Chapter 4
The no-hair was asleep, a real sleep this time. He’d finished feeding the creature the meat broth, and almost afterward he’d closed his eyes and gone to sleep. TwitchEar decided that it was safe to leave him for a bit, and padded out of his tent in search of dinner for himself. While he could make himself a meal from the dried meat and supplies in his tent at a pinch, he preferred to get a real meal from the communal cooking pit in the center of the camp.
He greeted some of his folk as he passed them, and they all returned it. TwitchEar was well liked among his people. Suddenly a bolt of golden-brown lightning dashed up to him, and began to jump up and down in front of him. “TwitchEar, is it true?!” a high young voice demanded eagerly. “Do you REALLY have a no-hair in your tent?!”
His upper lip wrinkled in a smile at the excited kitten dancing around in front of him. “Yes, it’s true, Darter,” he replied. “I do have a no-hair in my tent.”
The kitten made a chuffing nose. “Lucky! Can I see it?” he asked, squirming in his delight and eagerness. His tail stuck up in the air, quivering and twitching.
TwitchEar growled in amusement. “Maybe later,” he told the kitten, stroking the boy’s head fondly with his hand.
“Aww! Why can’t I see it NOW?!” Darter demanded unhappily.
“Because the no-hair is sick. I want him to get better before I let any of our people see him other than the healer.”
“Oh,” the kitten accepted this statement philosophically, because as long as no one else got to see the fascinating no-hair creature then it was all right that he couldn’t see it either. “But you’ll let me see it as soon as it’s feeling better?”
“Of course. You’ll be the first one I invite to see him,” TwitchEar promised.
Darter beamed up at him. “My thanks, TwitchEar! Oops, gotta go! My mother’s looking for me!” he ran off as quickly as he’d come, headed for the adult female waiting for him nearby.
TwitchEar lifted a hand to Darter’s mother in greeting, and she nodded as she put her hand on her kitten’s head. He continued on his way, headed for the communal cooking pit again. He found a small group gathered around it,
And a lovely smell was rising up from the pit. A huge side of meat was being turned on a spit by two large hunters, and the meat had been rubbed with herbs and stuffed with tubers and roots to be roasted along with the meat. It smelled like it would soon be done. His mouth began to water at the odors, and he swallowed in anticipation.
“Hey, kitten,” a familiar voice rumbled, and he turned to see his sibling BroadPaw approaching.
“BroadPaw,” he replied, once again forgoing protesting being called ‘kitten’.
“How’s your no-hair? Besides being pale and hairless?” BroadPaw asked, cocking his head a bit.
“I had the healer look him over. She says that he needs to be fed as much as possible, because he’s thin for one of his kind. And he had some awful marks on his back, and she said that other no-hairs might have done that to him,” TwitchEar said with a shudder.
His brother snarled and spat contemptuously. “I’m not surprised. Those creatures are not only filthy and disgusting, they’re also vile and cruel.”
“We don’t know that they’re all like that,” TwitchEar protested. “My no-hair…”
BroadPaw blinked. “YOUR no-hair?” he asked. “You really do think that that thing is a pet of some sort, don’t you?”
“No!” TwitchEar said truthfully. “He’s not a pet. He’s a thinking, feeling being just like you and I. And he’s a helpless being at the moment, one who needs me to look after him,” he added stoutly.
BroadPaw chuckled gruffly. “As you say, kitten. Whatever makes you happy. Just make sure that it’s housetrained, or you’ll end up cleaning dung out of your tent just as though it were a pet.”
TwitchEar bristled a bit at his condescending tone, but BroadPaw slapped him on the shoulder and laughed before striding off to see if the meat was done. He sighed. He loved his brother, but BroadPaw could be so irritating sometimes…still, he’d been kind enough to bring the no-hair back to camp for him, and he’d only teased TwitchEar a little about the creature so far. That was the best that he could expect from his brother.
His thoughts were interrupted when a wooden bowl was thrust into his hands. “Here, kitten. Eat,” BroadPaw said.
“My thanks, BroadPaw,” he said, taking the bowl and sniffing happily at its contents. The meat was perfectly cooked, and there were roasted tubers and roots in the bowl as well. He picked up a piece and put it in his mouth, half-closing his eyes in pleasure at the taste as he chewed vigorously.
BroadPaw had a bowl of his own, and was eating a piece of meat himself in a leisurely manner. His eyes were roaming around the camp, but they settled on something and sharpened into an intent stare. TwitchEar followed his gaze, and saw that his brother was looking at a female hunter named Dewclaw who was standing on the other side of the communal pit with a small group of friends. She was an unmated female, and quite pretty. His brother growled half under his breath, never looking away from the huntress.
TwitchEar grinned to himself. His brother’s relationships with females had always been casual things before this, but his interest in Dewclaw seemed of a much more serious and intent variety than usual. Perhaps now that he was grown up and could take care of himself, BroadPaw was contemplating finding a mate and having some kittens of his own. That was good. He didn’t want his brother to be lonely, not after the good care that BroadPaw had always given him after their mother had died. And TwitchEar knew that he’d enjoy being an uncle, very much. He’d always liked kittens.
Thoughts like these led to other ones, and his chewing slowed as he frowned as little to himself. Unlike BroadPaw, he’d never found himself being drawn to a particular female so far. While he liked females, the very sight of them didn’t make him want to go sniffing after them like a dog in heat. TwitchEar had always supposed that such urges would come in time, but the truth was that he was now a mature(if still young) adult and he STILL didn’t look at females in that way. Would he ever?
Disturbed by these thoughts, he shrugged his shoulders uneasily. If he didn’t start to feel that way, what could he do about it? It wasn’t as though he could make himself like females if he didn’t. Still…he decided to say something to his brother, because BroadPaw often seemed to have all the answers.
“BroadPaw?” he asked tentatively, drawing his brother’s attention away from the huntress at last.
“Yes? What is it, kitten?” he only sounded mildly annoyed that TwitchEar had interrupted his female watching, for which he was grateful. He didn’t want to make his brother angry at him.
“Hurr...you like that Dewclaw, don’t you?” TwitchEar said softly.
BroadPaw blinked, then showed his fangs in a toothy smile. “Yes, I do. What of it?”
“Nothing! Except…” TwitchEar trailed off uneasily, looking down at the ground. Then he continued very softly: “I’ve never looked at a female the way that you and all of the other males do. Is there something wrong with me?”
The anxiety in his voice made BroadPaw growl a little. “Don’t you ever think that, kitten,” he snarled. “There isn’t anything wrong with you at all.”
“But!” his eyes flew back up to meet his brother’s. “Why don’t I feel the way about females that you do?”
BroadPaw snorted. “This is why I still call you ’kitten’,” he said with a certain amount of brotherly scorn. “You’re still a child about most things. It’s because you aren’t interested in females for mating purposes, that’s all. You’re most likely interested in other males, instead.”
TwitchEar’s ears lay back against his skull in astonishment. “I’m…how…?”
BroadPaw clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “It doesn’t happen very often,” he began easily, “Because if it did, there’d be no new generations of kittens and our people would die out. But sometimes, a male is born who likes other males, or a female is born who likes other females. Who want to mate with those of their own sex. That’s just the way it is. Nobody minds, because you like who you like. There are a few mated pairs among our folk - LongSpear and SharpFang, to name just one. To tell you the truth, kitten, I’ve always assumed that you’d turn out that way. I would have been surprised if you’d started trailing after females.”
“Oh,” TwitchEar was somewhat flummoxed by his sibling’s words. “If I’m…that way…what should I do?” he asked uncertainly.
BroadPaw grinned. “Go and find another male that you like the look of, of course,” he said, his voice still full of genial scorn. “It’s as easy as that. He might not be the same as you; it’s best to find out beforehand and not embarrass yourself. But if it turns out that he likes other males just like you do…well, then you let what’s natural happen.”
TwitchEar nodded, but then hesitated. While he knew about the specifics of mating among males and females(when he’d been living with BroadPaw, he’d gotten a thorough education in that - sometimes every night), he didn’t exactly know how two males mated. “Umm,” he hummed uncertainly, “What IS natural for two males, BroadPaw?”
His brother snorted in disgust. “You really need to find a male who has some experience with this, TwitchEar,” he told his brother. “Because that is not something that I am going to explain to you in detail. For one thing, while I know something about it, I’ve never actually tried it for myself so I can’t be too specific.”
“oh,” he said again. His tail twitched behind him nervously, because he was thinking about trying to find a male who might have some idea about what it was like when two males mated. And when he DID find one, what if he wasn’t interested in that male? This all seemed terribly complex to a young and naïve creature like himself. Maybe he’d just let it lie for now, and concentrate on taking care of his poor, helpless no-hair. That seemed a far easier proposition than diving into the whole mating thing, when he definitely wasn’t ready for the complications it was sure to bring him anyway.
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