<div class="floatright">(https://i.postimg.cc/GmVMTHJ3/eef6ec6b38c38ad3b97da9b5de81db90-2.png)</div>The branch stirred slowly in the current, and Pozhvim froze as he saw the female kobold, only her head showing above the quick water like a crocodile’s as she coasted. For a moment, he thought she was about to miss the branch as her eyes flicked along the near bank, and he stuffed his fists into his mouth as if desperate to prevent himself calling out.<br/><br/>She was at it, she was past…No, as if teasing him, she snagged it with an arm just as he thought it was too late, pulling herself up and sitting a moment, staring around. He remembered to breathe again as she began to pick her way along the branch.<br/><br/>Pozhvim was confused, but exhilarated. He’d wanted her to not see it, but at the same time he was afraid that she wouldn’t see it. The conflicting emotions twisted and churned in his stomach and blended in strange ways with the needy achiness of his loins. He ground his hips against the bottom of the depression beneath the bush, trying to do something about the firmness he felt beginning to protrude from his pouch, but it didn’t help at all.<br/><br/>He wanted to be able to hide from her…But he wanted her to find him.<br/><br/>Among other things.<br/><br/>Pozhvim’s heart fluttered as he saw a low branch almost a dozen trees away suddenly flick upward, relieved of her weight. She’d spotted where he came down on the broken rocky surface. She’d get here, then, and in not very long. The wind carried her soft murmur, but he couldn’t quite make out her words.<br/><br/>She didn’t sound displeased, though.<br/><br/>Pozhvim eeled carefully out from beneath the bush. He’d overstayed in its cozy shelter, and if he waited much longer, she’d hear him when he moved. He carefully ascended the short, rocky slope behind the bush. Nearly a cliff, he hoped she wouldn’t consider it a likely path for him. By the time he’d made it to the top, his heart was beating so loudly in his ears that he was sure she’d find him by that sound alone.<br/><br/>He didn’t even consider the faint, silvery-slick smears he’d left on the leafy ground below the bush at the slope’s base.<br/><br/>Pozhvim was concerned that the slope might’ve been a bad idea. She was just as tall as he was, and notably stronger. Anything he looked at and deemed climbable would be easier for her than for him.<br/><br/>Coming over the crest of the small hillock, he realized he was gazing down at another patch of stony ground. A hop onto a nearby tree almost undid him as the branch he caught thrashed more than the wind could account for. Hopefully she wasn’t close enough to hear it! He eyed the terrain beneath him carefully, then dropped onto the stony ground again, racing quickly across it to pull himself back up to the lowest branches of the tree and deliberately letting his claws dig into its bark before dropping down once more into the same spot.<br/><br/>Pozhvim began carefully picking his way off of the stones and back towards the river, but this time he followed the course he’d laid out while in the tree, slowly and painstakingly walking backward with his tail up. He wasn’t entirely happy with the way his footprints looked in front of him when he crossed soft earth, but he wasn’t quite sure what was wrong with them, or if he could fix them.<br/><br/>He backed slowly and carefully into the river, and this time began thrusting himself upstream against its flow, pushing off the bottom with his legs as he leaned into the current. It was slow going, but if he could go back and find where she’d gone in and come out in her own footsteps, Pozhvim thought that might buy him some time…<br/><br/>The cold water was uncomfortable, but at least it helped to soften his hemipenes and let his pouch clamp shut around them once more.