She lounged against a large smooth boulder with her naked body half covered by the flowing water. Her legs floated lazily in the currents of the stream she was half submerged in while her body, from the waist upwards, lay back against the rock. The boulder was soothing to her back and arms, it being warmed by the bright meridian sun that pierced through the forest canopy. She would, intermittently, slide down and allow herself to be completely submerged by the cold clear waters. After a time, she would reemerge and lay back against the warm rock and let the sun bask down on and dry her.
The forest was quiet and peaceful, save for the breezes through the leaves and the flitting of birds. Occasionally, she would hear the quiet sound of a forest creature coming to the brook’s banks to drink, and then just as quietly slipping away. The sound most engaging to her though was that of the stream as it spilled over a low rock ledge just below where she rested. The babbling there was the waters telling her its story, over and over again. It told her of its origins, high in the cold mountains. It related its rapid descent, sometimes crashing down, into the valleys far below. It told her of its meanderings through the meadows in those valleys until it finally made its way to the forest where she lay. It repeated its story to her, she couldn’t say how many times. But to her, each time the story began anew was as fresh as the first time she heard it.
A hard plodding stomping in the forest broke her quiet reverie. She looked through lazy eye lashes towards the sound that did not quite belong there. It was a human, a young man. He wore a bright green jerkin and had a bow in his hand with a quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder and carried at his back. She watched him studiously.
“Not a warrior… A hunter.” she thought to herself, finally deciding.
She watched him as he knelt by the bank and drank several times from a cupped hand. The last handful, he splashed onto his face. She saw as he looked up and the sunlight beamed down on his glistening face, he was fair to look at. She then watched as he laid his bow and quiver aside, removing his green jerkin and folded it. He set it at the base of a large tree and then lay down supine on the shady ground, using it as a pillow for his head. She watched him, nearly motionless, until the rise and fall of his chest became slow and regular.
When she was certain he was asleep, she slid completely down into the water and glided on her belly over the rock ledge to the pool below. She silently made her way to the bank nearest the young man, making no more ripples in the water than the currents that carried it downstream. She crawled out and onto the bank on all fours, allowing the water to drip from her body before approaching closer. After several minutes with her eyes locked on his sleeping figure, she crawled over to look closer at him. He was a young man, in his twenties by human reckoning, strong and handsome. His brown curly hair created a desire for her to tangle her fingers in its coils. His strong jawline made her want to trace a finger from his chin down it to his neck, and down his neck to his broad chest. His lips, parted from his soft breathing, invited her to kiss them.
She thought of waking him with a kiss. She imagined him suddenly startled and awakened to find her naked before him. She foresaw the lust slowly building in his eyes until, when he began to move towards her, she ran from him, laughing, through the forest. She allowed him to stay close enough in the chase to encourage him, and finally allowed him to catch her. She envisioned their love making on a bed of ferns in the deepest part of the forest, their bodies intwined and rolling together. She heard the soft song she would sing to him after their lovemaking, telling him it was only a dream. She saw all these things in her mind and yet she did not kiss him. Instead, she turned and picked up his bow and quiver.
She climbed with them up the giant tree under which he rested. A tree that was old enough to be her grandfather. She hung his bow and quiver out on a limb, in plain sight, but too high for him to reach from the ground. Smiling, she climbed down and returned to the brook, glided silently back into the water and returned to her boulder to watch him when he awakened.