I know this is really low quality right now, I had to upload it like that bc my Paint Tool SAI has been hecking up lately and not allowing me to save certain files, so until I fix that this one is a bit too pixel-y, but I still wanted to show it now even though I might reupload later ^.^ Inspired from a fantasy AU RP that me and have been doing for a little bit now, and my first real shot at a big background like this, since I have to kinda learn how to do loose paint looking stuff on digital art now.

The horse in the picture is a dun tobiano Bashkir Curly / Norwegian Fjord cross named Lyric. In the RP, I always thought it would be neat if feral animals and anthropomorphic ones lived alongside each other, the ferals having a bit more of a tribal lifestyle and strict culture, thinking of themselves as anthro's ancestors. I imagine direct trade would be their only means of currency, and so horses for example could provide help traveling in exchange for food, water, medicine, shelters built for their families, etc. That is also why I drew Lyric wearing a hackamore, as it mostly would just provide stability for the anthro rider and slight tactile communication in case any confusion occurred; I'm sure most of the time the horses wouldn't even wear bridles and would just pull carts / carry riders in their saddles. I'm sure even if bits did exist in this world, they would be deemed demoralizing and any anthro that saw need to use one would be considered extremely conceited and distrusting and the horses would refuse to do business with them because they are able to think for themselves.

Also in the AU, magic does exist but only magic creatures such as dragons are able to harness and control it unless a magical artifact is crafted. Hybrids exist as well but typically only with anthro animals... I'd imagine that most of the "pure" feral animals simply think they're a bit odd and don't really know how to understand them and would end up referring to them as a combination of whatever it looked like they were (for example, at some points a few horses refer to Bramble as "dog of deer", to his offense since he is neither a dog nor a deer in a sense.)