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discovering kissing.
    When he had completed his exhibition, he planted a palm against each of his jowls and said in a voice both defiant and shaky, "This man before you is part of the community, the race, and the species, yet is somehow separate from them. That notion shocks you, I can see. But, Wren, I cannot tolerate the passive obliteration of all that I am to myself. My deeds have not been so small that they will never be recalled around the fires, yet that foils to satisfy my longing. My life is not merely a public phenomenon, it is a solitary adventure as well." He slapped his thighs. "It is with difficulty that I imagine this familiar body gone cold. These limbs, this trunk, the heart that drums, they urge me, against all my training, to prevail over submission to the collective destiny."
    Wren's mouth opened as tentatively as a mollusk shell.
    "Vanity?" she asked. A wife, even in shock, she made certain that it was less an accusation than a query. "Vanity?"
    "Vanity? I am unsure. It feels different from vanity. If I be but vain, then the demons will kick my ghost from pit to pit. In my defense, I can say only this: I have fought for my people and would fight for them again, let them name the foe. But I am not ready to have them place the crown on another's noggin, though his be as yellow as sulfur and mine whiter than any winter's drift."
    For a long while, Wren sat quietly, poised as if she were a blood-drop on the point of a dagger. Then she said, "You seem to value my opinion, my lord. This then I say to you: It would be painful for me to pass you the poison. I would ache should I find your body still and icy, even though it meant that our clan might easier endure. Your words puzzle me no end. But I trust you as I have trusted no other, save my father. If survival through deception be your wish, then I shall endeavor to support the deceit. Most assuredly, I shall refrain from any mention of it."
    "It is no major deceit. Unless my parents lied, I have lived through but thirty-seven Feasts of Feasts. I remain young and able, no matter what that treacherous hair did shout." Again he slapped his thighs. Then, all at once, the bluster drained out of him. "Ah, but, Wren, you may not have long to guard our secret. I have observed the habits of hairs, and before many mornings there will arrive another as colorless as that last. And another and another, like doves at a roost. Every single day I would have to regard my head in the looking glass, yet I cannot retrieve the glass from the concubines without raising suspicion. You are more than loyal, but there is little use. ..." He slumped down on the fur beside her.
    "I will be your mirror," said Wren.
    He understood and, in gratitude, embraced her until at length he felt his humor return. A slow smile bent back his foliage.
    "I've a mind to lay you down and split you like a rack of mutton. What would you say to that?"
    "You know very well what I would say. I would say those half-formed, half-crazed words the she-panther speaks when in the delirium of her seasonal heat she is mounted by her mate."
    Alobar moved to shut the window against the beginning buzz and bustle of the city day. Then he thought better of it and left it wide. It would be to his advantage, he reasoned, should the populace overhear she-panther yowls emanating from his chamber.

    Days grew shorter. The citadel was hidden by morning fogs. Beets, resembling the hearts of gnomes, were piled in the storage cellars. Ducks lined up to buy their tickets to southern swamps. Mead was jugged. Blades and leathers oiled. Wolves made clouds when they sang at night. Maybe that was where the fogs came from. Everywhere there were sounds of husks cracking, virgins dancing, the rush of bees on last-minute shopping sprees, the roar of altars ablaze with some sacrifice.
    King Alobar was likewise undergoing a season change. True to her word, Wren was his mirror, and approximately once a week she discovered a white settler