Somehow, the first Hunt came, and Ranshee missed it. She didn't know exactly what had happened, but she had a dismaying suspicion that someone had left her out on purpose, because someone had found out why she wanted to go. Nocol'Fita assured her that it wouldn't happen again; in fact, he'd apologized profusely, in the way the dragon communicated, much like her own bluntly direct mind-speech. No one had ever spoken like that with her before, and it both drew and repelled her, so that she didn't know what to say, back, other than to growl and bristle and avoid the big, black thing.

Which was exactly what she was doing with the bulk of her time now, avoiding Nocol and Noiku-- and everyone else, for that matter-- in one of the unused dragon-dens. Her own room felt too small for anything but curling up and sleeping in, and she didn't like going outside for very long when she was in her small, only partially furred human body, and the thought of shifting here, without someone to watch her back, made her highly uncomfortable. Shifting might be normal here, as Nocol had been quite willing to point out once he realized she could do it, but it would still be giving the residents of the rabbit-warren more information about her than she cared to give. Especially if any of them walked in on her mid-change or soon after and learned how much it pained her. Besides, she was small but not horribly small as a two-legger, compared to the other humanoids she'd seen; four-footed, she would feel pitifully tiny compared to the massive dragons.

So she'd found an unused room that was dragon-sized, with one of the compartments for a human-sized rider on a second level, and spent a lot of her time pacing restlessly across it, when she wasn't tucked away asleep in her own room or prowling the halls, killing rats or bats or whatever other small, helpless, huntable creatures she could find. The Hunt which had gone out without her-- Xoryn, she'd heard it called-- marked three weeks since she'd been trapped here, and she felt stifled and restless. The Aerd was oppressive and crowded and alien to her, and all she wanted was a forest or a mountain or a stretch of plains to run across-- but if she tried to find any of them alone, she would be in worse trouble here than if she'd been at home, and probably dead before another week was out.

No, she had to stay, had to wait, and had to put up with feeling smothered by stone. So she did all she could to to keep herself trim and strong. She wasn't sure whether the fact that the Aerd food made her want to retch was good or bad: she certainly wasn't gaining weight from soft living, but then again, more often than not she was hungry. Rats and bats and beetles weren't very filling, not in the scanty amounts she was catching them in. She'd lived on worse before, though, so she thought she could last until the next Hunt. Nocol assured her it wouldn't be long in coming. Ranshee just wanted to make sure she was involved in it, this time.

The Hunt returned after a day or two with a whole mess of new dragons. Ranshee made brief overtures, but was either disappointed by the Hunted ones' acceptance or chased away, so again she retreated to the empty dragon-den.

Unfortunately, she found that it wasn't as empty as it had been every other time she'd escaped there. Standing in plain sight, side by side, leaning against the wall just within the entryway, were a pair of two-legger foxes. They were identical in every way, right down to the Aerd uniform they wore, except that one was female and one was male, and one was gold and the other silver. They looked like they were waiting for someone.

Ranshee, not having expected anyone in her private pacing room, one of her only patches of territory in this space-forsaken place, froze and bristled, her lip curling into a snarl or surprise and unwelcome. She managed to keep from growling aloud; the people around here didn't take kindly to being growled at, and there were two of them compared to one of her, and they were both bigger than she was. Both eyes fixed on her, and she eased back a step.

"Hello, lady Ranshee," said the silver one with a smile of some sort, and she just crouched slightly, prepared to bolt.

"Relax," snorted the golden one, the female. "We're not going to hurt you." 

Ranshee bared her fangs further at her, her rudeness, and her bluntness-- but at least it was something familiar, which she knew how to deal with familiarly. "What want?" she barked furiously. "What you want?"

"Just to take you to the Aerd-lady, Ranshee," the silver one soothed. "She'd like to meet you, that's all, since you're a visitor here."

"Why?" Suspicious, Ranshee looked from pointed muzzle to pointed muzzle. She'd been here three weeks already. If she was supposed to meet the Aerd-lady, whoever that was, why hadn't she been confronted by now?

"Just to meet you," the silver one assured her, but she didn't believe him and snorted with disgust for his lies. His ears turned back in what might have been an offended, or maybe just chagrined, manner.

"If we have to drag you," the gold one stated flatly, "we will. So you might as well just come along." Now, she didn't seem to be lying. Ranshee eyed her angrily, but knew that she was right. Both foxes smelled like magic, and they were, as she'd noted, bigger than she was; it was in her best interests to come along quietly. Especially if she was just supposed to be "meeting" someone.

"Just... talk? Meet?" she asked slowly, eyes still on the gold one, who nodded just as slowly, meeting her gaze with something that wasn't-- quite-- challenge. Ranshee snorted again. "Fine. Go. I follow."

Chapter Four

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