Chapter 11 – Oasis

To say my marriage was loveless almost sounds too charitable.  ‘Loveless’ could mean there’s no regard for one another in a romantic sense, but at least there’s mutual respect.  
My wife and I fought more than my own parents had.  We said things to one another that make me sick to think about, and if our son had ever grown old enough to understand what was happening in our house before we’d all been separated, it would’ve been hell for him.  
Some people are not meant to be together, no matter how much circumstances try to force them to be.  Just because Ishaya and I were capable of making a pup together doesn’t mean we were ever meant to.  Amon was a consequence of the fact that at the beginning of our marriage, I thought we needed to try to be parents.  I loved him, but he didn’t change the problems between Ishaya and I.  If anything, he became the new focus of all of our anger towards one another, and the source of most of our arguments.
We were so fucked, from the start.  People shouldn’t be chosen for one another by their parents, and their criteria for spending their lives with someone certainly shouldn’t be dependent on pelt color.  There were other jackals near the Hyronses that just weren’t golden jackals, hell, even a few wolves and other canines.  I’m not sure who can make pups with who, or even if that really matters in the end – there were orphans on every corner of the city that we could have raised if I’d married just about anyone.  But Ishaya and I brought out the worst in one another, and I can love my son and still admit that the marriage that created him was a mistake.

Only one other woman aside from the lioness chooses to come with us in the end, and it’s the meerkat.  I’m not sure what awaits the others, but I know they’re likely to be caught if they don’t just turn themselves in on their own.  I try not to think about it much.
Ahsan managed to get us two horses in the end, not enough to keep us all mounted, but enough to carry our provisions.  Our escape from the village went relatively unnoticed, the blazing fire that used to be the brothel quite the distraction.  That, or no one in the small village thinks they’re up to taking us on.  The second seems more likely.  They’ve probably sent a messenger for help already, though.
If we’re lucky, they’ve sent for help to the Sura plantation, and they’ve got their hands full already.  We might have a little lead time.
The lioness insists we take a circuitous path through the dunes west of the village, because the shifting sands there will cover our tracks relatively quickly.  Raja doesn’t trust her, but I suspect that’s because he doesn’t like listening to a prostitute.  Or a woman, for that matter.  
We travel for as long as we can manage, but once it starts getting dark and the scrubland begins to lose its heat, my body won’t avail me any longer.  Ahsan and the meerkat had gotten up on the horses hours ago, and they’re slumping in the saddle.  Even Raja’s feet are dragging.  We’d taken a short rest after we’d gotten provisions, but we haven’t had any proper sleep for almost two days now. 
We make ‘camp’ in the wind-sheltered lee of a large rocky ridge, ringed by small, tough little trees and scrub grass.  Raja starts us a fire while I pass the water skin around, cautioning everyone to ration.  
“About how long?”  I ask Lavanya, taking stock of our limited supplies.
“A little less than two days from here, I think,” she says, narrowing her eyes and looking to the dark horizon.  
“If the clans don’t run the roost at this place, who does?”  Raja asks, leaning back against the boulder and stretching out his long legs.  For some reason, he felt the need to remove his loin cloth when we settled down for the night.  He insisted he just couldn’t tolerate the feel of the thing any more, until we can find some place to wash.  To be fair, most of our clothing is filthy.  But I think it might have a lot more to do with the fact that we have female guests.  I can’t imagine the kind of ego it takes to believe you’ll impress a prostitute, but he’s getting more looks from Ahsan than any of the women.  And that might just be because the hyena’s as befuddled by his display as I am.
The lioness doesn’t even look his way.  She’s made a point of ignoring him almost from the moment we met.  But Raja’s question was actually a good one.
“Lavanya?”  I ask, tilting my head to force her to look me in the eyes.  
She eventually does, then replies, “Women.”
I blink, uncertain what the vague response means.  Raja anticipates me, sounding irritated now.  “What kind of women?” He asks.  “Clan women?  Do they have warriors, or is it just another brothel full of whores?”
She slowly turns to regard him, narrowing her gold eyes.  “Those are the only two types of women you know, aren’t they?  The women who subjugate you, and whores.”
“I speak as I find,” the cheetah growls back.  
“Surely you had a mother at some point.  Which was she?”
I ready my body to stand, to get between them as the cheetah’s hackles raise and he flashes his teeth, but the lioness speaks again before things escalate.  
“You asked me who ran this oasis, and I answered you,” she states calmly.  “It is run by women.  Of all sorts.  If that isn’t enough of an answer for you, then I’ll be clearer.  They aren’t clan women, although some of them are hyenas.  They aren’t all servants like us, but some of them are.  They are enemies to no one, except those who wish them harm.  They simply live out their lives there.”  She narrows her eyes.  “And absolutely none of them are whores.”
“How welcome are we going to be there?”  I ask pointedly, looking between myself, Ahsan and Raja.
“They’ll protect anyone in dire need for a short time,” she says, then looks again to Raja.  “Although men like him will not be tolerated long.”
“What exactly have I ever done to you?”  Raja snarls.  “I haven’t so much as laid a hand on any of you.”
“All you’ve done since you walked into our brothel is posture and intimidate,” Lavanya replies, evenly.  “Don’t think I don’t know your game.  That’s the thing about us whores,” she emphasizes the last word.  “I’ve seen enough men in my time that I can figure them out in their first few words.  You know what strong men, truly strong men all have in common?”
She looks back towards me for a moment, then to Raja again.  “They don’t want anyone to know how strong they are.  They don’t need to posture, because they know that when the time comes for them to prove their worth, they can and will.”
“Alright, enough,” I cut them both off before this can escalate.  “Lavanya, you’re as damned as we are if the hunters catch us, so I’m going to trust that you’re taking us some place safe.  We should have a few days on them, considering their nearest stronghold is the plantation, and they’re a mess right now.  Hopefully, they’ll have no idea where we went.  Is this oasis well-known?”
“It’s location is a well-guarded secret,” she assures me.  “I only knew of it because I’ve sheltered there before, and I was led there by one of the women who lived there at the time.”  
“I hope you’re right,” is all I have to say to that. 
Things begin to calm down after that, mostly because everyone’s exhausted.  I spent the small amount of coin we had on water and food, so we don’t have anything in the way of bedrolls, but Ahsan’s busied himself grabbing and pulling up grass to make a small ‘bed’ of crumpled weeds, and it’s looking pretty inviting by the time I make my way over to him with the water skin.
“Here,” I offer it to him.  
He takes it, then before I can even ask, moves to the right edge of his little grass bed to make room for me.  I’m more than willing to take him up on the offer, moving in beside him and slowly settling down onto my side.  As soon as my body comes to rest, I’m more comfortable than I think I’ve ever been in my life.
Ahsan drinks carefully, then stoppers it and hands it back to me.  He gingerly reaches out for me, and I reach back and wrap an arm around his waist, to let him know he’s welcome to get close.  Before long, his body’s pressed up against mine and I’m too tired to contemplate any more whether or not this is right.  It feels right.
I slide my palm up his arm and bring it around to cup one of his ears, stroking the soft velvet there.  He closes his eyes and leans into the touch, and just seeing the smallest hint of peace come over his features melts away the rest of the world.  
“How are you feeling?”  I ask softly.  He hasn’t said much since the plantation, and I have no idea what’s in his mind.  I know that just because he’s been quiet doesn’t mean he’s not roiling inside.  I know, because that’s how I’ve felt.
“Terrible,” he replies honestly.  “But,” he pauses for a moment there, “I’m . . . trying to feel better.”
“We had a very bad day,” I say with a pained smile.  “It’s alright to feel bad about it.  You don’t need to put on a brave face.”
“I’m not brave,” he says, sighing quietly.  “I’d never pretend to be.  It’s not that.”
“You stood up to them, at the manor,” I say, choosing my wording carefully.  I don’t want to remind him about his ‘mother’ while trying to comfort him.  “You didn’t go quietly into that room, you fought back.  That took nerve.  You’re not the terrified kid you were when we first met.  I’m . . . really proud of you, Ahsan.”
He opens his eyes a sliver, and gives a fragile smile.  Then it falls away, just as fast.  “I shouldn’t be this sad, though.”
“Ahsan, it just happened-“
“And we got out,” he emphasizes, his voice cracking a bit.  “We’re free, Kadar.  I can’t . . . squander that . . . by being weak and bringing everyone else down.  I don’t want to mourn everything that happened, I want to . . .” he’s silent a few beats, as though considering.  Then he looks up at me.  “I want to honor what Lochan and all the other servants who fought at the manor did for us.  Like they do when they celebrate the souls lost in the last war.  They wouldn’t want us to remember what they did in misery.  Right?  I know Lochan wouldn’t.”
I stroke my fingers through his mane.  “I guess that’s a good way to look at it.”
He sniffs, burying his nose against my collarbone, his voice coming out somewhat muffled.  “I can’t be as strong as you, Kadar.  But I’ll try.”
I sigh, holding my tongue.  I can’t explain to him how weak I feel.  It’s a rare moment in my life that I allow anyone to see inside that deep.  After Vikram, I . . . couldn’t hide it from him.  Maybe that’s why we’re closer now.  Because for just one night, I didn’t have to be the strong one.
There are so many things in my head that I’ve never shared, never told anyone about.  Even now, the hyena lying next to me, probably the closest person in the world to me right now, doesn’t know the worst of me.  My mother never knew, my wife knew more than I ever wanted her to, but not entirely the truth.  
What the lioness said resonates inside me.  Strong men don’t need to appear as though they’re strong, they just are.  I’ve spent my entire life appearing to be stronger than I am.  And most of the world is fooled.  
The reality is, I’m so weak inside, I can’t even admit to it.  I’ve never known how to be any other way.  And this is why.
The people in my life who’ve always needed me have needed that sturdy, unwavering man.  The tree with the deepest roots, to cling to in every storm.  Ahsan needs that man right now, and I can continue to pretend to be him.  So I will.

	The desert grows flatter and more barren the more inland we head.  I’m beginning to wonder if we’ve been following a madwoman when finally, on the third day, we see a wavering distortion in the distance that vaguely resembles a grove of trees.  A large grove.
	The land around it is more fertile than we’ve seen nearly anywhere else, the grasses growing to knee-length in places, with the occasional gnarled, wind-swept tree bravely jutting out.  
	Lavanya comes to stand beside me, sniffing the wind.  Her ears flick back and she silently eyes the horizon for a time, before murmuring, “We’ve been spotted.”
	My hand instinctively goes to my shotel, but she grabs my arm to caution me before I can pull it, shaking her head.  “Do not produce weapons,” she warns.  “Or they’ll kill us where we stand.”
	“Who?”  My eyes dart across the grassland.  “Where?”
	“Just follow me,” she instructs and steps past me into the tall grasses, making her way towards the distant grove.  Ahsan and Raja look to me uncertainly, Ahsan in particular seems on-edge.  His big, broad ears flick from side to side, and he must have smelled what Lavanya did, because he keeps sniffing at the wind, presumably trying to discern where it came from.
	My own nose isn’t availing me.  All I can smell are the date palms in the distance.  They remind me of the Hyronses, and with that’s come a wash of memories that’s making it hard to focus on anything else.
	“I smell smoke,” Raja comments quietly as we move.  “Cooking fires.  Olive oil.”
	Ahsan nods.  “There’s definitely a community ahead.”
	“I’m curious why the hyenas or the lions have never claimed this place,” I mutter quietly.
	“They have,” Lavanya says, coming to a stop without any warning.  I nearly bump into her, feeling foolish for keeping my eyes on the grassland rather than right in front me, when the first of the women appears.
	There’s no saving your dignity when a lion, or in this case lioness, prowls up on you.  I argue I should be forgiven in this case though, because after the first, nearly a dozen more rise up from the churning grassy sea, all of them within barely ten feet of us.  And they all have spears trained on us.
	I manage not to make a complete ass of myself, and only jump a foot or so back.  Raja loses his composure completely, flashing fangs and hissing like a cornered feral animal.  I suppose it’s far more humiliating to be surprised by cats when you’re a cat yourself.
	The women are all lioness of varying ages and origins, judging by their differing pelts.  Some of them are marked or painted, some of them wear the large hoops through their ears that are distinctive of lions from the far south, and some of them even wear patchwork armor.  The one thing they all have in common is their gender.
	My hands itch to go to my shotel.  Many of these women are at my back, and more disturbingly, behind Ahsan.  And the historic relations between clans of hyenas and prides of lions are, to say the least, usually violent.  ‘Ancient enemies’ wouldn’t be much of a stretch.  The lion prides are the only groups in Mataa who’ve ever successfully rallied enough numbers to fight the hyena clans for control of the country.  Unsuccessfully, but even still, they’re nothing to be trifled with.
	One of them near the front lowers her spear hesitantly for a moment, taking a step forward.  Her face is painted in dark mud, her figure lean and a bit crooked, and her eyes look somewhat sunken-in and yellowed with age.  She’s wearing a headdress that almost resembles a mane, made of horse hair, and she’s one of the women wearing patched camel armor.  I eye her warily as she approaches us.  I learned my lesson with Lochan.  Age does not equal weakness.
	“Little Lavanya,” she says at last, straightening her spear to more of a walking stick, and putting up a hand to the others.
	“Dela Eden,” Lavanya says, stepping past me and approaching the older lioness, embracing her like they’re kin to one another.  That sets me a bit more at ease, but sweeping my gaze across the other hunters surrounding us, I’m still getting a lot of hard stares, and most of them haven’t put down their spears yet.
	The older lioness pulls back and puts a hand over her muzzle, gasping quietly as she picks at Lavanya’s collar.  “Child,” she says in a mournful whisper, “what manner of trouble came your way?”
	“We can speak over the fire this evening,” she replies, gently taking the older woman’s hand and lowering it.
	The lioness finally catches my gaze and narrows her eyes at all of us, taking us in.  I feel like she’s staring through me.
	“Who are the men?”  She asks flatly.
	“Refugees, the same as I am,” Lavanya answers.  “I wouldn’t have made it here without their help, Dela.  Please be kind to them.”
	I blow out a breath, hoping they won’t hear or see my relief.  I’m extremely glad my faith in Lavanya was not misplaced.  She comes off so cold, so dispassionate, I honestly don’t know what to make of her just yet.  But she seems to have kept her word so far.
The older lioness – Dela, I think she called her? – begins to circle us, reaching out with the blunt end of her spear at one point to push it against my shoulder.  “This one’s big.”  She looks back to Lavanya.  “They’re all very large men, Lava.  We have young, and some fled from the territory skirmishes to the southwest.  Some with child.  They will make everyone uncomfortable.”
“Don’t talk about us like we can’t understand you, damn it,” Raja speaks up, and I fight the urge to roll my eyes.  I could have counted down the seconds until he said something impulsive and stupid.
“Be polite,” I say to him instead, glancing about at the hunting party still surrounding us pointedly.  “This is their territory, Raja.  Their home.”
The lioness smiles up at me, although just barely.  She was probably even taller when she was young.  “Ought to get a leash for that one, hmnh?”  She says, waving the tip of her spear in Raja’s direction idly.
“Don’t talk about me like I’m some beast of burden!”
Dela laughs at that, as do several of the women surrounding us.  I’m seeing spears go down though, so I’m fine with them getting a chuckle at Raja’s behalf, if it means none of us get impaled.
“I like the cheetah,” one of the younger women says from my right.  “Any man who can argue with a spear in their face is a man worth having!”
“Let them in, Dela!”  Another calls out, and soon a few more voices go up from the hunting party in favor of . . . apparently . . . allowing us to live.
“Mmmnnhh,” Dela continues circling us, smiling now, but still apparently drawing out the deciding process.  “I’m not certain we can take them.  The cheetah says he does not wish to be a beast of burden.”
Another round of amused laughter and a few shouts of mockery come from the gathering of hunters, and I’m getting the feeling it all has to do with some kind of private joke I’m not privy to.  
One of the young lioness, the one who spoke up on Raja’s behalf before, yells again, cupping her hands over her muzzle.  “The cheetah can share my rations if he comes home with me tonight!”
I arch an eyebrow, glancing back at Raja, who looks at once confused and intrigued by the literal cat calls coming from the hunters now.  “You seem popular with these ladies,” I point out, smirking.
He begins to say something, before the older lioness smacks him on the shoulder with the butt of her spear repeatedly, punctuating her next statement and actually managing to cow the cheetah.  “No.  Men.  Who will not.  Work!”
“Oh!”  I exclaim suddenly, “Yes!  I mean, no, that’s fine!  We’ll work.  Is that what you meant?”
“This is no Pride,” Dela says, holding up her fingers to count down the rules.  “Everyone here works . . . even the men.  No free-loaders.  No touching a woman unless she invites you to touch her.  No trouble, or you will have trouble.  The last man who we were gracious enough to shelter who crossed us was buried up to his head in the sand and left for the scorpions.”
“Understood, ma’am,” I assure her, putting my hands up.  “We really only need a place to rest for a short time, anyway-“
“You will work!”  She repeats.  “Or you won’t eat.”
“Um,” Ahsan finally manages to speak up.  “If I could . . . what kind of work?”
The lioness looks at him like she’s noticing him for the first time, and her gaze softens quite suddenly.  She approaches him, putting a thin hand up and gingerly brushing it over his cheek and up to his ear.  I feel a brief stab of protective jealousy.
“This one is a gentle boy,” she says.  Then after a short silence, in a quieter tone, she murmurs, “Someone has been hurting you for a long time.”
Ahsan’s eyes widen, but before he can ask her another thing she lets her hand slide away and steps back from all of us, giving us one last look before turning to her hunters.  “They may join us.”
There’s a raucous chorus of cheers from the women, and quite suddenly we’re all descended upon by the throng of lionesses.  It’s a little overwhelming.  They quite literally group around us as we walk and many of them are speaking at once, asking too many questions for me to answer.  At least three of them ask if they can touch my fur or my armor, and I’m not really certain what to say to that.  
At some point Lavanya begins walking beside me, and she gives me a sidelong glance.  “I apologize for their manner,” she says.  “They don’t see many men here.”
	“What is this place?”  I ask, eyeing the trees of the oasis as we draw closer.  I was right, date palms.  And definitely olive trees, as well.  I’m beginning to smell the olive oil, and some kind of flat bread cooking.  We’ve had little over the last day save some salted camel meat, and it was tough and tasteless.  Whatever they’re cooking in the olive oil smells amazing.
	“A refuge,” she says.  
	“For women?”
	“Not just for women,” she says.  “But Dela Eden and her ‘Pride’ . . . do not call it that, by the way, she hates that . . . they have been taking in refugees from the territory skirmishes to the south for some time.  Women who were spoiled by soldiers, and shamed.”
	It takes me a moment to make sense of what she’s saying, but when I do it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  “Shamed?”  I ask.  “Like the untouchables?”
	“Amongst lions it is different,” she says.  “We do not keep to castes.  But, a lioness who has been despoiled before she is married may as well be untouchable.  The violation is a shame she must bear for the rest of her life.  Men may have her but she can never marry.  And if she has a child, her father or her brothers are honor-bound to destroy it.”  She’s silent a beat, her eyes on the ground.  “Or her, if they cannot bear the shame of having her in their Pride any longer.”
	I almost don’t want to ask, but I do.  “Is that how . . . you . . . .”
	“No,” she shakes her head.  “I was married.”
	She doesn’t explain any more than that, so I leave it alone.  
	“Eventually she began to take others in, including myself,” she continues.  “A medicine woman named Uri decided to make this place her home nearly a decade ago, so they take care of ailing and pregnant women now, as well.  And their children.  These women have no other place to go, no place in the world in which they’d be welcomed, or even tolerated.  Their own families have turned on them.”  
	She looks to me.  “It is not that Dela dislikes all men.  But, most men have other options, when their lives do not turn out as they’d hoped.  This place is a last option for the most desperate.  Do not expect it to be a paradise.  The oasis gives very little, it must be cultivated and cared for with extreme patience and devotion.  You will likely be put to work at the well.”
	“Carrying water?”  I guess.  It certainly won’t be a new task for me.  I’ve been carrying buckets of water since I could walk.
	“Pulling up water,” she says.  “The well is very deep.  Only the strongest pull up the buckets.  We had an ox, last I was here, but it was very old.  That is why she laughed at you.”
	“ ‘Beasts of burden’,” I sigh.  “I get it.  So we get to be your grunt labor for a while.  I can handle that.”
	“The cheetah seems to be getting on better already.”
	I glance over my shoulder at Raja, who seems to have had no issue with allowing the lionesses to touch him.  He’s basking in being the center of their attention.
	“At least he’ll be in better spirits,” I mutter.  “Raja’s happiest when he’s being appreciated in some way.”
	“They’ll tire of him eventually,” Lavanya snorts.  “He had better work.”
	“Raja isn’t lazy,” I insist.  “He’s just an asshole.  If anything, he’ll try to impress them all, and throw out his back over-doing it.  He worked hard on the plantation we came from, it was another way he made it clear he ruled the roost.  He’s fiercely competitive, no matter what he’s doing.  Even if it’s pulling up water, he’ll make sure everyone knows he’s the best at it.”
	“You don’t seem to share the same affliction,” she notes, with some evident respect in her tone.  
	“I’ve never really cared what people think of me, so long as I’m respected,” I reply.  “Men who think themselves important bring a lot of trouble down on their heads.  You wouldn’t believe it considering where I’m at now, and what I’ve become,” I gesture down at my armor, “but I’ve never really wanted to stand out, or become more than I am.  I just wanted to make fucking bricks,” I kick at a small stone in my path, out of spite.  “But even that’s too much to ask for, apparently.”
	“Don’t get bitter,” she warns me.  “The people you’re about to break bread with have suffered in ways you can’t imagine.  They won’t want to hear your sob stories.”
	I sigh.  “That’s fine.  I don’t like talking about myself, anyway.”
	“I appreciate a quiet man,” she says.  “You and the hyena will do well here.  Just stick with the strong, silent routine.”
	“You’ve got it,” I mutter.
	“And don’t be afraid, you don’t need to hide it here,” she says, cryptically.  “No one will judge either of you.  And if they do, they’ll do it silently.”
	After that she moves off, and I’m left confused and alone, since Ahsan’s already somehow managed to endear himself to the lionesses.  A few chat amiably with him about brushing out and braiding back his unruly mane while we complete the short walk to the oasis.  I’m glad to see him attempting to be social and more himself again, but when one of them offers to take him to her hut, I decide it’s time to interject.
	“Actually,” I speak up, trying to keep my tone polite.  “We could all use some water, if that’s alright?  We ran out this morning.  Lavanya said you needed some help over at the well, so. . . .”
	“We’re not so cruel that we’d make you work immediately,” Dela assures me, still walking ahead of us.  She chuckles, “No, come.  We will feed you all, and you may rest the night.  Tomorrow, I will show you some tasks you can put those broad backs into.”

	The first night we spend at the oasis is relatively subdued, but pleasant.  They bring us food and water and ask us to stay at a palm-thatched clay hut near the outskirts of the oasis.  I get the feeling the isolation is part of our induction, to assure we won’t make trouble inside the community on our first night.  And to watch us.  
	But they bring us some kind of flat bread drizzled in olive oil and spices, and two bowls, one full of steaming rice, and the other a vegetable curry that may as well be meat, it’s so hearty.  They say hunger is the best spice, but in all honesty, it might be some of the best food I’ve ever eaten, regardless.  
	There’s also some kind of alcohol they drink here, that tastes enough like the bread they make in liquid form that I’m fairly certain it’s made with the same ingredients.  It’s not the worst alcohol I’ve ever had, but it’s definitely meant to be drunk like medicine, not enjoyed.  It puts us all in a content stupor though, and I’m pretty sure that’s the point.  We all sleep like the dead, on some of the best-woven straw mats I’ve ever had the pleasure of sleeping on, in a dry, cool hut.  With real, actual blankets.
	When I wake the next morning, I am the best-rested I’ve felt in years.  Which is good, because we’re joined before long by Lavanya, who was allowed to stay at the main camp, and two other very large women.  A tiger and a warthog.  They’re introduced as our working companions for the day, and finally, we’re escorted into the center of the oasis.
	I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the inner sanctum of the lush, carefully-layered and cultivated land is every bit as lively and busy as any street back home near the Hyronses ever was.  There aren’t roads or brick buildings, just huts like the one we stayed in and pathways criss-crossing between groves of foliage.  Chickens dart about between brush and people, goats and other small animals roam or are led about, and what consists of their ‘market’ square is dominated by carts or crates of goods, being traded or bartered, (or as far as I know, given freely) out.  It’s as vibrant and diverse a community as any well-established village I’ve ever visited.  With one notable exception.
	Nearly every adult here is female.  There are a lot of children as well, and they’re a more even mix,   but everyone near to my age is a woman.  Many of them are lions, but not overwhelmingly so.  I see several rodents, smaller brush animals like the meerkat woman we brought here from the brothel, a mother cheetah with two cubs in tow, even a few other jackals.  No golden, but we’re more of a rarity in these parts.  
	Even hyenas.  They move about here like everyone else, and no one seems to be taking exception to them.  One of them is selling eggs to a small crowd of women, in fact.  She looks to be trading them for vegetables.
	And most importantly, we aren’t the only people here wearing collars.  I’d taken my armor off last night, and I was concerned I might need to have it on for some reason, to cover my neck, but no one else here is covering theirs.  
	We are getting a lot of stares, but I’m certain that has more to do with our gender.  And most of them seem more intrigued than put off by us.  The fact that we’re walking alongside two very large women whom I’m sure double as guards or hunters when they aren’t working the well probably helps.
	“It’s beautiful here,” Ahsan comments as we head through the ‘village’ square.  
	“We have to cultivate wherever we can irrigate,” the tiger explains, giving me a surprisingly pleasant smile.  “So the plots are . . . everywhere,” she chuckles.  “We more built our homes and pathways around the oasis than shaped it to our needs.”
	“Seems a little tricky to navigate,” I say.
	“You’ll learn the paths and where each of the plots are eventually,” she promises.  “We move in teams, anyway.  Usually one group of two will pull up water while the others carry it to the women working the land that day.  That way the first team can fill up buckets while the others are out, and there’s no waiting when they come for more water.”
	“Sounds simple enough,” I nod.
	“The land is endlessly thirsty,” she says.  “Only the palms would really survive here if we weren’t bringing the water up all the time.  It’s a constant task.”
	“Where does the water come from?”  Ahsan asks.
	“Underground,” Lavanya says.  “No one is completely sure why.”
	“When the first settlers of the oasis came here many generations ago,” the tiger says, “it bubbled up in a small pool.  But the pool was very small, and they struggled to grow much of anything here.  When they dug the well, the deeper they went, the harder and more unyielding the rock became.  Dela believes the hard rock trapped all the water down there, somehow.  From ancient monsoons, or perhaps a lake.”
	“The sands covered an entire lake?”  Ahsan looks mystified.
	“The sands shift constantly,” the tiger says.  “They say they can cover entire cities.  All of this could be buried someday, and our lives will be a subject of curiosity for the people who live here then.”
	“That’s a little . . . depressing,” Ahsan chuckles.
	“I don’t think so,” she says, looking back to us with the black stripes down her cheeks crinkling near the corner of her eyes.  “We won’t be here to mourn our own passing, and even if no one alive then remembers our name or knows us, whatever we do here in this place may matter to them.”
	For some reason, her statement makes complete sense to me.  Usually when people talk like this I tend to assume it’s ‘big talk’ and it will go completely over my head.  But the tigress seems pretty simple, and she’s saying things in a way that I can understand.
	“The past is like a well spring,” she says.  “It can be buried and forgotten, but sometimes it can change the lives of future generations.  This place is only what it is because a long time ago, water was lost and forgotten here, somehow.  And now, we bring it back to the surface, back to give life again.”
	I smile just a bit, despite myself.  “You sound like you love your work,” I say, remembering what that once felt like.  
	“You’ll come to love it, too,” she promises.  “I’ll show you.”
	As it turns out, she’s right.

	That night, we’re invited to eat around the community fire pit with the women.  A goat’s been slaughtered, there’s rice, curry and bread, and the general atmosphere is content and comfortable.  Many of the women are gathered around one of the huts near the well, and eventually, I come to learn it’s because one of the lioness gave birth in the afternoon.  The goat was killed in the child’s honor.  A boy, apparently.
	I find myself wondering what kind of future most of these children will have, as I sit and finish the last of my dinner.  Right now, this place is a safe haven for them.  A spot of green in a vast expanse of arid desert, and a rare place of peace and equality in an otherwise vastly unjust and unfair world.  Even here, I can see the scars of hard living written across the womens’ faces and bodies.  Some of them came from the war-torn areas to the south, where the hyena clans and the lions still push for territory.  Many of them bear torn ears, missing eyes or burnt faces, intentional scarring by families displeased by their dowries or their inability to have children.  Some of the scars, I’m sure I simply can’t see.
	This place can only support so many people, though.  Most of these women have to know it’s a temporary reprieve, a place to recover and lay their heads for a while.  These children can’t all grow up here, and even if some of them do, their opportunities are slim in such a small community.  Most of them will have to leave, some day.  Especially the young boys.
	We’ll have to leave in time, as well.  That’s especially hard to accept, watching Ahsan smiling and speaking with the tigress we worked with all day, as well as Dela and some of the other women.  He’s eating a hearty meal and he doesn’t even seem afraid to clear his plate, for once.  
	He’s happy here.  And I could be, too.  If I thought for a second we could actually stay.
	Raja is . . . delirious.  Even after a long day working at the well, which proved to be just as exhausting as Lavanya promised, (although immensely more satisfying than plantation labor) he’s brimming with energy.  He’s a favorite amongst the women here, not even just the cats, and earlier in the evening while the goat was cooking, he even danced with several of them around the fire.  Despite not knowing the various different tribal chants and dances the women seem to favor in this place, the big cat has a natural grace about him that makes his unique golden and black-patterned body mesmerizing no matter what he does with it.  I’d hate the smug son of a bitch for it, but I’m not really trying to compete with him for female attention.
	I’m glad he’s happy, honestly.  Raja’s been an enormous, overbearing thorn in my side since we met, but at his heart I think he’s just a big, lost child.  He never had a chance to grow up, and the world he was raised in fosters exactly the kind of behavior that defines him now.  I think, although I can hardly prove it, that children raised as servants probably turn out one of two ways.  One of them is Raja, constantly bucking at the chains that bind him and seeking to assert himself over a world that’s crushed him since he can remember.
	The other is Ahsan, who at this point, I’d argue is beginning to escape the confines of who they raised him to be.  So maybe there’s hope for Raja someday, too.  If he can ever accept that not everyone is out to use him or put him down.
	I’m so lost in thought, I barely notice when Ahsan kneels down beside me.  When he puts a hand on my shoulder, it startles me a little.
	“Oh,” I blink up at him.  “I’m sorry.  Just . . . .”
	“Miles away?”  He smiles.
	I smile, too.  “No.  I’m very much enjoying being here, at the moment.”  I reach a hand up to his, gripping his fingers loosely just for some contact.  “How are you feeling?”
	“You’ve been asking me that a lot lately,” he points out.
	“It’s been a hard few days.”
	He leans down on his knees, tipping his muzzle down to lock eyes with me.  “How are you feeling, Kadar?” 
	I stare at him, strangely uncertain how to answer the question at first.  I don’t know why, it’s a simple question.
	“I’m fine,” I say at length.  
	“Just fine?”  He asks, his fingers squeezing mine.
	“I’m better than fine,” I amend.  “Very glad we found this place.”
	“Kadar,” he’s still looking me in the eyes, and I’m having trouble looking away.  “It’s been a yard few days for you, too.  And I’ve barely seen you blink.  You’ve spent the whole time worrying about us.  Me, the women at the brothel . . . even Raja.”
	I have an excuse to look away at that, so I do, fixing my stare on the cheetah.  He’s made himself comfortable on an old, weathered cushion, one of many discarded from someone’s hut and now relegated as seating for the fire pit.  He’s got at least three women in physical contact with him, including the one lioness that seemed so fond of him in the field.  I have no idea what he’s talking to them about from here, but he seems to be enjoying having an audience.  And the women are paying more attention to the way the light dances off his fur than whatever’s coming out of his mouth.
	“I’m less worried about him now,” I assure Ahsan, wryly.  “He seems to be doing fine here.”
	“Do you think he realizes what he is to them?”  The hyena asks, with a sly smirk.
	“What, a plaything?”  I snort.  “Honestly?  I don’t think he cares.  Raja objectifies himself, I’m pretty sure that so long as he’s getting what he wants, and the women are getting what they want, it’d be wrong of me to intrude on their fun.”
	There’s something longing in Ahsan’s gaze as he looks across the fire at the cheetah, but I can’t quite place it.  I don’t even get the chance, really, before Ahsan seizes my hand and stands, suddenly, tugging at me to do the same.
	“I want to show you something,” he says.
	“Hm?”  I look up at him.
	He tugs my hand again.  “I can’t explain it.  Just come with me.”
	I stand stiffly, and let him tug me away from the warm atmosphere of the fire pit.  We’re soon making our way down one of the twisting paths that leads through the oasis, and it isn’t long before I realize where we’re going.
	I chuckle.  “Ahsan, we spent all day making trips to the well.  Can’t I just rest my bones for a bit?”
	“It’s just a bit farther,” he promises.  “She told me they’d be out – look!”
	I peer past him into the clearing beyond, where the well we spent all day working in and around sits.  They’ve kept the area clear for ease of access, save a carpet of grasses and other weeds.  In the moonlight, everything’s cast in shades of pale blue, save some notable exceptions dancing about the clearing.
	“Fireflies?”  I ask, dumbfounded.  “In the desert?”
	“Only near the well,” he says, slowly stepping into the clearing.  “They said they only live near where it’s wettest.  The grasses here are always wet from all the well water.”
	“They certainly came a long way,” I say, mystified as I step into the clearing.  The little creatures are bumbling about in the air just as lazily and clumsily as they did over the banks of the Hyronses back home.  I put out a hand, not really intending to catch one, just wanting to chase it a bit and watch it zip away.
	“I’ve only ever seen them once before,” Ahsan says, eyes wide as he watches them.  “When I was really little, we traveled to another plantation, closer to the monsoon lands.  Things were . . . things were better then.  I was still small.”
	He doesn’t mention his ‘mother’, and I don’t want to completely ruin his night, so neither do I.  I hate hearing about how he was treated, though.  Like some kind of doll she never wanted to grow up.
	Well, she’s dead now.  There’s some justice in the world, at least.
	Compelled to return him to the present and stop his thoughts from wandering backwards, I step up to him from behind and, a bit uncertain if I’m crossing a line, move my arm beneath one of his and settle a hand on his hip.
	When he leans back against me, I feel like I’m a kid figuring this out all over again.  I won’t lie, it is odd to be this physical all the time with another man, but that’s only a small part of it.  We sleep next to one another and often touch, and that stopped being strange many, many nights ago.
	It’s more that everything between us is so undefined.  When I was introduced to my wife, I knew before I’d even met her that we’d be married, eventually.  Once we were, I knew exactly what would be expected of me.  I had a lot of examples all around me to look to, a definition to attach to what we were supposed to be to one another.  It didn’t work out that way, but at the start it all seemed a lot simpler.
	With Ahsan I have no map to follow.  I don’t even know myself well enough to know what I want with him.  He has little guile – I’ve known from the beginning what he would want with me, if I was willing to give it.  Even now, even after everything that happened at the plantation, he is unashamed and unafraid of showing or returning affection to me.  And it’s becoming very clear to me that if even now, when we’ve endured the most frantic, tumultuous circumstances, we can’t go a day without touching one another in some way . . . it’s going to keep happening.
	My resolve to resist all of this is crumbling.  Ahsan clearly feels no guilt, no obligation to his misery.  There’s no denying that something as simple as feeling his back resting against my chest makes me feel . . . better, somehow.  Not just about my fucked-up life right now.  I was waiting for this feeling long before I had a collar around my neck.  Before I was even married.  I never found it with her.   
	I don’t think it would matter to me what kind of species Ahsan was, or what kind of appearance or gender he had.  It wasn’t a type of person I was looking for.  It was a feeling.  
	“Ahsan,” I manage to make my mouth move, finding every word hard to push out of my throat.  “I really . . . care about you.”
	He turns just enough that he can look at me, his muzzle open just a bit, eyes moving to mine.
	“But I don’t know what to do with you,” I say, the words coming out all at once.  “I don’t know if I’m just simple, or stunted, or twisted up still from my marriage.  I’m not sure why this is so hard for me, but I . . . I don’t know . . . what I’m supposed to do, here.”
	He gives me a long, silent look, then asks, “What do you want to do, Kadar?”
	I give a shuddering sigh, running a hand up over my brow.  “I honestly don’t know,” I admit.  “I know it sounds stupid as hell, but I have no idea what I want any more.”
	“It . . . sounds familiar, actually,” Ahsan says softly.  “I didn’t know what I wanted for a long time.”
	“I want to be closer to you,” I say, verging on certainty with that statement.  “But I don’t know if I want . . . what a lot of the other men wanted from you.”  I intentionally don’t mention Lochan’s name.
	“We can be close in other ways,” the hyena says, and he does an enviable job of covering up the hint of disappointment there.  He forces a slim smile.  “Is it because I’m a man?”
	“No,” I say, and of that I’m entirely certain.  
	“Kadar, it’s alright-“
	“I’m not going to say it’s something I always imagined,” I say, honestly.  “But Ahsan, your body has never been the problem.  Even if I gave a damn about that sort of thing, you’re just as beautiful as my wife ever was.”
	The compliment seems to catch him off-guard, and he flushes in his ears.
	“I think she’s why this is all so hard for me,” I admit, hesitantly.  It’s so hard to push through this part, this whole . . . laying myself open.  Looking at it as something he’s earned from me though, as something I owe it to him to explain, makes it a bit easier.  
	He waits, silent but expectant.  I’ve told him so little about my marriage, about my life before.  I know he’s always wanted to ask me more, but I’ve shut him down time after time.
	“You were partially right,” I murmur.  “A long time ago, when you told me my marriage was why I’m always waiting for everything to go wrong.  But it’s not that I don’t trust you, or that I’m afraid you’ll hurt me somehow.”
	I drag in a long breath, and my eyes un-focus, his silhouette in the dark outlined by the fireflies flickering around us.  I feel like I’m learning new words.  I’ve gone years without saying this aloud.
	“I hurt my wife,” I say, my throat threatening to seize up on every word.   Ahsan keeps listening in silence, waiting for me to continue.  
	“I got angry,” I say.  “I get . . . so angry sometimes, and . . . I try to remember what my mother used to tell me.  My father used to get angry . . . and drunk . . . and he’d beat on us.  My mother and I.  And she’d always say afterwards that no matter who had been right or wrong about whatever the hell they’d been arguing about, anger was no excuse.”
	Ahsan’s ears have wilted, and he tries to reach out for my cheek, but I turn my head away from him, not wanting to look him in the eyes any more.
	“I remember her saying that . . . so many times,” I say through grit teeth.  “And I always listened.  I was so intent on being a better man than he was.  But it just went on so long, and . . . I was so angry at him, and so helpless.  It just never went away, even after he was gone.  I’d get this . . . burning in my chest whenever I got angry at someone, and this panic, like I had to lash out.  Had to.  I felt that way all the time.  I still do.”
	I shake my head.  “I can’t put it all on my father.  I was my own man when I was married to Ishaya.  I told myself I’d never be like him.”
	“You’re not,” Ahsan insists.
	“I struck her, Ahsan,” I say, in a fierce whisper.  “We were arguing . . . about Amon, and . . . I hit her so hard there was blood on the wall.”
	He falls dead silent at that.  I can feel that I might be ruining everything with him, but it’s too late now and I don’t want to stop.  I need to own up to my goddamn mistakes, finally, and suffer the consequences.  If anyone in my life right now deserves to know what kind of man I really am, it’s him.
	At least he’ll finally understand.
	“She wanted to take him away,” I say quietly, “and she was threatening to go whether I’d come with her or not.  She’d been wanting to leave the Hyronses for years, and she thought she had this . . . opportunity . . . to find work far away, in a port town somewhere.  Some man with a trading company was looking to hire on.  There would have been a contract. . . .”
	Understanding dawns in Ahsan’s gaze, and he drops his muzzle.
	“She was smart,” I say bitterly.  “She knew what it was.  She didn’t care.  She said it was a chance at a better life than the one we had, and I was just angry that the life I was giving her wasn’t enough.  Angry and . . . scared.  It would have been one thing to put our lives on the line for a chance at something better, but we had a pup.  I was terrified of what could happen to him.  You know what can happen to children who are sold.”
	Ahsan’s muzzle trembles.  “Kadar . . . .”
	“I lost myself,” I say, my own voice wavering, my eyes stinging.  “She just kept fighting me and fighting me, and,” my words finally crack at that, “I just lost control.  Amon was the only part of my life that made sense any more, and she wanted to take him away.”  I swipe my palm over my eyes, dragging a breath through my nose.  “She never said another word to me after I hit her.  She just picked herself up and walked away, into our sleeping room.  I was mortified.  I left and walked the city for nearly an hour, trying to calm down, and when I came back she was just . . . gone.  With our son.  I can’t even be angry at her.  It’s what my mother should have done.”
	Ahsan’s trying to take my hands in his again, trying to force me to look at him, but all I can do is shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut tight.  “I destroyed my family,” I say through what I know are tears, now.  “I hated my father for being the way he was and I became him.  I deserve everything that’s happened to me.”
	“That’s bullshit!”  Ahsan says suddenly, cutting me off in a remarkably deep, barking voice for him.  When I open my eyes again, he’s looking straight into mine, his brows drawn low.  
	“Ahsan-“
	“No,” he snaps, “you can’t give them that right, Kadar!  No one deserves what they did to us!”
	I swallow, unsure how to respond to that.
	“We . . . killed people, Kadar,” he says, his voice thinning out near the end of the statement.  “A lot of people.  Just a few days ago.  A lot of them probably weren’t even bad people, they were just trying to do their jobs.  They had families.  They had their own troubles, their own lives.  We killed them because we had to.  Because that place was full of people that were hurting us, and they wouldn’t let us leave.  What did we do all of that for, if what was happening to us was justified, somehow?”
	He tips his ears back, his eyes dropping.  “Don’t you think I feel terrible about everything that happened there?  I . . . killed . . . my mother.”
	“Ahsan, she wasn’t-“
	“She was the only mother I’ve ever known!”  He bites back at me.  “My real mother sold me before I could remember her face, to pay off a family debt.  Matron Sura raised me like her own, and even if things got twisted up and strange when I got older, there was a time when she was kind to me.  I can’t forget how I used to feel about her.  But I can’t forgive her, either.  It rips me up inside.  I don’t know if I’ll ever know how to feel about any of it, except that it really hurts.”
	“You were a victim,” I say quietly.
	“So were you!”  He retorts, then closes his eyes a moment and forces a soft sigh out.  “Kadar, I . . . .”
	Now I’m the one waiting for him to speak.  I give him all the time he needs.
	“I can’t forgive you for anything that happened between you and your wife,” he finally says.  “Only she can do that.”
	“I don’t think I’m ever going to have the chance to ask her,” I murmur.
	“You’re free now,” he points out.  “Your chances are higher now than they ever were before.  Kadar, you made a mistake.  A really bad one, and maybe for her, it was unforgivable.  That’s her choice.  But you have to get past it, somehow.  You’re torturing yourself.”
	“I can’t forgive myself,” I emphasize, my voice rough.
	“Maybe you aren’t supposed to,” he says quietly.   “I think . . . I think we’re supposed to feel terrible about these things.  Forever, maybe.  My mother . . . your family . . . all the people we’ve had to hurt.  If I ever stop feeling awful about it, I think . . . that’s when something is wrong with me.”
	He puts his hands out to my slumped shoulders, gingerly pressing his fingers into my fur and leaning his muzzle forward until our foreheads are resting against one another, and I physically can’t look away from him.
	“Answer me this,” he asks softly.  “Have you ever hurt anyone you’ve cared about since?”
	“I almost hurt you, several times,” I say.
	“But you didn’t.”
	“I still feel that anger sometimes,” I insist with a whuff of breath.  “It’s so hard to control.”
	“But you do,” he moves one of his palms up to cup the scruff along my cheek, chasing my gaze with his own.  “We make mistakes, and we learn.  If you’d hit her and justified it somehow, then you’d become your father.  You have to live with the hurt.  Good people regret their bad choices.”  
	“I don’t think of myself as a good person anymore,” I say softly.
	“It’s been a hard few days,” he says, with a pained smile.  Despite myself, I give him a grimacing smile in return, but it trembles away into a sob after a moment, and I crush my cheek down into his shoulder, squeezing my eyes shut.  His arms encircle me and pull me in, and I eventually do the same, needing him as close as I can possibly bring him.  I feel simultaneously as though I can’t need him enough, and that I don’t deserve him. 
	All I can feel, smell and see is him.  Even the fireflies fade away, even the beauty of this place doesn’t mean a thing.  We could be standing in a wasteland.  He’s here and he’s accepting me, even the worst parts of me, and I don’t know why or how, but I finally just don’t care anymore.  I don’t feel any better about myself, or the things I’ve done, I just feel . . . accepted.  The shame I’ve been living with for so long is heavier and more restraining than any metal collar.  It’s not gone.  But I feel less alone in bearing it.
	His nose presses up beneath my jaw and I lift my muzzle to brush over his, and he grips me tightly, pulling me down into a kiss.  I’m so far from fighting him now.  I feel boneless and strangely weak, in a way that feels liberating.  I let him move one of his paws up to press his fingers through the scruff of fur along the back of my neck, pulling me deeper in against his muzzle.  It’s profoundly relieving to surrender to him, in a way I’ve never felt before.  Like I couldn’t control this if I wanted to.
	We’re moving our hands over each other’s fur like we’re grasping for more purchase at one another, somehow.  It seems impossible to be closer to him, but that’s all I can think of.  My feet feel unsteady, my body shaking and weak, and when he pushes against me, I give way, and we end up in the grass, the fall knocking the wind out of me.  When I gasp, he deepens the kiss.  I never knew two people could kiss like this.
	He moves over me, his tall, slender figure fitting against mine in ways I never thought two men’s bodies could.  My mind is a tumult of uncertainty, punctuated by pops of crackling fire, as feelings I haven’t had in years begin to spark back to life.  The confusion and the contrary, terrible feelings of the evening begin to get a bit muddy, like I’ve been drinking.  But I’d intentionally not had any alcohol tonight.
	We could just kiss and lie there in the grass together, enjoying one another’s presence, like we do when we sleep next to one another at night.  That would be simple.  That would be enough for now, maybe forever.  If you’d asked me this morning, or even just an hour ago, that’s all I ever would have said I’d wanted.
	But something about the way he kissed me, the way he pushed me down into the grass, about the way his body feels over mine, feels so much different than it ever has before.  There’s none of that fear that I’ll hurt him or overwhelm him somehow.  There’s no question that he’s the one leading things between us, and if he’s the one taking control, it’s . . . alright to let go.
	It feels like something releasing inside me.  I give a bodily shudder and gasp into his muzzle, and I allow myself to feel that aching need grow.  It’s been so long, I’ve almost forgotten how overwhelming it can be.
	He’s flush against me, so he feels it almost as soon as I do.  His muzzle pulls up from mine and his eyes are hazy, his body tense.  I can feel his own arousal against mine, and he’s trying so dutifully to stop himself from rubbing against it in any way, but even the smallest movements are making me dizzy.
	“Kadar . . . .” he utters in a soft, strained, pleading voice.
	“Can you please,” I gasp quietly, “just make the decisions from this point on?  When it comes to . . . this . . . I-I just don’t want to feel like I forced you.”
	To his credit, he only looks briefly surprised.  Then, far more sedately, his voice gone a bit husky, he asks, “Are you sure?”
	“Yes,” I insist in another gasp, as our hips slide together.  I try very hard not to sound like I’m begging, but even that thought doesn’t bother me as much as it should.
	He kisses me again then, and I’m very glad to have the option for any more talk taken away, because he’s lifted his body up off of mine enough to move a hand down between us.  When it wraps gently around my now very prominent manhood and slowly begins to stroke me free of my loincloth, everything in my head burns away.  All I can think about is how it feels to have someone touching me again, let alone so eagerly.  When I feel the heat of his own cock against mine and he rubs our hips together, I buck against him without meaning to.  He doesn’t even stop kissing me, he just wraps his soft paw around the both of us, and begins to stroke us together.
	His experience balanced with my inexperience make it sloppy and uncoordinated, but we’re both so hard and wanting it almost doesn’t matter.  Every touch is too much, but not enough.  We’re gasping into one another’s muzzles and straining against one another, the claws of my footpads digging furrows in the dirt and grass, his tongue sliding over mine.
	When he starts to give these little gasps with each stroke of his paw, I’m undone.  Hearing him find pleasure in what he’s doing with me is all I ever wanted from any lover.  I surrender before he does, and discover soon after that the hyena isn’t always the quiet one between us.
	The one thing I’d never considered about taking a male lover was how much messier it could be.  Thankfully, we’re right next to the well to clean up.
	“Tonight has been confusing,” I say in a subdued voice, sometime later while we’re lying nude in the grass, staring up at the stars and letting fireflies land on us.  
	Ahsan briefly looks concerned, turning on his side to look at me questioningly, before I lazily reach out to take his hand.  “Don’t worry,” I murmur.  “I don’t mean . . . bad.  Just . . . I never thought that . . . telling you about my family would bring us closer.  I keep feeling like I should feel wrong about it.”
	“Why?”  He asks.
	“So many reasons,” I say with a huff of a laugh.  “Gods, where do I start?”
	“Kadar?”
	I look over to him.
	“Do you feel any better?”  He asks. 
	I let my head roll back so that I can stare up at the stars, my ears twitching whenever an insect flits past.  “I do,” I say after a time.  And I really do.
	He moves over and curls up against my side, looping an arm around me loosely.  “I’m feeling better, too.”