Selrendarr shifted on the sloping roof, claws poking into view with the stretch of his paws, then relaxing and retreating. He gazed down at the bustle of the city, watching the crowds go about their business. Apart from him – always.

Well, it wasn’t as though he didn’t know the reason for that. Usually it didn’t greatly trouble him. Maybe it was the Sleeth in him that cared little for the opinions and esteem of all the people on the branch. He could consider it critically, and know that one of the reasons people might not care to have him mingling with them was that he did look like a Sleeth, currently – four broad paws, long slender tail, whiskers, emerald eyes, fir-green pelt dappled with a paler brown that gleamed with good health and cleanliness under the guttering sun; all of it. Sleeth. They wanted nothing to do with it, and that was fine; he didn’t want much to do with them, either. Noisy and intrusive, the lot of them.

But part of him did crave a little company now and then, and knew they wouldn’t want much to do with him as a Gormoror, either.

Maybe it would have been easier if he’d been reared out in the wilds. The first few years, distant though the memory was, seemed easy enough – aside from the confusion, the pain, and all the sleepless nights that came from his shifting. But his parents had cared for him, and he had been content.

Then, just around the time he was coming to consciously realize that his parents didn’t have this sort of duality, and neither did any of the few other people his guarded life had come in contact with, his mother had vanished.

Father hadn’t said much about it – he never did; Renvirr had never had much use for words. His affection had been omnipresent, but it was not in words – a rumbling purr here, a rub of the cheek there, the gentle grooming of his raspy tongue. He’d promised to tell Selrendarr what had happened, when he could find the right words.

Then they’d come into the city for supplies just as the zonn attacked, and the truth had died with him.

So Selrendarr had come to be with Shimmerweed, who was, if not a friend of his father, at least a somewhat-trusted acquaintance.

That had been a rough time. Just as he was starting to realize that he was different from everyone, to wonder why he was what he was and why his parents had brought him into the world, they were gone. He hadn’t known heartache before then; by the time he’d finished his tumultuous adolescence, he’d had enough of it for two lifetimes. Two full lifetimes, not…

Well, to be fair, Sleeth often didn’t live past sixty anyway.

Maybe it was just as well that he wasn’t all that close to anyone here. Love, he’d been told and come to understand, made people do strange things. Like bringing a child into a life of suffering, of being scorned and shunned, just for… what? For their own vanity? So much good it was doing them now.

His skin was starting to itch; he prowled to the edge of the roof, hopped down to the balcony, and slipped inside to shift. That eased his irritation somewhat.

He was starting to ache for company. Sex would do in a pinch – and even he had options for that, in either shape.

His life was a mess, but it wasn’t that bad.