“As far as I understood, Animals in the wild have little to do with their domesticated cousins.”

“Every pride is different, dear,” she answered softly, “as every Animal is.”

“Have you ever known a pride that abandons its young?”

“Not willingly. I did hear once of an attempt to cull Lion cubs from their mothers,” she continued, more blithely than he could have thought possible. “For use in laboratory experiments, whatever those are. One queries if said mothers relinquished their cubs in exchange for their own liberty. I never would of course.”

By now Brrr was cynical enough to look at her sharply. Was she revealing a hidden secret of this pride? Might they all have been lying to him? Could she herself…?

But this pride, to the last one of them, was marked by a dark tuft of fur at every chin, and he had no such marking.

So all she was revealing was the capacity of a Lion even to entertain the thought of such a betrayal, even if by someone else.

He didn’t bid the auntie good night, for he didn’t think it would be one; and it wasn’t.

Still, he learned from this pride of tuft-chinned Lions a certain coherence of attitude. A Lion pride could be a kindly casual crowd. They didn’t indulge in aimless ancestor worship, but unlike the court of Queen Ursaless, they didn’t forget each day as it happened, either. They were wary of others and tended to avoid large groups of nomadic Animals, even those they might easily disperse by a show of claw. Not precisely pacifists, but not the fierce Lion of human legend, either.

For quite a while they admired Brrr and treated him like a respected cousin visiting from the glamorous, dangerous city. He amused them with tales of goings-on, quite a few of them true. He settled with them, a raconteur-at-large, a personality that brought their humble forest lives some distinction. He made an effort to court a few young Lionesses (one at a time, of course), but his overtures were rebuffed. He was too foreign, too silver of tongue, for them to take seriously. He thought he could wear them down-wear them all down-by his amused tolerance, his capacity for sticking around. He could make himself indispensable.

But eventually the Lions began to mock his drawing-room parlance, and not in an affectionate manner. He was too gilded a lily for their rustic clan. If he could not mate because none would mate with him, he would be bound sooner or later to fight for tribal dominance, and-oh, the idea of it-they could never allow a dandy such as Brrr to lead their pack. He should think of moving on. Soon.

So once again he would have to get up and leave, before things got ugly.

By the time this thought occurred to him he had been with the pride of Lions some few years, and the departure was more painful to contemplate than he’d imagined.

Evacuating a sordid situation was beginning to become a habit.