Snippet #2445720

She seemed to retreat inside herself, and he could sense the internal bargaining she was doing with herself. Perhaps, had he no sense of irony, he would have told her that treating Shizuka and the creature as different entities was a fundamental mistake—they were, in fact, one and the same person. But he would have been a hypocrite indeed if he expected her to act like that. He had not two people in him, but three, a poor showing for anyone who wished to speak of the oneness of his parts. He would let her do this much her own way. It was the only way that any of it would work, regardless.

She struggled, and he changed as well, the harsh-but-mannered Hikaru receding until the deceptively-gentle, sensual, and generally sociopathic Hotaru was dominant inside his mind. He watched with interest as she returned to something like her own being, but like him, this form was still a little bit… wolfish. His grin stretched wide when she spoke to him, flashing the pearly-white of his fangs, prominent especially in this form. “Perhaps,” he said with a touch of amusement flashing in his reddened eyes, “because you have.”

He clasped his hands behind his back as he said it, leaning far enough forward that their noses were only a few inches apart, and his smile grew for just a moment, but then he leaned back again and cocked his head to the side. “Now then, while you’re here, perhaps it will behoove you to sharpen your senses. Like a sword, they do much better when honed, no? Close your eyes, and tell me what you smell.”

Shizuka rolled her eyes at his statement, clasping her arms over her chest in the process. It didn't help her temper much when he leaned forward, their noses barely inches apart, and his scent assaulted her senses. She scrunched up her nose in the process as he leaned back. She was very tempted to bite his nose, but she refrained. She released a quick breath through her nose, as if to expel the scent and it's unpleasant feeling it caused her. "If you see it that way," she retorted once the smell left her. She rose an eyebrow at his next statement, however; she would comply for now. It was she, after all, who sought him out for help, was it not? She narrowed her eyes slightly before closing them fully.

Her brows furrowed as she tried to take in the scents around her, however; his scent made it difficult to concentrate. It was the only thing she could take in, save for a few flowers that were surrounding them. "You stench is over-powering everything else," she nearly gritted through her teeth. She took a deep breath once more, opened her eyes and glanced around. There were a lot of other things she could focus on, so why was it so difficult? With a frustrated groan, she tried once more. Again, his scent assaulted her, however; there was a another, lighter, scent that came with it. She couldn't tell exactly what it was since it was covered in a light, pepper smell.

"There's...a raven ten feet behind you. And," she paused, tilting her head to the side in the process. There was something else, something she couldn't quite place. Perhaps it was because it was so clear, hardly any scent to it, but it was still there. "A stream about five yards to your right," she concluded, opening her eyes once more.

He chuckled, throaty and low, at her comment about his stench. He knew for a fact that it was nothing so offensive, but of course that was hardly the point. They both had their own little fronts to put up, their roles to play, and for now, her pride demanded that she hate him. He was fine with that—when one as hated, one was often at the center of the hater’s thoughts, and this was precisely where he wished to be with her. How he got there was irrelevant, and riling her up was simply too much fun to resist. Her second attempt at an answer was somewhat more satisfying, but only a little.

Clucking his tongue as a reproachful teacher, she shook his head, mirroring her body language from a mixture of mockery (well-intentioned enough, though she’d never believe such) and subconscious forces he didn’t care to understand. “Ah, my dear She-Wolf, that was rather… disappointing. Surely, there is more to it? Even in this intermediate form, you and I have noses that vampires can only envy. What of the trees—their species, the amount of birds nesting in them? The warren of rabbits not fifty feet from where we are standing? The scent of dying leaves on the air, the wet earth beneath our feet, the rain not three hours from falling upon us all?” He enumerated just enough of the possibilities for her to get the point, then waved a hand dismissively.

“Again. And this time…” he seemed to disappear from in front of her, but it wasn’t more than half a second later before his warmth was obvious at her back, and he leaned forward to speak directly into her ear. “Tell me what you can hear.” His voice was a low rumble, almost a growl, even, and his lips just barely brushed the shell of her ear as he straightened to stand upright, though other than this, he apparently had no plans to vacate her personal space. Contrary to what one might think, there was a point to that other than annoying her. One needed to learn to use all one’s senses even when distracted or in a crowd… and he wondered if her ears were good enough to detect his heartbeat or his near-silent breaths, stilled largely for her benefit.

"Bite me," she retorted at his statement. It's not that she couldn't smell anything else, but rather it was hard zoning in on one particular scent when his was everywhere. She grumbled beneath her breath as he continued to speak, however; a slight chill went down her spine when he disappeared and reappared behind her. She shivered when his breath was on her ear as he told her to listen. She had a strong urge to maim the man, but she resisted the strong temptation. She twitched somewhat at how close his lips had been to her ear, and did as she was told. Truth be told, it was easier to hear than it was to smell. She could hear the endless chatter of a few ducks, the soft whispers of the crickets in the nearby field, and something beating. It wasn't fast, and it wasn't slow. It was an even rhythm that, for some odd reason, was comforting. She could feel the hairs along the back of her neck rise at that thought.

"You have a steady heartbeat, I'll give you that. And those ducks don't seem too inclined to stop their chatter any time soon," she began, tilting her head slightly at another sound. "And it appears that one of the Day Class students has decided to take a stroll," she concluded as she turned her head in the direction of footsteps. They were still a good distance off, and although it wasn't exactly night, that student should still be in class. She shrugged her shoulders in the process. She may have been prefect, but they were of little concern to her right now. The only way she would be concerned is if a vampire had decided to take a stroll (and not just any vampire), as well and tried to attack said student.

It was then that she finally heard his last statement. It was going to rain. She finally took in the scent of rain, and immediately her eyes darkened a bit. She once loved the rain, but now, it held similarities to that man. She didn't like the scent of it at all. As if on cue, the mark on her neck began to burn slightly as she covered it with her hand. There was no evidence that it hurt at all. Pain was irrelevant to her, only when she shifted. Pain comparable to that had yet to be discovered for her. She glanced at Hikaru, or Hotaru, from the corners of her eyes and narrowed them slightly before returning them back in the distance. Her hearing was fine, it was her sense of smell and perhaps her control, that she needed work on the most.

Tempting, he thought inwardly when she told him, angrily, of course, to bite her. He considered, just for a moment, doing so, if only to see how she would taste, and how she would react, but he decided against it. The game was not fun if it ended too soon, after all. Unseen by Shizuka, he smiled a little when she mentioned the sound of his heart. She was right, of course—he was so used to physical exertion that it rarely ever became irregular, but there was something almost soft in his expression for half a second, before he caught it and corrected it. Her hearing was at a more acceptable level than her nose, he decided, and he wondered if this was simply an effect of his scent, or if something else seemed to be the problem. Though he knew a lot more about their capabilities than she did, he did not know what it was for two of their kind to interact.

He could smell past her scent all right, though he would admit that it did draw his attention, as though everything else were still present, but beneath her in the hierarchy of his concern. Or rather should be. Perhaps that was natural—she was much more a threat than anything else he could smell, even if he did believe her generally incapable of killing him. Perhaps if she had the advantage of surprise, though… yes, that was possible. Surprise could be quite the advantage, indeed. But the way she smelled, her presence would never surprise him. An interesting thought.

Her hand went to the mark on her neck, which he had successfully ignored for the entirety of this session, but was now unable to. Hotaru’s eyes narrowed, and he did something that Hikaru would not have dared. Still standing behind her, he took her wrist in his hand and tugged as gently as he could while still succeeding in removing it, and pressed the first two fingers of his other to the mark. There it was—the aura of the one who’d made it. Snorting softly, Hotaru focused his own aura to a point and countered. It would hurt quite a lot, but only for a brief moment, and then the pain, though not the mark, would be gone. “A temporary solution to a permanent problem,” he muttered, tone edged with something a little more intense than irritation, all traces of playfulness gone from his demeanor. Shaking his head, he dropped his hands and stepped back, effectively putting distance between them and his back to her. “Be here again tomorrow, at the same time. We have much work to do, you and I.” It would be a slow process, but he would figure it out… if only to spite the one who sought to take advantage of her weakness.