[SRP] Hide 'n' Hunt (Milo and Hadiza)

[Geyser Eelborn]

Milo and Martyn had met a little over a year ago, their paths crossing as paths so often do, on the course of long travels across the world. Some Soquili stayed in one place their whole lives, but others were wanderers, and Martyn de l’Arsenne was one of them. Milo, on the other hand, was a born homebody, the kind of creature that found a place he loved and stayed there for the rest of his life. But other creatures in the area had claimed it as territory, and Milo was too small to compete with them. So he remembered that strange Soquili with the crystal-topped staff and decided to pay him a visit. He’d been good company, with an interesting way of looking at the world, always seeing every little detail and marveling in it before moving on. He’d had a wicked sense of humor too, which shocked and excited the cat in equal measure. So when Milo needed someone to stay with, Martyn had been his first choice.

He’d been a little surprised, but not very, to find that the next time Martyn met, he was not alone. A tiny foal was with him—or at least, so Milo found out shortly after they met. When he’d first met Hadiza, he really hadn’t known what to think. She was a ball of features with a face sticking out of the middle of them, so far as he could tell. But Martyn had introduced her as his daughter, an Usdia born to Soquili parents, nearly but not completely full-grown. She’d turned out to be as curious as Martyn was, but Milo still didn’t know her very well.

So when her father aske Milo if he could babysit her for a little while while he went herb-gathering, Milo had been understandably reluctant. “Alright,” he said, eyeing the fluffy Usdia. “Does she really need babysitting, though? I mean, she’s nearly an adult…”

Martyn made a face. “Just in case,” he said quietly. “I guess I just…don’t trust the world yet, with my only daughter, all alone.”

Milo’s tail lashed. “Fine,” he said. “I can keep an eye on her.”

Martyn lipped his ear. “Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it. I’ll be back as soon as I can, I promise.” And with that, the Soquili was off through the woods, leaving Milo with the strange half-grown Usdia he barely knew.

“Hello?” he said, eyeing her still.  

[Geyser Eelborn]

He. Was. Fascinating.

Milo Mystere was still new in her life, she barely knew him. But Dad seemed to like him, and trust him, and Dad didn’t trust anybody other than Papa. So if Dad trusted him, he must be trustworthy, and if he was trustworthy, and if he was going to stay as long as he said he was going to, then Hadi wanted to get to know him! Good thing Dad was away to stop distracting Milo, and she could finally get to know him.

And an extra good thing that she knew the perfect way to get to know someone! Or at least, the perfect way to bond with them. Her tail swayed from side to side and she watched him eagerly. “Hi!” Her tail swayed a little more. “Milo, do you want to play a game?”

“A game?” He stared at her.

“Yeah! It’s a game I made up. Dad can’t play, not very well, but I think you’d like this game, I think you could play it very well.”

He stared at her, his shoulders hunching and his tail twitching. “Oh…kay…sure, I’ll play this game. Um. What are the rules…?”

She perked up even more. “It’s called Hide’n’hunt! One of us is the seeker and the other one’s the hider. The seeker closes their eyes and counts to twenty, and the hider finds someplace to hide. Then the seeker goes looking for the hider—”

Milo perked up. “Oh, I know this game! The seeker finds the hider, and the hider’s now the seeker!”

“Nope!” Hadi said. “When they find each other, the first one to pounce on the other one wins! So the seeker needs to find the hider before the hider finds them, and the seeker needs to find the hider without the hider realizing that the seeker’s found them!”

Milo stared at her, then slowly nodded, his body relaxing. “You’re still a lot bigger than me,” he said. “You promise you’ll be careful if you land on me…?”

“Of course!” Hadi’s tail swung back and forth. “I’ll just jump over you. Dad just paws at me when we play, and that counts. Does that sound good?”

Milo nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that sounds good. So, which one do you want to be first?”

Hadi grinned. “I’ll be hider, you be seeker!” Then, without waiting for him to reply, Hadi ran off into the bushes to get a head start. Behind her, she could hear Milo start to count to twenty…  

[Geyser Eelborn]

It was a good game, actually, and to his shock, Milo found himself enjoying it. He was a very good seeker—he’d had a lot of practice at it, when hunting, and he was a good hider too. He could blend in with his surroundings better than Hadiza’s brightly-colored feathers could, and he could fit into smaller spaces than she could, too.

He didn’t have it all his own way, though. He could climb trees, but Hadiza was a fantastic leaper. She would jump into the low branches to paw at him with her clawed feet, her feathers and miniature wings allowing her more lift than an Usdia of her size should have had. And she was a remarkably good sport about it, in spite of her age.

“Thank you for the game, Hadiza,” he said as they lay in a pool of sunlight in a clearing of the woods. “I had fun!”  

[Geyser Eelborn]

“Me too!” she said. She looked over at him and nuzzled him, just below the chin, watching him lean his head back with evident delight on his face. “You can call me Hadi, y’know.”

He nodded. “Okay, Hadi.”

“And you promise you’ll show me how to stalk, right?”

He nodded again. “Of course I will. I promised, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did,” she said. She sighed happily, the sound turning into a trill at the end. “Today’s been a good day.” And she and her new friend basked in the spring sun, not a care in the world.