Hiral

Hiral is an athletic female pantaur, with lustrous golden fur, glowing yellow eyes, and wavy, very long dark hair reaching down to her lower back. She lives with a small pack, formed of her mate, Theo, and her three young children Amber, Rory, and Rani. They do not have an exact fixed residence, but as the cubs are still quite young, they keep their movement to the middle forest, generally settling to sleep in the region south of the Shard river, north of Nekomura. In her younger days, Hiral was a seasoned explorer, constantly on the move, venturing to far-off places in search of new experiences and new people, giving her quite some extensive geographical knowledge. Following the cubs' birth, Hiral has made motherhood her main priority. Although she does occasionally feel nostalgia, and a wish to some day return to her travels, she remains for the vast majority of the time a thoroughly dedicated, and very proud parent.

===Character===
A typical example of her species, Hiral is energetic, playful, and inquisitive by nature. Her curiously verges on downright nosiness and she will never pass up an opportunity to pry into other people's affairs. If there's anything she loves more than to find out about other people's private lives, it's to have some sort of influence on them! Hiral loves to lend a listening ear to people's issues and troubles with relationships, personal problems, and everyday life, and to offer her advice in turn, sticking around to witness the results. She is sometimes too interfering for her own good, but always has the best of intentions at heart, and once she takes an interest in someone's problem she will do her genuine utmost to see it resolved.

Although very self-confident in her instincts and agility like others pantaurs, Hiral is rarely actually careless during hunts, preferring to analyse potential prey carefully from a safe vantage point before launching an attack. She socialises extensively, travelling through the canopy all over the Tolmeshal forest and slightly beyond it, to gossip with (or at the very least gossip about) all the other giant predators in the immediate vicinity. On occasion, Hiral can become so absorbed in other interests that she becomes slightly negligent in her duties, though she generally feels hugely guilty afterwards and does her utmost to make up for it – and her laid-back mate is generally very forgiving of her flaws. Hiral herself is very easy-going by nature, if at times rather teasing and playfully aggressive towards those she is familiar with. Other than her own faults, which sometimes get the better of her, little bothers the pantaur. She heavily dislikes water, for example, but is more likely to rugby tackle someone who deliberately gets her fur wet than get angry with them. Threatening or frightening her cubs, of course, is the one sure-fire way to truly stir the pantaur into murderous fury, but this is a side of her which has rarely, if ever, been seen.

===Hunting Habits===
Hiral's appetite is fairly average. She will eat if hungry and won't if not, her diet including small animals as well as humanoids of any sort. Typical of feline beings, she is rather mischievous and will often, especially if sharing a meal with her pack, tease and toy with her food before eating it, sometimes to a degree that could well be regarded as somewhat callous even by some other giant predators. Hiral's own approach towards smaller beings in general is simplistic: they are, by default, food, and nothing more.

She is, however more than happy to refrain from eating certain people if told to do so by another predator. This alone will not cause her to view the said small individual as a person, rather, the action is in keeping with her view that predators can do more or less whatever they like with their prey, be it to eat them, practice hunting with them, or to keep them for their own indulgence or amusement. As a result, she will sometimes be rather insensitive and thoughtless with the way she speaks to or interacts even with "special" prey-folk, as she herself sees them more as cute and lucky pets (having even referred to human-sized individuals as "talking animals"!), rather than beings on an equal standing with herself. In order for Hiral to recognize a human-sized individual as a "person", she has to forge a genuine bond with them herself – and even then, she will never quite see them as being truly quite as important as any giant predator.

Hiral does talk to her prey, albeit in a rather intimidatingly playful fashion. If she's in the right mood, she will ask you questions about yourself simply to satiate her own curiosity. If you are capable of catching her interest with some sort of heartfelt issue between you and a friend or a loved one, there may be a chance of your being casually let go – or if you have children with you. In the latter case (due to a certain sense of empathy towards parents of all species she herself views as irrational,) Hiral is almost certain to release you. Once she has decided against eating you, you're completely safe and you may even receive protection and transport from her throughout the rest of your journey, if it suits her, of course, and she's in a morally self-indulgent mood. Be wary however that Hiral has a habit of telling her prey white lies, in order to make them more co-operative and easier to transport. It's important to keep in mind that for Hiral, the needs of her family will override any other factor, including her own hunger. If prey is scarce, Hiral will be certain not to release any, regardless of what they have to say. Her entire hunting pattern, and the extent to how "relaxed," a predator she is, depends solely upon the health and well-being of her family. If the cubs are hungry, you better be very careful!

==Stories featuring Hiral==
\* "Meeting Hiral"
\* "Rules of Food"
\* "Skyline"
\* "A World of Cat Eat Cat"

* Hiral belongs to Globfish. Contact

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