Now on my tenth draft of Anori, I have gone through many renditions of how to give the reader background information on Apollo’s breed of wildcat: the serval. This heavy-handed version has been expunged:

The dusty glossy edge of Wild Cats of the World stood out black and orange. She reached up for the book and let it drop hard on the floor, making Apollo jump. “Let’s see what it says about you. Maybe you’re just some mongrel cat with a complex.”

Dee leafed through to the section and examined the black and white head shot. “Your face looks right. The serval is a tall, lightly-built cat with a small, slim face, dominated by very large oval-shaped ears. Relative to the rest of its body, the serval has the longest legs of any cat species.” She watched him approach from across the room. “Long legs. Check. Serval coat…speckled and spotted. Like the cheetah, the serval is among the more specialized cats. Its long, mobile toes and strong, curved claws also help it hook a mouse hidden in the grass or extract a rat from a burrow.” She looked at him over the book. “But you’re supposed to eat them, not leave them dead.”