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Ever since coming to the clan, Sansa had tried to avoid Bahari’s crowd of young ones. They were the same age as her, but they were all so noisy and obnoxious. They always seemed to be jostling for attention, tripping all over everyone and being just plain rude. Sansa couldn’t abide rudeness!

So the red-maned pup had gravitated to Tizi, one of Dikeledi’s daughters. Tizi was older than her, but Sansa liked Tizi’s calm, quiet personality. And soon enough Sansa had almost caught up to her friend in age.

It was just too bad that Tizi wanted to talk about adult things now. Some adult things were all right, but Sansa heartily disapproved of Tizi’s current choice of topic. She wrinkled her nose at her friend. “No, I don’t think he’s handsome. He looks like a … a wild dog.”

The blond hyena laughed at her friend’s reaction. She had known Sansa since she was a pup, and was well-used to how fussy Sansa could get over some subjects. Tizi quite liked Sansa, but Sansa could be awfully high strung at times. Especially when Tizi talked about boys, for some reason. Sansa had never quite grown out of the boys-have-cooties stage. Well, to be fair, Sansa seemed to think most folk had cooties … but especially males. “Oh come on, Sansa. He’s not that bad.”

Sansa’s pretty brow furrowed in a mighty scowl. “He’s awful. I don’t know why you like some rogue anyways.” Not that most of the clan were much better than rogues, but one had to have standards. She smoothed her brow with an effort and tucked her paws under her fussily. Even though she was revolted by Tizi’s admission of having a crush on a nobody, it wouldn’t do to look roguish herself. “You’re an heiress, you shouldn’t consort with some lowlife,” Sansa added sternly.

Tizi rolled her eyes. “He couldn’t be any worse than the male my aunt Bahari chose to father her pups.” That would be Bekeli, perhaps the most unfortunate hyena in the clan. Tizi rather liked poor Bekeli, but he wasn’t the brightest star in the sky. Most of the females (with the notable exception of Bahari) seemed to find him repulsive. She shrugged. “Anyways, it’s only a crush.” That thought made her a bit sad. Tizi would like some romance in her life, she really would, but there was always something important that needed doing. She wasn’t sure how her cousin Zalika found time to relax. At the thought of Zalika, Tizi felt a flash of jealousy. It wasn’t like her to be jealous, but she couldn’t help envying the other heiress her handsome consort and well-behaved bunch of pups. Why hadn’t a handsome hyena strolled up to seek her favor?

“Maybe you should go out and find yourself a nice hyena,” Tizi said. Sansa’s objections aside, she was sadly aware that the handsome rogue she had spotted would likely have no interest in her. She was quiet, she was dull … and truth be told, she was a bit, well, plain.

Sansa recoiled. How perfectly ghastly. All of the male hyenas in the clan were stupid, horribly stupid. Sansa couldn’t imagine herself deigning to … ugh … be with any of them. And a rogue? She definitely couldn’t imagine how dreadful a rogue male would be! At least the clan males were somewhat civilized. She shook her head. “I’ve never met a nice hyena. I don’t think any exist,” Sansa said, a bit stuffily. She didn’t want to hurt Tizi’s feelings, but she had to end Tizi’s train of thought before her friend got any wild ideas about playing matchmaker. That would be abhorrent.

Tizi had known Sansa for quite a while now, and she wasn’t offended at Sansa’s rejection of her idea. She smiled. “Well, you never know. Stranger things have happened.” A handsome hyena had once walked up out of the desert and fallen head over heels for Zalika. Who was to say the same wouldn’t happen for Sansa someday, or even for Tizi herself? It was probably too much to hope for that a handsome male would fall in Tizi’s lap as had happened to Zalika, but it was a hope that Tizi clung to. With her duties she would never have the time to go seek out a male for herself.

Ah, well. Enough mooning around, enough silly ideas. Tizi rose to her paws. “Should we go get a drink? It’s getting hot out.”

Sansa couldn’t bring herself to reply to Tizi’s comment about strange things happening with anything other than a ladylike shudder. She loved Tizi, she really did, but Tizi could be so dreadfully fixed on things sometimes. She was mightily relieved when her friend changed the subject. Sansa had been beginning to worry that Tizi would set them up on some horrid double-date with rogues. “Yes, let’s. If you get dehydrated, your fur loses its luster,” she said, standing beside Tizi. She tossed her head, expertly flicking her red mane back in elegant waves. Sansa’s coloring might be plain, but every strand of her fur shone prettily. She made sure of it.

The blond hyena couldn’t help giggling at Sansa’s talk of fur. For all that she seemed to find males revolting, Sansa was without a doubt the prissiest hyena she knew. Sansa would have made a fine friend for Zalika, if the two weren’t so alike. “I wish my mane looked as good as yours, Sansa.” She pulled a face, rolling her eyes up at her most uncooperative locks. Of course, the prettiness of one’s mane really wasn’t a big consideration for a Queen-in-training, but it would still be nice to be gifted with fur as pretty as Sansa’s.

Sansa privately thought that the coloring of Tizi’s mane was a bit too dusty looking to ever truly shine, but she would never say such a thing to her friend. “It’s because your mother has you working too hard. Staying up half the night hunting, patrolling, learning to fight … if you’d stop doing rough things, it would be much more manageable,” Sansa said. She fixed Tizi’s mane with a critical eye. “I can try to help you, but there’s only so much I can do. I’m really not much of a hairdresser, you know.”

“It’s a rough job, being a Queen,” Tizi said. She didn’t regret having to hunt, to fight, to try and strengthen herself. Someday she would be expected to fill Dikeledi’s role in the clan, and that was a daunting task indeed—but a worthy one. “But I’d love it if you could help with my mane, even just a little bit.” She beamed at Sansa. Her mother Dikeledi didn’t care for soft things in the slightest, but there was no harm in Tizi taking a bit of fashion advice from her dainty friend.

She might even catch the eye of that so-pretty rogue fellow … but she wouldn’t be able to talk to Sansa about it if she did. Sansa was a good friend, but she really wasn’t very fun to gossip with.