FSE

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The pale curve of the beach was sparsely populated so late at night. Four individuals walked dogs--the four-legged sort--at the edge of the water. A few couples and small parties of holiday-makers still occupied blankets, towels, and the odd lounge chair. There was ample space for the rabbit and puma to walk. The warm sand was too tempting to the big cat, who dropped onto the steps that led down to the beach and began removing his shoes and socks.

"Tree, do you believe in love at first sight?" Cat asked, holding on to the slap-dash wooden handrail that ran more or less the length of the steps. She looked down from where they stood to where lines of white froth undulated over the sand in the darkness.

Alder looked up from the ground, one boot off and working on the second. He regarded her in silence for a moment. Sighing, he pulled his paw out and waggled his toes. He tugged off his socks and stuffed both into his left boot, then set the pair aside.

"Nah" he replied, elbows on his raised knees. "I did when I was younger. In the end, though, love at first sight is just lust at first sight. Lust for sex, lust for control, maybe just lust for change; whatever it is, it's something that exists in you already and manifests itself in the desire for specific traits in another person.

"Love ain't some preexisting force; it something that grows in you. It's fed by everything you learn about another person over time and about yourself through them. Sometimes the food is bad for it and it withers. If you turn around one day to find a rose bush that wasn't there a minute before--not soil and no water in the pot--you can bet your ass that's a plastic rose bush. Works that way no matter what sort of love you're talking about: the kind between friends, the kind between family, or the kind between lovers."

"More cowboy poetry?" the rabbit huffed, receiving a chuckle and a shrug. "Wish someone had said something like that to me years go." She started to move off down the sand toward the surf.

The puma tied his laces together and stood, groaning as quietly as he could. It wasn't particularly flattering to be making such old-cat sounds. He dangled the shoes over his shoulder and padded across the beach to catch up with his partner.

When he arrived at her side, Cat looked up at his attentive face. Her cheek and nose twitched with the flash of a self-conscious grimace and she said, "Paul."

"Would that be your equine ex?"

She nodded and turned back to the waves. The moon hadn't yet risen, so the gentle surf could only barely be glimpsed in the darkness. It made itself known, rather, by means of sound and touch. The stunted waves rushed up the beach with the hushed murmur of a distant crowd. Each upward pass made by the water sent a mist from the collapsing bubbles to cool the pair's trousers and a rush of air to ruffle their fur. Above, dimmed by the nearby city lights, the wide swath of the galaxy stretched in a fuzzy stripe. Alder thanked the soft bed in the hotel for the rest that had restored his night vision to its former acuity. Even with it, the rabbit was a challenge to make out against the surrounding blackness.

"It felt enough like love at first sight," Cat grumbled. "I was working in one of the local chemists, staffing the front-of-store. Dad encouraged me to try it out on a part-time basis while I was in school; mostly weekends and a few late afternoons. I stuck with it full-time after I left school, because I wanted work experience and to pad my bank account before heading off to university." She elaborated with a shrug, "The family business makes a decent amount of money, but there were too many of us to have to cover...rabbits, y'know?"

Alder chuckled a bit. "Hey, I get it. I have some Catholic human friends with a similar problem. School uniforms are expensive enough without having to buy five sets for nine kids. You're pretty well screwed for college tuition, by that time."

"Nine?" she scoffed. "Lucky bastards. We have 'em beat by three."

"Ah, twelve's not too much worse, surely?"

Cat snorted. "Not three kids, tree. Three times."

Alder stared at her in disbelief. "Holy shit, bun. Twenty-seven?"

"Twenty-nine. But the fifteen eldest are all moved out; so, the house isn't awfully crowded except on holidays."

Alder shook his head, at a loss for words.

The rabbit smiled. "It really wasn't all bad, though. We were never lonely growing up. We each learned the importance of hard work and providing for ourselves and each other. Those of us who wanted to, joined the business. Those who needed...space...made sure that they could make it happen for themselves. Didn't mean we didn't get help from Dad or Grandad; just meant that we only leaned on them when it was absolutely necessary."

She motioned along the beach and they began to walking parallel to the line of the water. As they ambled, she continued, "So, I worked the front-of-store at the chemist and the manager, Max, a nice old human from Germany, worked the back. Paul was a delivery driver for the company that sold Max his bulk pharmaceuticals and supplies. Oh, my god,"--the rabbit clenched her paws and pressed them to her closed eyes, as if to block a vision that wasn't coming from outside--"was he a fucking sight!

"He was three years ahead of me in school; though, his school was across the river. His coat was this, sort of, grey-white that looked like ash when it was dry and like burnished silver when it was wet. Michelangelo would have ripped his own cock off and fed it to Satan himself to be able to carve anything like that fucking horse. He was tall enough that he had to duck coming through the door and still managed to sweep the lintel with his head. I never saw him with his mane longer than two or three inches; it was always this crisp, shiny, black bristle brush. He was a fine fucking specimen."

Alder, walking beside her and a step behind, glanced down at his own thin body and grabbed a pawful of shirt and the loose skin that was a hallmark of his breed. Can't argue with biology, bud, he thought. His species wasn't equipped for pushing, pulling, or carrying enormous weights; the muscles just wouldn't develop that way--not without deleterious effects to posture and joints. The rabbit caught him grimacing and slowed down just enough for him to be walking right next to her.

"Knock it off, you silly cunt," she gruffed at him, punctuating it by playfully cuffing him on the shoulder with the back of her paw. "By the time he came around, my head was full of comic books, movie heroes, and chiseled abs in underwear adverts. What I saw in him was the ideal body that had been stuffed doon ma throat. He spoiled the look for me, in the end."

"So, what happened?" Alder asked, taking her hand and curling his tail around her legs to draw her with him as he drifted a little inside the line where sheets of water slid hissing over the sand.

When his paws fell just within the highest reaches of the waves, he resumed walking in their initial direction. He spread his toes and sighed each time the water rose to kiss them. Cat quickly pulled off her boots and socks to keep them from getting saturated. She handed them to the puma with a smirk and moved to walk on his seaward side, so they could both enjoy the water.

"He started talking with me at the front counter when he'd finish the deliveries. Small-talk stuff to start: we introduced ourselves and we'd chat about work or the weather. Over time, the chat drifted to questions about one another and flirting crept in. Well,"--she chuckled and shook her head--"it started to creep in from him. I'd been fawning over him since day one. Looking back, it's kindae embarrassing.

"When I was in fourth year, we started going out. The first time we met outside of work was because I asked. We went to a movie and then closed down a chip shop talking about everything under the sun. He was in his first year of university, studying architecture. I hung on his every word and didn't really pay attention to whether he did the same for me."

The sand of the small beach gave way to rocks of increasing size. The pair clambered up onto a jutting boulder that hung a few feet over the water. Cat sat and dangled her feet off the edge, where her fur began to collect beads of moisture tossed up by the waves striking the pitted surfaces of the rocks below. The puma followed suit, sitting beside her and placing their shoes on the boulder behind them.

The rabbit continued, "I admired how absorbed Paul seemed to be in his studies; it made him appear dedicated and I liked that. We'd spend evenings together when we could both find the time and met almost every other weekend. Took a couple of holiday trips and met each others' families, like people do. From our second date on there were some heated make out sessions, but we didn't have sex. Paul said that he was holding out for marriage, for religious reasons. My family have never been particularly devout, but I just kinda accepted it as a quirk of his upbringing."

Alder nodded beside her. "I'm familiar with that argument. It's not something you can blame them for, but you sure wish you could sometimes."

"Tell me about it," Cat sighed. "I figured that he would propose sooner or later. We'd talked about it once or twice, and he said that he wanted to wait until I was out of school to do anything. When I did finish school, though, he was quiet about it. Our dates and the time we spent together remained pretty much the same and he never made a move to take it further."

The rabbit shook her feet to toss off the accumulated water. With a heavy sigh, she laid down on her back and stared up into the sky. Alder reached over and rested his paw on her thigh. He looked out across the surf as she continued.

"I didn't want to bring it up. I was feart that it would put him off; but, I needed to know. I couldnae just sit there, going to work like normal and putting off a decision about university for myself. Our dinners together became tense. Eventually, we'd hardly talk about us, y'know. We'd still stay over at each other's places and share the same bed, but we might as well not have been. We weren't touching, or cuddling, or laughing together anymore.

"Around the same time, he started losing control of his temper. He'd explode out of fucking nowhere. I didn't know if it was something going on at uni, with his family, or if it was me. He wouldn't talk about it and pressing him for answers just made him more angry."

The rabbit's pulse was racing beneath the puma's paw; her muscles quivered in short, shivering spasms. He turned to meet her eyes, but they were closed. Moving carefully, Alder scooted over to her head and lifted her up. He nestled in behind her with his legs to either side and leaned her shoulders back against his chest. With both arms wrapped around Cat's chest, he nuzzled the top of her head.

"I'm guessing it turned physical at some point?" he asked.

Eyes still closed, she shuddered and reached up to take one of his paws in hers. "Aye. It started out with crockery. We couldn't make it through a row without at least one cup or something being broken against a wall. The first time I demanded answers if I was going to help him through whatever it was, he kicked out at me under the table and almost broke my damn leg. He bellowed at me that I was just making it worse and I needed to mind my own fucking business. Looking back, I genuinely have no idea what made me accept that it was somehow my fault, but I did.

"After that it just got worse. My friends tried to tell me that I needed out. Most of my pals were blokes--just sort of how it worked out--so Paul made it out like they were jealous of him. He convinced me that they were trying to drive a wedge between us and that if I cut them out of my life, things would get better. I did; things didn't, y'know?

"Then it was work: I was putting in too much time, he said. So, I cut back my hours until I was just barely scraping by. I made all the time for him that I could, but he was still busy with his work and uni. Next it was my appearance: I made too much of an effort to look nice--never mind that it was only for him. So, I started to let myself go. I stopped going to the gym, stopped making the effort. I might as well have been a hermit; hardly even saw my family. I just sat around my flat most of the time, waiting for him to call or waiting for him to come over. It almost became peaceful for a bit.

"Before long, the screaming and the violence were back. Everything eventually boiled down to one last fight and one last hospital trip. It had become easy to tell the nurses and doctors that I tripped on the stairs or tipped a pot of boiling water off of the stove. But, you can't give excuses when you're unconscious, y'know? The police were called by a neighbor, who heard the commotion; and, since I wasn't awake to waive medical care, an ambulance was called to take me in."

"Holy shit, Cat," Alder whispered into the fur of her head, holding her tight. His jaw muscles strained beneath the fur of his face. A dark part of him wanted the horse in front of him...under him...between his jaws. That part was small, though. The majority of his mind was given over to concern for the bunny in his arms.

The rabbit continued, "The x-rays showed three broken ribs and the scarring from four previous fractures that I'd never seen anyone about. My nose and jaw were in a similar state. It was a skull fracture that put me there, though. They did surgery to repair it and the ribs. It was when they shaved me for the incisions that they found the bruises. Kindae difficult to explain away hoof marks. Paul was jailed for a while, pending trial. The judge reduced his sentence to time-served, and after that, the cunt moved to Canada to start over."

Alder gave her a gentle lick between the ears and said, "I feel like I should say something, but nothing fits. I'm so sorry that you went through that, bun. That's awful."

Cat sat up and patted the puma's leg. She stood and stretched, then looked down to him and said, "The funny thing is, that wasn't the worst part."

He stood and dusted himself off, looking confused. "Seriously? What the hell was the worst part?"

"The reason behind that last row. See, I had been out shopping at a grocery store one town up the road from where I lived. I'd started using it because there was less chance of me running intae someone I knew. On my way to the checkout I saw him. He was with this tall, beautiful mare and a wee foal, maybe a year old. I fooled myself into thinking that maybe they were relatives, like cousins or something, even though the mare looked nothing like him and the foal looked a lot like him. I took a step to go over to talk with them, when the little girl turned and asked him something. She called him 'daddy'."

The puma closed his eyes and shook his head, groaning, "Son of a bitch.... What did you do?"

"Abandoned my trolley and all of my shopping in the middle of an aisle and got the fuck out. I fucked off out of that store as if it had been on fire. When I got back to my flat, I waited. I knew he would come eventually. I didn't expect it to be that night. He walked in thinking that it was just going to be a normal night of hanging out, spending time making me feel small and him feel awesome.

"I was at the kitchen table, drinking tea; I didn't have the stomach for anything stronger just then. He greeted me and I probably said something. He asked me what was wrong and probably followed it up with a crack about me running out of biscuits. I don't remember. What I do remember is asking him when he was planning to tell me he had a wean.

"Paul sort of dropped into the other seat and stared at me for a bit. Like he was trying to decide if it was worth lying or if I didn't even deserve the effort any longer. He told me he wasn't planning to ever tell me and that it wasn't any of my fucking business. Then we were off...

"I don't remember much of the rest of the conversation, beyond him spouting some bullshit--horseshit really, I suppose--about following instinct and habits that couldn't be broken. Maybe it was getting my head knocked around or maybe I just blocked out the words, but I managed to piece together most of it after he left the country. He had been seeing multiple women while he was dating me. He wasn't out to fuck any of us or settle down; he just loved to feel wanted. We weren't women to him, just collector's items.

"One of them got him drunk enough to forget that he was waiting for marriage and fucked him. That would have been right about the time that things started going to hell between us. The bitch repeated the stunt a couple of times and managed to get pregnant, trying to force him into permanence. I talked to her after everything fell apart. She knew about me and the others. Hell, the others probably knew about us, too. Could be I was the only one too daft to notice. She wanted him to stop fooling around and be hers alone, so she backed him into a corner. After it all blew over, she ended up stuck raising the foal by herself. He didn't love that poor kid or her; he didn't love any of us. So we all pretty much lost.

"He could be abusive with me because I was the only one who would take it. The others buggered off, leaving just the three of us. Well, four: me, him, the bitch and her kid. She did everything she could to manage his life so that he belonged entirely to her and the only way he saw to regaining some measure of control was to exert it upon me in the moments he stole away from her. That was my therapist's theory, anyway. Her way of telling me that it wasn't because of some fault in me.

"She...eh...also told me that it wasn't unusual for someone whose been on the receiving end of treatment like that to behave...erratically...when they got free of it." Her ears dropped and she fidgeted with her earrings, looking down at the waves below.

"Erratically?" Alder asked, confused. "How so?"

"Oh...eh...well, some get nightmares. Had those, still do from time to time. Some develop obsessive or compulsive behaviors."--she seemed to notice her fidgeting and released the earring between her claws, electing to hug her torso with both arms instead--"There hasn't been a lot of that for me. Anxious tics, yeah, but nothing debilitating," she continued, flashing an uncomfortable smile. "Some battle with addiction, eating disorders, and like. I managed to dodge those bullets. Some...eh, rebound by sortae descending, like, intae a spiral of self-destructive sexual behavior that takes them on a county-by-county shagging tour of an island nation, until an STI scare brings them to a screeching halt. Then they kindae hole themselves up in their flats with a case of vodka and experiment to see how many pills it will take to fill the void inside them and get the internal voice that whispers about worthlessness to stop echoing.

"The lucky ones wake up in A&E with a tube doon their throat and their parents hovering over them like they'd just watched their child die twice, because they had. Then they go back to regular appointments with their therapist for intensive treatment for post-traumatic stress and depression."

The big cat approached her, wet paws making hushed squishing sounds on the rock. He wrapped his arms around her and simply held her for a while. At first, she accepted the embrace as she would any other. As he held her, though, something loosened within her. Where her eyes had merely stung with the remembrance, they now burned with fresh tears. Alder felt her claws poking into his sides, where she clung to him. Soft sobs were almost inaudible through the fabric of his shirt and the thick fur beneath. He continued holding her until it passed and she pushed back from him, the fur of her face soaked.

Alder's eyebrows peaked over the bridge of his nose and his ears folded down to the sides in sympathy and concern for the rabbit as he reached up and carefully wiped her cheeks with the back of his paw. "Thank you," he whispered.

Cat, nodding and wiping her face, said, "I don't make it a habit of sharing all of that, tree. You're the first person outside of my family, my therapist, and my support group. In fact, you're the only one aside from my therapist who knows about the...eh...tour."

The big cat twisted one side of his muzzle into a wry grin and spread his arms in an exaggerated shrug. "Don't sweat it, bun. I wouldn't want someone yapping about my history. We've only touched on a fraction of that. I'm in no position to judge others for their sexual foibles."

"Heh...thanks, Alder." She sniffed and looked around uncomfortably.

The puma caught the look in her eye. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing, really. Just..." she trailed off with a grimace and a little, shivering squirm.

He cocked his head to one side, but realization hit him suddenly. "Oh! Right, the ale. Um, hmm..."

He glanced about for a moment. There was a public restroom back by the steps they had used to reach the beach.

"Think you can make it back to the--" he stopped, cut off by her vigorous head shake.

During their talk, nearly half of the other late-night beachgoers had cleared out. Those that remained were quite a distance away and there was still little light. On the far side of their perch, about a meter below, there was a cluster of smaller rocks. The puma hopped down to test the footing and found that they were stable enough to stand on. He beckoned the bunny over and helped her down.

"I don't know how comfortable you are with this, but it looks like you'll have to make do."

"It's better than behind the bins out back of a pub, but..."--the rabbit looked back over the boulder--"someone's gonnae hear it."

"Oh, balls!" he chuckled. "No one'll hear it over the ocean. Besides, I'll hop back up and keep watch for you."

She sighed, "Fine. There's no way I'm getting to a loo in this condition."

Alder leapt back to the top of the boulder and sat down with his back to Cat. In the darkness, the sound of her clothes shuffling was cacophonous. Her scent swirled around him as the breeze moved through her bare fur. It overpowered the smells of salt spray and decay from the sea and of stale popcorn and beer bottles from the mountainous garbage bins up the beach. For an unsettling moment he couldn't see or hear; her scent filled his consciousness. When he realized that his nose was occupying all of his attention, he cleared his throat and shook his head.

Focus, bud, he chided himself.

"Say, tree?" came the rabbit's amused voice from below.

"Yeah?"

"It's a bit hard tae let go with you hovering over me, purring like that."

Alder coughed. "Sorry! Didn't realize I was. It's just..."

She snickered and asked, "Just what? Ye getting all excited about a girl pissing next tae ye?"

"That's a 'no', bun."

"Okay.... So, what was it?"

"For just a moment, your scent sort of hijacked my senses when you were shifting your clothes around. It was blinding...deafening...or, kinda both," he replied.

"An' that had ye purring like a fuckin' pneumatic hammer?"

He chuckled uneasily. "I guess so."

Silence. Even if he had been looking at her, he wouldn't have seen the insides of her ears redden in the dark.

"Bun?"

"Eh...I'm getting a bit self-conscious doon 'ere, Alder. Any chance you could just sort of, hum or something? I'm burstin', but I cannae let go with you listening."

"Maybe we should use that to our advantage and get you to a proper facility?" he joked.

"Aye, let's do. I'm sure everyone will understand when I piss myself in front of them!"

He snorted. "Ok, ok. I'll make some noise."

The puma took a moment to think and started whistling a tune. That helped the rabbit relax enough to do her business. Alder figured that she must have realized that he'd still be able to hear--and smell--despite the distraction, but at least it did the trick. Although, there was one problem with hearing the rush of her water.

"Uh...bun? When you're finished, we need to trade places."

A giggle came from behind him in the dark, along with the resumed shuffling of clothes.

"Aye," she grunted, regaining the top of the boulder, "it's all yours. Just...eh...watch your step."

The big cat hopped down and turned away from her. After he unzipped and the patter of his stream started. Cat asked, "Say, tree, what was it that you were whistling? It sounded familiar."

"You ever play video games when you were younger?"

"Fuck that!" she scoffed. "I still play them now."

"What platforms?" He finished and fastened his trousers. With a graceful hop, he rejoined the bunny atop the boulder.

"Computer and the Japanese consoles," she said, stretching her back and arms. "That American console never really caught on with me. Probably because most of my experience with their first version was having the controller repeatedly hurled at my face. Have sort of the same problem with the wireless motion control things from the other consoles, but that's because the younger kids in my family can't be arsed with fastening a fucking wrist strap. Holiday gatherings are dangerous times in Castle Caird." Her bright laugh was back again.

"Hmm..." he mumbled. "The Myst franchise, Elder Scrolls, Legend of Zelda and it's myriad variations."

She threw him a look and said, "Aye! But, what? Do I not strike you as a solitaire, football, falling blocks kind of lass?"

It was his turn to laugh. "Well, the first two were wild guesses based upon the third one. The tune was the Gerudo Valley theme from Ocarina of Time. The fact that you sort of recognized it lead me to think that you'd played enough for the tune to stick with you. If you played a great deal of that, you'd have to enjoy fantasy elements and puzzles; hence, Myst and Elder Scrolls."

"Well!" Cat said with a giggle. "Look who's Hercule fucking Poirot."

Alder retrieved the pair's footwear and dropped back down on the beach side of the boulder. He offered the rabbit a hand, but she waved him off and jumped down on her own. They walked back along the water's edge, returning the way they had come. Halfway up the beach, a frantic dog of the two-legged variety staggered up to them, footfalls unsteady in the shifting sand. She looked to be a greyhound, thin as a rail and the same height as the puma; all long lines and cheekbones. Her paws waved anxiously as she approached.

"Can either of you swim?" she barked, her voice high and shrill with panic.

"No?" answered Cat, confused. She'd never gone deeper than her knees on the family trips to Peterhead and they'd never really visited any swimming baths.

Alder wobbled a paw a bit and said, "Barely, why?"

Tears streaked the poor dog's face. "My husband's out there,"--she pointed a shaking paw into the surf--"he was practicing his balance on his paddle board and something happened. He collapsed on the board and he's not moving! Please help!"

The pair followed the greyhound's finger out to past the breakers. There, in the light of the rising moon, they spotted a lone, pale object.

"Are you sure he's not just resting or having a laugh?" the skeptical rabbit asked.

The dog shook her head, snarling, "He's never done anything like that before and he isn't the sort to joke like this. Look, he's diabetic and he has a heart condition. Whatever happened out there is serious."

Then what the fuck is he doing out there? Alder wondered, rolling his eyes. He snapped around, looking for a life guard or someone in a rescue capacity. There were a handful of beachgoers staring into the surf, but no one acting. At the landward edge of the sands was posted a sign which advised that all swimming after 8:00pm was unsupervised and entirely at the swimmer's personal risk.

Fan_fucking_tastic! the puma thought to himself and scanned the beach.

"Has someone called emergency services?" Cat asked.

"Yes," the dog yelped, "but they can't get anyone here in less than forty-five minutes."

"What?"

"Half of the fire and paramedics crews are still in Newcastle dealing with that mess. The rest are stretched thin, but...."

"Fuck," Adler hissed, ears laid back against his skull. He dropped their shoes and wriggled out of his shirt and trousers.

Cat turned at the sound of the items hitting the ground. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"No idea," he hollered, running away from the water.

"The fuck...?" she squeaked.

The rabbit and the greyhound watched in anxious bewilderment as the puma dashed across the sand. He skittered to a stop by the vacant lifeguard perch. There, he snatched a pair of life preservers and their associated ropes. Shouldering the items, he dashed to a series of closed vending stands and began yanking down a thin rope from which colored flags dangled. The rope ran the periphery of the stands and cordoned off a large dining area with plastic folding furniture. He paused briefly at the dining area and coiled the rope over his forearm in overlapping figure-eights, then he pulled the round top from a table. Unsatisfied but unable to find more to work with, he ran back to his partner and the terrified hound.

"Alder," Cat demanded, when he returned and started tying the ropes and flag line together at their ends, "what in the hell do you think you're doing?"

He shrugged one shoulder, still working. "Whatever I can, Cat."

His tail thrashed from side to side as he finished the knots and tugged hard to confirm their strength. He flipped the table, only a meter in diameter, over and passed an end of the rope through the hole intended to house an umbrella pole. Making sure that there was just over two fathoms hanging loose through the top, he began strapping the life preservers to the bottom using any lashing point he could improvise. Somewhat satisfied that they would stay, he stood up.

"Fuck, bun, I don't know. Just, hold this." He handed her the other end of the rope.

The rabbit took the end of the rope reluctantly, still not sure what the big cat was planning. Alder just shook his head and coiled the rope out in the hopes that it wouldn't tangle.

"Okay, you two keep a hold on that rope. Keep your ears up. I'll yell when I get to him. I can hardly swim to begin with and I won't be able to at all when holding on to him, so you two are gonna have to pull, all right?"

"No, it's not 'all right' you stupid twat!" she shouted. Her eyes were filled with anger and fear in equal measure.

"Bun..." He gestured at the rest of the people on the beach and said, "None of these other fuckers are moving. Yes, this is ridiculous and stupid and I am _god_damned scared, but he could fucking die. I can't stand here and watch something like that happen again. Just, please, help me?"

She nodded, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth. She didn't know what the story was behind the "again", but she knew from his expression that there would be no talking him out of it. He kissed her on the forehead and dashed off into the surf.

Alder was relieved to find that the hollow form of the molded, plastic table floated reasonably well on its own; the life preservers would merely act as insurance in case the table began taking in water. He employed the rig as a makeshift bodyboard, laying his torso over the tabletop with the loose end of the rope tied around his chest. The waves weren't that big, but pushing up and over them against the drag from the life preservers took all of the strength that he had. As he reached the relatively calmer water past the impact zone, he relocated his goal in the light of the moon.

The guy was huge. He was human and had to be well over six feet tall. He lay face-down on a mid-sized paddle board, unmoving. Stupid fucker is lucky he stayed on the board, thought Alder as he kicked awkwardly up to the board and checked the man's pulse and breathing, both of which were weak and irregular. He tried to wake the man, to no avail. Holding tight to the tabletop, he clutched at the man's board and held on to its edge, claws biting through the finish.

"Cat!" he called over the waves.

Her voice drifted back to him, sharp with concern. "Alder! Are you all right?"

"So far," he hollered.

"Do you have him? Is he okay?" cried the greyhound, no less anxious.

"Yes and no. Go ahead and pull us in, you two!"

He lurched with the tug on the rope and scrabbled to hang on to the board and the table at the same time. Once they were pulled past the impact zone, the ride went more quickly. When they reached the beach, the greyhound bounded into the water to help pull her husband in. Sirens could be heard not far away. The puma untied the rope from his chest and staggered out of the water dragging the table. Paramedics arrived moments later and began tending to the man. While they loaded the guy and his wife into the ambulance and drove off for the nearest hospital, Alder sat silent on the sand in his boxers and stared out past the horizon. The other observers had wandered back to their spots or left the beach entirely now that the excitement was over. Cat walked up behind him and placed her paw on his head, stroked the short fur between his ears.

She moaned, "You frightened the shit out of me, you bastard!" A moment later she was on her knees behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest and kissing the back of his neck.

"I'm sorry, bun. I really, really am." He leaned back into her and muttered, "Was that all seriously forty-five minutes?"

"Twenty," she answered. "The paramedics' previous call was cancelled and they were rerouted here."

"Thank fuck. And the guy's ok?"

"Don't know. They stabilized him before they tossed him in the back of the van. He wasn't awake when they left, but he was alive. They said that was probably because of the time you saved them by bringing him in before they arrived."

"Good," he whispered, relaxing. His weight sprawled them both on the sand.

She held him and grunted, "Whoa there, tree. Shout 'timber' next time. You gonnae be okay?"

He nodded. "My arms and legs are mush. We might,"--he started shivering--"be here a while."

Cat flagged down one of the few people that still loitered on the beach and asked if they could bring over a towel or a blanket. The woman fetched a large beach towel from where her group was sitting and brought it over. Cat thanked her and wrapped her wet companion with the towel. Outside the fabric, she gently rubbed her paws over his arms and chest. After a few minutes, the shivering abated.

"Ohhhh," groaned the puma, sitting up. "I feel like I've been hit by a bus."

"Muscles sore?"

He winced. "That, and the adren--" he swallowed hard.

The puma rubbed his face with his paws, getting sand all over his cheeks and muzzle. A rhythmic convulsing started in his chest and abdomen, slight at first but building in intensity. Alder doubled over and moaned an incomprehensible curse. Leaning over on all fours, he retched for what felt like an eternity before painting the sand before him with a froth of bile, liquor, and half-digested fried cheese. He coughed and spat; muttering a weak apology to the bunny--to the universe as a whole--as he shoved sand over his mess with trembling paws.

Cat stroked his back and chided, "Never ye mind that, love," unconscious of her wording. "Come noo, let's get ye back on your feet and back tae the hotel."

She helped Alder to his feet and steadied him. It took a great deal of effort to get his shirt back on over his sore, shaking limbs and wet fur. The rabbit hoped that her companion's boxers would suffice to cover his lower bits until they could return to their room. With the puma leaning heavily on her shoulder, she guided him up the beach to return the towel. They both thanked the woman again and then continued--their bare paws tracking sand across the sidewalks--back to the hotel.

Cat expected a commotion when they reached the hotel lobby. The concierge, she figured, would lay into them for Alder's state of undress and the sandy mess they tracked across the marble floors. The puma was beginning to shiver again--likely from the touch of the air conditioned atmosphere on his still-soaked fur--when the prim stoat approached them. The rabbit ground her teeth, waiting for the first word to wriggle out of the posh cunt's mouth.

"_Je_sus, miss! Someone from the beach ran in and told us what was happening. We could see most of it from the patio."--she just stared at him--"Is our friend all right? And Mr....um...the guy he pulled in, is he gonna make it?" The upper class veneer that he must have adopted for the sake of his paycheck was gone from his demeanor, leaving a regular, flustered bloke.

Cat replied a bit harshly with a nod, "The paramedics got the man's vitals stable and are taking him to A&E. This daft fucker,"--Alder gave a meek wave--"is overexerted, cold, and probably suffering a bit from shock. I need to get him cleaned up, dried off, and warmed up."

"Here, Gary'll help you get him to your room," he waved at a wide-eyed human bellhop, a boy in his late teens with orange hair. "I'll send someone up with some coffee, right away."

Gary nervously transferred Alder's weight from the rabbit's shoulder to his own, supporting the puma with an arm around his waist. He helped him to a wheelchair next to guest check-in, one of the rickety sort that hotels keep handy when elderly guests need help from the car to their room. The elevator ride passed in swift, awkward silence. At their door, Cat fumbled with the tangle of footwear and trousers in her arms until she found the pocket that held the card key. She opened the door and held it for Alder and the bellhop.

"The bed's fine, son," Alder mumbled. "Just drop me there."

"Bull_shit_," the rabbit huffed. She walked into the washroom, switched on the light and the heater, and dropped the toilet lid. "You'll set him doon 'ere, boy. Thank you."

The bell hop helped Alder out of the wheelchair and guided him to the toilet. Once his burden was safely settled, he backed away quickly and nodded to them both. He moved to exit into the corridor, but his hand froze on the door handle. He turned to the two worn out voxipeds.

"Um...Miss?"

"Aye?" she acknowledged, barely listening.

"Do you..." --he shook his head and screwed up his face--"I mean, are you gonna...ah, shit."

Cat relaxed her ears and allowed herself an impatient frown. "Come on, spit it out."

His spotted cheeks went red and he stammered. "It's just, y'know, you're,"--he gestured vaguely at her--"and he's...he's a--" His blue eyes went wide, meeting Alder's.

The boy wrung his hands and apologized, shaking. Cat opened her mouth, but Alder spoke up first. The puma's voice was amused and tired, responding a question that he would likely never stop receiving.

"Kid, are you wanting to know if she's worried I'm gonna forget how easy it is to get a steak at the market?"

"Oh, hush. You're just knackered and imag..." she trailed off seeing the boy, trembling, nod his head. She hissed, "Are you fucking serious, you little, gin--"

Alder held her back with a paw on her arm, laughing. He gave the weakest snarl the rabbit had ever seen and held his paws up, extending the claws. He'd left the tips of two of them in the paddle board as he towed it into shore. The overall image was one of a poor attempt at taxidermy by someone who had never seen a cat, much less a puma. He even crossed his sad eyes a bit, then dropped the pose, snickering.

"Son," Alder drawled, leaning forward again onto his knees and gesturing at the rabbit with his thumb, "she'd be a damned fool not to be, at some level. There are plenty of predators out there who don't let walking upright stop them from being controlled by their instincts. Most of us, though, are generally content to never feel something shit itself to death with its spine between our teeth." He smiled up at the bunny and added, winking, "With the possible exception of well-deserving ex-boyfriends."

He turned back to the bellhop. "Now, what you don't know but she will, sooner or later, is that I'd wade through every hell to keep her from harm."

The kid nodded and apologized again. Wishing them a good night, he scuttled out into the corridor with the wheelchair and closed the door softly behind him. The door had hardly closed when a knock came. Cat rolled her eyes and opened it, finding a young woman with two cups of coffee on a tray, accompanied by individual serving packets of cream and sugar. She thanked the girl and let her in to deposit the tray on the room's solitary table. Job complete, the lass nodded to them both and whisked back out into the corridor.

Cat closed the door and took both cups into the bathroom, leaving the cream and sugar behind on the tray. She handed one to Alder, who nodded his thanks and took a sip. Meanwhile, the bunny sat on the edge of the massive tub and took a swig from her cup. They stayed quiet while they drank; both preferring to relish in the warmth of the liquid.

Once they were finished, the rabbit returned the cups to the tray and deposited it on the floor outside the door. She closed the door, then thought better of it and hung out the "do not disturb" sign. It looked like they'd be sleeping late again tomorrow morning. No sense having a chambermaid bustle in on them while they slept.

Alder was shoving his shirt off over his head when Cat returned to the washroom. The smell of sand, salt and sweat swirled around in the eddies of air churned by the ventilation fan. Alder stood up slowly and leaned against the sink, brushing his teeth and tongue to get rid of the taste of coffee and sick. Cat started the shower running and undressed while she waited for him to finish. After he set his toothbrush back down, she helped steady him as he eased off his boxers and stepped under the warm water.

"'...wade through every hell...'," she grumbled at him, rubbing her paws through his fur to work out the sand and soreness. "G'me a break."

He closed his eyes and hung his head in the spray, rumbling from the attention that she paid him. "I meant it, though, bun."

"Aye, hush ye." He couldn't see her smile, but he could hear it in her voice.

Cat fell quiet for a few moments as she poured some of his shampoo into her paw and worked it into a lather, drawing the puma out from under the direct stream of the shower. Starting from his head, she worked the suds into the fur, continuing to his torso and arms before running out. She guided him back under the water and thoroughly rinsed the bubbles away, whispering apologies every time that he winced beneath her touch. She repeated the process with his lower half, seeming to pay little mind to the rosy flesh that began to peek expectantly from his sheath. The puma's tail involuntarily struggled against her paws as she scrubbed, but she managed to subdue it. Once he was fully rinsed, she left him beneath the hot spray to release the knots from his muscles.

Standing to the side, she soaped herself up as well. Alder watched through half-lidded eyes; his purring escalated with every pass that her paws made through her thick, dark fur. She glanced at him more than once, smirking at his clear enjoyment. When she finished lathering, she shooed him to the side so she could rinse. She watched him through one eye as she rubbed the shampoo from the fur of her head and down her ears.

"You're looking better, tree," she remarked. Her paws worked the lather out of the fur of her chest and arms; sheets of white foam rolled down her legs to the tile.

The puma leaned against the wall and wiped the excess water from his face with his paws. He nodded and said, "Funny how some warm water and a hot, wet bunny can improve your mood."

"How much better are you feeling?" she asked, getting the last of the shampoo out of her leg fur.

He shrugged. "Dunno, eighty percent of perfect, I gue--oof!"

Forty-eight kilograms of wet rabbit cut off his words, pressing his back to the wall and her mouth to his. Her paws clutched at the skin of his sides, both to pull herself closer and to hold herself up on the wet tile. His arms surrounded her, warm and strong, further supporting her. With a lurch, he spread his feet and lifted her off of hers. One of his paws pressed against her back; the other gripped her rear and held her suspended against him. Laughing, she hooked her legs behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck. They momentarily broke their kiss once, perhaps twice, to catch their breath.

Arms trembling, still fatigued, Alder spun and pinned her body between his and the wall. He wasn't particularly heavy, himself--fifty-five kilograms, maybe sixty soaking wet as he was--and the moan that escaped Cat was not due to the pressure of the puma leaning into her but his paws that were now free to roam through her dripping fur. She nuzzled and nipped at his neck, working her way up to clamp her lips onto the edge of his ear.

The rabbit slowly started to slide down the wall and he moved one paw to her rump to hold her up. His other paw traced parallel rows through the soft fluff of her chest and belly. Occasionally, Alder's fingers would find the hard, raised bump of a nipple and he would flick the outer curve of a claw over the sensitive flesh; though, he kept the broken claws sheathed to protect her from the burrs. Her breath would catch in her throat and her paws would clench, driving her own claws through his fur to press against his skin.

Instinct whispered to the puma's subconscious, spurring his hips into involuntary twitches that drove the dark pink length of his cock halfway out of his sheath to stab and strain at the open air beneath the rabbit. With her legs still wrapped around him, she wiggled herself lower, searching. They gasped together when the heat of his tip made contact with the bare skin of her mound. His thrusting became more insistent, matched by the motions of her hips. However, their movements failed to achieve the contact for which they both were hungry.

Frustrated, she rasped in his ear, "Get in me, goddamn it!"

Alder growled and gripped her ass in both paws. He could feel the change in moisture as he guided her hips and aligned his tip with Y of her cleft. Her sex was warmer and more slippery than the surrounding wetness. Pausing at her threshold, he closed his eyes and buried his face in the side of her neck. He could smell her arousal over the blended scents of their shampoos, and the sound of the water faded into the dull, buzzing thrum that could have been either or both of their heartbeats.

Cat's moan and his snarl merged as the puma relaxed his arms, slowly lowering her onto himself. The tapered tip of his cock met with no resistance as it eased between her dripping folds. Her internal fire was a shocking change in comparison to the warmth of the shower. It was like penetrating a furnace.

Time became oddly dilated for both of them. Alder continued lowering her for what felt like minutes but could only have been seconds. He groaned as he felt the rabbit's walls simultaneously stretch and seize around his penis, until her pelvis at last met his. Through his panting and the distracting stimuli of her heavy scent and intoxicating warmth, the puma was dimly aware that she was arrhythmically patting his shoulder.

"--still," Cat gasped, "hold...hold still, Alder." Her breathing was ragged and her body twitched

"Bun? You all right?" he asked, concern snapping him out of his fugue.

She nodded--her forehead pressed to his chest and her claws digging into the fur of his shoulders.

"Mm-hmm," she managed between gasps, "fine, just need a mom_ent_--" She cut off with a squeak and a shudder that rippled from her hips outward. "Fuck! D'ye have any idea how different those things feel to anything else?"

"Oh! Yeah," he panted. "But, I hear it feels a bit better where you have it than where I did."

"Sucks...hah!...ohh," she moaned, "to be you-oooo, fucking hell." It was difficult talking with the clenching of her walls driving her sensitive flesh against his spines, stimulating nerves that hadn't received that sort of attention before.

They stayed still until she trusted motion. Resting his muzzle on her head, he muttered into the fur between her ears that it would be best for them to take it slow on the out-stroke until she was used to it. Cat felt exactly what he meant when they finally moved. The irregular rows of semi-rigid spines that circled his shaft in a wide band were angled to point away from his tip. As he inched his way out, they raked the walls of her pussy like nothing she had ever felt. Between her natural lubrication and the flexibility of the nubs, there was no pain; their effect in nature was, after all, not to injure but to remove a rival's seed and stimulate the female. That stimulation, however, was drastic and overpowering. They built by increments into a cautious rhythm of firm, hungry thrusts and slow, shuddering tugs that pushed both of them over the edge far quicker than either of them expected or wanted.

Cat cried out and threw her arms around his chest, grabbing pawfuls of fur and skin over his shoulder blades. Her hocks dug into Alder's butt, pulling her down until her mound met his velvet-furred sheath and squashed it hard against his pelvis. Buried to his base within her, the puma felt every pulse and wave that rolled through her walls. His own release hit him, just as his legs announced they were no longer up to the task of supporting them both.

He eased his way down to the floor, the claws of his right paw pressed hard to the rabbit's back as his left paw swung for the wall to steady himself on the way down. He accidentally twisted the shower handle, turning the water off completely before he landed with a muffled splash on the tiles. The impact, soft as it was, jostled their connection and sent fresh waves of stimulus through them both.

The puma's cock swelled and jerked with every pulse that he poured into her. The heat of it enveloped him, matching hers, and slid back along his length to drip into the swirling water by the drain. Cat's body sagged with fatigue, resting on his thighs. They clutched at each other, embracing and kissing one another's faces, necks, lips.

"I don't think I can move for a minute, bun," Alder whispered. The muscles of his folded legs ached and his toes tingled.

Cat leaned back to look him in the eyes and smiled. "Good. If you try to pull that prickly fucker out before my pussy settles down, I may have to kill you."

They sat for a moment, chests still heaving, and listened to the dripping of water--and more than water--in the echoing stall. Out of nowhere, the puma started snickering. He tried to choke it down but it swelled instead into a fit of giggles.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" the rabbit chuffed. "What?"

When Alder opened his mouth to answer, the first sound out was a staccato laugh that fell to a low chuckle. "Sorry, bun. I was just thinking how ironic our situation is."

She nuzzled his chin. "What are you babbling about?"

"Well,"--he licked her forehead--"it isn't often you hear about a tree stuck in a cat."

She snorted and fell into her own fit of giggles, which became a whole new sensory experience for both of them. The convulsions of her laughter rippled through her vaginal muscles, causing them to grip his penis almost as hard as they had during her climax. That, coupled with the puma's ebbing erection, elicited a wet plop as her pussy forced him out of her. This did nothing for their amusement and they toppled, laughing, to lean against adjacent walls.

Once their laughter settled and Alder thought that his legs could hold him, they stood shakily and turned the water back on. They helped one another clean their mingled fluids from the fur of their crotches and legs. After toweling off and sharing the blow dryer, they flopped onto the bed. Snuggled tight, they traced languid patterns through one another's fur and within minutes were both asleep.

***

Cat yawned and stretched over the bedcovers. The pink-orange sunlight that cascaded through the balcony windows warmed her fur and roused her from sleep. Wakefulness, initially stubborn, was helped along by a full bladder and the realization that she was alone in the bed.

The rabbit sat up stiffly, her joints and muscles complaining about the awkward sexual position of the previous night. That poor cat must be in a hell of a state, she supposed. She yawned and rubbed her face, passing her paws several times from her forehead to her nose. Amusement tugged at her lips; she could still smell Alder on her. The smile broadened into a grin; she could still feel him in her, too, between the lingering fluid and her nerve endings still chuntering about the puma's bristles.

Scratching her belly, she eased out of bed and tottered to the washroom to attend to her morning business. When she walked back out, she caught sight of Alder on the balcony, to which he had relocated one of the chairs from the table inside the room. The puma was reclining naked in the chair with his feet crossed over one another and propped on the railing, toes wriggling in the morning sun. His left arm curled over the top of his head and its paw played absentmindedly with his right ear, just above where the mobile phone in his right paw was pressed. The big cat was keeping his voice down to avoid waking the bunny. Now that she was awake, though, she couldn't help but overhear him. She stood at the foot of the bed, one ear pinned back self-consciously and the other twisted forward toward the balcony door that stood slightly ajar.

"...no," he was saying, "it's in the kitchen cabinet, far left door on the bottom.... Well, that's where I keep it, so.... No, I'm not suggesting that you misplaced it; I'm outright telling you that you must have set it down somewhere after you used it last and forgot where that is.... It's not an accusation, woman. I just know you well enough that... Oh, for the love of... Yes, that would be helpful." The call ended and he lowered his phone.

Alder was agitated. He uncrossed his feet and rested the pads of his toes against the rail, claws poking out against the polished wood. The phone rang again, this time with a video call. Answering it he sat up, planting his feet on the ground and holding the phone up, so his face could be seen by the camera.

The rabbit didn't know what he was talking about, or with whom, but the obvious domestic familiarity and the way he had said "woman" made something in her chest tighten. She frowned and sat on the bed, wanting to stop listening, but unable to. On the screen she could just make out the face of a voxie cat, but couldn't tell much more at a distance. It might have been another puma; it might have been a lion, or a caracal, or...

"Well! Hello again!" Alder chirped in mock surprise.

Cat could hear the feminine voice of the person on the other end say, "Yeah, 'hi' to you asshole. You wanna help me out here?"

He chuckled. "Yeah, flip to the rear camera so I can look around the place..."--the view on the screen changed--"...Okay, now pan around. Slower, damn it. Everything's blurry."

"You're a real pain in the ass, you know?"

"The feeling's mutu-- The fuck? The place was not that fucked up when I left. You're cleaning all of that shit up before I get ba--" He barked out a laugh before covering his muzzle to keep down the noise. "You dork! It's on the counter next to the sink. The green and yellow box. Says, 'plant food'?"

There was silence on the other end.

Cat could hear the smile in his voice. "Told y--"

"Oh, stuff it, Al."

Alder cringed. "Goddamn it, Mim!"

A giggle came from the phone as the view switched back around. "All right, all right! Fuck you're sensitive. Now that I've found the stuff, I'll feed your precious plants. But you still owe me."

He threw his head back. "Fuuuuck, seriously? What the hell do you want?"

"Been on my feet a lot," the lady on the other end said. "Give me one of your foot massages when you get home and we'll call it even."

"Mim,"--the sigh that escaped him seemed to have come from his toes--"fine. Whatever. Just take care of--"

He was cut off by a gasp from the woman. "Whoa! Pretty!"

"Are you high, Mim? What the fuck?"

"Dude! Your bunny is fucking beautiful!"

Cat's ears both perked. Her jaw dropped. What the hell was going on?

"Yeah, not news," Alder chuffed. "Damn right she's...wait. I haven't sent you a picture. How would you know?"

"The window, genius. I can see her. Ask her if she's got a sister. Or a brother. Ooh! Or a sister and a brother!"

"She's a rabbit, Mim. Of course she has..." The puma turned and the half-confused, half-irritated twist of his muzzle gave way to a huge, toothy grin when he saw her. He jumped up and came through the door. "Cat! Good morning, bun. I hope I didn't wake you."

She shook her head, still lost. "No, I just needed the toilet."

"Uh, bud," came the other woman's voice, "could you move the phone? The camera's pointing at your nuts."

Alder's ears burned a bright red as he lifted the phone and said, muzzle wrinkling in an embarrassed snarl, "Sorry."

"Thanks. That's going to be tough image to get out of my head. Mind pointing back at the bunny, at least she won't give me nightmares."

"Oh, bite me. It's not the first time you've seen them."

She made a disgusted sound. "Dude, not an excuse."

Cat's face was beginning to surpass confusion and drift into anger. She pointed at the phone and whispered, "I'm a bit confused here, tree. Who is that?"

The other woman cackled on the line. "Yeah, shithead, introduce me to your beautiful, naked bunnyfriend."

An abashed Alder scratched his chest and replied, "Ah, sorry, girls. Cataría Caird,"--he gestured to the puma on the phone screen--"this annoying person is Mimosa Matsubayashi. Mim,"--his paw swung back to indicate the rabbit--"Cat."

Mimosa flashed a lopsided smile and waved at her phone. She was attractive, like Alder; but in a softer way. She carried slightly more weight than he did and it in no way detracted from her beauty.

"Hey, Cat!" she chirruped. "What the asshole failed to mention in that introduction is that I'm his older sister."

In a tone that suggested near-endless repetition, Alder grumbled softly, "Older by less than a minute doesn't count."

Cat, breathing easier, gave a half-hearted wave in reply. "Pleasure..."

"So...about that sister or brother..."

Mim's pink tongue snaked out to wrap across one side of her muzzle, dragged down the dark line the bordered her nose, and slid to the other side, where it vanished again. The spark in the puma's eye revealed that the motion had been far from unconscious and implied a hunger which had little to do with her stomach.

Cat blinked at the screen, stammering, "I-- Well...aye, I do. But--"

Alder turned the phone to face him and asked, "Mim, is now really the best time to be trolling for tail?"

She giggled and said, "Yeah, you're probably right. So...speaking of: did y'all get it on?"

"Mimsy!" Alder croaked, "For fuck's sake! I'm hanging up, 'kay?"

She growled over the phone, "You did! Rawr! Keep hydrated, bud. Talk to ya some other time, bunny!" Then she disconnected.

Alder tossed the phone onto the bed with a muttered curse and asked, concerned by the strange expression on the rabbit's face, "You okay, bun?"

She closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. "Yeah."

He sat next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him and resting his chin on her head.

"You sure? You're looking stressed out...and you're shaking," he added with concern.

Cat was keenly aware that her ears were now quivering, folded against her back. She nodded. "Old wounds, tree."

"Something gave you flashbacks to the bad old times?"

"Aye."

Alder licked the top of her head with his broad tongue and kissed the base of one of her ears, then whispered, "Will it help to talk about it?"

"I don't know. It's just,"--her paw, pressed to his chest, tightened it's grip a bit--"the way you were talking with her. I could hear a lot of it. Not...not trying to, y'know? Not eavesdropping; I just heard. But..."

He tightened his embrace and stroked her arm with his paw. "But...?"

"It sounded like you could have been talking to a wife or something, which was painful enough to think about. I mean, you said that you're not...but people lie and I know I can't always trust myself to recognize it when they do.

"But your tone was so...casually mean, like. I couldn't help but think of Paul, and the old anxiety sort of bubbled up to the surface. I got scared that you might be..."--she sniffed and rubbed a paw across her face.

"Shh. It's all right," he cooed. "I'm not perfect, Cat. I have plenty of flaws. I can be every bit the shit-headed asshole that Mim loves to say I am. But I won't tomcat around on you and I won't ever hurt you on purpose. Mimsy and I are like that because we grew up together. We know that we've got each other's backs and that the name-calling doesn't amount to anything."

"Aye, my family is much the same. Stupid of me not to consider that," Cat sniffled gave a small, self-deprecating laugh.

"None of that, bun. Trauma trumps convention. After what you were through, it's natural to be cautiously pessimistic. I'm here whenever you need me, though." He paused, shook his head and concluded, "Well, not here, but you know what I mean."

"Eh?" Cat asked, sitting up and lifting her ears.

The puma patted her on the thigh and smiled. "Two days until my flight back to the States. After that, I guess I'll have to be here"--he pointed to his phone on the bed--"for you, instead." His smile faltered, his whiskers drooped, and his ears flicked back. What had started as word play now loomed as some bleak precipice toward which they were drifting.

The rabbit's ears flopped hard against her back and her eyes took on a dark, distant expression. "Aye."

They sat on the bed, each momentarily lost in their own thoughts. The calls of seabirds drifted in from the balcony with the scents of salt water and warming concrete. The rabbit stood after a few minutes and walked to the window. She gazed through the glass at the glittering water that stretched out into the haze of the horizon. Her claws tapped on the glass without rhythm.

"Tree?" she lilted, still facing the window.

"Yeah, bun?"

"Would ye have it another way?" She didn't turn to the puma, but her right ear lifted from the fur of her back, pointing toward him.

"Pardon?" Alder asked, confused by her wording.

"Five days, Alder," she said. "That's all the time we've had together. All we really know about each other is that we have similar tastes in trivial shite and that we're both burdened by the weight of botched relationships. So, would you really want this to continue between us?"

The big cat's muzzle twisted to the left, his left eye squinted, and his left ear swiveled down and to the side. The tip of his tail flicked and quivered over the bed covers.

He huffed, "Seriously?"

She turned with a sigh and flopped down in the chair that was still inside the room. She leaned forward, perched on the edge of the seat, twining her fingers and pressing the fur-fringed pads of her thumbs together. Her ears both faced up and forward, leaning slightly over her face. Their thin, translucent planes took on a muted orange glow with the sunlight that passed through them from the window behind. Her blood vessels showed as a dark red, chaotic lace.

"I don't know," she said. "What I said before is still true. I want this. I want us to be close, like last night on the beach, in the bar...in the shower. I want to know more about you and for you to know more about me, until we run out of things to know and have to grow and become more ourselves...together. Or, at least, until we find something within one of us that the other can't abide."

He shook his head and muttered, "I don't see that happening."

Cat's ears folded back and her jaw hung slack. Fucking what_?_ she snarled internally. After all he's fucking said, he doesn't fucking 'see that happening'? What the actual fuck? Amid the tumult that raged in her head, it took her a moment to realize that he was still talking.

"--ould have to be something pretty heinous in your past to make me want to back out. You kill someone, bun?" he was saying.

"I think I'm bloody about to," she choked, caught between laughing and crying.

"What's wrong?" the puma asked. He furrowed his brow and lowered his ears, confused with the rabbit's strange behavior.

"I say I want to keep going somehow and you follow up with--" She broke off with a giggle and wiped the fur of her cheek with the back of a paw. "--with 'I don't see that happening' and pause for what feels like fucking ages."

Alder squinted at her, replaying the conversation, until it hit him how that would have sounded and his eyes went wide as saucers. His jaw dropped, his ears drooped even further, and he shook his head.

"No, nonono, no. That's not what I meant!"

"How about you tell me what you did mean, tree," she said with relieved, uneven grin.

He got to his feet and walked toward her. Pausing beside her, he placed a paw on her shoulder and leaned down to kiss her head. He patted her shoulder and motioned for her to come out to the balcony with him. When she rose, he took her chair and carried it out to the balcony, setting it next to the one that he had left out there. He sat, and motioned for her to do the same.

When she was settled, he looked up at the wispy cirrus clouds overhead and said, "Cat, I know you don't want me to use the word, because you've heard it too often with no truth behind it, but it is the only word that fits. After all of the conversations that we've had and the time that we've spent together, which amounts to a damn sight more than how you just summarized it, I do love you. It's a sprout, yes; but a sprout with some potential. I want this to keep going, too. I want us to know each other inside and out. Now, I've done the emotional math for myself, and I'm prepared to keep it going with an ocean or two between us, but that is a hell of a burden to put on you. That part needs to be your call.

"It will be hard. There'll be times you won't be able to reach me or vice versa. You'll wonder if something has happened to me or if need has driven me to someone else, and it'll dredge up all that bad shit again. However, I will always--always," he stressed, looking her in the eye, "be there for you; even if I can't answer right away, I will answer. But, you need to make that decision based on what you think you're able to handle.

"If you decide that you want it, we can make it work. Maybe sometime down the line," he sighed, looking away again and shrugging, "we can figure out a way to take the distance out of the 'long distance relationship'."

She sat, quietly watching him. Weighing his words and the ones that wanted to rush out of her. She pursed her lips and looked down at her paws.

"Well, tree," she proffered, "what if we just didn't let the distance get in there to begin with?"

The puma turned to her and cocked an eyebrow. She smiled and pulled out her phone. Her thumb tapped a few times and she held the phone out in her paw. It rang twice before a gruff voice answered.

"Kitty? Two calls in as many days? Y're turning intae a right scunner," her father said with an audible smile. The screen showed black fur flecked with white and the pale skin of an ear. Blue light flickered over everything in view. There were sounds of a television and muffled conversation in the background.

"Morning, Dad! No, I just had a question is all. Also, this is a video call. I thought I set your phone up to ring differently for those."

The ambient sounds faded as the older rabbit made his way out of the family room and into a quieter part of the house. The screen also changed, showing the ear receding. As the image tilted and swung, Mr. Caird's face came into view. He smiled, reading glasses perched near the end of his nose, and gave a wee embarrassed wave.

"Noo, Cataría, ye ken I dinnae use th' video thing much. Also, it's quarter past ten."

She nodded and swung the camera around to face the sun-speckled sea, saying, "Aye, sorry, Dad. I wasnae thinking aboot the difference in time."

When she turned the camera back to herself her father bellowed with laughter and said, "Aye and time difference isnae th' only thing that slipped yer mind. Th' camera might've been shoogly, but I keeked yer wee cat's bum."

Cat's face and ears fell. She looked to her left, the direction she had turned the phone and saw Alder sitting in his chair--naked, as they both had been since they awoke--laughing his ass off and trying desperately to keep it quiet.

She turned back to the phone, the insides of her ears burning, saying, "Ah, bugger!"

"Nae bother, Kitty. Nae bother. Come noo, ye didnae phone just tae patter and show off."

She smiled and confirmed, "No. Last time we talked you said you could have Bill get together with me on the necessary papers for working in the U.S."

"Oh, aye?"

"If he's got some free time, could you ask him to give me a call tomorrow?"

The old rabbit was silent and contemplative for a moment. "Pass me over tae the cat, dear."

With some trepidation she handed the phone to the puma, who accepted it no less nervously.

"Sir," Alder said with a nod. "My name's Alder, it's a pleasure to sort of meet you."

"Alder, eh?" Mr. Caird grumbled, "What d'ye drink?" Cat smirked. That was always his first question.

"Whiskey, sir. Bourbon, usually; scotch when I get my paws on a decent one. Got a bottle of Ardbeg sitting on a shelf at home that I received from...a close friend, years back. Hasn't felt right to open it yet."

"Hmph!" grunted the rabbit. "And what do you do for work?"

"I'm a ranger for the National Parks," he replied, trying to avoid the confusion that had occurred with Cat.

"Any family?"

"Not a lot left. A sister. A father we never knew, but law of averages says he's probably not living any more. Mom's still around, but..." He cleared his throat, sniffed, and gave his head a shake.

The rabbit nodded and let that go. "And how auld are ye?"

"Thirty-nine, sir."

"And how auld's our wee girl?"

"Dad!" Cat balked.

Alder just laughed and relaxed in his chair. "Well, I haven't tried to count her rings, but she tells me she's twenty-four. That puts me a bit over halfway through my species' average life span and her around--what is it?--one-third through y'all's, if I recollect right."

Caird smiled and nodded. "Aye, what do ye reckon that means?"

"Well, it means if we're planning on making this a long-haul deal,"--he turned to look at Cat--"and I hope we both are,"--he faced Caird again--"I'll leave her hurt and lonely eventually; though, I expect I can make up for that ahead of time by giving her some good memories to hold on to."

Cat looked down at the tiles of the balcony. She hadn't been thinking about that. Clearly, though, the puma had been.

"Now," the cat was continuing, still relaxed and comfortable in the chair, with one arm cast over the back, "here, I imagine, is where you'll want to tell me that you'd temporarily relieve me of my testicles for the purpose of relocating them to some place more creative, like my nose or throat, if I cause her pain."

"He may have mentioned that on the phone yesterday," the bunny mumbled, looking away.

Caird and Alder shared a grin.

The puma went on, "As you can guess, sir, this isn't my first rodeo. I've had my share of genital mutilation threats. You probably didn't get a look a minute ago and I'm not one for flashing, but they're still there. I don't make it a habit of breaking people's hearts."

"Perhaps not, but ye still had more than a few that didnae work oot, yeah?"

"You ever feed and water a plant in your garden, just like you thought you should, but something in the soil or in the plant or in the air just kills it; root, stem, and leaf?"

Caird's eyes narrowed, focusing intently on the cat. "Aye..."

Alder shrugged. His whiskers and ears sagged when he concluded, "Sometimes, you waste yourself away tending something that just isn't meant to grow. Then you both realize it and you just have to, sort of, resign yourselves. Y'know?"

Caird was silent for a few minutes, staring past the phone. Alder couldn't tell what he was looking at, if anything. A hint of something that could have been a smile or a frown tugged at the old rabbit's lips. His ears twitched and he focused on the phone again, as if realizing suddenly that it was still there. He cleared his throat and nodded.

"A'right, lad. Give the phone back tae Kitty, please." His voice had softened, surprising the bunny who accepted her phone back.

"Kitty, Bill will be in contact with you tomorrow. I'll see that he makes the time for you. You'll take care of yourself and come home soon, as you'll need to pack up your shite and settle things with your flat. That's on you. If the cat can tear himself from his work when you come, bring him along."

"Yes, Daddy!" Cat beamed. "I'll be in touch with you when I work out the details. Tell Mum and the rest I said 'hello' and that I love 'em."

"Aye. Good night, Kitty."

"G'night," she ended, disconnecting the call and locking her phone.

She turned to the puma and grinned. "Now, then. How much holiday time have you got left, tree?"

"Let's see..." He trailed off, waggling his fingers in the air as if he were fiddling with an abacus. "Should have about a week, I had a ton banked up. Why?"

"Think they'd let you stretch your holiday a few days longer?"

"I can check. What'd you have in mind?"

Cat stood up and walked over, easing onto the puma's lap. She cupped his muzzle in her paws and planted a kiss on his nose.

"Well," she said, sitting up, "if a girl offered to cover the difference in air fare, would you change your destination to Edinburgh instead of wherever it is scheduled to be?"

Alder leaned his head back and made a show of mulling the offer over. Hovering just above the balcony tiles, the dark tip of his tail flitted and twitched.

"Ah, I dunno, bun," he temporized. "There's all this important stuff going on at the park. My plants need me at home..."

She couldn't be nervous that he would refuse, because she had already caught the tug of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. Slipping her hand between her legs and underneath her rump, she found the puma's fuzzy sheath and scrotum and ran her claws gently through the warm, soft fur. His eyes narrowed and his back arched, and an unmistakable rumble rose in his throat.

"Are ye sure?" she hummed, cradling his sack with her fingers and circling the rim of his sheath with her thumb. The fine fur of her digit tickled the sensitive flesh that slowly protruded.

"Mmmm," Alder purred, as his nose flared and he shuddered from the light touch. "Maybe I can work something out."

"Now, tree," she said in a mockingly stern tone, "you'll not get in trouble with your employer if we do this, will you?"

This time he flashed a mischievous grin. "Well, they've never asked me about my sex life, so I assume they don't care."

She laughed. "Not that, ye silly cunt. Will they get mad if you delay going back?"

The big cat's paw slid up her spine. "Nope. I may have fibbed--eep!"

Cat's claws scraped along his skin as she shifted her paw to grasp his cock. Alder let out a shuddering breath through his nose and tried to continue.

"A little! It's off-season at the park, so there's nothing happening there. Just maintenance. Jeff probably planned to have me inventory the pamphlets and maps in the visitor center when I got back. It'll keep. I can have my sister check the plants again one more time. Mim fusses, but she won't really mind."

She leaned back down, meeting his mouth with a long, slow kiss. Cupping her face with his free paw to hold her to him, Alder's purr doubled in frequency and volume. The pair broke apart, panting for air. As he held her gaze, the paw slid from her cheek, down her neck and chest. He found just enough space between her body and her arm to reach down and caress the hot, furless skin of her mound. At the touch, her grip tightened around his prickly shaft.

One of them had to break first. In the end, it was Alder. The puma released her crotch and wrapped his paw under her legs; the other remained around her back. Cradling her, he rose from the chair and carried her into the room. They nuzzled and kissed as he walked to the bed.

Cat landed with a giggle on the comforter and pulled Alder down on top of her. They embraced and resumed their kissing, licking and nibbling. Before he could notice what she was doing, the rabbit had rolled him onto his back with her astride him. She worked her mouth down his neck and chest, sliding her hips backward as she went. Not wanting to be left with nothing to do, the puma stroked her head and ran gentle fingers up the length of her long ears, tracing the edges where the fur thinned and her skin flushed pink.

The rabbit shivered when the smooth pads of Alder's paws grazed the bare skin of her ears. The shuddering peaked in a sharp gasp and the clutching of her paws in the fur of his chest. Her hips had met his; the hot, dripping end of his penis bumped against her bare mound and slid upward until it grazed her twitching ring and bumped against the base of her tail. Lifting her arse and wriggling a bit realigned his cock with the wet folds of her pussy. Claws pressing hard to the skin of his chest, she dropped hard down to his base. His growling moan was drowned out by her sharp cry.

Once again, they paused to let the first wave of heightened sensation ebb. Their paws roamed one another's bodies. Alder dragged the claws of both paws through the fur of Cat's chest and abdomen--he had taken advantage of waking before her to file the broken claw tips smooth and dull the other claws to match. When he reached her navel, she took his paws and placed them on her waist. The rabbit spread her paws on his belly to support herself and began slowly rocking her hips.

The strokes were short and slow to start, measured to reduce the overstimulation from his spines. Her mound remained pressed to his sheath, but the gentle rolling motion of her pelvis drove his tip to the ultimate depth of her clutching walls. Once again, the cat felt the firmer flesh of the rabbit's cervix colliding with his sensitive head. With each bump, his claws parted her fur and left indentations in the skin of her sides.

Cat was beginning to get the hang of navigating the strange texture of his shaft. She experimented with longer strokes, withdrawing until his tip just barely parted her cleft and rushing back to find his sheath again. They paced themselves together, her controlling the angle and speed of her bucking hips and him guiding her movements with subtle pressure from his paws. In this way they pushed on, relishing the sensations of their connection for ten minutes, then fifteen.

Hunger began to dominate patience. The rabbit's motions changed, becoming faster and harder on the down stroke. On each stroke, when she landed against his sheath, her hips kicked forward and twisted, driving his tip hard into the deepest reaches of her pussy and rasping her walls with rough ring around the base of his shaft. The puma's hips took up a matching rhythm, striving for the release that was quickly building. His paws tightened on her waist, holding her hard at the deepest penetration.

Through gritted teeth he growled her name, unloading himself in straining bursts. His spines stiffened with each pulse and the hot jets that coated her walls pushed Cat over her own cliff. Her ears flagged, pinning to her back. Her claws raked his abdomen, leaving angry red lines beneath the fur. Quivering, the rabbit collapsed onto his chest; her hips still twitched weakly in time with the diminishing waves of her climax. The puma inside her, already drained, still jerked with the last futile contractions of his pelvic muscles.

Calm fell over them as she draped, panting, on top of Alder. Their breathing slowed together, eventually falling into a matching rhythm of deep breaths and slow shuddering exhalations, then relaxing to normal.

"Bun," the puma whispered into one of the ears that rested against his cheek.

She wrapped her arms around his chest and squeezed, responding, "Mmm?"

The embrace was echoed by the muscles in her pussy as well and he chuckled at the sensation.

"What say we clean ourselves up and go see some of the sights? Maybe some fresh air and exercise will be good for us."

Her head turned until her chin rested on his chest and her ears folded back. She closed her eyes and pouted, "Awww. But we just got exercise!"

Alder bent forward and kissed her forehead. "Also, Cat, I'm hungry. Don't tempt fate!" he quipped, nipping at her twitching nose.

She laughed and sat up, moaning a bit with the shifting of his ebbing erection inside her. Slowly she lifted her hips, dribbling across his thigh as she rolled over to find something to catch the outflow. The puma guessed her purpose and reached beneath one of the pillows. His paw returned with a hand towel from the washroom.

He answered her questioning glance as she took the towel, "'Be always prepared.' A little gem of advice that I picked up from a scout leader that came to the park once."

She cocked her eyebrow with a smirk and cleaned herself up, then wiped him down. "Sounds like there might be an interesting tale there."

"Nah," he grinned, standing up from the bed, "he was docked."

"Even more interesting!"

She tossed the towel at him and trotted off to the washroom.

***

The Royal Botanic Gardens were bustling with activity. Students on their summer holidays dashed between hedgerows and beds in nigh feral packs, ignorant of species boundaries and oblivious to both the polite signs indicating unauthorized areas and the less polite cries of their parents. The occasional fretting guardian would dotter about in hopeless pursuit, but most were happy to meander the paths in relative peace. A human couple sat under a sprawling tree for what must have been engagement photos, judging by their stiff, cliché poses. Their photographer, an otter who appeared to be middle-aged, went about the process in the perfunctory manner of a woman who had hoped to do more with her passion than robotically snap the vapid faces of Pinterest-obsessed fuckwits.

Alder and Cat managed, for the most part, to avoid the roving bands of savage brats. At one point a wee, barefoot, voxie kitten--not more than two or three years old--burst from a hedge and collided with the rabbit. Beneath the billowy, green sundress, she was a smokey reddish-brown with dark rosettes arranged in roughly parallel lines. She bounced off of Cat's leg and landed on her rump, spitting and hissing in surprise. The kitten's wide eyes stared at the rabbit and her fur puffed up. A growl raised in her chest that stopped with a squeak when she was lifted from the ground.

"Badiyah! Is that how I have taught you to apologize for running into strangers?" scowled a stern tigress in a bright red shalwar kameez.

The mother--for her demeanor left no doubt that she was the child's mother--tiger's ears were pinned back to her head in anger, but the way her lips curled spoke more of embarrassment. Her English carried the fluid ease and the unmistakeable twang of someone who had grown up in the Aussie school system, with the faintest undertones to suggest her Sindhi origins. Across the furrows of her brow and the bridge of her nose spread a symmetric white mark, overlaid by her stripes, in the vague shape of a flying bird.

Dangling by the scruff from her mother's paw, the abashed cub mewled, "No..."

Cat felt for the poor thing. The sundress bowed where her tail tucked between her legs, and tears welled up in the corners of her dark blue eyes. Her fingers and toes spread wide and her tiny, sharp claws poked out amid the tufts of white fur that ringed each of her bright pink pads. The rabbit made a motion to say something, but Alder's paw on the top of her head stopped her. She looked up at him with her ears splayed to either side round his paw.

"Hang tight, bun," he whispered.

She cocked an eyebrow and shrugged, turning back to the mother and child. They were in the midst of a heated exchange of whispers that the rabbit couldn't make out. Alder cleared his throat and took his paw off of Cat's head.

"Pardon me, ma'am. I'm Alder. May I have your name?" he said, trailing off to leave room for an introduction.

The mother tiger stopped nagging her child to look at Alder and said, "Sorry. I am Fakhtah Mirani and this is naughty thing is my daughter Badiyah."

In a tongue the bunny didn't recognize, her companion asked, "Mirani-?hao, ahya naoa ralyãshiwan?"

Mirani considered the puma with narrowed green eyes. The cub, too, stared in surprise.

"Nnnã," the tigress murmured cautiously. "Egnif yahar, mfir ralyãshiwan nkea."

The puma nodded. He continued, looking to the cub, "Kroah Badiyah, elhyajou i nn?ihi aoghão. Yaosha, f'fi enkilionña? Ah! Egnifi, anbao."

The tigress and cub looked at Cat and back to Alder, both with ears pricked forward and eyes indicating both curiosity and disbelief. The tigress set Badiyah on the ground and the cub smoothed the ruffles of her dress. She looked from the rabbit to the puma with a doubting twist to her muzzle.

"Bunny is really mister's nn?ihi?" she asked, pointing at Cat.

Alder smiled and nodded. "Yes. Her name is Cat and she was very startled."

He turned to his companion and winked at her with the eye that the cub could not see. The bunny, utterly lost, just looked down at the little girl and nodded with her ears perked.

Badiyah snickered. "Cat is not cat, silly brown guy."

The puma laughed hard and replied, "No, she's a bunny. And I'm not 'silly brown guy'--well, I am--but I'm called Alder."

The cub turned to Cat again and bowed at the waist, her tail touching the ground. While bent, she said, "I am sorry, Alder's nn?ihi. I did not mean to bump into you and scare you."

At the puma's gestured suggestion, the rabbit copied the bow and answered, "Thank you, Badiyah. I am also sorry that I surprised you."

Raising up again, the kitten tilted her head and asked, "Is your name really Cat?"

"No," said Cat, "it's a nickname, short for my real name."

"Kathleen or Catherine? I have friends with those names."

The rabbit shook her head. "It's Cataría."

"Pretty!" the kitten complimented her with sparkling eyes.

"Why, thank you! You know what? I think Badiyah is a pretty name, too."

The kitten beamed, "Thanks! It means 'dessert'!"

A smiling Mirani interjected, "It's 'desert', dear. The sandy place. 'Dessert' means a treat after a meal."

"Oh, yeah," she said, wrinkling her nose. "What does yours mean, bunny?"

Alder interrupted, hugging Cat from behind and placed his chin on her head and letting her ears brush up along his cheeks.

He chuckled and said, "It's a Spanish word that means 'I will taste'."

Badiyah looked wistfully at the rabbit. "We only eat veggies and sweets. Are bunnies tasty?"

"Well, I don't know about the rest," he smiled, wrapping his tail around the bunny's legs and tilting his head to lick her ear, "but this one is."

A matching blush rose in Cat's ears and in Mirani's. Cat elbowed Alder hard in the ribs. The tigress took her child's paw and giggled.

"Come along, Badi. Let's let the nice people continue their walk. We should find Papa and see if he found a treat for you."

The pair of tigers said their farewells and went off down the path. After a few dozen paces, the kitten chirped and ran ahead, wrapping her arms around the legs of a tall clouded leopard who carried a trio of ice creams. Alder snickered, watching them go.

"Sorry about all that, bun. There's a cultural thing that runs through most of us cats that metes out hefty punishment for those who are rude or destructive and fail to apologize appropriately. That little exchange probably spared the kid one hell of a whoopin'."

Cat piped up, "What language was that?"

As they resumed walking, he answered, "It's called ralyãshiwan. It's an old language that came to be shared by feline voxipeds, oh...twenty or so thousand years ago, as a diplomatic tongue. It has changed a great deal since then, of course, and there are regional dialectic variations, just like with English. But, there has always remained a universal core that transcends species and geography.

"Human languages replaced a lot of the v.p. ones--when they colonized every piece of land they could stand on long enough to piss--usually because ours didn't have writing systems. It didn't help that British colonial governments and the governments that followed them worked hard to erase all non-English languages. A lot of the felids kept ralyãshiwan alive either underground or in spaces that weren't controlled by colonial governments, because it was developed with our physiology in mind. Same thing happened to the canids, the ursids, and all of the Tylopodids and Pecorids that didn't live in Africa."

"Where the hell did you pick all of this up?" the bunny wondered.

He shrugged and replied, "University. Voxipedal Studies. All those seminars where they plop you down, flash the history textbooks your primary and secondary schools used, then sweep the pile into a garbage can and spend the first lesson shitting all over the misinformation your young minds were fed."

The walkway on which they strolled was one of the main footpaths in the Gardens. As they continued, the way became more crowded. The next junction presented them with a narrow side path. There didn't seem to be nearly the population on that route, so they turned. The pair wound through a series of small flower beds on a winding, gravel track that terminated at a small stone patio with a low bench. Alder plopped down on the bench with a sigh, relieved to have escaped the throng. He patted the bench next to him in invitation and explained further after the bunny sat down.

"When I was in college, though," he drawled, staring out at the water of the harbor and the white edifice of the Opera House reflected therein, "learning ralyãshiwan turned into a fad among the feline students. The fad faded, as they all do, but I found that I liked it. No other language I've learned fits so well on my tongue. So, I read every book about it that I could find and scoured university archives for any recordings or interviews with native speakers that hadn't been lost or destroyed. It's just a damn shame so few that I run into can speak it."

"I'd never heard of it before," Cat said. "We rabbits dinnae have anything like that. I guess that's probably because non-voxie lagomorphs, outside of pikas, don't really vocalize much. I skipped the voxie studies classes because I was more interested in non-linguistic zoology."

"Makes sense," the puma said and wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her close enough that their sides touched.

She smiled and inquired, "So, what's a 'n-strange sound I couldn't dream of making-ee-hee'?"

Alder, squinting at the sunlight glinting off of the water of the harbor, laughed and repeated the sound.

"'?'? Yeah, it uses the bit of the tongue where the barbs are thickest. Very tricky sound to replicate without them. You could think of it like the 'rr' in Spanish, or the way you roll the occasional 'r', but with a 'g' instead.

"Nn?ihi literally means 'my only', but it's shorthand for a handful longer phrases that contain the word. The associated words in the phrases were dropped long, long ago. Which translation would you want? It can be taken many ways. At the minimum, there's a sweet one, an honest one, and a sexual one. That kitten probably thought about it in storybook terms; her mom likely figured it was just a matter-of-fact statement at first, but I bet she leaned closer to the third option when they left."

"Oh! Do let's hear all three," she said with a grin.

"Well, the kid probably thought I meant 'my one true love'. Yeah, real roll-the-eyes worthy, fairy princess stuff. The more honest way of putting it would be 'my only equal'. Meaning, the only person that the speaker holds in equal importance to themselves."

"Christ! The arrogance!" she said with a laugh.

"Yeah, it's a throwback to the social dynamics of tribal life and fierce territoriality. But also...cats, y'know?" he turned to her and shrugged.

She smirked. "Alright, what's behind door number three?"

"The third one has either a masculine or a feminine voice and loosely runs, 'the one alone who feels my bristles and who accepts no other' or 'the only one whose bristles touch me and who will touch no other', both meaning an exclusive mate, as opposed to something like 'ãukhedi' or 'n'fiiha?ua' which are titles used in instances of polyamory. Each translation of nn?ihi conveys roughly the same meaning, 'the only one for me', but there are physical cues and pitch variations that make up for the lost words. Tone and body language matter a lot in ralyãshiwan. There're words of happiness and anger that cannot be pronounced unless you are purring or growling and your body is physically reacting to the emotion."

"And what tone did you use?"

He brushed the back of his paw against her chin, running his thumbpad along the upturned line of her lips.

"I kept it deliberately neutral. You know, what with the kitten present and all," he said and turned away.

"You lying bastard. I'll bet there's a way to say it that implies multiple meanings."

He nodded and looked sidelong at her. "Something like that."

The rabbit's paw turned his face back to hers. She dropped her ears, tilted her head back, and stretched up to meet his mouth with hers. When they broke the kiss, he cradled her head in his paws and trailed a series of gentle licks up the bridge of her nose, stopping at her forehead and resting the front of his muzzle there. He breathed deep, taking in and holding her scent, and sighed. With her eyes closed, Cat giggled at the ticklish sensation of the puma's exhalation ruffling the fur between her ears.

The peace was suddenly broken by a shrill beep and a click from a short distance behind their bench. Cat and Alder twisted to see what was the source of the noise. A few meters away the otter photographer stood with a shocked expression. She wore plain shorts and a loose, thin t-shirt. Her stance was drawn slightly off-kilter by the weight of the equipment bag slung over her right shoulder. She glanced from them to the camera, as if suddenly realizing that she had just acted and that her action was profoundly intrusive.

"Oh no!" she stammered in an upper west coast American accent. "Oh, I am so sorry! That was terrible of me. I usually ask before doing something like that but I was wandering through the gardens to recover from the awful session I just finished, and you two were so beautiful and the light through the trees--" Her shaking paws lowered the camera, letting it hang from the strap around her neck.

Cat waved the otter over. "It's fine, we just wondered what the noise was."

"Yep, you just spooked us a little," Alder agreed.

The otter thanked them for being so understanding and approached the seat with her right arm extended. The rabbit and puma in turn shook her proffered paw and introduced themselves.

"Nice to meet you both," the nervous mustelid replied. "I'm Willa Kenyon. Scottish and American?"

"Yeah," Alder said. "New Mexico. You're from somewhere in the Pacific Northwest?"

She nodded and smiled, "Outside Portland, by a ways. Been gone for a long time, though."

Cat pointed at the camera. "Digital of film?"

"Digital. Don't have access to a darkroom, so I have to make do."

"How'd it turn out?"

Kenyon blinked. "Huh?"

"The photo," the rabbit grinned.

"Oh!"

She'd been knocked off guard by her uncharacteristic behavior and forgotten about the shot. She lifted the camera and checked the small LCD on the back. She was relieved to see that the framing and exposure had been perfect, however unconscious the shot had been. It would be a gorgeous print; though...

With a sad smile, she looked up and confessed, "It's...good. It really was a great shot."

"So what're all bummed out for?" Alder asked.

Kenyon shrugged. "It's nothing. Sorry for bothering you two."

The otter turned to leave. Cat watched her go with an odd, wistful expression. Alder caught the look in her eyes and stood.

"Hey, Kenyon! Hold Up."

The otter stopped and turned. "Yes?"

"If we wanted a copy or two of that picture, could you do that? And, what would it cost? I can't speak for Cat, but if it's as good as you implied, I might want one to hang in my cabin."

Kenyon sniffed a couple of times and placed her equipment bag on the ring of stones at the edge of the patio. She rubbed her face between her paws and took a deep breath. Whatever was weighing on her got pushed back and her countenance shifted to a professional calm.

"Um...Yeah, I have a tablet in my bag where I can pull up a high-res proof for you two to see. I can quote you for digital copies and prints, whichever you want."

"C'mon over," he said, gesturing to the bench.

With a nod, the mustelid carried her bag over and sat down next to Cat. Alder resumed his seat on the rabbit's opposite side while Kenyon opened her bag and withdrew the tablet. She powered off the camera and transferred the media card to its appropriate slot on the device. Her deft fingers padded across the glass, tapping in a long passcode to unlock the screen. Another series of taps from the home screen had the image filling the display.

The camera had been set to record images in black and white. The shot was bordered on either side by the the tall, ornamental plants that were planted in terraced beds receiving full midday sun around the patio. Low branches from the tree overhead dipped into the upper margins of the frame, providing dappled shade across the stones of the patio, and the pair on the bench in the center.

In the image the puma leaned down, right side facing the lens, with his lips and nose pressed to the rabbit's forehead. The length of his tail curved down from his hips to within a dozen centimeters of the ground, then back up for its tip to curl over her thigh. His paws were on her cheeks beneath her eyes--which were closed, as were his--and her left paw rested on his forearm. Sparks of light fell between the leaves above to fall as glowing embers on his shoulders and back, and bright patches of flame in the fur of his arms, neck, and head. Matching fire edged the rabbit's ears, softly lighting the inside surfaces and draped like a blanket of incandescent lace down her back. Their faces were almost indecent in their contentment. The harbor behind, well out of the focal range of the lens, dissolved into a hazy impression of glittered waves and clear sky with a distant white fuzz representing the Opera House.

"I'll take it," whispered Alder in awe. "As big as you can print it and still keep that quality. I couldn't give a damn about the price."

The otter smiled and looked to the rabbit for her opinion. This came in the form of a fractional nod. Cat hadn't known what to expect, but she could find no fitting words.

"Tell you what," Kenyon said, "give me your e-mail addresses and I'll send you both a link and a password to a private file sharing server. As for prints, I can make it pretty big. But, you'll probably want it no bigger than 45x60 centimeters or so, around 18x24 inches. It wouldn't be good to try and fly home with something that large, so I can ship it for you."

The puma agreed, "Sounds great. How much are we talking and when do you want to do the transaction."

"Oh, I can take payment right here," she said, tapping the border of the tablet. "As for the price..."

She opened another application on the device and entered some figures into an invoice. Finished, she held it out to the big cat. The invoice showed line items for two large format prints, two smaller--desk sized--prints, access to the digital file for one year, and shipping cost. All lines except the one for shipping showed that the charges had been waived.

Alder balked, "Whoa, now! No. No, ma'am. I appreciate it, but I know better than to think you can afford to use the materials for this and not charge for them. Please, let me have the prices and pay you properly."

"Due respect, pal," Kenyon responded, a stern cast to her face, "but that's my business to mind, not yours."

"But, why?" Cat asked, finding her voice again.

Setting the tablet aside, the otter answered by way of removing a wallet-sized photograph from the side pocket of her equipment bag. It was an old picture and well worn. The edges were dog-eared and frayed from handling, but the subjects remained pristine. A younger Willa Kenyon stood over another otter, who sat in a high-backed wicker chair on a wide porch. Kenyon leaned down, much as Alder had, pressing her nose to the head of the other otter. In the seated person's lap was a cloth bundle. A tiny dark face peered out from one end of the swaddle.

"Mara," the otter said heavily. "Mara Jones-Kenyon and our son, Felix."

Alder looked from to photograph to the otter. The tone of her voice was soft and full of love, but there was a thickness to it that she wasn't managing to conceal. The lids of her eyes glistened and she kept twitching her nose as if to stifle a sneeze. The puma cleared his throat.

"How?"

She laughed and wiped her eyes with the back of a paw. "Is he always this perceptive?"

"Most of the time, aye," Cat said.

"Yeah, she's gone. Fifteen years, eight months...four days. Cancer, to answer your question. Wasted her away in front of me. She's why I snapped that photograph of you two. The looks on your faces, that accidental pose. All the good memories came rushing back.

"When Mara finally gave up, I was lost. I couldn't be in the house, where every surface smelled of her. I threw myself into work, finding any gig that I could to keep busy. That's the only nice thing about the jobs I've been doing: there's never a shortage of young idiots tying the knot."

Cat reached out and gave the otter's shoulder a squeeze. Alder studied the paving stones of the patio with unfocused eyes. After a few moments, he glanced at Kenyon and inclined his head somberly.

"I get it. Thank you," he conceded.

She smiled at him. "Nah, thank you two. I capture frilly, substance-free displays of plastic love so much that I had pretty much forgotten that people were still capable of honest affection. This,"--she replaced the photograph and lifted the tablet again, waggling it a little--"is my way of saying 'thanks' to you."

They gave her their information and Alder paid. After parting ways with the otter, they left the Botanic Gardens. They stopped for lunch at a small bistro and continued their tour of Sydney with stops at the zoo and aquarium, giving equal time to Cat's interests now that they had finished catering to Alder's. After that, they made a brief, unsettling visit to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum and concluded their day at the natural history museum.

***

Evening found them back in their hotel room, the rabbit moaning into the mattress as Alder massaged her sore feet.

"Fucking hell, your sister wasn't kidding about this," came Cat's muffled voice from the covers.

The puma just laughed and continued ministering to the aching tendons and swollen pads of her right foot. He ran his thumbs in a series of firm, overlapping, circles along the bottom from her hock to the thicker fur that obscured the large pad at the ball of her foot. From there, he worked around the circumference of the pad, then gently rubbed the pad itself. He kneaded each toe from base to tip between thumb and finger pads. Finished, he repeated the performance with her left foot.

He was drifting higher, starting with the tight tendons that anchored to her hocks, when a knock sounded at the door. The puma stood and padded, shirtless, to the door, much to Cat's disappointment. Opening it, he found the bellhop from the previous evening.

"Gary, right?" Alder asked, leaning on the door jamb.

The boy nodded, less nervous tonight than last. "Yes, sir. I hope you are doing well tonight."

"Better than last night; that's for sure," the puma chuckled. "What's up, Gary?"

"First, I wanted to apologize properly," admitted the boy. "I've thought all day about what I said, or tried to say. It was a rotten thought and worse to try and actually--"

Alder held up his paw and interrupted, "Kid, that's sweet of you, but can it. I ain't offended and just saying 'sorry' on your own like this is good enough. So here,"--he extended his paw to the boy--"you promise me that you'll try an have an open mind in the future, but still maintain enough caution not to get eaten by someone who's actually dangerous, okay?"

The bellhop grinned and shook his paw, saying, "Deal."

"So, that was 'first'; what's next?"

"Ah, this," he said, handing Alder an envelope.

"What's the story?"

"Mrs. Walker wouldn't say. She spoke with the front desk for a while and then sent me up with that envelope."

The puma frowned and his ears perked forward in curiosity. "Hmm... All right. Thank you, Gary. You have a good evening."

"You too, sir."

After he closed the door, Alder wandered back across the room, tearing the end of the envelope with a claw. Cat sat up on the bed and stretched. She watched as he withdrew a piece of paper and unfolded it. Seconds into reading, he stopped and his yellow-green eyes widened in shock.

"...the fuck?" he mumbled, poring over the sheet again.

"What is it, tree?" the rabbit inquired.

"This trip keeps getting less expensive instead of more."

He handed the sheet to her and she noticed the scent of perfume on the paper. It was a hotel invoice for their room showing that their stay had been rendered complimentary. At the bottom was a short note in pen.

Cat read aloud, "'I have spoken with the desk and arranged for your room to be comped. Meet me in the bar this evening.' Signed 'Walker'."

Alder shrugged and threw on a shirt. "Any idea who 'Walker' would be? By the perfume and the "Mrs.", I'm guessing it's not Chuck Norris."

The rabbit snorted and shook her head. She was still dressed, apart from her boots which she stared at balefully from the bed. Alder grabbed his card key for the door and called her attention to the fact that he wasn't bothering with shoes.

"Carpets all the way down, then nice cool marble and some tile. Fuck it," he observed.

"Oh, thank fuck for that!"

The walk through the corridor and the elevator ride went quickly. They waved at the concierge as they passed through the lobby. He waved back, but stopped and frowned when he noticed that they weren't wearing shoes. Fortunately, he kept it to himself instead of browbeating them. They arrived at the hotel bar to find it closed and locked, though the lights were on.

"Weird," Alder mumbled, reaching up to knock.

Before his paw made contact with the glass pane of the door, the human bartender appeared and opened the door for them. They walked through and heard the door shut behind them. As the bartender escorted them to a booth near the back of the bar, the pair shared a look.

"Did you piss of someone in the mafia?" Cat mouthed to the puma, receiving a shake of the head and a shrug.

The greyhound wore a deep blue dress, elegant through the simplicity of its lines and the way in which they accented the body they were ostensibly designed to cover. The fabric was soft and clearly expensive, it's color chosen with care to emphasize the subtler tones of her coat. Her appearance struck such a stark contrast to that of the previous night that it took an awkward moment for the rabbit and puma to recognize her.

"Thank you, Teddy," she said to the bartender. "We'll be fine for now."

He walked back to the bar and busied himself with cleaning.

The dog turned to her guests and smiled. "Mr. Matsubayashi, Miss Caird, my name is Amelia Walker. It's a pleasure to properly make your acquaintance. Please, have a seat."

They responded appropriately to her greeting and sat across the table from her, uncomfortably conscious of the formality of her apparel and the informality of their own. Walker poured a brassy yellow liquid from a bottle into a pair of small, fluted glass tumblers that matched one which sat before her and slid them across the table.

"Miss Caird," she said kindly, "I hope I am not mistaken when I presume by your name and your accent that you are a member of the family who operate the Caird Distillery in Scotland."

"It isn't the most common name among rabbits, so it was a safe bet. I am."

"Excellent, then you should enjoy this," she beamed, indicating their glasses.

Cat lifted the tumbler to her twitching nose and inhaled. She observed with no little surprise, "This is the Quatercentenary Select blend from our estate! I haven't seen a bottle or smelled so much as a drop of this since I was ten. Grandad only blended 250 liters of it and half of that never left the warehouse. It was intended as sort of a 'best of' batch for family and close friends. But, how in hell did you manage to find one?"

The greyhound waved her tumbler toward the bartender. He caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and came over.

"Yes'm?" he asked.

"Teddy, would you mind telling Miss Caird here where you came across this bottle of scotch?"

He squinted at the bunny for a few beats, then his forehead raveled up like a cloth blind, pulling his eyebrows up with it. His left hand rubbed unconsciously at the whiskers on his cheek.

"Not one of Charlie Caird's brood?" he gasped.

Cat's ears flipped forward, and she said, "Aye! Charlie was my faither's faither."

"I'll be damned!" he clapped her on the shoulder. "I'm Theodore Gladstone. My dad, Vernon, served in Korea with your grandpa."

She was gobsmacked. "Buck Gladstone?"

"The same! My dad and Charlie saved each other's asses more times than he could tell me. They were in each other's weddings. Dad moved us out here because the climate back in Britain was doing him in. When your grandfather ran the Q.S. blend, he sent us a case. That's our second to last bottle you have there."

"Small world," chirped Walker. "Something tells me that Teddy's father would agree with us sitting down with this. Before his death he was close friends with my husband, Francis, too. It felt fitting to share this with the people who saved him."

Alder nodded.

"How is he, your husband?" the puma asked.

"Resting at home. 'Severe drop in blood pressure resulting in syncope' was their diagnosis, which is a long line of bullshit that means fuck-all. No one has been able to figure out yet why his blood pressure dropped, but we all agree he was a stupid cunt for being out there like he was. If he weren't so damned vain and headstrong, he might have listened to me and done his practicing with an instructor instead of hiding in the dark. The doctors have him on a portable monitor for the next week to see if another fit strikes him. He sends his thanks."

He shook his head and said, "Anyone could have and should have done something. I'm anyone. I did something. I'm just glad he's okay."

"Modesty is admirable, Mr. Matsubayashi. However, the fact remains that no one else did do anything."

"Please, ma'am. Just 'Alder'. Matsubayashi is both a mouthful and an earful," he said. After a pause to sample the scotch, he said, "You often thank people by lavishing them with expensive booze and paying for their hotel room?"

"No, Alder. It isn't often someone does me a service of this magnitude. Also, I didn't pay for you or room; I merely refused to accept payment for it."

The big cat sighed and leaned back against the back. "Well, it's not in the best taste to thank someone for a thank-you, but thanks. It really wasn't necessary."

Walker smirked at the puma across the table and regarded him through narrowed eyes. "Perhaps not, but it was the right thing to do."

The trio finished their drinks and departed, allowing the bartender to reopen the facility. They stood in the lobby for a moment, saying their goodbyes.

"Where are you two planning to go from here?" Walker asked.

"Well," Cat replied, "the U.S. eventually. He needs to get back to his life and I need to get on with mine; its been on hold too long. I'll be stopping off at home for a bit, to get my shite sorted out, though. If Tree MacWoods, here, manages tae get more time off, I may bring him along."

Alder grimaced. "Ah, hell... You're right. I need to call Jeff tomorrow and see what he says."

"Damn right, you do," the rabbit said with a grin.

The greyhound laughed. "Keep on him, love. Men would forget their tails if they weren't part of their asses."

"But..." Alder began.

Walker winked and quipped, "He forgot his before I came along. Now, if you both will excuse me, I need to be off to check that he hasn't lost anything else."

They watched the dog leave, then headed back to their room. The pair agreed that it had been a long day and resolved to finalize their plans in the morning.

***

They awoke early the next day and Alder called his boss, catching the human at the end of a quiet workday. Jeff confirmed the puma's suspicion that there was nothing of importance going on and that a few more days away wouldn't hurt. His only stipulation was that Alder share vacation stories upon his return, to which Alder laughingly assented. There would be no shortage of those.

After enjoying a leisurely breakfast, he and Cat began making arrangements. He cancelled his return flight and they booked a flight to Scotland with a layover in Abu Dhabi. The rabbit suggested picking up some cold weather clothing before they left, as winter would be in full effect when they arrived. Alder was forced to agree. Little of his travel wardrobe had survived the last two weeks unscathed.

The rabbit had some complaints about the clothing--a small number of light hiking trousers whose legs could zip off to convert them into shorts, some thin t-shirts, and a pair of featherweight microfleece pullovers--that he ended up selecting from a backcountry outfitter; however, he eventually convinced her that his biology would handle the rest. While she was concerned about the protection the clothes provided, she didn't have any arguments with how they suited him. On his long frame, carried with the casual grace that came automatically to him, the outfits still managed to radiate the exact sort of self-sufficient confidence that one would expect of a feline.

They stopped at a hole-in-the-wall pub and took an early supper at half-six. The place had a passable stout and food that could be considered edible after a couple of the beers had passed. Cat's phone rang with a call from the family attorney at six on the nose and she stepped out onto the street to take it. Alder looked up to watch her through the windows from time to time, sipping from his glass and paying close attention to her expressions through the glass.

"How'd that go?" he asked when she sat back down.

The rabbit shrugged and took long drink.

"That good?"

"Actually, it's fine. Bill said I'm good tae visit the States withoot a visa, in the short term. My passport and ID from home should suffice for entry."

The puma folded his paws under his chin and asked, "And in the long term?"

"Well, if I find an employer who is interested in bringing me on, I can have them sponsor me on a petition for a work visa. So there's that. Otherwise, a couple of my brothers and one of my sisters are green card holders and could sponsor me on a family visa."

A red tinge became noticeable on the inside surface of her ears, despite the poor lighting in the pub. Alder cocked an eyebrow and reached a paw across the table. She took it in hers, but looked away toward the windows and the street.

"There's a 'something else'?" he said.

She wrinkled her nose and looked her companion in the eye. "Aye."

"Doesn't look like it made you terribly happy."

"Oh," she temporized, "it isnae that. It was just an awkward thing for him to mention."

"Which was?"

"He...eh," she sniffed, "joked that I could always just get another citizen to sponsor me for a family visa."

The big cat frowned and said, "But, wouldn't they have to be family for that to work?"

"Aye. He was saying--purely as a joke, mind!--that there are other ways to end up as a member of a citizen's family."

Alder caught her meaning. Unfortunately for her, he was feeling mischievous..

"Look, I know there's quite an age difference between us," he drawled, "but I think the feds would catch on to us pretty quick if I tried to tell them I was adopting you."

She patted his paw with hers and scolded, "You know what I mean, y'twat."

He snickered and assured her, "Bun, I don't think you'll have trouble finding an employer to sponsor you. The family thing...that's a bridge we can cross if and when we come to it. I'm not opposed, but we need to know it's the right thing for both of us. Hell, we've spent the past week together, practically twenty-four-seven; all we really need to throw in are some arguments about who turn it was to do dishes and who forgot to put the toilet seat down."

The other patrons in the pub turned at the sound of the rabbit's laughter. When their food arrived, the pair set the topic aside and chatted about Scotland for a while. Alder asked about the topography of the region round her family's estate and whether there were any mountains or parks of merit. The rabbit showed him pictures of some of the lochs, glens, and Munros which she had visited with family and friends in the past. When he laughed at the elevation figures of the peaks, she crossed her arms and asked what was so amusing.

"Sorry, bun," he said. "It's just that the lowest elevation in my park is around seven thousand feet above sea level. Our peaks range from ninety-four hundred to twelve thousand feet, so it's kind of jarring to think about mountains that stop before our even begin."

"Aye, but don't take them for hills," she warned. "Ben Nevis may not come to your mountains' knees, but it kills; especially those who come at it unprepared."

"Hmm..." he murmured, "I may have to see it someday."

"May do. I'll have business to attend to, though; so you'd have to have one of my kin run you up."

He scoffed, "Nah. Someday is someday. I'm not in the sort of hurry to where I've got to go bothering your family."

Cat's ears swiveled forward and she regarded him over her glass. "What's the matter, tree. Dinnae want to let me oot your sight?"

He chuckled, "The last thing any woman needs is the sort of jack-off who won't let them out of his sight. Don't get me wrong, I like seein' you, bun. Truth is, it usually takes me a while to warm up to folk; and the thought of running off with people I don't know kinda scares the shit out of me. I toughed it out in Newcastle because helping people took precedence. But, even then, I still needed time away to decompress."

She nodded and the rest of the meal passed with relatively inane drivel. Cat hadn't consciously been testing the puma; she only realized that it had been a test when he passed with that first sentence. After the pub, they returned to the hotel to wind down the day and collapse into bed.

The last night and day went quickly. The pair of lovers helped one another get themselves ready for the trip to Cat's home and she called her mother and father to advise them that the pair were coming. At the end of it all, they checked out of the hotel, caught a cab to the airport and boarded the evening plane for the next stage in their relationship.

Thirty-four thousand feet over the Indian Ocean, his right paw wrapped around her left, the tawny fur contrasting sharply against the black in the stark glare of the reading lights, and he leaned over to kiss her cheek.

"You know, I think I'm looking forward to this, bun," he whispered. "This and whatever might be down the line."

She smiled and squeezed his paw. "Me too."