Stalking.
Prey. A brown and white speckled deer just in sight in between the trees. Light footsteps, avoid the twigs, keep the prey in sight. Stay low in the shadows. Carefully...
SNAP. Freeze.
Mental sigh. The deer's ears jump erect as the neck jerks in his direction and the rest of it's body stiffens in preparation for flight. Hidden twigs always a danger. The deer sees no danger...of course. The deer begins to relax. The bushes on the other side of the grass rustle.
The deer springs into a run. He gives a quick growl and breaks into swift pursuit. Tree trunks and foliage become a green blur. The ground vanishes under his feet, still quietly. There is only the prey and the hunt.
He steadily gains on the prey. He allows himself a grin. "Ha, not even my brothers can keep up with me," runs through his mind. Closing on his prey. Only a few more seconds.
The trees fall away into a bowl shaped line surrounding a clearing. The clearing is mostly taken up by a good sized, oval shaped pond fed by a trickling stream just ahead. The sun is glinting off the surface from its place high in the sky.
He fills his nostrils with air. Eyes widen. Humans. Not five steps into the clearing he stops dead and leaps backwards, watching the deer splash across the stream and vanish in leaves. His left foot touches ground next to a tree and he uses his momentum to spin on his heel behind the tree and crouch in the shadows.
Five figures on the opposite side of the pond. All human. All female. All in green and brown dresses with their sleeves rolled up except for the smallest in white. None appeared to have noticed him or the deer except perhaps the One. She appears to have frozen a moment before continuing in the endless ritual of washing clothing.
Two of the females seem to be older. One with failing brown hair, a few grey streaks to be seen with it pulled tight into a tail. Her face is care-worn with lines upon her forehead, near the corner of her mouth and next to her down-turned eyes. The other similar but with short hair and no streaks, fewer wrinkles on her face and her stomach is swelled. Pups soon. Both work diligently, hands working the clothing swiftly.
The third is obviously similar in age to the One, just short years before full adulthood. Her hair is long and redish-brown left free behind her shoulders but occasionally needing a hand to push it out of her face. Creamy smooth skin, red lips and brown eyes whenever she flashes them up to say something to the One or the youngest. A white sash is tied around her waist to emphasize her body's curves. Her progress is periodic between talking and moving her hair.
The youngest female is wearing a shorter white dress and her light brown hair is entwined with a red ribbon in a single braid down her back. She is obviously little more than a pup and is likely that of the pregnant female. She is making an honest attempt at copying her elders, although occasionally the oldest female urges her to wash something again.
He tried to leave and at that failure he attempted to ignore Her but again he failed. She stuck out amazingly and no matter what he did his eyes roved irresistably back to Her. Where as the others were all similar in many ways and made an obvious group, She could be seen both with them and outside them. A she-wolf among dogs.
Black hair slightly curled like the night sky given form reaches down between her shoulder blades. Fair, smooth skin with full, red lips naturally curved ever so slightly in a knowing smile. Currently curved a tiny bit more in a distracted smile for whatever her red haired friend is saying. Her long lashes hide her eyes but he knew they were a vibrant green to put any forest to shame. Her dress can't hide her full breasts, narrow waist, and wide hips. Other than the distracted look on her face there was no hint she wasn't focused on her work as she progressed quickly.
A few half-observed thoughts pass through his mind. She always sets his mind to work. The memory of a dream he had not a few days past blooms in his mind. He closes his eyes to focus on the memory.
He is running, hunting but not for prey. A black and white figure is just visible through the trees. The forest seems to be trying to stop him from catching the figure.
He breaks through a screen of leaves and he finds himself at the beginning of a sunny hill. The hill is covered with hundreds of flowers in all different colors. He has eyes for only one thing. She is running up the hill in a pure white dress that just brushes the flowers. A golden belt about her waist.
He picks up the pursuit again and quickly gains on her. Just as she reaches the top he catches her and they tumble. They both roll down the hill on a soft carpet of flowers. Three-quarters of the way down they slow and stop.
He can feel her body under him, both hard and soft at the same time. His heart is beating harder than running could ever make it. Her face is framed with strands of her hair and flowers. They pale in comparison. She is laughing as she wraps her arms around his neck firmly. Her eyes hold him even tighter and seem to draw him in. There is only her eyes, the feel of her body, and the warmth of her breath on his face.
He almost believes he can smell her. Like spring in full bloom. All the flowers, all the rain, all the life. The crack of a twig brings him back to reality. He CAN smell her.
Cursing himself for nine kinds of an idiot he jumps to his feet. A quick turn and he pushes off into a quick trot. A yelp sounds out behind him and he ignores it. It was surely some word but meaningless this time.
Feeling certain he is out of sight he slows slightly. A quick survey of the trees and he springs high into the air. Contact with the hard bark of a tree he pushes off from it before he falls. One hand catches a thick, smooth branch and he swings up into the denser leaves. Confident in his hiding place he waits and watches.
"I think I might have dropped something." They were walking back to the village having finished the laundry. They had just reached the junction of the forest path and the dirt road leading into the village. A breeze was following the road moving the trees on both sides and blowing up some dust.
Sara looks over her shoulder and deepens the wrinkles of her face with a sympathetic smile almost like she knew. "Alright Elysa, dear, hurry back and get it. We'll wait for you here." Everyone stops and looks at Elysa. Emeril smiles at her with a hand resting lightly on her rounded belly, Ema with a grin pleased at the prospect of one of them escaping their elders' eyes for a few moments and Helen with a scowl for the delay and for the breeze that is pushing her hair into her face.
"No, I don't want to leave you waiting in the sun," Elysa said after a moment. "I'll catch up in a minute," she says with a slight smile.
"Very well, dear," Sara replies, "but don't dawdle."
"Yes, ma'am." The others start walking again, dust rising at their heels. Ema gives a wink as though they shared a secret and increases her pace, stretching her arms out straight in some imagination. Helen, scowl lessened slightly, continues to refuse untying her scarf from around her waist to hold her hair floating in her eyes.
Elysa, smiling, turns around back down the forest path to the pond. Hope still brimmed in her. She almost missed him. He was only visible for a moment before he retreated back into the cover of trees. It had to have been him. He is the only one she has ever met with permanently bronzed skin and golden hair.
A tendril of doubt enters her mind. "Unless that isn't him," she thinks. A sigh breaks free as past grief awakens. She pushes it aside and firms her resolve. "No, it must be him. All I need is a closer look to be sure," she says aloud to herself to make it more real. With that she lifts her skirts and hurries on making herself believe he stayed.
The first glimpse of the pond reminds Elysa exactly of what she was doing. She stops and looks around for a place to secure her basket of clothing. She picks out a densely leafed bush and manages to place the basket deep near its center. Satisfied nothing would happen to the basket nor its contents, she stepped past the bush into the forest.
As she walked over the sun flecked grass with it's patches of long dead leaves and twigs, she began tying her skirts up around her knees. A grin began on her face at how much faster it was to walk, not to mention sneak. She had always been good at moving even before her father taught her what he knew of stalking and woodlore.
Moving almost soundlessly except for the small, irrescapable sounds of shifting grass, she approached where she saw him disappear. An overpowering excitement began to take over and she was hard put to stop herself from rushing. All she could hear was her racing heart. She almost laughs when she thinks, "At this rate he is going to hear my heart drumming from a mile off."
Searching the ground looking for tracks as she continues to sneak along, she thinks almost desperately, "Oh, It must be around here somewhere. I have to know if its truly only Aunt Rosemary and me left!" She looks up to see her position relative to the pond and she notices something.
A small intake of air and widening her eyes is all she can do. It's him it couldn't be anyone else. A hardly distinguishable figure squatting in the shadow of a large tree. His bronzed flesh fades into the shade. She only noticed him from his short golden hair which is always bristling, slightly raised off his head as if by it's own private wind.
If Elysa didn't know better she would say he is sleeping. His eyes are closed and there is a small smile on his lips. All he is wearing was a kilt-like object made from the pelt of some animal that wrapped almost to his knees. She could see hard, lean muscles on his arms, back, chest and stomache. Currently relaxed but still stretching his skin. His legs were taunt with the tension of holding himself in a squat as he balanced on his toes.
A daydream of her own stole over her. It is a memory of years ago so different from now that it feels like forever. She remembered a boy she grew up with in the old village. A boy only about a year older than herself, with bristling golden hair and bronzed skin, who was barely taller than her. He was grinning at her, his golden eyes flaring more than usual. His eyes were that of a wolf's. Golden, fierce and proud, but his were more like the sun. She could always see a fire burning behind those eyes.
"It is him, it has to be him. They are too similar to be anyone else. He must remember me," she thought fiercely. Even so she continued to creep closer. A voice in the back of her head tells her, "No need to give him a chance to run..." Just a few more steps.
CRACK!
He jerks as if awaken, jumps to his feet spinning in midair and starts to run off. She straightens and reaches for him but he is already out of reach. "No, wait, I just want to talk!" she yells after him starting to run herself. He disappears quickly through the trees and she curses before peering at the ground.
A clear track runs to where he disappeared. "Could he want me to follow?" she asks herself in amazement. Even with her father's teaching everytime she tried to track him before revealed barely a hint of his passage. She didn't wait to question further but quickly followed the deep depressions and disturbed leaves.
Elysa followed the tracks into a small clearing where they suddenly ended. She raised her eyes and looked at all the surrounding trees hoping to see him standing there. Nothing.
"Come back!" she called out, still with the hope he will finally come to her. Nothing jumps out or answers her call. "Please," she says unable to shout again. All that answered her was a few birds singing far off and a creak from a tree.
A thought breaks through the silence. "If he remembered you he wouldn't have ran." Her shoulders slump. The thought sounded so true it was ringing in her ears. She hadn't realized how much the thought of meeting him again had raised her heart. She hangs her head, clenches her eyes shut and hugs herself to fight the threatening tears.
Despair claims her.