Common

She woke with a start, the inner curl of her body cold and a growl of thunder shuddering down her spine.

“Mirri?” The spotted girl whispered, her voice carrying too far in the forest’s cathedral-like still. When she’d laid down beside the pale filly, the hoots of owls and croaking of frogs had sung them to sleep. Now every creature was silent, sensing the turbulent anger of the impending storm and tucking themselves into whatever shelter they could find. Only Tabaxi remained, still blinking stupidly as the last dregs of sleep made her thoughts sluggish and heavy. Where was that wretched child? Stretching her spindly limbs, the white Marwari rose into a stand, feeling as unsteady as a newborn foal. The weight of moist air, ozone, and unseen clouds pushed back at her.

Sucking in a breath of the strangely-crackling air, the young mare stepped forward, her strides reluctant. She had no idea which way Mirri had gone, and the changes in the forest had the hairs standing up along her spine. Tabaxi’s curled black ears tipped forward and back, trying to catch any sound made by the ghostly child’s passage. The crunch of leaves or sharp snap of a twig; even the muffled beat of hooves moving through soft soil. But there was only another growl of thunder, this time louder and deeper. It trembled through the leopard-girl’s bones — and when it was through, her quivering did not stop. Despite the chilled air, a sheen of sweat soon dampened her flanks, and every inch of her skin seemed to itch.

When the storm snarled again, her courage broke, and she ran.

Flying headlong through the trees, Tabaxi felt the whip of slender limbs on her face, her neck, her back. It spurred her to even greater speeds, the breath puffing in and out of her lungs with tearing gasps. Only the black, sinuous glint of a river managed to change her course. Veering south, the ivory-skinned woman crashed through a thicket of brambles, sacrificing hair and skin to pay its toll. The trees had begun to thin, the darkness that surrounded her now more gray than black, but the fog of panic was a thick veil over her eyes and thoughts. It wasn’t until one hoof clipped a tree-root that Tabaxi stopped, and then it was because her body tumbled forward and sideways, heels-over-head. With a great crash that echoed the storm’s voice, she rolled into the trunk of a tree and knew no more.

It might have been moments or hours later that Tabaxi woke, her body a collective of aches that seemed to lack beginning or end. Groaning softly, she rolled herself upright and peered through the trees at the open plain and pale gray sky ahead. Taking some time to lay there and organize her thoughts, the spotted woman remembered waking to Mirri’s absence and her dark lips wrinkled. Hissing one of Nuka’s favorite curses, she leaned heavily against the tree beside her and rose into a stand. Her limbs protested loudly, but she silenced their complaints with another gruff word and pressed forward.

Limping lightly on the side that’d struck the tree, Nzingha’s daughter emerged into a world that gave few clues of the violent storm that had torn at it only last night. Beads of water clung to every stem and stalk of grass like dew. Throat burning with thirst, Tabaxi soon found herself licking up what moisture she could until one hoof sunk fetlock-deep into a puddle. Then she dipped her head and drank deeply, relishing the soothing balm of the muddy water sliding down her throat. After she’d finished, the sabino mare seemed to remember herself, lifting her neck to peer across the field for any glimpse of a coat as pale as her own.

But Mirri was gone, and Tabaxi’s fickle mind soon forgot the girl had existed at all.