Yvette and Logan - Hide and Seek

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Yvette and Logan indulge in a bit of after-school training in the woods.



Yvette crept almost noiselessly through the underbrush, eyes slitted to try and hide the tell-tale glow. Her pursuer was close - she could sense it more than actually hear or see anything - and she had to try to elude him just a few minutes more. A rustle came from in front of her and she froze in the middle of a thornbush, keeping herself as low to the ground as she could. Thorns and snow didn't bother her - only the latter registered as a vague sensation of coolness.

Logan grinned from his vantage point up in the tree. She was doing a lot of things right - staying low, staying under cover, using her advantages to good use - but she was making one of the classic hide-and-seek blunders.

She wasn't looking up.

Logan dropped out of the tree as noiselessly as he could and reached out to tag her gently.
Yvette jumped backwards, landing on her butt in the slushy mud and slicing off a good chunk of the thornbush with her hair. "Drat!" she exclaimed, looking up at him from her inadvertant seat. "How did you find me?"

"Been shadowing you tree-to-tree for a half-klick or so." he said with a small shrug. "Gave me a good run, but you need to look up more." he said, reaching out to ruffle her hair affectionately, heedless of how her hair sliced through his flesh and down to the adamantium bones. "But you kept low, used cover, walked quietly. All good." he said fondly.

She pouted a little, just for the effect more than anything. "I forget that you like to climb the trees also," she admitted, before holding out an ungloved hand for him to help her up. She didn't like to see him get cut, but it had become an unspoken agreement that she wouldn't employ her usual contact-avoiding behaviours around him. It acted as a kind of release valve, almost, for her. "I lasted the longer time than the last, at least. Perhaps next time I will reach the end?" She grinned as she said it.

He grinned in response to that and helped to pull her to her feet. "Maybe." he said with a chuckle. "You've come a long way, kid. Makes me proud." he told her affectionately before darting off into the brush. "Come find me!" he said with a jubilant yell.

She'd barely brushed off the mud on her behind before realising there wasn't going to be much of a break. "Cheating person!" she called after him, opting to scramble up the same tree he'd come out of, jumping from branch to branch like an over-sized red monkey. He'd been right - it was easier to track someone from above, and she grinned to herself, thinking she might actually catch him this time.
Logan laughed as he darted back and forth across the path, leaving a trail a blind man - or maybe Laurie - could follow. Ground wasn't so hard that it wouldn't take a print and the coldness in the air made the ground cover prone to breakage. Yvette had undoubtedly taken to the trees to keep pace from above and he had planned to make things more difficult than that for her.

He was leaving a clear trail - that meant he was probably going to leave it sometime soon, in order to trick her, if he hadn't already. She kept to the trees, however, since that ought to give her a better chance of seeing where he might divert. That is, until a branch creaked ominously under her weight and she was forced to slow down to choose a safer path through the trees.

He did indeed have every intention of deviating from his well-broken trail and then looping back to hunt the hunter. But he'd stay out of the trees - being up high had its advantages but it could also be used by canny prey to obfuscate things. For now he stuck to the brush until he came up to a point where several game trails converged, and he changed his way of moving completely as he diverted onto one of them. No tracks, as few broken plants and disturbed brush as possible. Make her work for it.

Yvette's diversion meant that she'd dropped behind a little, and by the time she reached the convergence of trails, she'd lost sight of Logan. She also lost the trail, it seemed; she frowned as she peered down out of the tree, looking for the tracks. It seemed he'd decided to change tactics. The small red girl dropped out of the tree, crouching low over the ground as she scanned it for signs of Logan's path. She didn't have the enhanced senses of the ferals, but she was being taught well by one of the masters. At last she caught sight of some disturbed leaf mould, the barest trace of a footprint and she smiled to herself, continuing the chase on foot.

Logan had opened up his lead but not as much as he thought he might. She was still back there and if it wasn't for his enhanced hearing he doubted he'd have heard her at all. Girl was going to make him work for it, which suited him just fine. He was making his way roughly towards the lake, doubling back in a wide loop. He might just have to surprise her there, even if it meant getting a little soggy.

He was being more careful about his tracks, which meant she had to go slower to make sure she didn't miss anything. Or get pounced on should he decide to change the rules.

He was heading back towards the lake, leading her in a big circle. He wanted to see if he could match her course exactly, make her pick out his prints from hers from his old ones. See if she could keep it all straight. Sure, it was a challenge, but he did her no favors by holding back.

Yvette grinned and quickened her pace, sure she was going to catch him this time. He was heading towards the lake, she was sure of it this time. Then the faint prints she was following seemed to vanish into the mulch and the paused, crouching lower over the cold dirt and chewing on her bottom lip a little. There was another set of prints... "Sneaky Mr. Logan," she muttered to herself, realising - he was using her old prints to disguise his own. Fortunately for her, she had a pretty distinctive footprint and a tendency to walk on the balls of her feet with her toes dug into the soil for grip. Not much room there for him to cover his tracks with his feet being bigger than hers...

But then he'd used another old hunter's trick - disguising his new prints inside his old prints. They fit together like a hand-in-glove, for obvious reasons, and until he deviated one more time from his original path he could have her going in circles for a goodly long while.

It was on her second circuit that she recognised the scuffed-up patch she had made leaping out of the tree and made a frustrated noise. He'd fooled her again! She had two choices now - retrace their steps and see if he'd diverged, or wait for him to come circling back around again. Or, of course, she could give up, but she was too stubborn for that one. Waiting was passive, retracing was active and she might be sitting there for hours if she'd misread the situation. Better to retrace. She began moving in the opposite direction, eyes wide and taking in as much detail as she possibly could.
Logan caught her frustrated noise and smiled to himself as she figured out how he'd duped her. Now to see if she could put it all together. As silently as possible and using his claws for grip, he climbed a nearby tree and took cover behind the branches, waiting for her to pass by.

Nothing, nothing noth... Wait. There was the faintest disturbance of the leaf mould, a depression, if you looked at it carefully enough, looked like a toe print. Not one of hers, either. She paused, straightening up to look around her, taking into account what Logan had told her about not focussing too much on one plane. There was a tang of pine sap in the air, freshly cut - it was a smell she was well acquainted with, given her method of climbing. He'd gone into the trees. Her eyes flashed triumphantly as she looked around, looking for the particular tree he'd taken refuge in.
Logan smiled to himself as she paused and then started to scan the tree-tops. Smart girl. Didn't make the same mistake more than twice. She might even find him if she went skywards to get around the foliage blocking him from the ground. Time to put this little game to a halt.

If she was older, he'd buy her a beer.

Hell, he might do it anyway. No time like the present.

He waited for her to look away, to move towards a different set of trees, then made his move, Quietly, deftly, he made his way out of his tree to hunt her, to get up close enough to touch.

Nothing along this side of the path... Yvette contemplated going for the trees herself, but didn't want to risk losing him while she was climbing. Perhaps if she went back the other way... She was about to turn around and do just that when she felt a gentle tug on her hair and gave a most girly squeal.

"Nice squeal." Logan said with a grin, giving her hair one more soft tug. "Not bad, kiddo. Not bad at all." he said. "Gave me a good run." he said proudly.

"You are startling me," she protested with a small pout that only accented the girlishness. Then she smiled. "I did? Thank you, Logan. You are the very good teacher and I am learning so much from you."

"Done a lot of hard work to get where you are now." he said. "Don't sell yourself short. I showed you a few tricks - you're the one out here practicing, working on your skills. Tell ya what. Go get cleaned up, go look nice, and I'll go buy you dinner. Whatever you want." he promised with an easy smile.

Yvette's face lit up in a bright smile. "Oh, yes please, Mr. Logan! I'll be very quick!" And with that, she dashed off towards the mansion.