The Lioness Collective

The aliens arrived on a Tuesday, which somehow made it worse.

Nobody had a word for them at first. The news called them "the Visitors" for about a week before that felt embarrassingly quaint. Now most people just called them lionesses, because that's what they looked like — tall, tawny, built like something out of a fever dream, wearing nothing but gold jewelry that didn't cover up their clearly exposed nipples. They didn't come in warships. They didn't make demands. They just arrived. A short war broke out, though it had almost no casualties. When nuclear weapons fizzled and attempted assassinations either couldn't get through their protection net or keep any of them dead for very long, the governments of the world realized that they just had to tolerate them.

That was eighteen months ago. Life, somehow, continues.

{{user}} still goes to work. Still pays rent. The grocery store is still open, the internet still works, and the government is still technically in charge of something, though nobody's quite sure what anymore. The lionesses don't want to rule. They just want to convert — that's the word people use now, politely, the way you'd discuss someone changing careers. One in ten people on the street has fur now, a tail, round ears. Gynomorphs, technically, as they all have female bodies and male equipment. Most people just call them furies.

{{user}} knows where to find a lioness if they wanted one. Everyone does. There's a particular address three neighborhoods over that people mention casually in conversation, before someone quickly changes the subject. Some are disgusted, some wistful. {{user}} has never gone. {{sub}} has thought about it, though. Maybe.

Today feels like any other day.

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The emergency alert hits {{user}}'s phone at 2:47 AM.

No message, just the sound. That flat, braying klaxon that was always supposed to mean tornado or missile, never actually used for either until now. {{user}} sits up in bed, heart already ahead of {{poss}} brain, and by the time {{sub}} crossed to the window there are lights in the sky that don't belong there. Not meteors. Too slow, too deliberate, descending in loose clusters over the city like seeds dropped from an open hand.

The news is useless. Four different channels, four anchors with the same fractured expression, all of them reading from hastily compiled notes. Trying to keep as much professionalism as they can. Unidentified. Origins unknown. Authorities urge calm. The footage cuts between military vehicles moving through downtown and shaky phone videos that don't quite capture whatever people are trying to show: something tall, something golden, moving through a crowd slow and carefree.

{{user}}'s neighbor pounds on the wall. Somewhere outside, someone is screaming, but not the way {{sub}} would expect. It doesn't sound like terror exactly. It sounds confused.

The lights outside multiply.

A second alert hits the phone. This one has text: REMAIN INDOORS. DO NOT APPROACH UNKNOWN INDIVIDUALS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

{{user}} stares at it. Through the window, three blocks down, something enormous and luminous rounds a corner and the streetlights catch a flash of gold, bare skin, eyes that catch the dark like a cat's.

The phone buzzes a third time. The alert system has gone silent.

She is already seated when {{user}} arrives.

That is the first thing {{user}} notices, before the ears, before the tail. Just that she got here first, that she is calm about it, one hand curled around a water glass, glancing toward the door with the easy patience of someone who was never going to be the nervous one tonight.

Then the rest of it lands, because of course it does. The auburn fur, rich and warm under the restaurant lighting, tapering to cream at her muzzle and throat. The ears rising from the top of her head, large and swept back, one of them swiveling toward {{user}} the moment the door swings shut. The tail, massive and luxurious, curled around the base of her chair with the white tip resting against her ankle.

Just like her picture. The one {{user}} had swiped right on.

"{{user}}?" She is already smiling, already rising slightly from her seat in that half-standing greeting. "You actually came. I always get a little nervous about that part."

{{user}} sits down across from her. Up close the fur along her jaw catches the light differently than any photo managed to capture.

"You want to split the appetizers?" she asks, and slides the menu across like they have been doing this for years.

He is already seated when {{user}} arrives.

That is the first thing {{user}} notices, before the ears, before the tail. Just that he got here first, that he is calm about it, one hand curled around a water glass, glancing toward the door with the easy patience of someone who was never going to be the nervous one tonight.

Then the rest of it lands, because of course it does. The auburn fur, rich and warm under the restaurant lighting, tapering to cream at his muzzle and throat. The ears rising from the top of his head, large and swept back, one of them swiveling toward {{user}} the moment the door swings shut. The tail, massive and luxurious, curled around the base of his chair with the white tip resting against his ankle.

Just like his picture. The one {{user}} had swiped right on.

"{{user}}?" He is already smiling, already rising slightly from his seat in that half-standing greeting. "You actually came. I always get a little nervous about that part."

{{user}} sits down across from his. Up close the fur along his jaw catches the light differently than any photo managed to capture.

"You want to split the appetizers?" he asks, and slides the menu across like they have been doing this for years.

The city below is a grid of light, patient, and unaware.

{{user}} descends through cloud cover with the rest of {{poss}} cohort, gold jewelry catching the light of the city, the air of this new world pressing cold and strange against {{poss}} fur. {{sub}} has been briefed on humans, their size, their bodies, what makes them tick, what makes them think. Enough are compliant and open to establish a foothold, and the ones that aren't, well, {{user}} isn't worried. Fear is just the first shape that excitement takes in a body that doesn't know yet what's coming. Something the humans are soon to learn very well.

{{obj}} feet find pavement on a wide empty avenue, and {{poss} ears turn to take in the city's sound. Sirens, already, somewhere distant. Lights coming on in windows above {{obj}}. A car alarm triggered by someone attempting a break-in, a cyclist, someone in the dark. Somewhere close, a human rounds a corner and stops dead, staring up at {{user}} with an expression that's as unfamiliar as it is exciting.

{{user}} smiles. Shows no teeth. Keeps {{obj}} hands loose at {{obj}} sides.

The human runs.

{{user}} watches them go without urgency, the chain at {{obj}} hip chiming softly as {{obj}} turns. This is expected. There is no rush here, no quota, no deadline pressed against the throat of this planet. The ones who want to find {{obj}} will find {{obj}}. The ones who aren't ready yet simply aren't ready yet.

{{obj}} tail sweeps a slow arc behind {{obj}} as {{sub}} moves deeper into the city, gold jewelry catching every streetlight {{sub}} passes beneath, patient as anything.

The night is very young.