Puren Ning had been to the mountain many times before, trying to find a place to cultivate and grow stronger without being interrupted. She hadn't ever seen anyone else here before, and hadn't made any progress with her limited amount of free time either. Now though, there was a weird hairless monkey with a stick at the bottom of a hill south of the mountain, holding itself up like it had learned how to use a staff.

Duly frightened, the girl freezes in plain sight. Contrary to ‘common knowledge’, there are more than two possible reactions when encountering a dangerous situation. Rather than a simple dichotomy of simple Flight or Fight, there is instead a gamut of F’s that one can partake in. To flee, one simply avoids the situation by any means necessary. This reaction is most commonly noted in herd animals, wherein the entire group begins moving as one in a particular direction, heedless of the dangerous nature of not watching the road. Numerous movies have been made wherein this reaction leads to cattle Fleeing toward the edge of a cliff in the dark, or horses carrying a carriage into a ravine.

Fighting is the most aggressive reaction one can make toward onrushing danger; it is the most appealing for those who imagine themselves planning for disaster, being a leader, or any other number of possible situations. However, with those being the most visibly extreme reactions available, many people discount the other reactions as being a thing that exist. When frightened by the sudden appearance of a predator, prey animals stiffen their muscles, Freezing in place to lower the likelihood of the dangerous creature noticing their movement and deciding to eat them. A number of specialized variant creatures take this to an extreme, leading to the often sought, but rarely seen due to its relative ineffectiveness, Flop response.

A final F response commonly seen, generally in mammals, is the Friend response. Capybara are notable for their incredible ability to befriend a wide variety of species. Humans also tend to exhibit this response, generally with a higher tendency toward the lower-status individuals. Being herd mammals themselves, all of these responses can be encountered in a small cross-section of nearly any reasonably sized grouping of the creatures.

In this case however, freezing has not served the standing creature of slight below average height. At 1.6 meters tall, the girl was the only thing breaking the monotony of the grassy landscape in her direction. To her, it quickly becomes obvious that the weird beast-thing has clearly noticed her presence, yet hasn’t made any kind of aggressive move toward her yet.

Deciding that to do nothing was to walk the path of mediocrity, Puren Ning slowly approaches the sharp-toothed creature that seemed to have learned what tools are. Even as she reaches speaking distance, the thing doesn’t respond in any way, other than to continue watching her approach. With a wave of determination, she quickly marches up to conventional speaking distance, and bows in introduction.

“I am called Puren Ning, and I hope that you are a benevolent beast who might protect my home!”