Common

Tabaxi faced her companion’s regard unselfconsciously, unable to read the thoughts swirling behind his pale-sea eyes. And even if she had been able to pluck those threads from his mind, the young mare could not have begun to unravel the meaning of them all. Love in the sense that most seemed to refer to, for example (as if it were the only type of love, or the only one worth mentioning). The spotted girl had yet to feel that kind of romantic pull towards another creature. Her affection for Nuka had been the adoration a younger sibling felt for their protective older brother. Besides him, she’d only loved one other — a helpless, broken child who was all but a reflection of herself. The urge to protect Mirri had been fierce, instinctive, and overpowering. How could it not be, when she was the only mother the pale child would ever have?

Of course, the white Marwari couldn’t even sense the lack of what had never been present in her heart. She only knew that there were some who chose to stay close to one another always, as she had seen of Faolain and Rivaini in the Ridge. It had never occurred to her, then, to question why — though it did now as she heard the soft timbre of the grullo male’s voice. Sometimes, life often unfolds in this manner. Some relationships endure, while others are fleeting. A frown deepened the thoughtful furrows in her expression, and it was only with great exercise of restraint that Tabaxi managed to hold the questions behind her lips. It was one of the remaining legacies of her time with Nuka. The young stallion’s irritable nature had often been at odds with her intense curiosity.

Still, she wondered in the silence of her thoughts. She wondered what had drawn the small black mare and the muscular silver bay woman together like two pieces that simply fit. Tabaxi, who had never really belonged anywhere, would have given anything to feel such a sense of belonging. But her wistful thoughts like that were as brief as each breath she drew. Mostly, the leopard-marked girl just was. She had always been content to survive, and never considered that she might seek out something different. Something… more.

Her musings were cut short by the snow-flecked male’s introduction, her black ears tipping forward at the unusual sound of his name. Of the names she’d heard spoken during her brief life, her own had always felt as apart as she had. But there was a quality to his that snared the attention just like her own did. A sense of something strange and exciting and new. “Tabaxi,” she offered in response, enunciating the syllables habitually. Ta-bash-ee. And then, because her introduction felt incomplete after his own lengthier greeting. “Of — whatever this place is, I guess.”

She didn’t have a home; she never truly had. Instead, she’d learned to make a home of wherever her hooves carried her.