Aza shouldered full speed into the bottom of the door just as Donovan arrived on its other side, resulting in a solid<em>thunk </em>for one or probably both of them. It was slightly less embarrassing than the time she'd pounced a lizard face-first into a glass window, but it hurt about the same. She recovered admirably and resumed her hustle, abandoning that scene and scuttling past Donovan on her way up to the deck.<br/><br/>As soon as she emerged into the night air she began to yip, figuring that whatever attention the commotion might attract couldn't possibly be worse than what was already after her. Dean and Donovan hadn't killed<em>every </em>soldier; surely some of Methuseld's men remained on the hunt for the sorceress's fox and now the Vizier's general too. She skidded to stop against the ship's rail, realizing they'd already drifted too far for any hope of a hop back to the pier, and uttered a few more incautious chirping barks to whoever might be on shore and within earshot.<br/><br/>The shadows moved, and she almost fell over herself backing away from them, fearing they intended to bite. Donovan would be coming after her, if Dean wasn't. She shut up and went for a pile of loose crates in the aft of the boat. As she dove for that concealment her fur bled from khaki-colored to a mottled slate and deep inky blue, meant to make her just another unnoticed scrap of darkness amidst the jumbled cargo. There was no possibility such camouflage would keep her from being found, she was sure, but maybe Methuseld would finish tearing herself loose and go on her murder spree first. Or, perhaps, the elf would successfully initiate an orgy. Probably give them all the pox too. They deserved it.