Meadow

Tabaxi starts at the roar of a masculine voice, stares wide-eyed at the tawny creature that bears down upon her. Having been raised in a rather careless manner (there are never enough eyes to watch all the Ridge’s children, never enough adults to keep their swollen ranks in line), she has never been chastised before, and doesn’t even recognize the rebuke of the young stallion’s words. As such, the spotted filly does not chew the air in submission, does not crouch or cower or flee. Instead, she meets the hard glower unselfconsciously, a tangle of seaweed still dangling from one curved ear and a number of scrapes criss-crossing her knobbly knees. And answers the boy’s question, her child’s voice solemn and serious.

“I’m looking for— for—” the jungle-girl begins, small head tipping to one side in unconscious mimicry of the mother she has never known as her syllables fade into silence. Her pale gaze becomes distant for a moment, absent, though her curved ears still flip forward at the sharp-edged retort. Don’ch y’know anything, swimmin’ in ocean, righ’ n’middle a winter? The thread of whatever thought she’s been pursuing is abruptly lost, and Tabaxi returns to herself with a shiver that trails down the full length of her slender body. When it’s done she flicks her ears abruptly back, face scrunching into a younger (and far less intimidating) mirror of her new companion’s angry indignation. “I know plenty,” she argues sullenly, the crease between her two eyes deepening. If there’s one thing the leopard-child hates, it’s the implication that has followed her throughout her short life: that she's unintelligent, that her mind doesn’t work the right way.

But the stallion only snorts and turns away, dismissing Tabaxi with that gesture. Leaving her, as the grown-ups in her life are wont to do. Watching him, the white filly’s expression smooths until it is impassive again, her mind already wandering far away from where she stands. She is curious about everything in this strange place, from bare-branched trees to the dead brown grass and the layer of cold ash that covers everything. She hungers to see it all, to unravel the mysteries and— Gonna freeze t’death. Mm-mm, no’ today. Not in front a me. Blinking her wide eyes, Tabaxi’s ears curl forward again, quivering with uncertainty. She has never understood her own kind very well, but this one in particular is a paradox.

The scarred muzzle jerks, and the rough-as-gravel voice speaks again. Commanding her this time. Come on, move, would ya? Still perplexed, the spotted girl steps hesitantly forward, edging along this way in small degrees until she’s reached his side. And from there she’s borne along as if the sable boy is another tide. A tide that shoves and pushes and nudges until she finally stumbles into a hollow in the hillside. Jus’ get in. As if she has a choice in the matter. As if he is a force that can be denied, instead of something as fierce and relentless as the howling wind. But the warm wall of his body does block that wind for her, and after a time Tabaxi even stays the violent quaking of her body with his guidance (though she can’t remember ever starting, it ends).

Together they stand in a silence that is neither peaceful nor tense; it simply is. Like everything else in this world, however, it is transient, broken by the soft growl of her companion. This’s jus’ for now, ‘kay. Understand? “I know,” she answers quietly, mournfully. And she does. In her short year of life, Tabaxi has already lost her biological mother, one of the women who helped raise her, and the daughter of that mare who had once watched over her. She’s even stumbled across the sun-bleached bones that are the remains of one of the Ridge’s herd, a mare whose name she’s never known, whose face she has never seen.

No, Tabaxi is no stranger to the transience of life. It’s having something— anything— to hold on to that her young mind cannot grasp.