[Wild Roses] Some Kind of Love Song
Title: a merry chase
'Verse/characters: Some Kind of Love Song; Arianhrod, Takashi
Prompt: 05A "look beyond"
Word Count: 360
Notes: Follows found you!, partial expansion of river islands.
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She could still hear that bloody fox singing in a raven's voice in her head the next afternoon, after two baths and the interesting experience of watching Ruadhan roar back at a manticore loud enough that the monster's mane had blown back from the force of it.
The first bath had been meant to scrub the lingering smoke from her skin, her hair, her lungs, the second to get her hair into some sort of manageable mess, and both were only three quarters successful. Her braid was thicker than usual, sections twisting and coiling over themselves and looking to her own prejudiced eye like poorly carded dyed wool braided into haphazard submission until some poor spinner had to deal with it, and still smelled of smoke.
Or possibly startled manticore. Or wolves. Or herself for that matter, small sparks of lightning zinging through her skin to her fingers at the returning roar coming from right next to her. Winter-kissed bardic bastard of a brother, him.
She sighed to herself, made a mental note to fry something near him with lightning as a reply, and dragged her feet into motion again, heading for the main camp, the cook-fires there, and something to eat.
"Can you smell fox anywhere?" a somewhat disheveled currently two-legged wolf asked abruptly, after nearly skidding into her on the path up the last hill, him going down and her coming up.
" . . . I'm human," she replied shortly. "All I can smell is smoke."
"Oh," he said, then paused, leaned in a little closer, sniffing. "I like your hair-stuff."
"Thank you," she told him, as graciously as she could manage. "Please let me pass?"
"Oh, sorry," he said quickly, then dissolved onto four feet--fur still worked up at odd angles like he'd been yanking on it with his fingers--and loped away.
She'd considered, briefly, while on her second bath the previous night, telling the local wolves to keep an eye out for a fox.
Now she just figured she'd refuse to confess it was her fault there was a fox around at all. They obviously already knew.
And the fox was just as obviously leading them a merry chase.
She ignored the tiny flicker in her belly as hunger. Pride would be ridiculous in these circumstances.
'Verse/characters: Some Kind of Love Song; Arianhrod, Takashi
Prompt: 05A "look beyond"
Word Count: 360
Notes: Follows found you!, partial expansion of river islands.
---------
She could still hear that bloody fox singing in a raven's voice in her head the next afternoon, after two baths and the interesting experience of watching Ruadhan roar back at a manticore loud enough that the monster's mane had blown back from the force of it.
The first bath had been meant to scrub the lingering smoke from her skin, her hair, her lungs, the second to get her hair into some sort of manageable mess, and both were only three quarters successful. Her braid was thicker than usual, sections twisting and coiling over themselves and looking to her own prejudiced eye like poorly carded dyed wool braided into haphazard submission until some poor spinner had to deal with it, and still smelled of smoke.
Or possibly startled manticore. Or wolves. Or herself for that matter, small sparks of lightning zinging through her skin to her fingers at the returning roar coming from right next to her. Winter-kissed bardic bastard of a brother, him.
She sighed to herself, made a mental note to fry something near him with lightning as a reply, and dragged her feet into motion again, heading for the main camp, the cook-fires there, and something to eat.
"Can you smell fox anywhere?" a somewhat disheveled currently two-legged wolf asked abruptly, after nearly skidding into her on the path up the last hill, him going down and her coming up.
" . . . I'm human," she replied shortly. "All I can smell is smoke."
"Oh," he said, then paused, leaned in a little closer, sniffing. "I like your hair-stuff."
"Thank you," she told him, as graciously as she could manage. "Please let me pass?"
"Oh, sorry," he said quickly, then dissolved onto four feet--fur still worked up at odd angles like he'd been yanking on it with his fingers--and loped away.
She'd considered, briefly, while on her second bath the previous night, telling the local wolves to keep an eye out for a fox.
Now she just figured she'd refuse to confess it was her fault there was a fox around at all. They obviously already knew.
And the fox was just as obviously leading them a merry chase.
She ignored the tiny flicker in her belly as hunger. Pride would be ridiculous in these circumstances.