Commission for DarrenCax of an interesting situation Darren and Zena end up in...

The story accompanying it written by Blackadder261

The ferret and the half-feline glanced out of the window, happy to see that the weather today had actually cleared up rather nicely, as opposed to earlier in the week. The decently rural surroundings to the area certainly looked nice, the mid-morning sunlight filtering down through the forestry and casting a rather pretty contrast across the ground

“Well, at least now we won’t need umbrellas or snorkels if we head out and about,” Zena mused with a smirk, having been none too amused by the downpour that had hit yesterday and upended their plans. For the time being, as she tended to do while not planning to head outdoors, she was wandering around the place in a worn set of gym shorts and a tank top, the house being more than comfortable.

Darren chuckled to himself, his tail gently swishing back and forth as he contemplated the fortunate change in conditions. “Yup, that’ll be a nice change. Annoying that we got rainchecked quite literally, when the weather’s mostly been fine outside of that. Anything in mind?”

Zena glanced over toward him, a soft smirk on her face as an idea popped into her head, most certainly contemplating a slight change of scenery after the pair had found themselves cooped up. “Well, I know you mentioned there’s some nice trails out there. Seeing as we’ve got some good weather again, and seeing as the trails are well enough maintained that we won’t have to worry about them being an absolute swamp to walk along… A stretch of the legs would certainly not be a bad way to spend the day.”

She glanced down herself, before continuing. “I’ll go and get into something a bit better for going outside in, give me a few minutes.”

Darren nodded, heading in turn toward his room as Zena gently knocked the door to hers closed ajar. “Yeah, that all sounds good to me. I’ve got a nice trail in mind, it’ll give us some nice views out over some of the lakes, and the forests at this time of year’ll be really nice and verdant.

“Yeah, that sounds rather nice,” Zena uttered, just about audible as he got dressed, his ears pricking as she let out an irked grumble. “Damn it, I knew I forgot to do something yesterday. Most of my clothes are still in the laundry.”

“Oh, that’s a bit of a nuisance,” Darren uttered as he fastened his belt, roughly pulling a new shirt over his head as he returned to the living room. “We could always leave it to tomorrow, in which case.”

Zena strutted out of her room a moment later, a form-fitting blouse with bicep-length sleeves cladding her upper half, and an equally complimentary pencil skirt on her lower half, its length only clearing her rump by a matter of inches. She fumed softly, a set of open-toed black boots that looked to be knee-length in hand, as she sat on the sofa to put those on too. “No, it’ll be fine… I’ve worn this outfit to go do some more outdoorsy stuff before, joys of some of the jobs I’ve done over the years.” out of the corner of one auxiliary eye, she noticed the heterochromic eyes scanning up and down her form, the feline’s cheeks reddening as he took in her rather more showy outfit. Her eyes flicked over to look at him, his expression telling that he knew he’d been caught out.

“Don’t go getting any ideas now~” she purred, a cheeky, toothy grin in the corner of her mouth, as she finished fastening her footwear and sprung to her feet, leading her companion in the direction of the front door, her tail swishing a little as she decided to very subtly toy with Darren in the process.
The duo enjoyed some idle chit-chat as the pickup truck gently cruised along the quiet back roads, headed up toward the national park in mind.

“I do have to say, Darren, this is definitely a nice enough truck to drive,” Zena mused, as she guided them along the sweeping, tree-lined route. “Nice and straightforward, probably not too hard to fix if something goes awry… and having a bench like this is quite nice too, it’s certainly cosier than having a central console blocking out the middle of the cab.”

The cat-fox grinned a little, watching Zena working the pedals with the balls of her feet, her handling of the vehicle evidently showing that she’d more than a little time behind the wheel. “Yup, can’t beat the classics, especially for a pickup like this. You seem more than comfy behind the wheel, too.”

“Yeah… what can I say, I’ve definitely spent a fair amount of time driving all sorts of things,” the ferret acknowledged, suppressing a blush as she thought about the number of times that those trips out by road had wound up with her- and, more than once, a friend along for the ride- flustered and awaiting a recovery tow. Her efforts were good, but the slight change in her expression was not lost on Darren, who raised an eyebrow slightly.

“Something about driving gotcha thinking there, huh?” he murred, chuckling softly as Zena cursed softly under her breath. Sure, he hadn’t quite guessed, and couldn’t quite read the mustelid, but her reaction certainly betrayed that he was onto something.

“Uh, nothing much,” Zena uttered, trying to avoid arousing too much suspicion as she asked her next question, most certainly trying to work out in her own mind whether her apparent curse when driving was about to rear its head again. “Say, the roads and trails up in the park are all like this, right?”

“I mean, a few of them are gravel tracks, but they’re all pretty hard packed.” the cat confirmed, a smug smirk appearing on his face. “What’s the matter, worried you might get us into a little spot of trouble along the way?”

Zena let out a huff, her face most certainly taking on a brighter flush now as it appeared that she wasn’t getting out of this. “I mean… this thing only has rear-wheel drive, and we’re on road tyres. I wouldn’t wanna bog us down on some middle-of-nowhere trail, given I don’t know if either of us have cell signal here. Then again, we should be fine, I’m pretty sure I can keep us out of bother today. I have kinda gotten a handle on driving offroad at least, so I know a thing or two about what I’m doing.”

Darren chuckled, a slight blush coming into his own face- as well as blood making its way elsewhere, something he was doing his best to hide- as he chuckled some more. “I’m sure ya do, but by the sounds of it I should maybe make sure I have a tow company’s phone number saved.” he teased, grinning a little more as he saw Zena look even more flustered. “Should be a right up ahead here, by the way.”

Zena nodded, doing her best to try and regain some composure- and decorum- as she swung them up onto a narrower road. There were still a few feet of asphalt on either side of them, granted, but it would certainly make turning around a lot more awkward if she wanted to stay on the road. However, the scenery definitely was rather nice, some of the more enclosed space they’d been through so far beginning to open up here and there. “Looks like it’s nice and quiet at least,” she noted, navigating under her friend’s guidance without major issue. “It always drives me nuts when you go someplace for a hike, and just get swarmed by dozens of people being there. Far prefer a walk just alone, or with the people I went out to walk with.”

Darren nodded, observing with some curiosity the total lack of any traffic on this route. “True, it is really nice to just have time to yourself, or to chat out in the open with friends- or anyone closer, at that- without worrying about having people all around. It is strange though, I’d have expected there to be at least a few more people headed this way… or coming back from a hike.”

The answer to his ponderings came around the next bend, as up ahead- while there was no workers in sight, perhaps a ways further up the road rather than right here- the road was quite evidently closed, perhaps for some repairs or upgrades. Darren let out a nervous chuckle as Zena brought the truck to a halt a ways short of the signs, her quizzical glance at him bringing out an embarrassed blush. “Ah. That explains why nobody’s on this road… shoulda checked that before, sorry.” he pulled out his phone and, after a few moments, had an alternate route to where they could still pick up the trail he had in mind. “Okay, back the way we came, hang a left, then we take the first left. Should allow us to bypass this.”

Zena nodded, beginning to pull the pickup around. A thought popped into Darren’s head as she did so, recalling that the road here was a little narrower than it had been before. “Uh, Zena, are you sure you don’t want me to get out and help you back up?”

“Psh, I can do a three point turn,” Zena retorted, getting the truck more or less square-on to the road as she began to reverse. The feline wasn’t sure if Zena had realised, even as she checked in the mirror to ensure she didn’t hit anything, but on his side he could clearly see that they had backed off of the roadway slightly, a move accompanied by a very slight dip as despite the verge being roughly the same height as the road itself, the wheels dropped slightly, evidently sinking into the ground. Granted, they couldn’t have been more than two or three feet from the edge of the firm ground they’d been driving along, but a blush crept into Darren’s face, a hand moving to try and conceal his arousal, as he already suspected he could see where things were headed.

Zena, as yet oblivious to her error, shifted back into drive and pressed the gas pedal, only now discovering what her friend had noticed a few moments before, and had offered to help her avoid. The engine rumbled with the addition of power, but the pickup went nowhere, instead remaining perfectly in place. Her ears pricked, and a soft squeak left her mouth, as she pressed the pedal harder, only now noticing in the rear mirror that the wheel she could see was spinning helplessly, the grass that had been under the tyre starting to give way to dark, soft-looking mud.

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