Zahi gave a little snort of a laugh at Quinlan's comment that he 'was always getting into trouble as a kid.' "Some things don't change, then," she remarked dryly. But otherwise she listened, mismatched eyes watching Quinlan closely as he reminisced about his early years. It was strange to think of Quinlan with his hands covered in flour, helping a kindly mother bake cakes. Getting chased around by a caring father. She supposed she liked to think of him as being 'like her.' She wasn't jealous, exactly, that he wasn't. Zahi wasn't one to dwell on thoughts like, 'Oh, what would I be like now if I had had...' The notion was actually so foreign, she really couldn't even hazard a guess.
Different. Of that she was sure of.
And for a moment, the question did flit into her head. What would she have been like, if her life hadn't been marked so strongly by the need to stay alive, to survive.
It was a useless endeavor, though, and instead she said to Quinlan, without jest, "That sounds nice."
At some point her hand drifted to his side, tracing the outline of his frame. She was quiet for a moment, her eyes far away. Almost without realizing it, she continued, "I guess I never really had a 'parent.' Really. My mom kept me alive, kept me safe while she was alive, but she wasn't able to do much more. After I came back to Zantaric," she paused a moment, her expression looking vaguely conflicted. "There isn't much future for a street kid in Zantaric, especially not a girl. At least," she made a face, "there's only really one future. I suppose I only escaped it because I got picked up by a rising crime lord. I might've been ten, I'm not sure. Maybe younger. Saw me in rifling through the trash, told one of his bodyguards to pull me out and give me something to eat. That would've been the end of it, but scrappy little thing that I was, I didn't like some strange man picking me up - well, how was I supposed to know he was just pulling me out of the dumpster to give me an apple or whatever? - fought this big guy tooth and nail. Literally. I guess he liked my grit. Instead of giving me something to eat and carry along, he took me under his wing. I suppose he was kind to me. And, for awhile, was something like a father-figure." Zahi frowned at that. Her feelings towards the man, even after all these years, were still muddied, unresolved. As much as a 'survivor' as she was, she surely would have died without him. She knew that. "For awhile, anyway."