Hikari was feeling a little blue today. Now if only that meant physically blue. But, no, he was physically pink. And purple. Well, purple in one eye. He liked that purple eye though, it was the one marking he had that he could match to his mother. Well, the face marking, near his eyes, that looked kind of like mom’s. But hers were black and…well, more black which he supposed must technically be gray. His were pink. And white. If it weren’t for Satomei he’d have thought he didn’t even belong to her at all!
And if he didn’t belong to his mother, then what else was there? His father, whoever he was, didn’t want them. And mama said she didn’t know who it was anyway, and often wound up going off on some story about some male she’d met. Hikari dreaded that he might grow a mane when he got nearer to coming of age. What if the male his father turned out to be was a lion? Mama liked them okay, and he didn’t doubt that she would love them anyway. But his aunty…he loved his aunty and she didn’t like lions. What would he do if he were half lion?
He didn’t want to know.
Glumly, he planted himself beside the rock he’d once curled up on with his aunty. She’d had cubs since then, he’d learned. Had they been there on the rock with them? Thanks to his mama, he knew a lot of how cubs worked, though some of the details might have gone a little over his head… still. It would be nice to know for sure that he wasn’t going to be hated when he got a little older. Mama’s stories weren’t exactly reassuring.
