She smirked as he turned back to question her. She'd paused upon entering the clearing where the hawk stood hissing at them. Crossing one foot over the other in a casual, relaxed position, she leaned on one shoulder against the tree and folded her arms, hoping the posture looked as casual and arrogant as she meant it to be.<br/><br/>A low, throaty chuckle rose from her throat, her eyes settling on the hawk with piercing intensity, "Why yes..." she spoke in a mockingly playful tone, "I do believe it was. I admit, at the time, I was baffled... but it all makes sense now!"<br/><br/>Pushing off the tree, she began circling around the bird opposite the knight. Drawing a knife from the sheath at her belt, she began tossing the blade, catching it by the tip of the blade each time. The light from the moon filtering through the trees glinted off the blade in interesting ways.<br/><br/>"You know... this reminds me of something I did years ago. I ran into a shapeshifter. Used to become a dog, pretend to be a stray in some village along the road. He'd stick around for a few weeks, play with the kids, watch the wife as she scrubbed laundry and swept floors... eating their food, watching them sleep, watching the wife bathe... After a few weeks of this, he'd turn on them. I learned something from that mutt..." at this point, her voice became hostile, and she began gesturing with the knife, pointing it savagely toward the hawk, "Want to know what it was?" By now, she was speaking directly to the hawk. Before continuing, she crouched over it, just barely out of immediate reach, knife poised and ready, "When a person assumes an animal shape, they are animals inside. Filthy and savage." She hissed the last few words through clenched teeth, driving the knife into the dirt inches away from the bird, only to pull it back before it could bite her.<br/><br/>She smiled suddenly, changing tactics as quickly as snuffing out a candle, brightening at once, and rose to her feet again to look at the knight, "But, there's good news too! I learned something else on that job. Care to take a guess?" she didn't wait for an answer but plugged along in a sing-song, merry voice, "I learned how to strip a shape-shifter of his shape. All shifters do it differently. Its never the same for any two, so it'll take me a while, and it'll be massively painful. Beliiieve me... it'll hurt." her voice became low, quiet, almost a whisper, and she turned to the bird to gesture with the knife, "But I can do it. I'll find the right focus to do it, and when I do, this one here," She once more crouched over the hawk, "Will be helpless."<br/><br/>It was all a lie. She'd never been good at lying, but tonight, she was angry, exhausted, and weak with thirst and hunger. She had no patience for traditional methods. Hoping desperately her tactic would work, she allowed all of her anger, still currently directed toward the pompous knight if she was being honest with herself, to fill her eyes. She glared down at the hawk with a fierce excitement that burned for all to see in her eyes. To the casual observer, anyone who didn't know her (not that anyone really did) would think she was deeply looking forward to the pain she would cause this poor, helpless animal.