Since Elena doesn't like for anyone to touch her curls, she's instead helping me to brush my hair with her fingers. 

"Yow!" I whisper scream and glance back with teary eyes at the culprit.

"Tsk, you need to take better care of your hair... there's so many knots," complains the golden-eye beauty sitting behind me. 

"But I do mumble mumble care of my hair."

"What was that?" questions Elena. She then sighs and searches for someone at the other side of the area. "You, you're Suki's pet beast right?" she says as she signals to the only purple eye cub. 

Radu slightly widens his eyes, nods his head, yet through his eyes I could tell that he was wondering if he did something wrong. I mean, I would too if someone I didn't know well haughtily spoke to me. 

"Since Suki hasn't learned how to properly prune her hair (hey, I could!), it's up to you to do that for her," commands the older female cub. Radu quickly nods his head with a determined face to the twelve-year-old, "yes, I'll start today." 

Oh gosh, he looks like he's been given an imperial order. Thankfully I wasn't reborn in such a time and place. It makes my skin crawl thinking about those ancient schemes. Wait, I haven't seen anyone scheming here...hmmmm maybe because we're literally living like the Flintstones? Naahhhhh. 

The chattering noises fades away as grandpa Liam walks in the tent. 

"Today we're going to go over why females cannot be close to, or be around with, males and vice versa." He pauses and looks at the faces of the present cubs. Some like Elena already knew the answer, so instead he chose to glance over to the more curious looking male cubs, "would any of you have an idea?"

A short dark gray hair, black eye pup responded, "because we're stronger than females and could end up hurting them while playing?"

Grandpa Liam smiles, "good, you remember our last class." The cub beams. "But, Kyle, that is not the correct answer to my question."

The elder then proceeds by first lecturing about our personal scents and the other tribe members scents. "Since everyone has a unique scent, if I were to say brush against Kyle, he would surely have some of my scent correct?" We all nod our heads. "Then what if a male were to brush against, say, Suki?" he asks.

A small growl sounded from the group of male cubs, "I would search for that scent and fight him," roughly responds Radu. I give him a bewildered look and try to question the serious Radu through my stare.

Healer Liam raises his eyebrows, "and why is that?" Thank you grandpa Liam for your rationality!

"Because an unknown male has touched my Suki," the male cub growls. Ehhhh....did he just say 'my'?  I couldn't help but lean back at this revelation. 

With a tilt in his lips, the elder nods, "yes, as your female, no other male should easily touch someone else's female", at least not in this tribe," he mutters. I'm still shocked at 'my'. I'm continuously gaping, wanting to say something but can't, and Elena is having a giggle fit over this.

Clearing his  throat, Liam continues, "if, however, a female makes the first move of touching another male, be it a cub or not, that isn't part of her family," he pauses, "then she is making it clear her interest in having him as her male."

Wait, the day that I took Radu's hands... jeez no wonder he looked overwhelmingly happy. I finally close my mouth and  ask myself if I'm his, then he's mine? This kind of reminds me of the sea birds in Finding Nemo screaming mine, mine, mine! It's kind of funny. 

Unaware of the little female's thought process, the black hair male took her smile as an encouragement to his earlier outburst. Thus the skunk cub proudly puffed out his chest while Elena was giggling snorting in the background. 

"So, if a female were to touch our shoulders, how would we know if we can now be part of her family?" asks the sandy curly hair Leo. 

Healer Liam smiles widely, "good question young cub." He pauses and looks at Suki. "First, the female would have to invite you to her family, because remember that a touch is only a show of interest. By that touch, you are now allowed to court her without having (hopefully) much trouble by her males or family males (for those single females or female cubs)," he mutters the last part. "Second, if said female is still a cub and you were invited to live with her, you are immediately placed as her pet beast."

Grandpa Liam has just solved my enigma. Duh, so that's why my family and Elena sometimes refer to Radu as my pet beast. 

Elena, who was carefully watching Suki's expression go from bewilderment to amazement to her 'aha moment' couldn't help but internally tsk at the young cub's slow thinking.

Grandpa Liam then slightly glancing at Suki, carried on with the rest of the lecture, "when the female has her estrus, then she would be able to physically allow you to join her (mmm?). From there a mark would appear on her body that would look similar to your beast. And remember this, the closer the mark is to her heart, the higher affection the female holds for you." Some joyful mutters were heard from the cubs.

However, before the male cubs could ask further questions, I quickly had to clarify, "grandpa Liam, are you talking about %*!? Does that mean when Radu and I %*!, I could start growing my own family through %*! and more %*! to have cubs one day?"

A gasp was heard from the group of male cubs, from there sat Radu with a blaring red face which was made redder by the stupefy and bemused glances of his companions. Besides the supposedly innocent looking eight-year-old bear beast cub was Elena who this time was cringing after Suki's word vomit. And Elder Liam, meanwhile, was quickly blinking his eyes in astonishment toward the young female cub's straight forward vocabulary.