Yarri frowned, staring at the ocean around the ship. The huge open space made her nervous. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. She wrapped her cloak tighter around her, not wanting to draw more attention to her “revealing clothing” as one of the other passengers called it. She couldn’t care less about other people’s opinions on her, but she hated the attention. Of course no cloak could disguise Shaela, so that effort was mostly in vain.

She had to grin when she remembered the face of the captain, when they came aboard. A wild-looking woman accompanied by a huge black cougar. When he suggested the animal be caged for other passengers’ safety, Shaela came closer to him and growled right into his face. Yarri also growled. [color=ed145b]“You can try.” [/color]The captain, now all white with fear, just gestured them to continue onboard.

That was the only time she had talked to him. She saw him chatting with the other passengers, but whenever he would come closer to her, she would just stare at him until he changed his mind. ‘Stupid Murans,’ she thought, watching the human younglings run around. At the beginning of the journey they were frightened to come anywhere near Shaela, but soon the boldest boy of them came to ask Yarri if he could pet her cat.

A cat. Twice the child’s size. Yarri just raised her eyebrow, thinking about what is she going to tell the boy’s father when Shaela eats him. But the boy stood on his tiptoes, reaching as high as he could, and scratched the cougar under her chin. The worst part was that Shaela apparently loved it. [i]‘What a traitor,’[/i] Yarri thought while watching her chase the children around the ship. Fortunately, none of their parents was there to see that.

[i]‘Why did I even get on this stupid piece of wood?’[/i] But she knew all too well. They were getting too close to her, so she had to change the scenery. Not run away, of course, she would never do that, but just relocate to another area for some time. Yarri spat into the water. These so-called hunters. She swore that one day she would show them the true meaning of that word.