Tyrell muttered, cursing to himself. His piece of toast had, through no fault of his own of course, flung itself from his paw and, as tradition demanded, landed butter side down.

Koreen didn't glance up from her newspaper as she commented, "Mind your language in front of the twins, dear."

Whether the twins were listening was debatable. They were both lying in a large playpen, with a big red blanket covering the floor, and a few garishly coloured plastic and wooden toys lay scattered around. At a little over a year old, both twins already had sharp little teeth. Leana was testing hers out on Eliki's tail. She grabbed hold of it, play-biting until Eliki whipped his tail away, at which point Leana giggled, kicking her legs excitedly. Eliki then narrowed his eyes craftily, sneaking his tail back towards his sister, who grabbed it and started the whole cycle again.

Tyrell watched the twin's antics and smiled, feeling his heart lifted. His cleaning job at the Phoenixbrook train station was dull and repetitive, and more than a bit disheartening, but he did it for Koreen and their children. They gave him the incentive he needed. And at least the holidays were generous.

"I was thinking of booking next week off," he told Koreen.

"Oh?" She put her paper down and smiled, and Tyrell remembered exactly why he'd fallen head over heels in love with her three years ago. She pushed her plate towards him with her own piece of toast on it, but he shook his head.

"S'okay, I didn't have much of an appetite anyway. I know we can't afford to go on holiday this time, but I thought we could go on a few day trips. Maybe spend a day at the beach at Magview, and we could visit the Ferrington Science Museum. Or anywhere else you fancy...?"

She smiled her hypnotic smile again, putting a paw on his. "I'm sure whatever plans you make will be just perfect. As long as you'll be doing the driving this time."

"This time? I always do the bloody driving," he grinned, standing up and giving her a kiss on the cheek. "I'd better get going. If you're still heading to the market today, could you get me some more of those sherbert lemons?"

She nodded as he lifted each twin out the playpen, hugging them briefly. Koreen waved him off as he headed to work in their battered old red car.

The snowkitten turned to her twins. "Right, you two little bundles of trouble. Let's see how long it takes to get you ready this time. Mummy needs a new summer coat, so we're going to the market."

Since Tyrell had much further to travel, it made sense that he should use the car that day. Koreen, however, didn't especially fancy pushing the twins in their pushchair all the way to the market, so she'd made the fairly short journey by bus. With the market's importance to the city, buses were regular and reliable, covering a wide range of areas across Phoenixbrook. And in Koreen's case, she was lucky enough to have a bus stop almost right outside her home.

An elderly snake gentleman helped her to lower the front end of the double pushchair - complete with its twin shaped cargo - from the bus onto the pavement. Koreen thanked him profusely, and he tipped his hat in her direction, before strolling off towards the huge suspension bridge in the near distance.

Koreen loved the vast, diverse market more than almost any other place in Phoenixbrook. She'd been visiting it at every opportunity since she'd been a little kitten. Everything you could ever want was here, along with everything you could imagine - and a lot more you couldn't. Koreen skilfully manoeuvred the large pushchair through the crowds, also making sure that neither Eliki nor Leana could reach out to grab any of the items from the stalls.

Due to the near-overwhelming size of the market, it seemed to take longer to reach the required clothes stall, than it took for the entire bus journey. Choosing the coat didn't take long, since Koreen had pretty much set her heart on it the last time she had visited the market. Not long after, she was the proud owner of the pink and red, swirly patterned silk coat that she'd been looking forward to buying for the past week.

Next stop was one particular sweet stall, from a selection of probably twenty or more. Securing Tyrell's requested sherbert lemons was a swift job, but considering how many weird and wonderful sweets they had here, why did he always have to choose the same thing every single time? She tutted and picked a bag of cherry and blueberry sherbert for herself - ironically the same thing she seemed to choose almost every time she was here.

Eliki made a sudden strange sound, vaguely resembling, "Bwop!" He clumsily 'pointed' at the next stall along and Koreen looked momentarily puzzled, before realising that the stall sold homemade wooden toys. For some reason known only to herself, Leana looked somewhat grumpy as the pushchair was pushed over towards the toys.

Koreen coughed to attract the attention of the black furred bear in charge of the stall. "Excuse me? Which of these would you suggest for someone on a pretty strict budget? And for someone with kittens going through the 'chew everything in sight' phase..."

"Bwop," Eliki repeated.

The bear grinned, sharp teeth showing, and Leana hid behind her tail. He reached to the top of a pile of toys, offering Koreen "what I think the young kitten is hinting at." He held out a neatly packaged set of wooden blocks, each decorated with various letters from the alphabet.

Shortly after, spelling blocks safely packed away in a large pocket on the back of the pushchair, Koreen headed for the market exit, where a path led in the direction of the suspension bridge. She was thirsty and decided to visit her usual haunt, the café near the bridge. On the way, she noticed a new stall near the entrance, owned by a young snowleopard. It seemed that he was selling old books and magazines, but business appeared to be fairly slow at that moment. However, it was his first day there. Koreen decided that if she had time during the return journey, she might check through what he had for sale, though she wasn't much of a reader these days.

The Bridge Café took a while to walk to, especially when pushing two mischievous twins, but luckily the journey was mostly along flat ground, and it was a picturesque walk. The bell on the door made its customary tinkle as Koreen levered her way in, and she was greeted by a tall, grey furred, middle aged wolf with short cropped red hair. He had one of those smiles that could make even the most moody customer feel welcome in moments.

"Well, it looks like someone has been busy today," he told Koreen.

The snowkitten bought the pushchair to a halt, gesturing at the wolf to wait a moment while she caught her breath. Finally she replied, "Coats and sweets and bwops."

"Excuse me?" The wolf, Malcolm, looked bemused.

"Never mind," she grinned. "I didn't have a lot to get, but I needed to get out of that house and among some adult company. As adorable as these two may be, there's only so much baby talk you can take before you feel as if you're losing the plot."

"True enough," replied Malcolm. He looked towards the door just behind him, as he leaned on the café counter, calling out, "Hey, Paula! Koreen is here with the twins. Come and say hi."

There was an excited yell from somewhere at the top of the stairs, and moments later, a nine year old, grey furred wolf girl bounded out and around the counter, reaching the pushchair in moments. Her long red hair was tied in two neat pigtails, with a shorter pony tail tied high at the back.

"Hi, Miss Koreen! Hi, little twins! How are you today?"

Leana hiccupped loudly and went cross eyed. Koreen waved. "Hello, Paula. No school today?"

"No, not this time," the wolfette told her. "I've got to go to the doctors this afternoon, so dad said I may as well have the day off." While she had been talking to Koreen, she had leaned towards the twins, and Eliki had grabbed one of her ponytails, twisting it in his paw.

"Awwww," she smiled, stroking behind his ears and hearing a quiet rumbling purr. "I can't wait till I have my own babies. I'll make sure I have twins too, and they'll be just as cute."

Koreen noticed a sad look from Malcolm as Paula spoke, and the snowkitten nodded at the café owner solemnly. Paula remained unaware as she tickled Eliki to make him let go of her hair.

Koreen commented, "I nearly forgot why I came here in the first place. Could I have one of the large hot chocolates? With chocolate chips, please?"

"Sure," Malcolm smiled. "To take out?"

"Hmm..." Koreen mused, gazing out the window with a slightly puzzled expression. "Yeah, to take out, I think. I want to head down by the river for a bit..."

A few minutes later, Koreen left the café, with the drink safely sealed in a tight lidded container. She pushed the twins along swiftly, heading along a short, narrow path that led to the riverside. Sitting on one of the many wooden benches was the mother of the other snowkitten twins, from the Shaylanii clan. Her fur was entirely white from head to toe, and she had long, straight black hair tied back in a loose ponytail. Next to her, in a pushchair much like the one Koreen wielded, the other twins lay sleeping quietly.

From the newspaper reports last year, Koreen knew that the black and white furred kitten, the male, was called Jarret, and the toffee coloured girl was named Ailee. Both had the same black hair as their mother, but there were streaks of red here and there among the black, and they both had dark brown tails.

In the ten months since those twins had been born, the odds had been defied - Koreen hadn't crossed paths with the other family at all. As she approached the mother, she had no idea what to say, but Koreen was far from shy. As it turned out, the pushchair crunched in the gravel on the path, alerting the snowy white feline anyway.

She turned to face the approaching snowkitten. "Now this is a surprise. Miss Sharinda..."

Koreen replied, "Mrs Shaylanii?"

With a slightly aloof air, she answered, "Now, now. Less of that. You may as well call me Levriana."

Sarcastically, Koreen thought, "What an honour." She replied, "Koreen. Pleased to meet you." She resisted the urge to add, "In your dreams."

"Hmmm," Levriana commented. "Likewise. Push the twins over here a moment, and let me have a look at them." Once the two pairs of twins were facing each other, Jarret and Ailee awoke.

Leana, eyes wide and grinning excitedly, reached towards Jarret, although the pushchair straps prevented her from going very far. It was probably just as well, after Jarret's expression changed from puzzlement to a frown, and he slashed at the air with his claws. Leana seemed unconcerned, as she continued grinning. Eliki, however, watched Jarret with a look of worry, but that changed to shyness when he noticed Ailee staring at him. She pointed at the snowkitten as she looked over at her mother.

Levriana watched with interest, only looking up when Koreen told her, "These are the first snowkitten children they've seen."

"Same here," came the reply, marginally less frostily than before. "I'm not sure that Jarret is getting into the spirit of things though, but then I can never be sure just what he's thinking. He gives me the strangest looks sometimes."

A smile threatened to cross her face when Eliki stuck his tongue out at Ailee, who scowled in return as if to say, "Grow up!" It didn't stop him doing it again, but with more enthusiasm, his shyness clearly evaporating. Jarret had watched for a while, but was bored of the whole situation now and had decided to go back to sleep.

Half an hour passed before Koreen had made her excuses and left. She found Levriana somewhat difficult to talk to, and she wasn't very keen on anyone who exuded an air of "I'm better than you and I don't have to talk to you. Not if I don't choose to."

They'd talked briefly about a number of things, including the complications which had nearly cost Eliki his life during the birth of the twins. By contrast, there had been no such problems when Levriana had given birth. She had been well and truly intrigued to hear about the spell Leana had cast, minutes after her birth, which had saved Eliki. The hospital staff had been strictly forbidden from mentioning that particular incident to the press, and thankfully they'd kept their promises. Inevitably, the two mothers had talked of the apparent mystery surrounding the birth of two sets of twins to two different families, when none had ever been born to snowkittens previously. Levriana settled for a straightforward explanation - "It's just the way it is." And that appeared to be the end of that particular discussion.

Back at home, the twins were once again in the safety of their playpen, along with the new toy blocks. Koreen knew it would be a long time before the blocks would be used for their true purpose of spelling simple words, if indeed the blocks survived that long. Even so, they were providing entertainment at the moment anyway, even if it amounted to little more than piling a few up and then smashing them down again.

Koreen slumped back down on her settee, tired after all the walking, a cup of tea next to her on a small, dark brown glass table.

She searched out the small item she'd brought, almost on a whim, from the market during the return journey. Something about it had just seemed to call out to her, and it had been impossible to resist. Turning it over in her paw, she admired the gift she would put aside for Leana's special eighteenth birthday ceremony - a small gold pendant, diamond shaped with a pale blue diamond shaped crystal set into it, seeming to glow with a strange energy. It seemed strange to think how long it would be before Leana could actually be given it to keep though, but she was certain the time would pass by all too quickly.