Sasha had frozen, the first time she came face to face with a predator.

It was a wolf. A large thing, with mottled black and white fur and yellow eyes, its coat thick to deal with the bracing winter air that caused her breath to steam in front of her face and her cheeks to turn red. It had seen her before she had seen it; she knew because when she finally caught sight of it in the corner of her vision and turned her head it was already looking at her. Their eyes met and Sasha’s only response was to freeze. She knew what she needed to do, her father had taught her before ever agreeing to take her into the forest with him, but in that moment the knowledge escaped her; chased around the inside of her head by every other thought that was suddenly racing around frantically.

The only thought that came to her with clarity was that this was a predator and she was prey. She knew that she could not move, not until it did, by which point it would be far too late to save herself. In hindsight, she could now recognise that the wolf was unlikely to try and attack her in that situation and in every encounter since then she had been able to handle herself much more competently. But at the time, the spell was only broken between the two of them when her father had fired his rifle into the air to startle them both out of their staring contest; the wolf dashed away into the trees and Sasha had all but leapt out of her skin.

Afterwards, Sasha had asked her father why he had fired into the air instead of shooting the wolf. It was dangerous; both to them and to the other hunters, so why not kill it?

“Wolves aren’t monsters.” He had told her. “There’s no such thing as monsters in the forest; just animals and hunters. A wolf is both of those things, but they’re nothing to be afraid of if you keep your wits about you.”

Sasha had never frozen again after that. Not even when she found out her father was wrong; there were monsters in the forest and they had likely taken him from her. Even when she encountered a Rue for the first time, something like an animal and maybe like a hunter but being neither of those things at all, she had been able to deal with it calmly. Even on the one occasion she had fired her father’s revolver she was calm; her actions driven by a strange kind of instinct that what she was doing would work.

There was nothing for a hunter to be afraid of if they kept their wits about them.

Sasha’s wits were very much not about her right now.

The shadow that walked into the carriage now, ducking its head to fit under the door lintel, was larger than any she had ever seen; but of more importance than that, it emanated a sense of [i]threat[/i] greater than anything she had felt before that sent her thoughts scattering to the wind.

Sasha had likened Rue to animals many times in the past; the skittish ones like deer, the curious ones like rabbits and the ones that stalked and hunted like wolves. This was like none of those; it was [i]greater[/i] than all of those. Not just bigger, not just… she didn’t have a description for it, it was just [i]more[/i] and a part of her, the part that was a hunter who walked the forests and knew how to navigate its dangers was instinctively afraid of it.

It reached forward suddenly, not even needing to take another step for its long arm to be able to reach and grab Yiya’s head in one oversized claw. The sight of it snapped Sasha out of her daze like a gunshot and she raised her father’s revolver in shaking, trembling hands and pointed it at the Rue. Her finger hesitated on the trigger, a sinking feeling in her stomach telling her that her weapon wouldn’t stop this thing. Wouldn’t kill it. Instead she turned away from its torso and pointed the gun at its elbow instead, aiming at the inside bend of its outstretched limb and firing a shot into it.