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Over the past few months, Aria had become a common enough sight at the stables.

She didn’t hop fences anymore. She knew to let herself in through the main gate, and to let herself in through the gate of Meadow’s stall, too. She was no longer tempted to crack the door and leave Meadow free, either.

Destiny City was not a place from wild horses. It was easier for Aria to see that, the more time she spent here. There were too many cars. There was too much war. It was safer here, where there were horse blankets with small pictures of things like dinosaurs on them, and where the air was heavy with the scent of sweet hay and oats.

It felt safe here for Aria, too. She didn’t ride Meadow without Gabby around, but brushing her was a soothing ritual.

Aria ran the brush across her coat again and again, smiling every time the horse turned to try to nudge her with her nose.

Aria was not really used to surprises. When Gabby came in with a shout, she gasped and shied away backwards, folding her hands in front of her as she blinked down at the shorter woman. She was used to this stable now, she wasn't quite scared, but she tended to be nervous around anyone, especially humans.

She'd been flinching more easily since the fight.

It was Gabby, though, and as soon as she realized that, she straightened up again, and smiled.

She took a step away from Meadow, since she was, according to the human rules, Gabby's horse.

"Oh, Gabby," she said, quietly, and waved. It took another second to find the rest of her words, but she managed it. "Hello. I hoped you would be here. She is ready for you."

"A new friend?"

On her way in, Aria had glanced the second horse in the previously empty stall, but how she edged her way past Gabby so that she could take a closer look.

"Oh, hello," she said quietly, looking over into the mare's soft brown eyes. "Oh, you're beautiful."

She'd found that it was a little easier to talk to horses than to people.

If Gabby was watching her, she would see that everything about her posture was silent awe and curiosity at getting to meet another member of one of her favorite species. She was smiling, owlish eyes wide as she was careful to take in every piece of body language that she could, every flick of the ears, or the tail. When it seemed the horse was calm, she held up a hand to gently rub at the velvet of her nose.

Any implications that the horse was hers seemed to go right over her head, but there was nothing but love in her voice when she said, "I do. I do love her."

"My responsibility?"

Aria glanced over her shoulder at Gabby, just for a moment.

There was still something about the situation not quite clicking in her head, but she knew that there were questions she should probably be asking about that, questions like why? and how do you take care of a horse?

Even those simple questions couldn't find their way to her mouth, though. They were caught somewhere behind Naeria's tounge. There was no way she could ask the other ones, the more important ones, the ones that went something like, by human customs, am I the owner of this creature now?

Even more importantly, if I own this horse, what am I supposed to tell the Commodore?

There was no way she was going to be able to say any of that, so she just kept smiling and smiling, petting and petting. What she did manage to do was answer Gabby's question.

"She's Portabella."

Then, she finally pulled herself away from the horse nuzzles in order to look for the new tack.

Oh.

There was the answer to about half of her unspoken questions.

It led to even more questions, but none of those questions were the ones that Gabby could answer.

What would Lyndin say? What would Caedus say? Should she be turning the horse down, so that she did not find herself any more tied up into the human's strange customs of capitalism and animal ownership any more than she already was?

She didn't know if it mattered what she should be doing, because while there were some words that she could choke out, even if they tried to stick in her throat, there was no way, no way, that she could say she didn't want Portabella.

She wanted Portabella.

"Thank you," she said instead, because that was the polite human thing to say when you got a gift. She was still smiling, still stealing glances back at Portabella.

"I remember how the tack works. I think this will be fun," she said.

It was easier to focus on that than on any of the problems that might come up. It was easier to talk about, easier to think about, easy as anything to grab the supplies and start getting Portabella set up for a ride.