TSROTRATBP Chapter 3

A faint medicinal smell grazed my nose. I was drifting through the murky shallows of consciousness when I felt someone turn me over with careful hands.

They opened my mouth, checked my front paws, pressed and examined. As my mind cleared by degrees, an unfamiliar voice reached my ears.

"Hmm. She's simply lost consciousness momentarily from the shock—pulse entirely normal."

Oh. A physical examination. I let myself relax: the hands were careful and soft, and the tension that had been wound through every muscle slowly unknotted.

Relieved, and with eyelids that were genuinely quite heavy, I kept my eyes closed and went on pretending to sleep.

"Iverin, there's nothing wrong with her health—no cause for concern."

"Good. If Lord Ahin were to eat a sickly rabbit, that would be most inconvenient."

Who are you calling sickly? I catalogued the rude phrasing and then placed the voice immediately.

The dark-haired man who'd delivered the emergency rations verdict. The one responsible for my second unconscious episode. There was no question.

I had every intention of sitting up and delivering a front-paw strike of righteous fury—but the coward cells in my body overruled the motion. I lay still and went on playing dead.

"Any other abnormalities? A beastman who'd reverted to true form for a time, for instance—she seemed sharp enough earlier to understand speech."

I heard Iverin's voice again.

"As for that... at present there are no pheromones detectable from a beastman, and Lord Ahin brought her here more than half a day ago. A beastman cannot remain in true form for more than half a day after humanization—if she were a beastman, she would have returned to human form long since."

"What about a young beastman who hasn't yet completed humanization?"

"That too is impossible. Humanization is nearly always complete by three years of age—a beastman that young couldn't display the active behavior this rabbit shows."

Oh no. Eavesdropping along, I suddenly realized my mistake. I had been far too quick to respond. I'd answered Iverin's voice without thinking, over and over—it was simply the habit of eighteen years of normal conversation.

'But if I tell them I'm a beastman...'

The more I thought about it, the more my unease compounded.

There were a great many scholars in black panther territory, I'd heard. If I revealed that I was a beastman who had failed humanization even after the coming-of-age ceremony, they might simply hand me over to one of them as a research subject.

I blanched, and settled on silence.

"For the present, she appears to be a perfectly ordinary baby rabbit."

The physician gave me one last careful look, then asked, hesitantly:

"Er—does Lord Ahin truly intend to eat this rabbit?"

"No, that's merely my own conclusion."

What inference. On what grounds. I had no idea where the boundary was between this man's jokes and his earnestness—his voice simply never changed pitch, which made it all but impossible to tell.

The physician replied with the tone of someone who had received unexpected information and was not sure what to do with it.

"Ah. Yes. ...Iverin, my examination is complete—I'll take my leave."

Don't leave me alone with this man. The silent plea accomplished nothing. The sound of the physician departing through the bedchamber door came and went.

The pretending-to-sleep routine was getting difficult to sustain. But I could sense Iverin approaching, and sitting up now felt too revealing.

"Miss Rabbit."

His breath, low and close, arrived near my face.

"Your eyelids are twitching. If you don't wake up, you may find yourself placed on the table as an appetizer rather than a main course. Soup, or roasted—which would you prefer?"

I shot upright and glared at him.

This unconscionable predator. I had a feeling that as of today, I would hold the black panther clan in the deepest contempt of all beastmen.