The lavender and gray clouds ran across the moon like a gang of rambunctious children and were soon lost to sight. Kiko dived off the balcony of the tree house and landed lightly on her feet. She knew he was out here, somewhere.
She traded her shape for the wolf and took off toward the lake. She'd find him, her nose had already caught the scent of his passing. They'd played this game for the past week or so, him showing up at odd times and seeing if she had noticed.
It always ended with them wrapped in the cool grass laughing breathlessly. This time when she caught him she had other ideas besides the grass to be rolling about in.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
Tonight he lurked, silent in the shadows of the great tree he'd climbed into, his smile wide but cloaked in the dark. He could see the trail down the hill and along the lake by him - and the fields surrounding it.
But she'd take the tree line and be near impossible to spot in there. He knew her, he could smell her - he could even simply sense her... but she was getting craftier each time.
A night bird called as it landed in an adjacent tree and he returned the call to silence it, his voice a perfect mimicry of it's own. He waited. Eagerly.
Kiko hit the edge of the field in a slower pace. The time when she would rush flat out into anything was gone. She wasn't perfect; not by any means, but she was a damn sight better at keeping her passing quiet. She had plenty of stamina, she had plenty of speed, she was still learning stealth hence the reason for this game.
She crouched beneath the stacks of wheat around the field. She used them to make her way through without being seen by any late evening field hand or worker. Though, had there been any people about she would have been hard pressed not to leap up just to see their expressions.
Kiko shook her head and halted with her nose to the ground.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
Grayell had not seen her yet and settled back in the tree now, his feet up and him quite comfortable on his thick branch. But he smiled. In his corner was a pouch of crushed herbs... strong herbs that would mask his scent.
It would confuse her nose, though she'd smell the herbs. Now, if she'd recall him picking them last week with her....
Kiko 's nose wrinkled back. She sniffed at the ground and circled around the wheat field again. He had come this way. She knew the scent that led in here. But, he hadn't left. At least, that is what her nose was telling her. Her eyes were not near as certain. Footsteps came in and out of the field though, and there was nothing to give away just who owned them.
She went back to the last stack of wheat. Her tongue rolled out of her mouth, there, she could smell the scent of the herbs he'd used to slip free. She took off again, letting her nose show her the way. It didn't take all that long for her to realize he was heading to the lake.
Her tail wiggled in the air. The lake would be perfect.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
The tail was the first sign... in fact the only sign, it flopping side to side excitedly at the tops of the field. He smiled but stifled a laugh, she was onto him in very little time.
But he went very still now, calmed his pulse and relaxed. He hadn't climbed this very tree of course - that would be too easy. No... she might find we're he'd climbed in further down the grove - but it would take some work to spot him here.
Kiko 's ear flickered. She heard the rustle of birds above her head. The canopy of trees seemed to house thousands of the little creatures. They must all be gathering for the night. The lake was just below her. But, she had not left the shelter of the trees.
Her nose was still her best chance to find him. She sniffed again, pacing through the trees slowly. She'd stop every few minutes to range back, return to the scent of the herbs, but it was getting harder to follow. He hadn't gone past the trees.
She looked up. He had a habit of hiding above people, and the flash of a image flickered to life in her brain. She could see him swinging back and forth in the ropes outside the treehouse. Kiko's eyes gleamed. The trees were packed closely together here. He could have leaped from tree to tree.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
His ears listened to her heart from here and it filled him with a wild fascination. His head turned so very slowly and his eyes found her snuffling through the tree roots, she was trying to source him now.
She came closer of course, very close; but there was no sign she'd spotted him just yet. And that is when his hand slowly wound the line in his hand tighter... and gave it a quick tug.
A branch suddenly all too loudly a dozen feet away, the wind had not stirred it; not like that. He was smiling now, eager to see her reaction.
Kiko went still. She froze in place while her ears swiveled toward the sound. She hadn't heard anything else in this stand of trees besides the birds and things much too small to make such a noise. That branch was way too loud for those creatures to move it. And the wind here was non-existent.
One paw came off the ground. Kiko picked up her feet and set them down one small movement at a time inching forward toward the sound. Her body was lower now, too, crouched tighter to the earth.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
He watched as she slowly stalked toward the noise, his hand loosing the line now. His head turned slowly from one side to the other to follow her prowling... and when she got so very close to the source of the noise - when she was most alert....
... he dropped from his branch, rolled as he hit the ground and bounced through the shrubbery, leaving it too stirring madly. She'd be a moment to realize what had happened and when she cleared the bushes to reach the open that led to the lake's edge well - she spot him hauling ass.
He laughed then but didn't dawdle, she could catch him too easily on 4 legs.
Her careful stalking was shattered by the drop from above. She shied to the side, reared up on her back paws, spine arched and her tail flung upward. She recovered, but he'd gained the moment of surprise.
Kiko tore up the dirt in an all out rush to catch him. Her paws scrambled for purchase with each leap, expecting any minute to hear him howl out the victory, instead once clearing the tree line she was surprised again.
He hadn't switched form. She put on more speed to run him down.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
Grayell pushed harder as he ran and was getting closer to a fire he'd lit much earlier, she knew the spot. He was breathing hard now, pressing his body to run and could not look back... but did.
She was close, loping across the ground and she'd even gotten faster than him in either form. He wasn't going to make it to camp but be damned if he wasn't going to stop running...
No. She'd have to take him down, even whilst he was still laughing, running like a scared rabbit.
Kiko's fleet paws ate up the ground between them in great gulps. The race to catch him was firing every predatory sense buried in her brain. With the next bound she came off the ground in a lunge and sailed right into his back, knocking them both into the lake.
Oops.
She rolled, spun, sputtered, and splattered the air with splashes while trying to regain the surface. Somewhere, in the midst of the crash into the water, she'd switched from wolf to human instinctively finding the form that would enable her to gain more control.
Her legs started to kick, and Kiko broke the top. She spun around several times; water dripping off her face and nose, hair plastered down to her head, but seeing no sign of the Wolf.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
For there was none. The water stirred and waved, rose and fell and then abated around her and nothing, no sign of him appeared. Silence.
That was until a familiar arm snaked about her waste and pulled her under very quickly and he broke the surface watching, her bob up before him. Her hair down her face he laughed, planting a kiss right on the only pale part of skin showing from that sheet of black - the very tip of her nose.
He tread water then, swimming around her in a circle. It was dark and nought but the slightest light shone from the moon this night, but when he paddled into it's reflection upon the water, she could see him quite clearly. The outline of his body cutting through the night with a soft, silver aura.
Kiko shrieked when he grabbed her, at least until the water from the lake threatened to swallow it. She shut her mouth with a snap and bobbed back to the surface. She scuffed water at him, too, when he back up after kissing her nose.
She pulled the wet hair off her face while watching him tread water. He looked like some hero from one of her grandfather's tales, illuminated as he was by the moon's reflection. All he needed to complete the picture was Onibasu in his hand and some monstrous creature across from him.
Kiko smiled at him.
So it seems, running you down must be good for me.
Her lips twitched.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”