The First Way The Varmint Could Have Gotten Into Panae
V: What do you think of there being a stray animal that everyone's more or less adopted? H: I have questions about how it got there, but cool! * She'd been allowed one pet. Ilyena didn't understand the restrictions on which animals she could chose any more than she understood why she was being sent to an Academy. But she was sent, and she abided by the rules she'd been set, and so she took only one animal. She'd resolved to send her pet home at the first sign of distress. Procyons were pack animals, though Ilyena didn't know how important pack was to them. Some animals were gravely distressed by loneliness, but some only gathered others for the sake of survival. An apt metaphor, she thought. Maybe if the little one ripped out its fur and scratched its claws bloody against the sides of its enclosure, Ilyena could take it as a sign that she shouldn't leave her own pack, her mother, her father. But if the little one could be content without its pack... When she reached the Academy there were forms to follow, and honors people wanted to give her. Ceremonies, lunches, dinners, important to those who presented them. When she retired for the night, she found she had no room in her heart for metaphors. She kicked open her pet's cage, and went to bed.