The thunderclouds were beginning to rumble loudly in the midnight sky, but the hunt was nearing its conclusion. The hunt had not lasted long, and it was less a hunt than it was a slaughter. Three of the four invaders displayed little resistance as the warband fell upon their campsite and dismembered them, one of them was so drunk he did not even rouse to the cry of alarm that signaled the attack. The fourth however was proving difficult, and she had managed to scramble away from the carnage immediately after raising the alarm to warn her companions. She had fled west into the thickest part of the forest, but not quickly enough to prevent a well-aimed arrow from piercing its way into her thigh. Despite her injury she was still able to move quickly and silently through the trees, but it was the droplets of her feline blood that ultimately led Mazhrim, the warband's most cunning tracker, to her.
When Mazhrim finally did come upon his prey the cold rain was coming down a sideways deluge. Judging from the way the feline humanoid was sitting in the muck, on her hindquarters and facing the way she had come, it seemed to him she had run out of willpower to continue her escape and resigned herself to her fate. With a low growl to announce his arrival he stepped dutifully forward, his tribal spear clutched firmly in his grizzled paw, and looked down upon his wounded quarry proper. What he gazed upon through the darkness and torrential rain confused him to no end.
The creature was unmistakably female, Mazhrim had assumed this much from her scent as he had followed her, but his suspicions were confirmed as he gazed upon her form. She was like him in some ways, but different in so many more. They both had bodies covered in short fur, but his was thick and dark like soot, where hers was soft, light as sand, and speckled with small reddish-brown dots. They both had bestial faces and snouts, hers was slender and elongated where his was flat and broad, and her ears were as pointy as his were round. She was thin, lanky and looked a touch malnourished, whereas he was stout, heavy and quite well-fed. She looked up at him from the ground as Mazhrim eyed the arrowed in her leg, before he shifted his gaze to fixate on her eyes, they were bright blue and full of unmistakable frustration. He was expecting her to be mortified like so many of his victims before her, but instead she looked more annoyed than anything else.
"Do it then," she hissed through pointed teeth while eyeing the spear in Mazhrim's paw, but he made no move to advance on her. He had frozen on the spot, not because of her indifference to being murdered, but because she had spoken in the clear dialect of his tribe.
"How?" he growled in confusion.
"What difference does it make," she said indifferently, "just be quick about it."
Mazhrim jerked his head abruptly, "No. Tell me who taught you to speak our language." The creature stared at him in silence, and just when he thought she was going to refuse to answer she spoke.
"I am not speaking your language. I am speaking mine. Through the power of divination, we can understand each other," she said quietly before turning her attention back to the arrow in her thigh. She inspected it for a few moments and then tilted her head back to look upward into the black raining sky. Her expression suggested she did not have a solution for her injury. Mazhrim scowled as his confusion continued to mount.
"Tell me who Divination is," he commandingly rumbled. She looked at him for a long moment before erupting in laughter that carried throughout the small clearing they were in.
"Divination is not a person, it is school of magic," she corrected him through her laughter, "and I suspect you know nothing about it. Gnolls aren't exactly known for their intelligence, are they?"
Mazhrim remained still, but his body trembled with anger at her obvious insult. Though her remarks were not incorrect, a part of him wanted to end her existence right there on the spot. The greater part of him was captivated by her mystifying carelessness and mellifluous laugh. It wasn't often that his prey conversed with him, excluding the terrible screams and shrieks they sometimes emitted before expiring, and never once had one spoken to him in the language of his kind. The creature before him was an enigma.
"Some are more intelligent than others," he replied coolly, and to his surprise she nodded her head agreeably.
"This is true. I suspect you're one of the smarter ones of your tribe seeing as you're the first to find me," she mused. The rain continued to pour everywhere on the pair, but neither made any motion to prevent it from doing so.
"Maybe I'm just the fastest," Mazhrim disputed. His response only caused the feline creature to smirk and shake her head unceremoniously. Normally a blatant act of rejection would have made Mazhrim's blood boil, but in this instance, it did not. Something about her was calming his bloodlust.
"Maybe," she said slowly, "but I'm willing to gamble all the fish in the sea against your claim."
Mazhrim snorted, but he couldn't stop his lip from automatically curling upward in amusement, "And how would you pay that gamble if you lost?"
"I wouldn't have to," she said simply, "I don't gamble on anything that isn't a sure thing."
"Then it isn't gambling," Mazhrim said with a scowl. His quarry appeared puzzled as she looked up at him from her spot in the mud.
"What would you call it then?" she asked him after a brief pause. Mazhrim's scowl grew larger as he contemplated his answer.
"Deception..." he snarled forcefully, more forcefully than he intended, and immediately he regretted his reaction. The feline had flinched theatrically, and she was now leaning away from him as though expecting him to pounce. Her slender muzzle had also turned itself into an unmistakable frown.
"I wasn't trying to deceive you," she said hastily, "…and I'm sorry if you considered it as such."
Mazhrim eyed the cat-creature guardedly for a few moments. He wasn't sure what to think about her. The way she was speaking to him was friendly, her movements yielding, but given her predicament it was hard for him to take her at her word. He still had no clue as to what she was, where she came from, or why she was in his tribe's territory. Until he knew more about her he was forced to treat her as a foe. This realization unsettled him, and he could not understand why.
"Tell me what you are," he said slowly. He was careful to keep his voice low and unintimidating. This seemed to have a positive effect, the feline was no longer leaning away from him.
"Tabaxi," she answered quickly, and upon seeing the lack of understanding on Mazhrim's face she added, "my clan has lived for many centuries on a small island chain east of the continent of Maztica."
"Never heard of it," Mazhrim grunted. He was surprised to see the tabaxi was nodding her head.
"I would be surprised if you had. It is very far away. You would have to cross the entire Trackless Sea to get there," she said.
"Why are you here if your homeland is very far away?" he questioned suspiciously. His question drew a sigh from her.
"It is a long story," she said softly as she turned her attention back to the arrow sticking out of both sides of her leg.
"Then give me the short version," Mazhrim said, and suddenly the tabaxi wailed loudly. He wasn't sure why she was making a fuss, he thought it was a simple request, until he noticed the fresh blood trickling down her leg mixing with the falling rain. She had tried to snap the arrowhead from its shaft and failed miserably. It took her some time before she regained enough composure to speak.
"I was captured and enslaved by humans who sailed to our island many years ago," she said tersely, "and when we arrived in Faerun I was sold to a collector of exotic creatures. Apparently, I was worth quite a bit of coin." Her tone was hollow and filled with bitterness, and Mazhrim felt a tinge of pity for her. Her story sounded believable, but she hadn't answered his primary question.
"And how did you end up here? Now?" he pressed her. He wanted to believe her, but his instincts kept him on his guard.
"I said it was a long sto-," she began, but Mazhrim cut her off.
"How?!" he barked at her.
The feline was undeterred. She closed her eyes and inhaled calmly through her slanted nostrils. She kept her eyes closed as she repeated, "I told you… It is a long story. If you don't like how I'm telling it you can kill me and be done with it."
Mazhrim's insides raged. She was trying him, was outright challenging him on the spot, but despite this he could not find it within him to oblige her. "Very well. Speak quickly then," he grunted.
"Once I had been sold, my patron wasted no time in showing me to his many colleagues. I could not understand their language, but it took me little time to realize I was his prized possession. I was treated well, even though I was his pet and served no use than to be shown to others." She had spoken more quickly as he requested, but her words were clear and easy to follow.
"There are worse fates," Mazhrim countered.
"It depends on the individual," she counter-countered before adding, "and to me, captivity is the worst."
"Hrmp," Mazhrim said dismissively, "and then what happened?" Mazhrim noticed the feline was no longer looking at him. Instead she responded as though talking to the nearby trees.
"I waited for an opportunity to escape. Eventually one came and I took it… in the process I killed my owner to prevent him from tracking me down."
"Wise decision," Mazhrim rumbled. The tabaxi's posture suggested she wasn't fully convinced. She was still looking at the trees, but her shoulders were hunched and she seemed diminished. "Then what?"
"I fled. I thought killing him would prevent anyone from following me, but I was wrong. All I did was buy myself a little bit of time to gain a lead. He had many loyal servants who hunted me, they wanted retribution for their slain employer," she said.
"But you escaped them," Mazhrim replied presumptively.
"Not on my own," she corrected him as she turned her face to him once more. "It was a chance encounter with a small group of travelers which allowed me to evade capture. They were led by a human named Marcus Destone, and each of them had a past they were trying to escape. They accepted me without too many questions. Marcus was the one who taught me the common language of Faerun, and how to exist within its many regions. He taught me many things over the years I was with them, and eventually he taught me how to be like him."
Mazhrim's brow furrowed from confusion, "What do you mean? He taught you to be like a human?"
"No," the tabaxi said with a quick shake of her head, "he taught me to be a spellcaster. Marcus was a traveling storyteller, he called himself a bard, and his words had unique way of affecting people. He could get them to do things, make them believe things, make them see and hear things. I was skeptical of his abilities when he first told me. I didn't believe him until he started to teach me."
"And this how I can understand you?" Mazhrim said after a long pause. The tabaxi nodded her head. "The men you were with tonight… were they part of this group lead by this bard? Was he among them?" The tabaxi shook her head.
"No, those men were-," she started to say but then stopped abruptly. Her head had twisted sharply to look at the trees she had been gazing at a few moments ago. Though he could not see them through the heavy rain and thick trees, Mazhrim knew his warband had finally caught up to them.
