her daughter for a moment. Dongwa spared him a glance, then looked at his father with traumatized eyes. Age had worked to make them the same height, so the difficulty in maintaining eye contact was emotional, not physical.

"We did."

"Well? Where is he?" his father asked. "Outside?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure of it," Dongwa said awkwardly, and for a few heartbeats the campfire was the only sound in the night.

"Don't tell me he wandered off," Mama ventured.

"No. He―actually, he ran. We heard this animal and thought it was the bull, so we fled. Only, when we regrouped, we couldn't find him. And we couldn't track him."

"Why not?"

"His trail goes cold. We looked everywhere, but it's like he just disappeared. I'm sor―" Dongwa stopped speaking when he locked eyes with his father. Silently, Baba stood up and left the comforting fire. He stopped between the gate and his sobbing daughter, clearly tempted to go out and search for his own father; but was rendered immobile by Sagwa's quiet cries, verifying Dongwa's words. So he stood still, pondering the possibilities.

Then Lik-Lik's voice was throwing salt on the wound. "Boy, Sagwa. Every time you pair up with someone, they run! How unbearable are you?"

"What?" Her voice was soft.

"Sheegwa, the kid, him. I think you're the root of everyone's problems around here!"

She rotated, her tail disappearing as her face emerged and caught the moonlight. "You're wrong. We were running from danger―well, what we thought was danger, but it...it wasn't. I didn't cause anything!"

"Leave her alone," Baba said, "Or leave the alley."

"Toughen up, old man. You all need to." Lik-Lik walked past the kittens, who stared up at him as he passed.

Sagwa looked at her father. "We thought we were in trouble."

"Yes, Dongwa told me."

She looked after Lik-Lik's departing form. "He's just a jerk," she muttered.

"Yes, well. That's something everybody told me."

Sagwa tried not to smile, watching her father slip through the gate. And tried not to cringe as her mother raced after him. With a long-suffering sigh, she went to the campfire. Wu-Ming slid her a steaming fish and avoided making eye contact with anyone as he muttered, "Sometimes there's nothing you can do."

"And joining us for ten seconds is giving it your all," Sagwa bit.

"Yeah, what have you done anyway?" Dongwa cut in.

"I tried getting the kid out of the basket. Followed the old man so he could follow me. I found her in the rain," Wu-Ming's voice was getting loud. "Patched her up real nice so it wouldn't cause a scare!"

"I thought you were cold," Yuri declared.

"She lied. Didn't want you seeing it."

"Wu-Ming―"

"Seeing what?"

"What do you think?" he retorted, and suddenly he had torn the rat skin off Sheegwa's body, exposing her ugly wound. He approached Dongwa, squaring off on the visibly intimidated former palace cat. "See, I've done more than you have."

Sagwa looked from her rattled brother to her humiliated sister, quietly attempting to cover up her wound. With a disbelieving scoff, Wu-Ming pushed past Dongwa and faded into the dark.

Sagwa quietly cleared her throat and stepped meekly closer. "Uh, would you like some help, Sheegwa?"

But her sister surprised all of them by flinging the rat skin into the flames. She stood up, with only a little wince. "I'd like to be alone."

The cats slowly but respectfully dispersed. In privacy, Sheegwa extinguished the flames and limped down to the edge of the sea, sitting on the cold shores. It was the first time she'd truly been alone since she joined the pack; and she gazed out at the waters, enjoying the unfamiliar quietness of solitude...until the sight of the sea invoked a sudden memory of what her father said, and everything inside of her suddenly locked up with fear. She stood up, spun around and began limping through the alley as quickly as she was able.