And Intrepid presses closer to Ellie, ears back in worry.

Gentle scritch.

"Someone poisoned a well not too far from here," she says to the jolteon. "We've been tracking them."

...Mrrr.

She seems a bit less wary, maybe? And then jerks her head back at the way she came.

"Seems to lead there, yeah."

She glances back at the smoke again and gives an annoyed huff.

"Did you, um, leave any evidence?"

Careless shrug.

"Right." She chews on her lip a bit. "Well, based on my admittedly sketchy knowledge of these people, I can't really blame you for that..."

Small huff.

Sigh.

"Yeah."

Flicker runs back over, soon enough, and, panting, "There was a hurt human, but they're alive and also they're running and slipped out a back door, and we couldn't get it open - Flareon's still trying, but they were the person I smelled. There's a lot of empty cages and stuff. We didn't see any bodies, or anyone else hurt."

"Shit. Do you think you could find where the back door should be up here?"

"Dunno. We can look, but there's lots of places."

"Mm. How's the fire look?"

"Lots of smoke. It's all high, so it's not reach us, but - it smells bad. You'd have to crouch."

"Don't think anything's still burning, though..."

"Should get Flareon out. I'll call Officer Jenny."

"I'll go get her."

"Okay." Ellie gets her phone out.

"-If you don't want to stick around for the police, that's fine," she says to the jolteon. "But we could use your help, if you do."

...Extremely uncertain mrr.

"You can also just hide in a bush and decide later, or relay stuff while hiding in a bush," Flicker says, then shakes her head and darts off to find Flareon.

...She edges towards a bush.

Sure, bush is fine.

She doesn't mention the jolteon while talking to the police.

The police don't seem to find this suspicious, and also Officer Jenny is imminently on her way with backup, and would like Ellie to please stay safe.

(Flareon emerges, looking kind of vaguely annoyed, following Flicker out.)

"Guess you didn't find anything else?"

"Not really. There's some dropped stuff the police might be able to get something from, though."