Epilogue

Every day the lion wanted to speak, to tell her who he really was. His tongue (which was, incidentally, the size of her arm) and jaws ached with the information.

He thought once of writing his name in the dirt. He leapt up and breathlessly brushed clean a patch of sand, only to realize that he no longer remembered all the letters and symbols to form the right sounds. He panicked. He concentrated. He made a circle, then a line, but it was no use. The code had vanished from his brain. He collapsed onto the dirt and moaned. He missed tears. Being able to cry had been nice.

Instead, he came to content himself by hugging her small, soft human frame every time she would let him, carefully cradling her head in one of his enormous paws.

She would laugh and wrap her arms around his neck, losing them in his mane. Spectators gaped at this ridiculous embrace: the lady and the lion. News crews came and interviewed her. She always smiled as he delicately sniffed in her face, never once guessing who he was and that, in the end, he was with her every day.