Shanku approached the gangplank of the fluyt cautiously. She boarded the ship and looked around. The crew was busy scurrying about and paid her no mind. The deck rocked gently under her. She skipped over to one of the shrouds leading up the main mast and clambered up, up, up all the way to the top. She opened the trap door to the crow's nest and looked out over the port. The sails billowed out below her and the ship slowly began to pull away.

Shanku leaned against the sides of the crow's nest and took in the breeze.

Good wind... Good gliding wind... She relaxed and relished the feel of the wind. She didn't even notice that she had shifted back into a kurach. I smell something cooking! Her keen nose returned to her, she caught a scent wafting up from below. She leapt over the side and circled the mast. She landed with hard thud onto the deck and approached the first sailor she saw.

"Dinner time?" She asked happily. She was surprised to find herself suddenly grabbed by the arm.

"Doctor Newbury!" the sailor shouted out.

"What's all the fuss about?" asked an old man in long black robes and a broad-brimmed hat. He had spectacles on his nose and very bushy muttonchops on his cheeks.

"Cap'n said 'no more pets'," the sailor grumbled as he jabbed a finger at the cub.

"What am I, a common dog?" Shanku demanded as she yanked back her arm.

"I've never seen this one before. Relax, Mr. Whitten. I'll claim future responsibility for her."

"What was his problem?" Shanku growled as Whitten stomped off.

"Just some minor problems in the past with kurach," the old man said absentmindedly. "Hrm... You're not native, are you?"

"Not really," Shanku replied, puzzled, and shrugged. "I'm from the Nyre. Yeah, I know. 'Thought the Sylvans were extinct.' Big conflict long ago, went into hiding, we're still kickin'."

"Interesting..."

"If you want more details it'll have to be after supper," Shanku said flatly. She'd had plenty of these encounters and her stomach was more pressing to her than a story.

"Of course, come with me," the old man began to make his way below deck. "Do you like fish?"

"Who doesn't?" Shanku asked hungrily.

"Old sailors."

So Shanku found herself among new faces, sailing to where she had never been before and under the watchful eye of a seafaring doctor.