Blacktail Deer Plateau Romance and awkwardness.

Dakarai did not seem as enthused about her game of hide and seek; and in the back of Olive’s mind, she noted that old Dakarai wouldn’t have been so blasé about it. He would have been happy, bounding with excitement and anticipation over playing with his nymph. They games were the most fun, for there was always such a sense of trust and intrigue and sex. Dakarai would have humored her. Dakarai would have probably started the game himself. Dakarai would have luxuriated in her nearness.

Olive found it hard to swallow the resentment she felt over the things he was not. She had known about Dakarai’s past, as he had been relatively cavalier to her about these subjects, but she did not have to look at his past in the face. But now, she couldn’t look away from it — this Dakarai was loud and bright and staring at her and though Olive was sure she could love him, she was rebelling against that reality like a petulant child. 

Olive pulled herself from her languid spot upon the earth, stretching each limb in the process. Olive looked down her nose at him, as if the game was something that required a degree of  properness and decorum and he was not yet meeting her feigned standard. “I need you to count to thirty. No more, no less.” Olive stood proudly, the arbiter of the same Hide and Seek. “And no peeking,” she winked and danced away, taking several leaps low against the ground.

Once out of obvious earshot the misted woman dare life her head and search for a place to conceal her small form. The blighted forest [which had been acting as their extended stay hotel] had slowly defrosted, revealing a myriad of nooks and crannies for Olive blend into. The woman ultimately chose a large scrub bush, which was still dusted with snow. The underbrush was large enough and white enough to conceal her form, so Olive tucked her creamy coat away, hunkered down, slowed her breathing to a near halt and listened intently for Dakarai’s heavy footfalls.