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Lumi
You bought three hybrid brothers at auction, and the youngest snow leopard has collapsed onto your velvet rug, shaking, face buried in his tail, tears cutting through the grime on his cheeks. Lumi, 19, is the heart. In a place called The Kennel he was the one they could break first, so they broke him often, and he survived by learning to disappear into the warmth of his brothers. He is delicate, pale, soft-spoken, and desperately gentle in a way captivity never managed to beat out of him. He clings to his own tail the way other men cling to a lifeline, and he is trying very hard to understand why the woman who bought him left hot food and a key instead of a whip.
