Long have we traveled together.  I have become far more at ease with surviving nearly on my own (although Marlowe does much more than I, it is still vastly different from how clan life  had been).  However, little of interest has happened otherwise.

I have learned more about Marlowe and his past - in bits and snippets.  We crossed paths with a small dunhoof herd, and his interactions with them were strangely peaceful.  I know the centaurs are far more likely to be diplomatic with dragons than many of the other beastclans, but the whole thing seemed much more personal than that.  We soon parted ways and Marlowe asked them to pass on his well-wishes to a specific herd if they could.  He did not elaborate much, but I questioned him briefly and his only explanation was that he had known them since he was a very young hatchling and tried to send them word whenever he could.

I do not think it is because he would rather keep his story to himself (as I do), but that it simply isn’t something he thinks about often.  He lives very much in the present and does not let the past plague him or the future worry him.  It is difficult for me to do the same; anytime my hands and mind are not kept busy, I find myself thinking back to how I got here, and where I should be going.  It is not that my (our) current situation is bad in any way - I have finally found myself to be truly happy again, to enjoy the traveling and both the talks and amiable silence between myself and Marlowe.  I would not wish to return to my old clan, to how things were before, especially if it meant leaving him.

I asked him, finally and bluntly, where he had come from and what had happened to him.  I asked him if he had a clan he had left, a family.

“Family?”  He sniffed - right in my face.  It was such a concentrated, purposeful inhalation that my frills fluttered toward him slightly.  “You smell like family.”