Common

Her pale eyes are drawn to a flash of brown on the edge of her vision. Heart fluttering wildly, the black-spotted girl heard an echo of a gruff voice from the depths of her memory. This’s jus’ for now, ‘kay. Understand? Scarcely daring to breathe, Tabaxi turned slowly to face the creature. Even seasons later, she’d hoped that he would find his way back to her. The boy who’d taken her grudgingly but wholeheartedly under his wing. Who’d kept the cold of winter and the dangers of the world at bay. Who’d taught her how to survive. In every way that mattered, the lion-boy had been a big brother to her. And after the terror of last night’s violent storm, there was nothing the Marwari wanted more than to curl into his side and know she was safe.

“Nuk-” Tabaxi’s warm voice faded to silence after the first syllable, the smile crumpling from her lips. The stranger — and he was a stranger, she could see that now with his snow-scattered coat — had stopped a short distance away. His own mouth curled faintly upwards, an expression that would’ve looked sorely out of place amidst Nuka’s scowls and glares. Not to mention the small talk that he broke the silence with; the sable male she’d known wasn’t one for unnecessary words. But there was a glimpse of Nuka in the way this creature’s pale eyes seemed to hone in on the awkward way the young mare stood, the scabbed-over patches of her white skin. The way his mouth turned downward and his face wrinkled was not unlike the way the boy had looked at Tabaxi when he’d first seen her wandering around the cold Crossing.

“I’m fine,” she heard herself saying, though she wasn’t quite certain it was true. There was a loneliness in the girl who lived in unchosen solitude; a hunger for that which she’d never truly known. Nuka was simply the closest she’d ever come to finding that place where she belonged. And as for purpose? There was something. A flicker; the reason she’d come to this field. Yet the answer evaded her. Her mind had kept the memory of a boy from seasons ago fresh, yet forgotten the child whom she’d watched over for the past year of her life. But then, perhaps a part of her had always longed to forget Mirri and the circumstances in which the filly had been found.

Tabaxi was a creature of the light; there was no room in her mind for such darkness.

For a moment she simply stares at the stallion, fascinated by the pattern of white flecks over his dusty-brown skin. A part of her is tempted to reach out and touch one — to see if it melts beneath the warmth of her lips, like the snow that comes to the Crossing each year. Instead, she maps the constellation these marks form as if her own soft black rosettes are unremarkable. To her, they are. It’s the presence of another flesh-and-blood creature before her that’s remarkable. Tabaxi fills her eyes with the sight of him while she can, like a starving person with a feast laid out before them.

“You remind me of someone,” she spoke abruptly. As if it were normal for strangers to share the uncensored contents of their thoughts. “But he left. It was jus’ sposed to be for a little while.” Her voice slipped unknowingly back into the rougher cadence it’d adopted in Nuka’s company. A tone that had never quite managed to match his inexplicable anger at — well, everything. Because Tabaxi wasn’t angry, though she certainly had plenty of reason to be. Abandoned by her mother. Raised haphazardly by a handful of women with more children than they’d had eyes to watch them, then by a bitter and lonely boy.

Tilting her head in a manner reminiscent of the dam she’d never known, the pale Marwari regarded her nameless companion again. If there was one thing life had taught her, it was the transience of company. And she couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before this creature’s path diverged from her own.

It certainly never occurred to her that he — or anyone else — might choose to stay.