“I want one,” I declared when I was standing in front of him.
“They’re white!” I whirled to Diandra. “I’ve never seen a white tiger! I didn’t even know they existed!” I whirled back to the man.
“Do they change color?” He blinked down at me and I kept talking.
“I hope not. I want to name mine Ghost. No!” I cried. “Casper!” I shook my head. “No, I think Ghost is better.” I whirled to Diandra again. “What do you think? Casper or Ghost?”
“I think, my dear,” she moved closer, “that you should discuss this with your king.”
“Why?” I asked and her brows knit.
“Why?”
“Yes, why? He’s The Tiger, he’s got to like a baby one,” I stated.
“Dahksahna Circe,” she said softly and took my hand, “he is The Tiger and you are his Tigress, but you are introducing a pet into your family. Not a cat or a dog or a bird but a dangerous
carnivorousanimal. You don’t even know how to speak to your new husband in his language. I think, perhaps, you should settle into
–”
“Look at them!” I exclaimed, throwing an arm out to the pen of cute, cavorting baby tigers. “They’re adorable. They’re not carnivorous animals.”
“Even now, my dear, I suspect they eat meat but even if they don’t, they will,” she replied rationally.
“So?” I replied irrationally, as I had done, all my life, before my mother died and after, anytime I saw something I wanted and I wanted that something bad. “I eat meat too.” I returned irrationally.
“You don’t kill it and chew it raw off the bone,” she retorted.
This was true.
I bit my lip and looked at the animals.
Then one of them loped to the side of the pen, sat on its behind, looked up at me and made a noise I swear, I swear, I understood as
“Loolah” which, I had learned from Sheena that day, in Korwahk meant “Mama”.
My body went still and I stared at the creature.
“Oh dear,” Diandra muttered, I looked at her and I knew she heard it to.
“Did that… did that…” I swallowed, looked at the cub and back at Diandra, “did that baby tiger just –?”
Another mew from the tiger cub which I understood again as Loolah.
I took a step back.
Holy moly, the animal was speaking to me.
Diandra sighed, reached out and grabbed a boy running by, spoke swiftly to him, the boy peered up at me and dashed away, darting through the crowds.
I paid little attention to this. I was staring at the cub.
“That creature called me Loolah,” I whispered.
Another noise which meant another Loolah then another noise that I heard as “gahsee” and Diandra spoke to the man which meant she heard it too. He moved, bent, opened the lid on something that was sunk into the ground and came out with a bottle made of wavy glass with a weird kind of nipple on the end and that bottle was definitely filled with milk.
“Gahsee,” Diandra whispered to me, “means hungry.”
The creature was speaking to me!
I could hear baby tigers talk to me in this world!
How bizarrely, amazingly, fantastically cool!
The man came back to us, bent over the pen, scooped up the tiger cub, turned and without hesitation dumped her in my arms. I automatically held on as he jerked the bottle to me.
“Oh dear,” Diandra muttered again as I looked down at the baby tiger in my arms.
All I felt was the soft, thick fur of the cub, the pads of its cute, fluffy paws. All I saw was her proud nose and rounded ears and beautiful, pale blue eyes looking up at me with complete trust.
Oh shit. I was in love.
I turned the cub in my arms, took the bottle from the man and offered it to the baby tiger.
Her big, pink tongue lashed at the nipple then she started to feed.
Yep. Totally in love.
