And on quiet evenings, if you listened closely past the zoo’s closing announcements, you might hear two soft muzzles touch, followed by a breath that sounded almost like laughter. Two souls, wildly different, perfectly paired.

She pressed her forehead to his. “I was so scared,” she admitted.

Orion and Seraphina never had foals—nature had its own rules—but they had something rarer: a love chosen, not instinctive. In a world that often draws lines between kinds, they simply refused to see them.