He dropped his bags and walked, then broke into a run; she did the same.He dropped his bags and walked, then broke into a run; she did the same. They crashed into each other. "Furry!" "Kolya!" she shouted as he hugged her tight. They laughed together. "Oh, I missed you!" "I missed you too!" he shouted, picking her up off the floor. He held her in his arms as she peered down at him, then bent to kiss him. He craned his neck to kiss her back. Finally, she lifted her head and he lowered her back to the floor. "I saw you in my dreams" he said. "Uh-huh!" Furry's reply made Nickolai smile. That particular pair of syllables had been the first thing about her that he had found attractive. "I saw you there, too," she continued. She smoothed out her skirt and turned. Nickolai watched her as all of his feelings, all of his dreams of the past four years flowed through him. Like so much that had happened in the past ten minutes, just staring at her felt perfectly right. She was still the same humanoid he had left, her hips a little wider than the human frame, just a head shorter than he was, with lovely rounded ears and a long furry tail. Her fur was the same grey (he had learned from one of her letters that the polite term was 'steel') he remembered from two years back. Her short muzzle and whiteless eyes completed the mouse-like design of her species. She gestured to the shorter fem standing next to her. "I guess I'd better introduce you since I've talked so much about you both. Kiza, this is Kolya. Nickolai, meet Kiza." "Hi," the shorter fem said. She was as Furry had described her; a marten, or weasel-variant, with bright black eyes and quick, nervous movements of her head. Her fur was deep red and very long; she wore a complimentary black shirt and baggy pants over it. |