“Didn’t presume to be invited,” said Brrr.

“You’re in such a hurry?” The tone was guarded, perhaps hostile.

“No hurry,” said Brrr, and then-a little hostile himself-“and no appetite to speak of, either.” He neither raised his brow to be superior nor lowered it.

“Stay a spell, then. Join your neighbor Cats in fellowship.” He flicked his eyes left and right, circling the pack in. “We are a family tribe called Ghullim, and I am the chief, known as Uyodor H’aekeem. We have not met you before, I think.”

Brrr decided to withhold his name for the time being. “I’m not from these parts.”

“Advance guard for your pack?” Uyodor sniffed the wind for further company.

“Traveling alone,” said Brrr. “By choice,” he added, which was mostly true.

“A rare creature, to brave the landscape on your own.”

“Not much of a landscape.” He couldn’t keep from adding, “And so not much bravery required.”

“Still, you’ve met a peaceable sort, we Ghullim. We don’t like strangers to pass through without getting to know them, for strangers can become enemies, but friends?-friends can never return to being strangers again. Don’t you agree?” He whipped his tail, aerating his punctuation. The wind hissed in Brrr’s eyes.

“Oh, quite,” said Brrr, “though a conscripted friendship is a conceit I’ve never encountered before.”

“No conscription,” said Uyodor H’aekeem, “no coercion: only conversion, and by affable means! Piyanta, Zibria, come escort our new friend to table.” He enunciated the word friend with a crispness and decorum that suggested something like a legislated honor.

Piyanta and Zibria rolled up on delicately articulated paws. They were maidens of a piquant variety, and in a human affectation their eyes were smeared with kohl.

“Follow us,” they purred, and led Brrr away-he was not protesting-to a shaded clearing up a small rise, where a pair of tree elves was busy stirring a pot over a fire. The smell of a savory stew enhanced the sense of welcome.

“You will be our guest,” said Uyodor from a distance. “Ghullim custom insists on it. Treat him well, young ladies.”

“Guest, schmest,” muttered one of the tree elves. “I call it indentured service, myself.”

“Me, I live to cook,” replied the other elf staunchly while looking around himself this way and that. Sotto voce: “Shut up, Twigg.”

“Shut up yourself, Stemm.”

Brrr paid them no attention. He had never seen tree elves before, but having heard of them, he considered them beneath regard. “Are you allowed to talk with me?” he asked his female consorts.

“To talk, to befriend, to enrapture,” said Zibria. Piyanta giggled and looked in one of Zibria’s ears, as if studying to see if she had any brains at all.

“Then I ask a question, if I might.”

“You might.”

“I don’t recognize your species. Your profile confuses me. You resemble Tigers in your musculature, but you are smaller. And your coats-like dried mint leaves, the markings, rather than stripes…”

“We’re a rare kind, we are,” said Zibria. “Perhaps a one-of-a-kind species. We have Spice Leopard in our Tiger makeup.”