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Gliri was heartbroken.

At her brother's urging she had left him and his mate and their cubs to go in search of the lion she had fallen in love with so long ago. Well, perhaps not so long ago. But it felt like it had been a very long time. She had no difficulty recalling his warm smile and the way his blue eyes had lit up whenever she came into view, and she remembered the way he made her feel safe and protected, like a precious treasure. Nothing about him had escaped her storyteller's memory.

The way back to where she had lived with her brother when she and Shazidi had been paramours was longer than she remembered, though, and there was no trail for her to follow. Unlike her brother, Gliri was neither a skilled tracker nor a brave fighter, and so for her the journey back was fraught with fear and uncertainty. Nevertheless, she had found her way to the tree where she used to meet with Shazidi seasons ago. There was no trace of his scent, but she didn't need that.

Gliri had been to meet his family once, and loved them. She knew where they resided, based on the location of their meeting tree, and so she made her way there, only to discover the place uninhabited. Empty. It was as if no one had ever lived there, which was remarkable for theirs had been a family of nine lions. However remarkable it may have been, the fact remained that they were gone, and Shazidi was gone, and Gliri was all alone.

A striped brown lion made his way through the African grass, his coloration ideal for blending in with the browning foliage. It should have been greener, but apparently it had not rained for quite some time in this portion of the continent, and so everything was brown and brittle. Mirsajadi had no difficult hiding in the vertical lines of the plants if he stayed still, but moving without making any sound was difficult, for the dryness of the plants caused them to crackle and break with very little provocation. He didn't like it.

On the other hand, he had always preferred dryness to being rained on, and a glance skyward at the urging of his nostrils, which had detected some moisture in the air, the young lion observed that it looked like the dry spell would soon be broken, which meant that he would soon be rained on. He liked this idea not at all, and decided that the best course of action would be to find shelter before the rain began to fall.

A higher power seemed to smile on him, for he soon became aware of a small den where he could wait out the storm. Cautiously he entered, sniffing for evidence that someone already lived there, but from what he could tell the place had been abandoned for at least a season, maybe more. It would do.

Gliri was, at first, too absorbed in her own misery to realize that she was the object of another lion's scrutiny. She had simply collapsed to the ground once she got out of the rain, distantly relieved that her back entrance still worked, but mostly overwhelmed by the immediacy of her own distress. If she had been a human being, she would have been weeping, but as a lioness she lacked that outlet, and could only shiver with cold and unhappiness as deep as that she had felt when Muscar told her that they were leaving.

Eventually, however, a lifetime of skittishness, shyness, and scaredy-ness brought to her attention the fact that she was not alone and presented her with her usual two options: hide or flee. Neither one was particularly palatable at the moment, as flight would involve a return to the soaking hell outside and hiding was virtually impossible at this point. The little back chamber was barely large enough to accommodate a fully grown lion, and certainly offered no places where a lioness might conceal herself from someone who already knew she was there.

Uncharacteristically, she decided to take her chances that the stranger might not be dangerous. Or, perhaps, she was feeling a trifle suicidal and hoped that he was. Either way, she called out to him, "If you're going to kill me, please just get it over with."

Once the lioness noticed him, Mirsajadi was relieved that she did not take it into her head to go on the attack. He hadn't thought that she would, a pathetic creature such as she seemed to be, but it was always a possibility, and there was no way for him to easily or quickly meet her attack or retreat from it, being still in the passage between the main chamber of the den and this smaller one.

"I had no intention of killing you," he said. That didn't seem to be quite enough under the circumstances, and so he added, "But perhaps you might like to join me in the main chamber? It seems like it would be far more commodious."

He began to back out of the passage, which was too narrow for him to turn around in. When he was fully free he headed back toward the antechamber and settled himself comfortably as if he didn't care whether or not she followed him. In a way he didn't. He did wonder what she looked like when she was clean of mud and dry, but it was really too dark to tell anyway, so he supposed that was a fruitless train of thought. When she emerged a few minutes after him, however, Mirsajadi felt foolishly gratified.

"Do you live here?" he asked.

A consummate storyteller, Gliri could not easily resist such a well-phrased entreaty to tell her tale, even if doing so seemed like it would re-open all sorts of wounds. But then, it seemed none of those wounds had ever healed completely anyway, and perhaps telling a stranger of the events which had brought her to this point would be like lancing a festering wound, clearing out the pus and foulness which prevented it from healing.

"I would like to hear your story," Gliri said. "But first I think an exchange of names would be appropriate, and since you asked first, I will tell you my story before asking you to share yours."

She could hardly believe that she was making easy conversation with a lion she had never met before, about whom she knew nothing except that he had a beautiful voice and had so far offered her nothing but kindness and a willing ear to confide her troubles in. Without realizing it, in her emotionally vulnerable state, Gliri was beginning to develop feelings of affection for this stranger, becoming fond of him as more than a companion in a storm, but without actually loving him. It was odd and because she had never before experienced this sort of feeling she dismissed it.

"My name is Gliri, and I have lived all my life with my twin brother Muscardini," she began. "For a long time we were everything to each other, but then we came here and I met someone else, and that changed everything."

"You're right. It would be appropriate for us to exchange names," Mirsajadi agreed readily. There was a ceremony to storytelling, he knew, and while the rituals might vary, it was always best to know your audience and the storyteller, at least superficially. "My name is Mirsajadi."

He shifted a little in the spot he had chosen for himself, which was almost lion-shaped, but perhaps for a larger lion. He was not uncomfortable by any means, but he did not feel as obviously at home in this place as Gliri did. But then, he also had not lived here for as long as she claimed to have done. He was completely at his ease by the time she spoke her own name, however, and began to tell her tale.

Mirsajadi listened avidly as Gliri revealed the characters in her tale, introducing first her brother, and then going on to foreshadow changes that would come in their life together, though it took her some time to reach that point. He knew when she mentioned a lion with blue eyes and a soft smile that this was the lion she had first spoken of, and that she had loved him deeply. Loved him still, he gathered. A surge of irrational jealousy washed over him and he dismissed it. He had no cause to feel jealous.

When she came to the end of her story, Mirsajadi recognized it for the tragedy that it was and wished that he had something to say to her which would ease her pain. His own psychoses prevented him from even offering her a consoling touch, however. He did very much want to keep her safe and protect her from ever feeling this kind of pain again if he could manage it. If he took her as a banu, he could do that, and then he could return home. Both were appealing thoughts actually.

"My tale is not sad like yours," he said. "But it might interest you. I was born into a pride of lions where the males keep several females as their mates, and they care for each other in different ways according to their sex. Some people who are unfamiliar with the pride think that females are looked down on, but in truth they are protected and treasured."

Storytelling was not a skill he realized he had until he opened his mouth and began to tell Gliri everything, revealing to her more than he had ever revealed to anyone, even his best friend, Arezoo.

"Mirsajadi," Gliri exclaimed softly, realizing that something very uncommon had happened between the two of them. "I can't go with you. I mean you no insult when I refuse you, but I can't. There is still my brother, and I cannot leave him. Even if he has Lipi and even if they have cubs. We are two halves of one whole, and I cannot go without him."

As she spoke she realized how old she felt compared to Mirsajadi, who was only recently become an adult. Her twin brother had cubs who were nearly adolescents. There was a great difference between the two of them, even though they had bonded deeply through sharing their stories, and would bond even more deeply still if Mirsajadi did not take her rejection of his offer as a retraction of hers.

"All I can ask of you, and all I can offer you, is this night. After that, I have to go home, to my family. Do you understand?"

Somehow Mirsajadi had known that Gliri would answer him thus, and while he was disappointed, he was not jealous or angry or insulted. He had never been close to his brothers, but he thought he might be able to understand the bond between one lion and another which would make it impossible to live without them. Not through personal experience, but he was a very intelligent, observant lion.

"I understand," he said. "I will ask nothing more of you than this night, then, and in the morning I will choose my direction so that our paths will not cross in the future and cause you any further prolongation of your suffering."

She nodded her assent, and as he touched his nose to the back of her neck in tacit query she nodded again. Then Mirsajadi shifted, braced his paws, and lowered himself along the length of her body.