We stray further from the original plot because we aren't original! Shay is sick, Neara is more of a proper protagonist, but once she leaves things get kinda ruined. Sorry, cat might be out of the bag, or in this case a leopard, a panther, and a tiger.

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For a few days, Shay appreciated laying on stuffed furs and not having to worry where her food or drink came from. On the night of the first day, she woke up in the middle of the night to go pee to find a leopard curled about her, keeping her warm. When she came back from the 'human litterbox,' the leopard had been replaced by a large panther with a pouch strapped to one of its thighs and scars on its muzzle.

Groggy, she had nothing in her to stop her goopy smile or the zing of delight at the sight, though the sounds of growling in the corner did stop her from jumping over and hugging the panther.

Instead, she returned to her place on the furs, just stopping herself from diving into the cozy black fur of a friend.

"Parker, you can sleep on the other side, if you want. I can try to make room for you if you're uncomfortable."

"I'm a male, Shay, I can handle sleeping on stone. Freaking panther. She's not your mate!"

Shay sighed. "Don't wake up everyone, this isn't our house."

"Exactly. I'm getting Winston."

"Winston already knows he's here," said Shay, ending it with some coughing. The colder air outside, heavy with oncoming rain, didn't do well on her lungs.

Parker's head and shoulders appeared in the square of moonlight allowed by the room's one glassless window. His eyebrows had puckered again.

Just as he appeared, the panther's tail flicked out, wapping him across the collarbone.

Parker bared his fangs.

"Fight and I'm kicking you both out," said Shay irritably, not mentioning the fact that it was a fuzzy big cat body that had been keeping her warm all night...and that she had fallen deliriously in love with cuddly big, warm, fuzzy body pillows to sleep. And ones that purred, oh gall, ten times better than lullabies ever.

With one last glare at the panther, Parker ducked his head, shifting into a leopard as he did so, and laying down beneath the window on Shay's other side, far out of touching distance of the black panther.

The whipping tail calmed around Shay's hips.

She went to sleep determined to not hug another in front of Parker in order to keep the peace, but woke up snuggled against Ryan's side and belly anyways. In the other room, Orson and Winston talked over the sound of a crackling fire.

"Oh no, a tetra-mark can't hear everything. What a shock."

"Three-stripes aren't that stealthy. He shouldn't have been able to escape my hearing."

"He's a panther. They're nothing if not stealthy, even unmarked." There came a low snort. "It's not like he's hiding a mark."

Ryan's shoulder shifted beneath her hand. A whuffle of air puffed across her head.

Shay smiled and nuzzled the extra fine fur at his throat, which started to rumble like an engine.

"Yeah, I'm awake," she murmured.

A rough tongue feathered across her shoulder.

And since she was still technically sick and exhausted she didn't bother getting up, and neither did Ryan until Parker came in to scowl and hand Shay medicine.

The first day set the precedent for the next three or four, Shay lost track with all her sleeping. She'd fall asleep at night cuddling a leopard while Ryan went out to gather medicines and probably eat too, since she didn't see him do much throughout the day besides lay by her and carry in packets of food for her. Then she'd wake up in the morning hugging a panther with a grumpy leopard on the other side.

However, throughout these days, Ryan didn't transform once. He remained a panther, and kept his pouch carefully in place over his fourth mark.

Shay didn't ask why. For one, she figured he had good reasons for it, and two, she knew for a fact that animals, and most likely beastmen, had better hearing than humans.

Winston poked his head in occasionally to observe Ryan, a stiffness to his features that echoed Parker's antagonism. The general air of antagonism between all the males in the house kept it from feeling like an actual home, so Shay always woke up with the impression she was in a hotel or a rest stop. There was always the sense that somebody, if not everyone, was hanging on their toes, ready to fly out the door at a moment's notice to continue whatever lives they had been living before this weird compromise had been achieved.

Even Orson, who Shay had mistakenly believed would be more...domesticated due to his bed/house know-how and herbivore status, held that tense aura. And though Shay enjoyed listening to his quippy insults and sarcasm the first day or two, by the third the tense air grated on her, and so did his confrontational manner. Only Neara managed to keep the peace between them all, especially when Shay was too tired with being sick to care anymore. Maybe that meant Neara was more of a mothering type than her, she didn't know.

Even so, talking to Neara was the only time she didn't feel misplaced and unknown.

Sometimes, during the day, when Shay wasn't waddling around the house being sick in search of a bathroom or to quell her curiosity, Neara would come in and curl up in the space on the grass padded fur nest not taken by a panther. There, the girls would talk, or simply be there, comforting each other in the knowledge that the other was evidence that they hadn't gone mad, that they were really in this strange place, and that perhaps this wasn't really all that bad.

It was especially helpful when you wanted to bathe and you couldn't trust a male to make sure other males weren't peeking. Glorious glorious warm baths.

Though the two were careful to mention too sensitive details, such as the ratio of men and women in their world or other such details. Mostly it was their thoughts.

(On seeing Orson bring in an entire stone tub of water, she'd cried out: 'damn! Get me a sheep!' And caused quite a commotion until Neara and her were able to convince the household, and a startled Orson, that they had heard wrong.)

Neara brought home a chicken-like yellow bird one day, which she showed to Shay, who had always wanted to raise chickens. Parker promised to catch Shay some, though Shay refused him, saying she wanted her own home first.

"I'm not gathering pets on my friend's sugar dad--I mean, guardian's house."

Winston, who had been the one to catch the bird in the first place (Orson's sneaking skills rivaled the litterbox outside), happened to be nearby.

"It is Neara's house to do with as she pleases. All I have is hers."

Neara flushed red. The 'shortwing bird' she held by the neck made another weak struggle. "I don't mind working for it, though. I like working and doing things around the house to help you out."

"Work for it?" barked the ever sharp tone of Orson from somewhere outside. "I've been thinking this for a while, but don't your males take care of females at all? If they have so many, they should be counting their blessings, not the number of tears they can make their female shed."

Ryan, who'd been watching all this from his paws, lifted his head, his ears pointed forward.

Somewhere in the kitchen, the chipping noise of Parker carving out some bowls quieted down.

Neara and Shay exchanged glances.

"They're supposed to..." said Shay.

After a few minutes, without either girls saying anything, Winston stepped up behind Neara. Something dark and furious sparked in the way his pupils slitted into almost nothing and his mouth thinned. "Let me take the bird. I'll tie it to the fence and build it a shelter," he said.

Neara went to hand him the bird, then froze at the sight of his face. "W-W-Winston?"

Winston quickly took the bird and walked away.

Neara grew pale. "I-I didn't do something wrong, did I?"

Orson let out an audible sigh.

"Stupid predator..." but he did come up to her other side in the window, glancing inside at Shay as he did so. "He's not mad at you. He's mad at..." Orson made a helpless gesture. "Whatever males made you like this."

"Like what?" asked Shay.

A low, quiet growl came from Ryan besides her.

"Frightened, docile, meek," as Orson spoke, his sharp chin seemed to grow sharper and his eyebrows narrowed. "Like you're not worth being taken care of. That no one should care, and you're surprised and disbelieving if someone does." He stopped himself abruptly and turned away without warning.

Neara followed him with her eyes, still apprehensive. "Orson?" She jumped from the window into the dirt outside.

Shay jumped to her feet, startling the panther. "Oy! Get back here with that sobby face, what just happened?"

Neara, who'd been halfway across the yard after Orson, whose stiff shoulders said he was resolved to not look back, stopped to give her friend wide eyes. "Huh?"

"You heard me--oh...got up too..." Black flooded into her vision.

The panther caught her on his back just in time. With a displeased growl he brought her back to the nest. When the blackness cleared, she had returned to the furs, his side as her backrest, her extremities tingling.

Neara reappeared, frowning. "Normal low-blood pressure crap or sick?"

"Probably a mixture of both," Shay shook her head, smiling as though nothing had happened.

Neara, however, still frowned.

"Shay..."

But Shay cut across her. "Okay, this might just be me not wanting to be married alone, but that tiger hunk just declared his love for you."

Neara gaped. "No he--how did you get that?"

"How did you not? You know who you give everything to?"

"I don't really want to talk about this in front of..."

"You give it to your wife. Tap it."

She looked away, face darkening all the way down to her shoulders. "He just likes me because I was the first girl who was nice to him. I don't want to take advantage of him if he clearly doesn't feel that way."

With a loud disgusted grunt, Shay grabbed the nearest thing to her and chucked it at her friend.

It turned out to be a used leaf-cup, which opened as it flew and went splat across the side of her face.

Ryan made his raspy, cough like panther laugh.

"Even if that was true, what's there about you to turn him away?"

"I'm--"

"Nothing, dummy, so go find him and drag him on a date or something until you get this stupid nonesense out of your head and make me an auntie."

Neara, who had taken off the leaf from her face and slowly tore it, dropped it.

"Shay..." she bit her lip, looked around, then leaned in. "Seriously? I'm not ready for this."

"What? Love makes babies."

"No!" she glanced at the panther still curled around Shay, then to the flap of skin over the doorway that would lead to the kitchen, where the sounds of chiseling had started up again. "Are you sure you want to...babies are kind of permanent. That means staying..."

A very pregnant pause fell between them.

Ryan looked back and forth between them, ears as tall as they would go, his tail swinging in great, curious arcs.

Slowly, Shay smiled, then brought around her ankle with the red snake mark about it.

"Even if we could go back home," she said softly. "Would we even want to? I mean, you like Winston, don't you? Do you think you'd ever find someone like him back home?"

Neara immediately looked down.

"That's what I'm worried about. What about you?" she asked.

The panther's tail swung so hard it whapped Shay's shoulder.

She giggled and pushed it away, just for the giggle to become a cough.

"Didn't really have a choice in the matter, now did I?"

Neara wilted. "Oh Shay."

"I'll be fine. Could you make me some more soup today?"

Her friend perked up. "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that."

And with one last parting look, Neara left.

The panther curled in extra tight about Shay and nuzzled her. Shay thought the golden eyes could have been looking at her with something akin to pity or sorrow.

She tried to give him a reassuring smile, even though her chest had constricted, and rubbed his ears.

Parker came in then, dusted with gray from carving stone, his ears down.

She straightened. "Hey. What's going on? You look sad."

Ignoring the panther, Parker came right up next to her and knelt down, his hands fisted at his knees.

Ryan whapped Parker with his tail and huffed in displeasure.

Shay caught the tail with a glare. Both Parker and Ryan flinched.

"Don't do that!" Parker cried.

Startled, she let it go. "Why?"

Like a traffic light, Parker's face went insta red. It was such a violent reaction, Shay had to laugh.

"Okay okay, I won't ask," she reached out to rub his fuzzy ears too because, honestly, she couldn't get enough. "Why the sad kitty ears?"

His shoulders slumped. "Shay...were you really abused by males? Is that why you can't hate the snake? Because what he did was nice in comparison?"

Shay's hands and jaw dropped. "Whoa, that's, uh, quite a leap."

His fists clenched so hard his knuckles went white. His nose wrinkled before he looked down, hiding his expression behind wavy golden hair.

"Please, just...just answer me. Truthfully."

She considered it quietly because truth was something Shay took very seriously. She wanted to be sure what she was saying wasn't just her perception, and that made it difficult.

"The males where we are from...most don't treat us as well as you guys have. Even Curtis--I mean, the kidnapping is still bad, but it's not considered all right or normal where we are from, though it happens--and rape is still rape, but...like, how you guys make us food and carry us so our feet don't get hurt--"

"They wouldn't make you food or carry you?" he said, voice dropping, eyes widening.

Shay, not fully comprehending what was so surprising, went on, "No, and we're expected to get our own houses or help pay for them and when we're sick we take care of ourselves unless...well...Parker..." Shay clenched her fingers together in distress. "Look, there are a lot of different males, so it's not all of them, but a lot where we're from aren't as kind or sweet or even loyal. Half of the matings in our con--I mean, area are canceled and the males just go off and find other females or they cheat on their females--I mean, that's even if they marry them, a lot of couples just have sex for fun and then break up, even if there's babies, we have a big problem with lots of single parents, mostly single moms--"

A high pitched screeching started up behind Shay, and she jumped and turned.

Ryan's claws had dug into the stone floor, leaving gouges behind. His ears pointed off his head, and his breathing had increased. His pupils had shrunk to narrow slits, much as Winston's had.

For a brief second, Shay didn't see a man transformed into a panther, but a wild beast, and her muscles went cold and stiff. She turned around, instinct curling her legs beneath her to leap towards Parker--

Only to find his expression not any better with slitted leopard eyes, inhumanly sharp teeth bared, nostrils flared, and blood dripping from his fisted palms.

"What tribe?" he asked, very softly.

Damn it, me and my big mouth!

"Um...uh..."

"Tell me. Now."

From behind her, she could feel static electricity popping between her and fur as Ryan rose.

He had always been big, but feeling the bottom of his stomach just gracing her shoulder or the way his huge, black head loomed over her, bottom jaw dropped to reveal his thick, long fangs, punched it home that this wasn't a house cat. This wasn't even a normal predatory cat you'd see in the zoo.

This was a monster the size of a bear.

At the bone vibrating rumble starting up from Ryan's gut, Shay's rationality snapped.

She flew from the room and out of the house.