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And as for Emily, she meets a jaguar. It’s just like the ones she’ll call down one day, in the waste at the end of the world —

Only, this one is probably warmer.

Listen.

She’s always loved tigers.

When Emily threw “claw” in rock-paper-scissors — not that anybody plays rock-paper-scissors any more, not after that —

She called it “tiger’s claw.”

She loves tigers just that much.

Tigers, and lions, of course, and panthers — but it all pales before her new-born love now that she’s seen a jaguar at last. Tigers are nothing to her now. Lions and panthers are dirt and muck. She forsakes such childish things as pumas, lynxes, and drakes, because jaguars?

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