As John and Sharon enjoyed themselves in a very adult manner in their hotel room, the new seven year and seven and a half Julie and Derrick had already made some new friends.
The humanoid lion cubs introduced themselves.
"I'm Jeremy!" The only other male lion cub of the little group introduced himself to Derrick who was roughly the same age as him.
"I'm Hope!" Smiled the oldest of the group, at age 10.
"Abbie," said the youngest at age 7, and the same age as Julie and shook her hand/paw.
"Penelope Carlson, but please just call me PC," said the eight year old little lioness.
Derrick and Julie they soon found out were the only ones in the group who were related. The others were friends or had met here at the resort.
The siblings weren't sure how to ask if the four had started out as teenagers like them or whether they had started out this age. But the two found that question feeling meaningless.
The pair didn't think for one second how they didn't feel a trace of shame or embarrassment at their nakedness or that of every animal person around them.
Little Julie was curious about all the bones of the animal people fit together, and if they were expected to hunt for their own food or whether it was provided by the hotel, or if they could still eat plants as lions, and a zillion other questions that all would have been answered already if her father had read the stinking brochure first.
Julie tried to think about the biographical report about lion she had due in two weeks for school but . . . the more she tried to think about it, the trivial it seemed, boring, unimportant, and not what she should be occupying her thoughts with.
There hadn't even been a question if the four wouldn't accept the siblings into their little social group, the six had accepted it as simply natural. The six wrestled with each other with no true victor or defeated, it was all just for fun after all.
+++
"Jabari," said a naked leopard man.
"Hey big brother."
"I'm worried, remember the day of the grand opening? That lunatic tried to kill you because the hotel 'went against the will of nature.'"
"Jaali, you're a shaman, you know that's BS."
"I KNOW it's BS, but that lunatic didn't think it was BS. What I'm saying is that we should have upgraded security."
"One random maniac doesn't mean we're going to have a stream of them, and the police concluded he was acting alone."
"I'm just worried about you little brother. This resort is both of our life's dreams brought under one roof. I don't want it cut short because of someone who thought they were acting for the 'greater good of Gaia.'"
"I won't jinx it and say nothing will go wrong. John and his family is proof enough of that. Did you know they didn't so much as read the brochure before coming here? Besides, doesn't the tree tell you about anything suspicious?"
"It does. But it's no replacement for people to handle people. This forms may be completely safe, but people are never completely safe from each other."
"If it makes you happy big brother I'll hire out some live in security. But it'll take a while with background checks."
"I wouldn't expect anything less."