xp_logs | Hank & Catseye: Tracker Training (Reply)

Hank takes Catseye out for an early morning training session in the woods, and she turns out to be a natural tracker.

Wearing her trainee greys, Catseye rolled around on her back near the lake, basking in the sunshine and fresh air, stretching languidly as she twisted and turned, rubbing her back on the scratchy grass by the bank in true cat fashion. "I think spring is one of the bestest seasons. Do you like spring Mister Beast?" she inquired casually, using his X-Men name since they were technically beginning an X-Men training session.

Hank was a few feet away, reading the deer tracks that had been left in the mud next to the bank. "Hmm," he said, being snapped out of his daze. "Oh, yes, it's wonderful- unless you have allergies like some of the mansion's residents." He smiled and offered Catseye a hand up from the bank, "Are you ready to begin?"

Catseye rose reluctantly, taking Hank's hand, but her disappointment at no more rolling around was short lived as excitement for their lesson took over. "Yesyesyes! What are we going to track? Can I be in catform when we track it?" Usually X-Men and New Mutant training was always focused on training her to do things in human form, but she couldn't resist asking if she could be a cat anyway. Of course she would take the easy way to tackle a task if she could. It was the influence of feline logic on her.

"This task will need to be performed in your human form for the time being," Hank smiled toothily and remembered how much he missed Billy for a second as Catseye showed the same kind of energy and enthusiasm he'd come to expect from his son. Hank made a mental note to take some vacation time back home once he could be afforded to be missed. "Now, let's start simply by telling me what it is you see."

"See? Only see, not smell and hear?" Catseye mused, figuring Hank wanted to go through each sense one at a time. "I see dead grass. Trees. Buds for new leaves. The lake. Dead reeds. The sky. Clouds. Birds flying. Rocks. A shiny wrapper from garbage. An acorn. Rabbit tracks. Deer tracks. You. Should I say more?"

Hank chuckled and crouched down next to the tracks, "I believe you have some experience tracking already, so this should be easy for you, but without using your senses of smell or hearing, how many deer have been through here in the last three hours?"

"It is better to use eyes instead of smell and hearing to know how many deer anyway," Catseye mused aloud. The time element of the question gave her considerable pause, however. She crouched down in front of the area where the deer tracks were, poking at them with her fingertips. "Can I use my feeling sense?" she asked after the fact, and looked up at Hank sheepishly.

"Feel free to use your tactile sense," Hank nodded in response. He was a few feet away picking up the shiny piece of trash that Catseye had pointed out- wondering if he could track down whomever it was who'd tossed this bauble out to contaminate the pristine wilderness that was Charles Xavier's backyard.

Catseye's tactile sense was one of her favourite senses by far, so she grinned excitedly at Hank and bent down over the tracks again. She poked various tracks, muttering to herself out loud. "This one has a funny-shaped hoof, this one is smaller than another one... I think there were three deer," she told Hank with a note of confidence in her voice. Gauging the time they'd passed through was a little more difficult. She felt around the hoofprints, and in the hoofprints, and put her face sideways on the ground so she could eyeball the depressions the tracks had made in the ground. "I think... I think only one came through here in the last three hours and the other two were yesterday?" The 'yesterday' part was pure guess, but they looked more than three hours old.

"And what are you basing those facts on?" Hank asked, taking a seat on the grassy ridge Catseye had just been rolling around in.

Catseye bit her lip, feeling like she was in science class taking a test. "There are three sets of tracks because one has a funny-shaped hoof, one is bigger, and one is smaller. The funny one and the small one are drier and not as far down in the ground. The big one has darker soil and feels wetter like it is more fresh," she corrected, "and it is deeper in the ground and that makes it look newer because this wind that we have right now has not blown dirt on it like it did with the other two tracks? Am I right?" she asked hopefully.

Hank clapped, slowly and proudly, "You're picking this up as quickly as I expected you would. You're right, only one set of the tracks are fresh, the other two must have come here yesterday in order to water themselves by the bank." Hank stood and strode over to where Catseye was crouched. With feline grace he joined her near the muddy ground, "Now comes the million dollar questions, so-to-speak...which way did it go?"

"Easy!" Catseye answered triumphantly, "it went this way!" She loped off a few steps, then knelt by the tracks again. "See? Because deer have these big oval shapes at the front of their hooves and then teeny tiny little circle shapes at the back! Right?"

"Very good," Hank said without a hint of the surprise he was actually feeling over the girls natural talents. "Then there's only one thing left to do," he smiled and stood up in a fluid motion. "Let's follow the trail. Lead the way."

"Can I use my nose this time or just my eyes and hands again? And when we follow the trail and find the deer are we going to eat it?"

Hank blinked once before breaking into a hearty laugh- not wanting to admit that some part of him wanted to answer yes to her question. "As far as eating the deer is concerned, I think we can let this one go- this is just practice after all. Try to leave your nose out of the equation for now, just using sight and touch to track should be just enough of a challenge and those feral senses of yours." The blue doctor waited for her to move down the well marked trail, wondering if there would be a challenge at all for her in this task and why he'd had pictures in his head of pouncing a live deer for a split-second.

Catseye lapsed into rare silence as she set her jaw and focused hard on the task at hand, leading Hank through the woods on the deer's trail. "I never thought before how much I use my nose," she pointed out a long while later. "It is muchmuch harder to track without using your nose." But she thought they were finally getting close which was why she was speaking now, so that she could be silent again when they got within earshot of the deer.

Hank chuckled and followed as silently as someone his size could with agility and reflexes that surpassed those of a non-mutated human- which turned out to be quiet quietly. The trail was definitely that of a deer, winding through the wooded fields, taking the path of least resistance. "You're doing quite well."

"Mister Beast? Part of tracking for the X-Men team is about letting people know where to go and when to stop or go without talking, yes? So trackers use hand signs to speak without using words? What is the sign for 'the thing we are tracking is right in front of us through those trees up there?"

Hank nodded and made a few gestures indicating for the team to stop, then to look toward the trees Catseye had just pointed out, then put a finger to his lips indicating for silence. With a simple nod and open palm he indicated it was her turn to give it a try.

Putting her photographic memory to use, Catseye mimicked the gestures Hank had shown her, beaming excitedly. She began to move forward in a slow, careful stalk towards the deer, not entirely sure what Hank wanted her to do when they reached it since he'd said they weren't eating it so if she killed it wouldn't it be wasted, and how was she going to kill it in her human form? But wasn't the point of tracking to catch and stop your prey?

Hank followed close behind her, wondering if her instincts would kick in once they saw the deer. As they came upon the edge of the clearing, Hank spotted movement in the field ahead, but withheld his initial urge to tap Catseye's shoulder, instead letting her make the call when they were close enough. Slowly, Hank unslung the rucksack that he'd been carrying and held it low to the ground.

Catseye turned back to Hank- he was the alpha here, after all- and sent him a questioning look, then put her hands up in front of her chest to mime pouncing, then sent him another questioning look. Did he want her to try to catch the deer?

Hank shook his head and gave Catseye a wink before removing a salt lick from amongst the items in the bag. Holding the bright, white cube out to the young lady, the big, blue doctor beamed.

Accepting the cube from the enthusiastic Hank, Catseye guessed he wanted her to give the salt to the deer as a trick to catch it, so she continued to stalk towards it, salt lick in an outstretched hand, doing her best to move silently and put the deer at ease. But the animal must have known her scent as a sometimes-predator, because as soon as Catseye got too close to not be smelled, despite being downwind of the animal, the deer raised its head and took off like a shot through the clearing and deeper into the woods. "Should I keep chasing to try to catch it?" she asked with a frown.

Hank knelt down on the ground at the edge of the clearing and shook his head, "We could keep tracking it, but I had something else in mind. We'll leave the salt lick here for a few days then see if we can't track down that same deer."

"The same deer?!" Catseye asked, surprised. "That sounds like fun! Then we will catch it and eat it?"

Hank smiled at the exuberance of youth and simply said the same words that any parent had to learn to say at some point, "We'll see."