River Twine Holt

A good hunter learns to depend on something other than her sense of sight.

Posted: 08/03/10 [9 Comments]

Smiling to herself, Foxtail tilted her head back and took a generous sniff of her surroundings. New greenery, sweet water, and life assailed her, tangling up into a pleasant thrill that ran straight through her lean body to ground at her toes. Beneath the forest-scents, there was another that sent the tickle straight back up her body, a reactionary warmth growing beneath her skin. She half-lidded her eyes and tipped her head back further, red curls tumbling away from her face as she inhaled deeply. The faint spring wind teased her and she lost the scent for a brief instant before it returned, even stronger. Musk and smoke and leather.

It was amazing, she thought, how such a familiar smell could tug at her. So many turns of seasons and now, here she was, feet already moving to take her to the locus. The chief’s redheaded daughter laughed beneath her breath before quelling the sound and shifting to the balls of her feet. If she could smell him, he was not far but, knowing him, this could just as easily be some new gamble or game. Hunter-sense took over and she moved swiftly on cat-feet, silent as the still-growing dawn. The coming sun might burn her fair skin but, if luck and skill held, she would be hidden away with her target shortly.

She sniffed the air again, orienting herself. Crushed flowers, moonmoss, and lichen flavored the well-known scent now and she wondered just what he was up to. The feminine touch mixed oddly with his deeply male smell, tickled her, and made her wonder if it wasn’t a game for her after all.

Deeper into the cool green of the trees, further away from the river’s clean scent, Foxtail began to taste the slight dust of the drier ground. She licked her lips and allowed her grass-green eyes to slit half-shut for better vision in the fluctuating light. He was close. She could nearly taste the salt of his skin. Warmth crept over her again and she knew it was far more than just the rising sun.

Musk and salt and smoke and dust. Warmth. A slight copper edge of blood. Food? Hunting?

Suddenly, it surrounded her and the redhead came to an abrupt halt, balanced on the balls of her feet. She absorbed it, let his scent flood her senses until she could taste him, and gave over to the anticipatory shiver up her spine. She purred low in the back of her throat, so softly that only someone listening could have heard it.

Slipping around the nearest oak, padding down a small incline, she saw him crouched in the make-shift den and knew he had not been listening. His hands busied themselves with some new torment and the old crumbling leaves beneath him coated everything in fine dusty color. Very deliberately, the chief’s daughter pressed the toe of one boot against a twig. It snapped loudly in the pre-dawn silence and he startled, dropping his project and sliding his hand to the knife at his hip.

She laughed and quickly scrambled into the small space with him. **Found you** came smug and serene, her mind to his. Then she roughly nudged him down to land on his rump. He snorted and she laughed again before straddling his newly accessible lap. Almost immediately, Foxtail buried her face in the side of Notch’s neck and inhaled. There it was. Musk and salt and leather and him. She purred. **Mmmm, found you,** she repeated with underlying hunger and hedonism.

As his hands moved instinctively to hold her close, she indulged in the scent that drew her there. Smell to taste to touch and everything in between. They would spend the day here, she decided. The den would be big enough if they clung tightly together.

And, after her patient hunt after his enticing scent, she was not at all against keeping him close and present and utterly edible.