"More Africa," Gabe admitted, though one of the guys he'd met in Persia had had a pet mongoose. It hadn't looked anywhere near as bright-eyed or... ok, fine, pretty as William's.
Whereas his girl... "She's a little slice of home," Gabe admitted with a fond smile, leaning down to scratch behind her ear. "Iberian lynx. I haven't seen one of these in the flesh in..." He faltered, trying to make the calculations for the first time in a while, then shrugged a shoulder. "Years."
He glanced up, sort of sidelong at William, and the lynx twitched out from under his hand, padding along to push the side of her furry neck against the chair William's mongoose had claimed. Obviously she thought it was a pretty mongoose as well; Gabe had stopped worrying she was going to eat the little animals after she spent half a class letting a sparrow and a mouse frolick all over her without more than some serious tail-twitching. So no worries there. "How are you, anyway?" Gabe could ask. He hadn't had a chance to talk - not seriously talk - with William in the past few days.