any outfit.
I slid them on my wrist.
“Ah! Suh rahna Dahksahna fahnay ta kay! Rah fahnay ta kay! Shahsha, kah Dahksahna, shahsha! Shahsha!” the vendor cried, ending with his hands in prayer position, smiling at me like a lunatic and bowing repeatedly.
“He says the golden queen smiles on him. Thank you,” Diandra translated, grinning.
“How do I say, ‘you’re welcome’?” I asked.
“Nahrahka,” she answered and I turned to the vendor, bowed my head and smiled.
“Nahrahka,” I said to him.
“Suh rahna Dahksahna lapay sahna! Shahsha fahnay ta kay. Shahsha, kah Dahksahna!” he yelled, I laughed and looked at Diandra.
“He says the golden queen is beautiful. Thank you for smiling at him,” she explained and I nodded to her, to him and smiled again.
“Shahsha, uh… good sir,” I muttered.
He bowed, shaking his clasped hands in front of him then turned to the next stall and shouted, “Suh rahna Dahksahna fahnay ta kay! Fahnay ta kay!” Then he bent his torso back, looked to the clear blue sky and shook his clasped hands at the heavens.
“Well,” I muttered to Diandra as we moved from his stall, “you were right. He seems pretty honored.”
After I was done speaking both she and her daughter laughed and it felt really, really good to join in and laugh with them.
We moved through the marketplace and it wasn’t near the same as going to a mall (what could I say? I was a shopper) with my friends from home (something I wasn’t thinking about, I already missed my Pop and was worried about him, I didn’t even want to think about my friends) but it was just as much fun… in a different way. I liked Diandra and the more I was around her friendly, helpful chatter, the more I liked her. And Sheena was a sweetheart and proved, while shopping (and begging her mother for this treat or that trinket) that twelve year old girls were universal… no matter what universe you happened to exist in.
We’d drunk some juice that tasted of mangos that we got from another vendor who was pleased beyond rationality that I partook of her cool beverage when I saw them.
A pen in which… I stopped and stared… in which there looked to be pure white, baby tigers.
“Oh my God,” I whispered and rushed forward to the pen. “They’re so cute!” I cried and looked at the man standing beside the pen. “They’re gorgeous! Unbelievable! Are they for sale?” I felt Diandra and Sheena get close and I turned instantly to Diandra. “Do you think they’re for sale?”
Diandra was eyeing the tiger cubs. “Erm… Dahksahna Circe…” she started but I shot around her on a bee- line to the man by the pen.
“I want one,” I declared when I was standing in front of him. “They’re white!” I whirled to Diandra. “I’ve never seen a white tiger! I didn’t even know they existed!” I whirled back to the man. “Do they change color?” He blinked down at me and I kept talking. “I hope not. I want to name mine Ghost. No!” I cried. “Casper!” I shook my head. “No, I think Ghost is better.” I whirled to Diandra again. “What do you think? Casper or Ghost?”
“I think, my dear,” she moved closer, “that you should discuss this with your king.”
“Why?” I asked and her brows knit.
“Why?”
“Yes, why? He’s The Tiger, he’s got to like a baby one,” I stated.
“Dahksahna Circe,” she said softly and took my hand, “he is The Tiger and you are his Tigress, but you are introducing a pet into your family. Not a cat or a dog or a bird but a dangerous carnivorous animal. You don’t even know how to speak to your new husband in his language. I think, perhaps, you should settle into –”
“Look at them!” I exclaimed, throwing an arm out to the pen of cute, cavorting baby tigers. “They’re adorable. They’re not carnivorous animals.”
“Even now, my dear, I suspect they eat meat but even if they don’t, they will,” she replied rationally.
“So?” I replied irrationally, as I had done, all my life, before my mother died and after, anytime I saw something I wanted and I wanted that something bad. “I eat meat too.” I returned irrationally.
“You don’t kill it and chew it raw off the bone,” she retorted.
This was true.
I bit my lip and looked at the animals.
Then one of them loped to the side of the pen, sat on its behind, looked up at me and made a noise I swear, I swear, I understood as “Loolah” which, I had learned from Sheena that day, in Korwahk meant “Mama”.
My body went still and I stared at the creature.
“Oh dear,” Diandra muttered, I looked at her and I knew she heard it to.
“Did that… did that…” I swallowed, looked at the cub and back at Diandra, “did that baby tiger just –?”
Another mew from the tiger cub which I understood again as Loolah.
I took a step back.
Holy moly, the animal was speaking to me.
Diandra sighed, reached out and grabbed a boy running by, spoke swiftly to him, the boy peered up at me and dashed away, darting through the crowds.
I paid little attention to this. I was staring at the cub.
“That creature called me Loolah,” I whispered.
Another noise which meant another Loolah then another noise that I heard as “gahsee” and Diandra spoke to the man which meant she heard it too. He moved, bent, opened the lid on something that was sunk into the ground and came out with a bottle made of wavy glass with a weird kind of nipple on the end and that bottle was definitely filled with milk.
“Gahsee,” Diandra whispered to me, “means hungry.”
The creature was speaking to me!
I could hear baby tigers talk to me in this world!
How bizarrely, amazingly, fantastically cool!
The man came back to us, bent over the pen, scooped up the tiger cub, turned and without hesitation dumped her in my arms. I automatically held on as he jerked the bottle to me.
“Oh dear,” Diandra muttered again as I looked down at the baby tiger in my arms.
All I felt was the soft, thick fur of the cub, the pads of its cute, fluffy paws. All I saw was her proud nose and rounded ears and beautiful, pale blue eyes looking up at me with complete trust.
Oh shit. I was in love.
I turned the cub in my arms, took the bottle from the man and offered it to the baby tiger.
Her big, pink tongue lashed at the nipple then she started to feed.
Yep. Totally in love.
I turned shining eyes to Diandra. “Honey, I’m so freaking totally in love,” I whispered.
Her eyes moved over my face then she looked at Sheena and whispered, “Oh… dear.”
Sheena giggled.
I dropped my head back to the cub, cradled her and rocked slightly side to side.
“Casper?” I called experimentally and the cub just sucked, eyes closed. “Ghost?” I called and the cub’s eyes opened then slowly closed again. “There it is then,” I decided in a quiet voice. “You’re my Ghost.”
Five minutes later, when the bottle was nearly drained dry, I heard hoof beats, my head came up and I belatedly felt that the vibe in the marketplace changed.
I turned my head and knew why.
Lahn was galloping our way on his big bay stallion complete with a glossy black mane and tail and black around all four hooves and partly up his legs.
I took a step back as he galloped toward me and reined the horse in at the last minute, jerking him to the side so Lahn could get close, turn his head and stare down his nose at me.
I looked up at my husband in the broad daylight, a sight I’d never seen.
He had a fabulous chest. It was huge but it was well-defined and I could see my nail marks had scabbed over under his shoulder. Ditto in regards to the huge, well-defined and fabulous parts when it came to his shoulders. The muscles of his thighs could be seen through his hides. Gorgeous brown skin everywhere. Thick,
