Lions don’t sing,his lion objected.Theyroar. Ferociously.
Yeah, buddy. She makes my heart roar.
The lion was satisfied with that, and Elliott, happy, smiled even more widely when Aoife took his hand. “River or, em, not-river? Although I won’t lie to ye, this city is a load of little islandspaved over between them, so really it’s river, river, or river? We just can’t see most of them.”
“Is it really?” Elliott looked down, as if he’d see the river beneath the street.
Aoife nodded. “It is so. It floods every time the tide comes in.”
“Really?”
She laughed. “No, but it does flood a lot. I grew up here, you know? And I love it. I went to Germany for uni, and got my masters, but I always knew I’d come home to Cork. I’m lucky that there was a job opening at the wildlife park just when I needed it.”
“Incredible," Elliott murmured, and he meant it. "I'm less directed. I always wished I had a vision of what I wanted to do, but I barely made it through college. I did tech support for a while after that, but it wasn't enough to pay off my student loans, so I ended up getting an apprenticeship with an electrician. I don't mind it, but it's not a passion, like you've got. It just pays well."
Aoife laughed. "Well. There's something to be said for that. The wildlife park doesn't underpay us, but I'm not sure there's any job in conservation that payswell. I probably should have gone into welding or something."
"Now that sounds fun." They’d reached the riverside, walking down it hand in hand. It was still cloudy, amber streetlights reflecting orange into the sky and bouncing it back down into the river to be caught in the eddies and swirls of its surface. "I could get behind doing stuff with fire."
"You might have to cut your hair. Ooh, would that make your lion's mane shorter?"
"I don't know," Elliott said with amused horror. "It'd kill me if it did. It's very proud of that mane."
It’s the finest mane any lion has ever had!
Since it was, in fact, an exceptionally good mane, Elliott nodded reassuringly at his lion as Aoife’s eyes widened. "It can't, though, right? I mean, it can't kill you, that'd be suicidal, right?"
Elliott snorted. "No, you're right. Instead it would whine and whimper and snivel at me until it grew back. It'd be intolerable."
I do not whine!In its defense, the lion didn’t whine, not then, at least, which made Elliott grin as Aoife gazed at him with interest. "So, what, does it talk to you?"
"Often," Elliott admitted. "Sometimes helpfully. Usually not. It does want me to tell you, right now, that I don't appreciate it and probably can't appreciate you, our fierce lioness queen."
The lion sniffed.That is true.
"Ooh. I could get used to that. Please tell itIappreciate it, anyway."
His lion swelled with delight, and Elliott, grinning, reported, It's now completely puffed up with pride. You have no idea what you've done. Not to change the subject, but there's anopera house?" His voice rose and broke with surprise as they approached the opera house on the south of the River Lee. "I've never been to the opera. Do you think one's playing?"
Aoife shook her head, smiling. "Probably not starting at half eight, no. They usually start around seven, I think. I've never been, either. We could go on another night, if we get out of the park earlier."
"I can sneak out the human entrance," Elliott offered. "I mean, I don't have to stay all the way until closing. Although if anybody comes around to check on me, that's a problem."
"I assume…" Aoife slowed, obviously thinking. “Anybody whose job it is to take care of the day trippers must be in the know, like. Though I'd have thought Peader might know, then! He deals with herbivores, and that does technically include elephants! Although I think he really only deals with the ungulates. We've never had any weird ungulate visitors, unlessyou count the elephant." Her eyebrows drew down, then lifted again. "But, no, I don't think Peader was responsible for the elephant. I think they had a keeper with them. Oh my God!" she blurted. "Their keeper was probablythe elephant, too,wasn't it?"
"Ohthat'swhy Dr. Kelly wanted me to meet some of the staff," Elliott said wisely, then winced. "Of course, I probably blew that with the whole bison-riding stunt. I'm a lion-keeperanda circus acrobat?"
"That'd be illegal here now, but you could've been, not all that long ago. I mean, we were probably about ten when it stopped, but…"
"I was a runaway to the circus at age six," Elliott said expansively. "I spent the formative years of my life training as an acrobat and lion-taming, only to be thrust out of my chosen profession when they rightfully changed the laws about animals in circuses, and I've wandered the world, looking for the opportunity to use my singular skills to the benefit of all humanity, ever since…"
Aoife laughed, then made a pleased sound as bells across the river began to ring. "Ah, there we are! Back around to the pubs now, the music will be starting.”
CHAPTER 13
An Spailpín Fánach, a pub on the south side was one of Aoife’s favorites, and had been since she was a teen. The name of it made made Elliott give a delighted, almost nervous little laugh. “How do you say that? What does it mean?”
“‘The Wandering Farmhand,’” Aoife said with a smile. “Ahn spalpeen fawnach, like church there at the end. It’s a bloody poem we all have to learn for the Leaving Certs. Em, like your...no, I don’t know. It’s at the end of school, anyway.”
