[Wild Roses] Some Kind of Love Song
Title: tagging as a points system
'Verse/characters: Some Kind of Love Song; Arianhrod, Ruadhan
Prompt: 51D "sport"
Word Count: 401
Notes: follows yesterday's piece.
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She was sitting cross-legged on a low padded bench--not entirely sure what the padding was constructed of and unwilling to bet that it wasn't salvaged monster fur or feathers--drinking some of Hernén's stash of green tea when Ruadhan wandered out of one of the tents and threw himself down on the unrolled saddle-blanket at her feet.
She set her tea down on her uppermost ankle, only barely feeling the heat through the heavy leather of her boot, and gave him a mildly amused glance. "Good morning?"
He rolled onto his side, facing her, propped his cheekbone on his fist, then winced, took his hand away to glare briefly at his knuckles, then resumed the pose. She assumed he'd wished his skin sturdier, against either his stubble, which was rapidly approaching 'Ulysse after a week at sea', or whatever he'd skinned his knuckles on recently.
"Ari," he began, with the mispronounciation he was prone to that made the beginning of her name sound like 'Airy', "and I say this advisedly, do you have any idea what's making the wolves crazy?"
She leaned her right elbow on her thigh, propped her chin on her own fist, felt her braid slither slightly at the motion but not move far, and let her amusement show. "Did they not answer when you asked, then?"
"They did, if you count 'yip yip rumble--" he added a surprisingly convincing back of throat growl to the end "but my wolf isn't very good yet so it wasn't exactly helpful."
"Ah. The one I ran into on the path yesterday afternoon asked if I could smell fox, too, if that's any help."
He considered that, eyes half closed, then shrugged, rolling himself back up to his feet. "I suppose it'll have to do. Merci--"
"De rien, little brother, de rien," she told him, half-smiling up as he bent to kiss the top of her head.
As he turned away she spotted the sparkle that wasn't a cobweb hanging from the edge of his guitar case, and without thinking about it she reached out and snagged it, tore the filament free and let it puff into a faint wisp of steam before it disappeared entirely.
'Raising the stakes a little, are we?' she thought, not loudly enough to share, and made a note to check to see if any of the poor wolves had fox-scent tags on them, too.
'Verse/characters: Some Kind of Love Song; Arianhrod, Ruadhan
Prompt: 51D "sport"
Word Count: 401
Notes: follows yesterday's piece.
---------
She was sitting cross-legged on a low padded bench--not entirely sure what the padding was constructed of and unwilling to bet that it wasn't salvaged monster fur or feathers--drinking some of Hernén's stash of green tea when Ruadhan wandered out of one of the tents and threw himself down on the unrolled saddle-blanket at her feet.
She set her tea down on her uppermost ankle, only barely feeling the heat through the heavy leather of her boot, and gave him a mildly amused glance. "Good morning?"
He rolled onto his side, facing her, propped his cheekbone on his fist, then winced, took his hand away to glare briefly at his knuckles, then resumed the pose. She assumed he'd wished his skin sturdier, against either his stubble, which was rapidly approaching 'Ulysse after a week at sea', or whatever he'd skinned his knuckles on recently.
"Ari," he began, with the mispronounciation he was prone to that made the beginning of her name sound like 'Airy', "and I say this advisedly, do you have any idea what's making the wolves crazy?"
She leaned her right elbow on her thigh, propped her chin on her own fist, felt her braid slither slightly at the motion but not move far, and let her amusement show. "Did they not answer when you asked, then?"
"They did, if you count 'yip yip rumble--" he added a surprisingly convincing back of throat growl to the end "but my wolf isn't very good yet so it wasn't exactly helpful."
"Ah. The one I ran into on the path yesterday afternoon asked if I could smell fox, too, if that's any help."
He considered that, eyes half closed, then shrugged, rolling himself back up to his feet. "I suppose it'll have to do. Merci--"
"De rien, little brother, de rien," she told him, half-smiling up as he bent to kiss the top of her head.
As he turned away she spotted the sparkle that wasn't a cobweb hanging from the edge of his guitar case, and without thinking about it she reached out and snagged it, tore the filament free and let it puff into a faint wisp of steam before it disappeared entirely.
'Raising the stakes a little, are we?' she thought, not loudly enough to share, and made a note to check to see if any of the poor wolves had fox-scent tags on them, too.