[u]18th of June[/u]
[u]Skies over Tanjen[/u]
[u]The helm of the Sundancer[/u]

A surprisingly social Mord, an Erdevar that didn't look like she liked flying and an Ashan who had the social ineptness of a hermit. How exactly did Veela end up with these three pulling her down? As she remembered, all three paid awfully well for just some vagabonds who wanted to get into Juren. So well was their pay that it even caused her to worry, forcing her to sleep with a knife under her pillow for the first few nights. When it became abundantly clear that none of her passengers were out to kill her, she stopped being so cautious but that did not mean that she instantly stopped suspecting them of being capable of wrong-doings. At the end of the day, they were simply passengers with no loyalty to her whatsoever and she wouldn't blame them if they traded in information about her in return for some Imperial gold.

Surprisingly, it was the Mord who had the most difficulties with the lack of communication between the most of them. Veela stayed silent most of the time, drawing a scarf up over her mouth and keeping her red hood up so that only her dark eyes were visible to the others. Their conversations were limited and any that did occur only seemed to exist due to a desire for efficiency. She told them how far they were off, their estimated time of arrival, what was there to eat and most conversations ended there.

The majority of her time was spent at the helm of the ship, making slight adjustments to their bearing so as to avoid the range of Imperial hunting parties that scoured the borders. She knew the skies like the back of her hand so spending so much time in the wide cockpit was unnecessary but she chose to do it nonetheless. Veela felt much more comfortable at the controls of her ship than waiting around trying to absorb another ancient tome. The others seemed content with her keeping her distance and she preferred it - communication led to companionship which meant that if she needed to ditch them, that silly, little angel on one of her shoulders would chide her not to abandon them.

They had already skirted around one of the known hunting ranges into a small corridor which allowed any smugglers to dance out of Imperial influence and over the borders into Juren. It was a fairly popular corridor for pirates but she was a tad bit surprised to find an unmarked ship edging closer to her. Up there, Veela was the predator and few ever escaped from her gaze.

Initially, it was no real worry - it was armed but it looked like one of the ships the people-smugglers use. They were fast enough but took a little while turning with their wide design. When it began to edge closer, she became curious as to its intentions. Eventually, she dragged an old book from her private quarters and once again inspected the ship, trying to draw some conclusions as to what group it operated under. Her cause for concern was not arbitrary. Veela knew these skies and she knew it was a dangerous place. Ships very rarely drew so close to each other unless they were flying in a squadron or one of them were trying to blow the other out of the sky. Nevertheless, the fact that the ship didn't use any of its guns to target her engines swayed her into the unknowingly dangerous thought that they were a simple ship that some new smuggling company had picked up.

She was in no place to fight this ship however, so much like a gazelle that had heard the nearby snap of a twig, she chose to inspect and remain cautious instead of just throwing all fears aside. Taking her place in the cockpit, she adjusted her bearing by 30 degrees, hoping that the ship following her would continue on its bearing instead of adjusting. If it did adjust... Well, then she'd have a problem.