Arya was content swimming through near the shore line, far enough from being pestered by curious people and close enough to avoid those predators that hunted the deeper water. There were other seals and sea lions out and about too, hunting or playing around her. Amber eyes watched with delight as they danced in the water, weaving in and out of forests of kelp and coral. One of the younger sub adults even swam up to her and attempted to initiate play, to which she obliged, playing a game of chase through the water until the other creature's short attention span was directed to food. It was one of the first times the WereSeal had ventured back into the ocean after the day she had been impaled with a fisherman's spear. Her physical recovery had been slow, her mental recovery even slower. She still bore the scar on her side, and perhaps it would never go away, but thanks to Tetradore she was alive to swim today. And no matter what happened to her, Arya would never be able to ignore the call to the sea.

No matter how relaxing it could be swimming in the ocean, when she was in this form Arya was always on high alert. As a human, the woman could afford to be more leisurely, as sharks and killer whales were far less inclined to take a bite out of her. She knew the dangers of being a seal, and she always had a back up plan. Long ago she had mapped out places she could escape to, little caves in the rocks to hide in, the kelp forest she could vanish in, even places she could quickly get to shore in an emergency. Despite all this, her senses were not the best. Seal hearing and vision was not spectacular, even on land, and being under water completely took away her ability to smell. Truthfully her whiskers were her best sense, but those were often times not enough. Like today, as she glided through the water, her senses managed to miss the hulking form of a killer whale cruising along far too close to the shore line. Amber eyes glanced up in time to see the black that gave him away, panic setting in suddenly. Had she missed the black, she may have missed him entirely as he went above her, his white underbelly meant to blend in when looking upwards to the light filtering into the water.

Arya wasn't sure if he saw her initially or not, but there was no use in taking chances. There was no way to tell if he was hungry, or if he was alone or had a pod nearby, but one thing she was certain of was that he was faster than she would ever be and needed to get the jump on him. She shot off, reaching top speed for a harbor seal (12 mph) as she moved down closer to the rocks and coral. Her heart was racing a million miles an hour, and when amber eyes glanced back, she could see him chasing her. Her one advantage in this situation was that, while he was faster than her, she was quicker to turn and could fit into smaller spaces than he might be able to reach. What was he even doing here? There were no resident killer whales, and the transients that visited the coasts of Sacrosanct once a year should already long been gone. There was a lot of time to think though, as Arya weaved between the coral, amber eyes searching frantically for a place to hide. She knew the power of a killer whale, admired it even, but there was no way in hell she was about to be lunch.

Her silver form shot through the water, her flippers working at an incredible speed to keep herself away from the jaws of sure death. Luckily for her, she managed to find one of her hidey holes, a tiny cave she could tuck herself into that she hoped he would not be able to get her from. Arya dove in quickly, pressing her form tightly against the back wall as far as she could manage. Amber eyes were wide with fear as she watched the killer whale try and reach in to grab her, but he just couldn't squeeze his head in far enough; those teeth, for now, grabbing at just water. While she was safe for now, this wasn't ideal. Now Arya was stuck here, with no escape unless he chose to leave. Seals had good lung capacity, so she was safe for a while, long enough to think, but even she would eventually need to breath. She tried to swallow her fear, at least enough to think clearly. "Please leave me alone, I don't make good food! I'd give you indigestion," she pleaded, mostly to herself because there was no way he would understand her. 'Good going Arya, talk to the animal that's about to eat you,' she thought.

Perhaps at some point the killer whale would grow bored and leave, but something told her he wasn't about to leave without making her a meal first. One of the two would have to take a breath, perhaps if it was him first she could make a break for it? But that plan was not solid enough, relied on pure luck really. Shit this was horrible. Desperation kicked in and she reached out with her empathic powers. They...kind of worked on animals, but not well. Animals did not always have the same emotions as people, some totally incapable of feeling certain things as their brains were not set up to create it. But maybe, just maybe, Arya could confuse the orca, flood it's brain with any emotion she could. As soon as her mind touched his mind, she could immediately tell something was different. This brain was so...human? She could feel a complexity of emotions, instantly she reached for sadness and guilt, making him feel sad and guilty. But no research had ever shown Killer Whales to have the complexity to experience things like guilt...was this a Were? "Please don't eat me! I'm a Were like you!"she pleaded once more, this time directly reaching out to the killer whale with her words. She was living on a prayer that she was right about this, that this was a Were and that he would realize she was too and not eat her.