Tia's body quivered as she crouched, her eyes intent on her prey; the tip of her tail twitched, as she watched the bird.<em>*Just a little closer, come on, just a little closer!*</em>she thought.<br/><br/>In the year since she had been living in the woods, she had learned a lot; most importantly that she wasn't a normal girl; not that she hadn't known that that already. Learning she had the ability to shift into a cat had been more than a little shocking but she quickly came to see how useful it could be.<br/><br/>At sixteen, she should have been living with an adult but her stepfather was a leach and her mother's sister was just mean. Since foster care wasn't something she wanted so she had...disappeared.<br/><br/>At first it had been so bad she had been tempted to return to her aunt's; the woods were scary at night, it was hard to bathe and the hunger pains had been horrible but then she had shifted and entered a whole new world of sights, sounds and scents.<br/><br/>Her first meal as a cat had been gross to say the least feathers did not taste good, they were nearly impossible to get out of your mouth and raw meat took some getting used too but it was something she became accustomed too; just don't expect her to eat the same stuff in girl form.<br/><br/>As she waited for the starlings search for food to bring it closer, she thought about what she would rather be eating. Images of Hambers, fries, shakes and pizza danced through her mind and she salivated. Lost in her daydream, Tia nearly missed the fact that the bird had hopped much closer but when she did, her muscles reacted like a tightly coiled spring suddenly released, launching her forward like a black and white missile. She over shot the startled bird by a good two feet.<br/><br/>Sniffing at the fleeing bird, she sat down and began removing bits of leaves and twigs from her fluffy tail; looking for all the world like she had meant to miss the bird.<em>*That's right, fly away! I didn't want to eat your sorry butt anyway, you dumb bird! Bet you are old and stringy to start with!*</em>she thought, glaring in the direction the starling had flown.<br/><br/>Sniffing again, she got to her feet, now twig free tail waving like a proud plume behind her as she went to investigate an interesting new scent.