Chapter #3:
They talked long into the night, and Melissa learned a great deal about Shyra. She ('it' turned out to be a 'she') usually lived in a sort of pack, or troop with others of her kind, but made it a special occasion to travel alone, just to meet Melissa. Shyra came only to prepare Melissa to meet the rest of the pack without too much of a shock.
Now that she'd had a closer look at Shyra, Melissa realized that some of her first observations were not quite correct. She did have stripes, but only in front, spots covered the back half, and they blended beautifully in the middle. In addition, Shyra had an extraordinarily long tail, with spines in a single row along the top. It seemed to Melissa, that the spines could be raised to point straight up, or lowered to lie along the tail, and be very inconspicuous.
Melissa also noticed that she had an opposable thumb. "Probably for climbing trees, and making nests, or nazaes as she calls them." she thought. Shyra herself pointed out that she had a pouch, it was hard to see. It was, of course, used for carrying young. Moreover, to add to her huge, rabbit-like ears, Shyra had enormous eyes facing forward, so she could look directly into Melissa eyes with a very penetrating gaze.
Shyra warned her that they would need to start early in the morning so that they would get to the 'Syrea clan home-ground' by the next sundown. After that, Melissa decided that it might be a good idea to go to sleep.
The next morning, Shyra woke her up at the crack of dawn, and they started the journey.
Shyra urged Melissa on until they either came to a pool of water, or had to rest to regain strength. Shyra knew quite a lot about human psychology, and used that knowledge to both of their benefit. When Melissa sometimes stopped walking for silly reasons, such as to look at a funny looking insect, a strange tree, or sometimes even another animal, Shyra knew just what to do. She told her some frightening fact about that particular animal or tree, and Melissa would shy away from it and keep walking.
Even though Shyra allowed her to stop many times along the way, Melissa was exhausted by the time the sun set. And still they traveled. It was well after nightfall when they stopped for the night, and Melissa was surprised to learn that they had made it to a special place where they could rest and not be disturbed by any animal during the night.
It was a very pleasant meadow with a few bushes and shrubs, and even some sparse trees, they climbed up one of which, and spent the night.