"I brought both the hats," you assure him. "Ma'am? Hummock?" The bear looks over her round, black shoulder. "Yes, Brother's Keeper? More frogs?" "No. I'm going to catch fish up there. Don't splash near there, okay? If I catch anything I'll share." One of the yearling cubs does an eager ferret horseshoe dance in the snow, grunting "Fish!" under its breath, until Hummock squashes it good-naturedly to keep it from coming any closer to you. You may be 'friends' now, but she's not letting her babies get in amongst you. Hummock says, "We like fish a lot." "So don't splash near there." "Yep!" "Be right back," you tell Erskin, licking one of his adorable pointy ginger ears, and then grab up your pants-and-knife bundle and hurry off toward camp to change.
Once more alone against— or at least uncomfortably close to— three bears, you sidle hastily up the waterway. You try to determine a good spot to fish from, though you don't know if what would make a good spot to jump off of and snap would also be good to just sit at and dangle a line. You make note of several locations, anyway. You can show them to Bel and let him decide, when he finds you.
You return, properly dressed for the weather in a wool sweater and thermal microfiber gloves and everything. And your new brown-and-navy hat, of course. You offer Erskin the brightly colored one he picked out, and laugh with helpless delight at how silly and adorable he looks wearing it. You've got your fishing line and hook, already baited with a beetle grub you dug from a bit of rotten wood near the campsite. You cut a whippy length of birch and slip-knot the line around the end of it, running the excess down to your hand. "The pole's mostly to help get it in the right place," you explain as you dangle the bait near some promising rocks, "and to act as a spring so the line doesn't break when a fish hits. On a training exercise once I had to catch my own food with nothing but my clothes. Used my pants as a net. Got a leech on my ballsack. Ugh." You give a theatrical shudder. "Never again."
You give a shudder of your own, tucking your tail for emphasis. This is why human skin is best as a vacation, you figure, no leeches are going to get access to your business. Your hat's gotten a little askew. You fold your ears back and paw at it to settle it properly. It's completely silly and muffles your hearing more than a bit, but you like it, so there. After that though there doesn't seem to be much else to contribute, so you settle down on your haunches alongside Bel, chin on your forelegs, and let him lean on you for extra warmth.
The short day draws in, the light spilling golden across the snow, and as the sun dips behind the pines the fish abruptly start biting. Just carp and bullheads, nothing fancy, but they're fat and sluggish, and once your grub bait is gone it turns out they'll hit just about anything that smells meaty -- including bits of fish guts, pinched from Erskin's meal. Hummock and the cubs come along to watch, and you let them have the small ones you'd normally throw back, since the bears eat them whole. You give Erskin the prettiest fish, shimmery hazel-colored carp, the largest maybe three pounds. And you keep a couple of two-pound bullheads for yourself, which you'll fillet and cook once you're too cold to fish or they stop biting. "Bullheads have a bad rep," you inform Erskin, "but catfish caught in clear water is actually delicious." Not that you'll refuse to eat these if they taste muddy; you're ravenous.
"Like I said earlier, I've gotten by on garbage," you shrug, and lick some fish guts off a rock. "You're not exactly discussing your meal plans with an alpha chef. But these are good, thank you. You're useful." The last phrase is a lot more complimentary in wolf.
You beam; you consider that a pretty high compliment in human, too, but in wolf it's got connotations of interconnectedness that make you extra happy. "It's getting dark and I haven't had a bite for half an hour, let's go back to camp." "Fish?" one of the cubs inquires as you thread your two catfish, now partly frozen, on your birch switch. "These are mine," you reply. Hummock looks, for a moment, like she might be about to disagree. Maybe see if she can claim your dinner for her children. But then she herds them aside to let you pass. You gave them fish already, and apparently bear friendship isn't that greedy, or something. "Sleep warm," she tells you as you go, and in bear, it's a very friendly goodbye. "You too," you return. "And you, Yellow Flower, and you, Faster." "I'm Yellow Flower, she's Faster," says the male cub indignantly. "My mistake," you say solemnly, and don't burst out laughing until you're halfway back to camp.
"Haha, you're sexist," you tease, nipping playfully at his heels. There isn't actually a phrase for that in strictly wolf, it's a human loan-term, though in your experience plenty of werewolves are extremely comfortable with the concept. Whatever Bel's opinions on gender rolls the accusation still gets him to shove your head, so you can shove him back, then goof around all the way back to the tent.
"Dig up the fire pit, would you?" you ask him as you get out your cooking gear. You don't want to light a fire on a pile of snow, obviously. By the time he's got the dirt-buried ashes of last night's cookfire uncovered and the snow shoved mostly out of the way, you've got the catfish filleted. You give him the guts, bones, and skin. For yourself, you have not only the surprisingly nice catfish fillets -- the water around here really is clean! -- but some cattail shoots stir-fried in the pan right after you take the fillets out, in the fishy-salty-peppery butter left behind. "Just like bamboo shoots, wanna try?" You offer Erskin a forkful of buttery shoots. (i'm making myself hungry gdi)
You take a bite, interested— it's pretty good!— then pull the fork out of his hand and prance around with it. When he's more interested in his meal than grabbing it back, you return it, a little abashed, and lie down again beside him. This is sort of a rest day, you suppose, it's already dark. You suppose you can settle down. You manage it for a few minutes, then roll over and sigh mournfully. "I'm bored," you let Bel know. You set your four paws against one of his folded legs and push yourself back, making a wolf-size skidmark in the leaves. Then you sigh again.
"I'm eating," you retort, but you're almost done. You finish up, wipe your plate and pan with snow, and then fill the pan with water, with the plate and your dishcloth in it, and put it on to boil and sterilize. It's only seven, but you don't really feel like shifting and going on a romp, not if you're going to make some distance tomorrow. You yawn, stretch, and get out your toothbrush. "I'll read to you," you offer. "And scritch your ears. Or we could have more sex! Or both. We have a lot of options inside the tent out of the wind, which is where I want to be as soon as I'm done cleaning up here."
"Hmm, well, reading, I suppose," you agree. "Maybe sex later, I don't know." You go sniff out his pack and get the little plastic ebook rectangle, then carry it inside the tent and proceed to press random buttons all over the touch-screen with your nose. When the colors go inside-out you're very pleased with yourself.
You join him shortly thereafter, minty-fresh and somewhat damp from combing snow through your hair to get the day's grit out. You hang the wet dishcloth in one of the little mesh pouches built into the tent for such purposes, undress down to boxers and t-shirt and socks, and burrow into your sleeping bag with a theatrical "Brrr!" He proudly presents you with your ebook pad, the screen an unreadable LCD hash. "What did you do?" you demand, as much impressed as annoyed.
"Oh my god, you and your perverse genius for entropy. You're a champion of chaos, you know that?" While you grumble fondly, you wipe the screen clean with your shirt and reboot the device. Fortunately, this fixes the problem, whatever it was. "Snuggle in for scritches, mon ami. I'm kind of bored with Harry Potter for now, are you? I'm thinking maybe hard-boiled detectives. What's your interest level in Philip Marlowe?"
You have no idea who Philip Marlowe is, though you're not entirely opposed to finding out. You lick your nose to indicate this. Then you lick the screen to see if it'll mess up again, which results in getting your head sandwiched under Bel's armpit to deter you from further sabotage. Life is unfair.
His lick across your library list has selected an excerpt from some awful southern tear-jerker about mothers and daughters and cancer and abusive husbands, one of those teasers the book publishers keep sending out. Grumbling, you go to the trouble of deleting the damn thing -- they don't make it easy -- before selecting the book you want and settling down to read. "It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it." Oh man, you'd forgotten how much you love Raymond Chandler. You can't help a happy sigh at the cadence of his sentences. Now that is how you words.
It's harder to concentrate on detectives than it is on wizards, for whatever reason. You shuffle and fidget, losing the plot repeatedly, then finally give an exasperated huff and make the uncomfortable push into a human shape. There's suddenly a lot less sleeping bag, but you likewise feel a lot less trapped by it. "I couldn't keep everything that was going on in my head," you explain. "Try again, I think I can listen better like this." Also, since you have no snout to speak of anymore, he can't stick it under his arm. Ha! You lie on your side and grab satisfying fistfuls of his hair.
"Mm, mkay." You nuzzle his face and kiss him solidly, but then you obediently go back to reading, backing up to the plot point that confused him. His legs are tangled with yours, your free hand is resting in the lovely curve of his lower back, and he's playing with your hair. You're a little horny, because he's naked and smells fantastic, but you think you wouldn't really mind much if he doesn't want sex tonight. This is pretty great, just like this.
You can follow along better now, but Bel's smell is distracting, and the soft smoothness of his bare skin. You trace over the freckles on his shoulder and spine until he shivers and looks back at you. You shrug and grin, feeling your face heating unfamiliarly. "I'm listening," you assure him. When he starts reading again you go back to petting him—a little more mischievously, trying to see what gets the best reactions.
