Khajiit’s first forays into life as a bachelor had been… eventful, to say the least. Between Cullen, the sharp-tongued mare, and the sun-bright young stallion beside her, he’d come up against strong personality after strong personality. He had no complaints; with every encounter, he’d left feeling satisfied, sated, even, with much to occupy his mind in the interim. Something about the energy of such creatures, tenacious, driven, bold and memorable souls… it rejuvenated him.

It felt right.

He needed more.

He’d started the morning with a few brisk mouthfuls of spider plant leaves. Merely an hour later and the green leaves were brighter, the blue sky more vivid. The omnipresent odors of algae and wet earth and men became more complex to his quivering, paper-thin nares than ever before. He’d been wandering aimlessly, entranced by various minutiae - the snap of a twig here, a distant whinny there - but soon that developed into a search. His slow pace quickened, slender legs extending into a trot, and the silken threads of his tail danced flashily above his muscled hindquarters, held jauntily aloft. He wanted something. Something he couldn’t quite name.

Minutes later, he crossed paths with another stallion. And in an instant, he knew.

Khajiit’s heart thudded against his chest every time his body met that of the tiger-striped stranger’s, beating so fast he thought it would jump out of his ribs, and his wide-pupiled eyes grew wild with the thrill the feeling of teeth pinching into his skin sent flooding through his veins. He didn’t even care, really, that he’d been bested, and when the scuffle was over and he stands, panting and dirty and clad in a rakish grin, he feels positively, indescribably euphoric.

Care to go again, my bello? Laughter rumbles in his chest between breaths, low and warm and intimate. Forget-me-not eyes rimmed with kohl flash up to meet his brother’s molten auric stare, the knife edge of his wit glinting just behind them. “I would,” he quips, smoothing a patch of fur on his shoulder back into place, “but I’m afraid if I let you win again, your head will get so big you won’t be able to carry it.”

Khajiit shakes the dust from his coat, laced-back ears sliding quickly forward to catch the question that follows. Have you called the Lagoon home long? ”A season,” he answers lightly, cocking one hind leg. ”Maybe two. But I’ve only just started to stumble across its residents.” He doesn’t bother to explain further, pointedly working a sore spot for a moment and waiting for the pale saffron stranger to fill the silence.

As expected, he doesn’t have to wait for long.

Khajiit turns back to face him. Something sparkles just beneath the surface, something primal in the half-lidded laser-focus the Marwari levels over his dun-marked shoulders. He advances, slowly and gradually, and the words on his tongue come plush as a bed of moss.

”Fiero,” he echoes, mimicking the rolling timber of the other’s dulcet tones. Close enough to touch, he offers his peachy-pink muzzle, nostrils flaring to catch his scent.

”I am Khajiit.” He takes one more step, pressing further into his brother’s space. ”Now tell me, Fiero,” he says, reaching to feather warm breath over the sweat-soaked crux of his neck, ”why it is that you claim to live amongst men, yet smell so strongly of mare.”

The blade of his cunning glimmers, dancing in the shifting dappled light of the slow-falling sun.