Her winged form didn't give Arialla as much as an advantage as she'd hoped, with the tree's thick branches. There was something else she could try, though: settling briefly on a branch, she dropped back into human form, mostly, but kept her hands and feet shifted to talons, the better to grip the branches and bark with.
This put her in the right spot to offer either aid or hinderence to a man, a stranger whom she'd seen around Torchline a few times. Arialla hesitated, considered -- and then kept climbing without reaching out to help or harm him. How he did in this contest was none of her concern. She wasn't comfortable enough hurting people to attack him, but she wasn't going to help him compete with her for the prize, either.
Arialla switches from eagle form to mostly-human, using her partially-shifted talons to climb.
She continues on her climb without either helping or pushing Theo.
please don't take my sunshine away
