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She backed up several steps; her tail snapped. “You—you pack Lion! You menial…beast! How dare you! You have some nerve!”
“I have little nerve,” he replied. “But after my work on behalf of your tribe, I’m too tired to lie. Why shouldn’t I tell you that you are more provocative than ever when you’re so vexed?”
“You—you and your deciphering some dream of the chief’s—making us move camp by your auguries.”
“Oh, stow it,” he said, flumping down in some leaves. “I’m the only one who talks to you. I might as well talk to you honestly.”
He knew there was a sting of truth in his words. She became frozen with reserve, though her tail couldn’t stop itself from switching back and forth.
He pressed his advantage. “Why didn’t you want to leave? Are you just angry at your father for his unilateral dictates? If what everyone says is true, those powers will be yours one day.”
“I don’t want to rule. Haven’t you sussed that out yet?”
“Why not? Everyone will look up to you, take you seriously.”
“Are you an aberration to your species?” she cried. “Cats don’t look for approval!”
He didn’t reply. Her words were cutting, but she hadn’t convinced him of anything yet, except that he could be cut by words. And he already knew that.
“I have no use for this guarded life, this wreath of security around us all the time, this…myopic servitude to ourselves,” she said more slowly. “I have other ambitions than to be the indentured princess of an autocratic father.”
“Then why don’t you just leave?” he asked. “You are sleek enough. You could outrun any number of hunters.”
“And I’d end up like you, wandering aimlessly through the woods?”
“Things could be worse. As it seems you know. Why don’t you leave?”
“Because it would break his heart,” she replied, voice lower still. “It’s all he lives for. Not me, not them, but for the inebriation of being ruler, and passing it on. Fathers want one single thing: that their power will outlive them. It’s his only gift to me, after all.”
He wasn’t sure if he believed her rationale. Nonetheless, he believed her distress. She wasn’t just playing at being fussed.
“What is it you want?” he said again, more privately, hoping that she would surprise him with intimacy. “Are the tree elves right? Did you have some lover-Cat in the near vicinity, and is that why you balked so at leaving?”
“Did they say that?” Her head whipped around so fast he could only see the circumference of the circle described by the tips of her erect ears. He was afraid she would lunge off and slaughter the elves.
“No,” he quickly replied, rising. “I was fooling. It was my own thought, actually. Though I hope I was wrong.”
“You are so wrong at everything that if you ever started being right…” But she couldn’t finish her thought. She glared at him with perhaps the coldest look ever, but he imagined he saw a fringe of possibility flaring.
“You hope you are wrong,” she repeated. She took a step back, still looking at him. It was as if she were seeing him for the first time. He wished he’d had time to comb his mane. But in all his disarray, he preened for her anyway, tossed his head with a jerk at the neck. That usually g
ot the human crowd, but good. She didn’t flinch. She moved an inch closer.
“Brrr,” she said. “Oh, Brrr. I’ve been rather a selfish thing today. You doing all this work, and just to get my attention. Now I see it. Now I see.”
“I like to work,” he lied.
“And they took advantage of you. That’s like them, you know. My kin. They make servants of guests. You realize of course that three Ivory Tigers could have pulled that cart easily enough from the front, if the elves had harnessed them into the leathers. But no, they all took advantage of your brute strength.”
He liked the way she said brute strength, even though his muscles were so tired that his back haunches were trembling. He hoped he was standing at such an angle that she couldn’t see. From some perspectives he actually didn’t look all that ineffectual, he guessed. He hoped.
“It was an honor to help,” he said again.
“Are you all right?” she said. “You look ill.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “It would be good to lie down and rest a bit. It has been a long day.”
“We’ll go for a walk,” she said. She turned and snarled at the nearby sentries, “We are going for a walk. Got it?”
