Totoka River baby, when I whisper, can you hear?

It is probably best for all parties involved that when it comes to guilt, Coelacanth has a strong natural monopoly. She doesn’t mention her altercation with Komodo because it simply doesn’t occur to her to do so. What she says instead is, “I was — ” mmm, that feels nice; her shoulders, spine, and hips crest like a wave at low tide, one undulating motion that melts into a catlike stretch “ — I worry, Catori…” A tremor shimmies down her spine, and it intensifies when his voice reverberates along her shoulder in a warm ripple of sound and sensation. “Again,” she breathes, fascinated by the heightening frustration that beats in her blood, the shift of her heartbeat from walk to trot.

She tips her head all the way back so that her cheek rests against his. Even the brief bristling of his whiskers tickling her own carries with it something new and different. It’s dizzying, maddening, and she wants simultaneously to throw him off her back and beg him to stay here, protect her. “Am I — ” she whines, tuneless and airy, “ — am I sick?” Deep down, maybe she knows. She is not a stupid creature and by now she’s put together all the pieces in this incredibly embarrassing puzzle — Komodo’s frustration, Aditya’s pained restraint, Sunny and Grayday’s comments regarding her scent, the conversation with Catori. She knows how this ends — but she doesn’t know if Stockholm knows, and she can’t find the words to throw together to ask.

She slinks out from under him, pressing up against him like an affectionate cat, nape, shoulders, spine, and hips stroking the fur of his chest against the grain. She wants to play, to make him chase her, but she is really tired and she missed him so much! “Yours, Tovarisch Stockholm Volkodav,” she pronounces shyly, each syllable letter-perfect for perhaps the first time. She snakes her body against his, rubbing against the thorncollar so it catches inky feathers, and turns her back on him, taking a few steps onto the sandbar and flirting her tail at him. “Mine?”