Hay is for Horses, Grass is for Free

He appeared on a world not unlike the one he had just left. It wasn’t as fresh smelling, in fact it reeked of horse manure, but it still had clean air and a pleasantness that he’d never inhaled on his world. There was smell of fresh grass, wildflowers, and coal. He could also smell coal being burned. It was not overwhelming, but it tinged the atmosphere around him to a point that it stood out against the otherwise wholesome quality of the air. Declan had appeared on a dirt road that was surrounded by well-cut pastures. He didn’t see any fences that declared ownership of the property or any signage warning him off. His tie whipped up into his face as a gust of wind lifted it from his chest, and he brushed it back down to his chest and buttoned his blue jacket to hold it in place.

Declan didn’t dally. He strode toward the area that he knew the town would be. It was obvious that he would not be heading into a city, just from his present surroundings, but he thought he spotted a familiar landmark here and there. Having just come from what he would have termed a western styled technology level world he assumed that it was the same here. Not that a high tech world couldn’t have clean and fresh air, but it was more than likely that this place was at about the same level as the last.

His dress shoes danced around huge piles of horse manure as he went, and that fact coupled with the ruts he could see in the road led him to believe that this was a horse and buggy kind of world. He was a little disappointed; he enjoyed learning new ideas and listening to new music, and seeing new art that advanced cultures had. Mother, he was sure, was still sorting through the information that he’d gotten on Krome. Declan was certain that they’d have some strange music and art to peruse in his free time. He tried to get a feel for the world he was on, desperate to see what kind of vibe it provided him. He would use whatever he intuited to help devise his apocalypse. He planned on tailoring his destructive side to each planet’s signature if he could. There was no reason not to be creative, and that was what the Invigilator wanted after all. He found himself humming the old Cole Porter song, Don’t Fence Me In, as he walked.

Finally, he rounded a bend and saw his destination. It was not what he’d expected. There were things that would qualify more as pavilions than they would actually be considered as buildings. They were built in the form of the classic A frame design, with the rooves being about two feet taller than the height of what he would have considered to have been a standard story. Everything was constructed of wood, but not the advanced planks that you would find in the old west. There were no two by fours. Instead, the top of the pavilions were supported by pillars that were the skeletal remnants of the trunks of huge trees. The front of the building was wide open, save for a very large set of swing doors that looked like they could fit three people through via either swing. The sides of the building were simple felled trees stacked upon one another like Lincoln Logs. The fencing that he’d missed on the roadside appeared to the rear of the building, spreading from the pavilion in a hexagonal shape the enclosed a sizable portion of land that seemed to serve no immediately discernable purpose. There were varying types of these constructs that were laid out in a manner very similar to an old style town. They were just more spread out.

Some of the buildings he could immediately identify as shops and others as homes. He could also see one structure that looked to be a stable, but he could clearly make out the word HOTEL hanging from a sign in the front.

Declan was curious as to why people would build their homes in such a manner, but the moment that he saw the world’s inhabitants he instantly knew why. The few folk that he could see in the early morning hours had the upper torso of a human, and the lower half of a horse. They were centaurs. Coming away from a world where everyone was an anthropomorphized animal it really wasn’t all that much of a stretch to make the leap to centaurs. It made him wonder if all the humanoids on this world were centaurs, or if their might be Satyrs and Minotaurs running about as well. Regardless of which monster manual the creatures had sprang from, their form made him realize that he had a major problem. Unlike Rah’s world, this place didn’t have humans of any type that he could see. These were half people all the way.

In the world of Beastions Declan could, and did pass as one of them from a distance, and close up he’d just looked like one of their children in adult form. This was very different. There was nothing that he could do to disguise himself, or provide a reasonable explanation for what he was if they saw him in his present state. If he just walked into town he might start a riot or get attacked for being so alien to them; and, he realized, he was an alien. He had no idea of how he was going to go into town and just mingle with the people.

He considered pulling up his HUD, but knew that there was nothing it could do, and he noticed once again the Mother was silent upon his arrival. He didn’t know if she was giving him time to take in his surroundings but he would have liked a rundown of what she knew about the place. Options were not limited, they were fairly non-existent. As much as he wanted to save this world’s version of Sarah he realized that he was going to have to forgo his pleasantries and just blow the place up.

His heart sank at the thought, but he had to recognize his limitations. He couldn’t save every Sarah every time. He had to face that fact. Shoulders slumped he pulled up his HUD. He needed to do this quickly anyway, he supposed. No point in dragging it out. The mission prompt said he could outright destroy the planet or just the intelligent life. He really was feeling a bit thin, and so decided to just wipe out the whole damn planet. No need to go for the save if he couldn’t rescue Sarah. He was about to open his apocalypse tab when a voice stopped him.

“Boo!”

Declan jumped a foot into the air despite the fact that his heart had also stopped when the word was spoken. Somehow, he’d managed not to scream, but he wasn’t so certain that he hadn’t wet himself in the process of jumping. When he landed he spun around looking for who had just scared the living Bejeezus out of him while he simultaneously checked himself for a wet spot. He tried not to be too obvious about it but probably failed. The mini car pretended not to notice what he was doing.

Kristine, looking polished, new, and very smug floated before him. “Hello, Declan,” she purred. “Were you about to just blow up this world?” She seemed incredulous at his actions, “Don’t tell me that you have already given up on saving this version of Sarah?” She had really ramped up the Becallness of her voice. It was already calming him when he should have been a lot angrier at her sneak attack.

“Dammit, Kristine! You almost scared me to death. Do you have any idea of how stressing my day has been thus far? I’m strung up tighter than a long tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs with razor blades wedged in the bottoms of the rockers, and you have to go and do something like that?” The corners of his lips began to gather saliva, making it look like he’d been eating glue. “What did you get out of that?”

She started honking the beat of Low Rider on her horn. She drifted lazily in front of him, and laughed, “I just did it for spark plugs and giggles.”

“We are on a deadline,” he snarled at her, but then he broke into a fit of laughter himself.

“I’m here to help.”

He visibly deflated, “I don’t see how you can,” he said flatly, “The people here are centaurs. I’ll never be able to pass as one of them. That means that I can’t rescue this iteration of Sarah, I just have to apocalypse the place and move on.”

“Nope.”

“Huh?”

“I. Can. Help,” the miniature car revved. She flew behind him and settled on his back. He felt her gently impact him and then sensed that she had fastened herself to his spine. Then she lifted him so that he floated three feet higher in the air. His legs dangled helplessly. “We are connected through to Mother, so I can see what you see. Just step in the direction you want to go, and I’ll move us there. In other words walk normally. You’re driving me this time.”

Declan dangled in the air. “I appreciate that you want to help, but how is me hovering three feet off of terra firma make me inconspicuous to the native people of this land?

Kristine revved her engine again, “Look at yourself, silly. Remember, I have holographic-technology. As far as they are concerned you look just like one of them. You shouldn’t have any problems interacting with them at all now.”

* * *

Declan trotted into town keeping a wary eye out for any horses that had tentacles dangling from them. His apparition cantered into the one location that had the words Strong Coffee and Good Eats painted on the side of the walls. This would be the most likely place that he would find a Sarah. the swinging doors creaked as he entered through them. He paused and took a quick scan of the room. He’d been right, Sarah was right where he expected her to be behind the counter serving customers. He entered the huge room and stepped right up to her. Then, he took a risk. It had worked the last time. Why wouldn’t it work again?

“Sarah Crowe,” he said as he looked into her eyes, “I have come here for you.”

She gave him a big toothy grin, “Tell me about it, stud,” she said with a snicker. It was then the Declan realized why she had said that. He looked into the mirror over her shoulder, and could see that Kristine had indeed made him look like a centaur, but she’d made him a classic Greek centaur. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he had a bow and quiver of arrows slung over his shoulders. Conversely, Sarah was wearing a white tank top and a long sleeved flannel shirt with the cuffs rolled up. She had on a pair of glasses, and a gold necklace that ended with a crucifix on it. The centaur Jesus disconcerted him. Everyone else in the shop was dressed similarly. Some had leather jackets or tee shirts, but they were all dressed in some capacity. He, on the other hand, was basically naked.

“First,” she said as she eyed him hungrily, “Why aren’t you wearing any clothes. And second,” she said as she licked her lips seductively, “When did you get so ripped, Decky?”

Decky? Oh, sweet Jesus. First, the whole Decky thing made him feel like he threw a shoe. Threw a shoe? Where did that come from? He was already thinking like a centaur. Secondly, in spite of her half horse nature, he could not help but notice how amply endowed her human half was; his Sarah had not been so generously gifted. He tried not to stare, and any other time he would have averted his gaze, but for some reason he could barely look her in the eyes.

Declan tried to stammer something coherent; to force viable words out of his mouth, but his tongue rolled around like it was chasing a marble. “Have you come to challenge Allen?” He knew that she had asked him a question and all he could do was look at her like he was a doe caught in a pair of headlights, which was ironic if he stopped to think about it. It seemed that this universe handed out situational irony. He managed to mumble a, “Huh?”

She rolled her eyes and pushed some hair behind her ear, “You know Allen.” She reached over the counter and grabbed his cheeks. She squeezed them together when she said the name. “Allen, the Stallion of this herd.” Her squeezes mad it look like he was mouthing her words; Declan felt foolish but he could not do a thing to stop her.

“The guy that dragged you out of here last night,” she said with a knowing look in her eyes. “I can only assume that he banned you from the herd.” She could see by the look on Declan’s face that he was utterly lost. “Y’know, Allen, the guy who said he’d kill you if you ever came back into this town let alone this poor establishment.” She released his cheeks and rubbed a towel on the counter and picked up an empty cup.

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Declan swore that the centaur Sarah took a peek at his junk while she wiped the counter. Her lip had jutted out and she made an “I’m surprised look” at she stared at his illusionary genitals. Sarah slung the towel over her shoulder and grabbed the tip that lay beneath it. “I like you. You know I do, but what the stallion says around here goes.” She pointed at the door. “And he said that you go. I’m not trying to be rude; I’m looking out for you sweetie. I don’t want to see you get hurt again.” Declan swore that he could see hope in her eyes. Was it hope that he would leave before Allen learned of his presence? Hope that he would take care of the tyranny of this Allen fellow, or was it hope that he would win the encounter? He wanted to ask, but saw that she was just staring off into space towards the door.

Declan looked over his shoulder, fully expecting to see “Allen” waiting for him. That was just how his day had been going. He was surprised that there wasn’t a hulking brute of a lusus naturae waiting to punch him in the face.

“Look, Sarah,” he said as he turned around to face her, “I honestly don’t know what you are talking about. I’m not the guy that you think you know. I have come here from very far away to save you.” She looked at him like he had lost his mind. “Did he hit you that hard,” she asked; concern in her eyes.

Declan sighed. Questions rebounded from one side of his skull to the other such as, why did he always make himself go through this? There was nothing stopping him from just grabbing her and sending her back to Terra Sarah. There was no way that he could do that to her, though, this had to be her choice. She had to be the one making the decision. He wouldn’t force her to come. Options had to be provided.

“Look,” he said earnestly, “Your world is about to die, and I don’t want to leave you here. Come with me, and I will protect you.” He added that last bit because it seemed to be working for him so far. He was glad to see that he was branching out from the come with me if you want to live shtick, but he was still itching to tell someone to get to the choppa.

She stared back at him, looking him in the eyes, and he felt a connection. She saw him, not the man that she thought she knew and she realized that he was serious about her being in danger.

He smiled, appreciating that he wasn’t going to have to grab her and drag her away unwillingly, and was especially happy that he was no longer focused on her chest. It seemed like things were going smoothly after all. He almost panicked a little when she’d told him to go, but now everything was back on track. On track? Did he seriously just run another horse reference through his head? What the hell was going on with him?

A young colt who stood at a table nearby chortled. “Betcha didn’t see me over here, didja?” He was a burly fellow, but didn’t look like anyone that Declan couldn’t handle. He was young, in his early to mid-teens. The boy wasn’t buff, but he was wiry. His beechnut hair was long and ran down the length of his back. The centaur was wearing a flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off, and no shirt beneath it. He had a scruffy patchwork beard of scraggly hairs that made peach fuzz look full and luxurious.

“My dad is gonna kick the ever lovin’ horse piss out of you when learns that you came back. Hell, I thought he killed you. I reckon that he’s going to this time. You just wait right here. Imma gonna go git him.”

The centaur that was known as Sarah raised a hand in a hold it right there gesture, “Stop, Chet, you don’t need to do anything. Declan was just leaving. Isn’t that right, Decky?” Her eyes were wide and imploring, and her voice made it clear that she was telling him instead of asking. Declan smiled and decided to ignore her.

The faux centaur stepped in front of the door way, blocking Chet’s egress. “Do you always run to daddy for help, or do I scare you?” Declan’s face was painted with a smirk as he asked the question, and his tone was mocking. He absolutely hated people like this, the pot stirrers, who went out of their way to cause trouble for someone else without getting their hands dirty. He wanted to spook the boy. Spook him? Seriously, what was happening to him?

Chet put his mug of coffee down, his chin whiskers wiggling as he stifled the crying fit he was about to have, and galloped out the doors. Declan let him pass. His fight wasn’t with the boy, and one way or another he would be out of the Revelator’s hair in under half an hour. Declan thought about calling out a snide remark to Chet as he ran out of the coffee house, but thought better of it. He was going to bring the Stallion, Allen, and Declan idly wondered if Allen was Italian. That would make him Allen the Italian Stallion. He slapped his palm to his forehead. What was it about this place that was making him think and act so stupidly?

Oddly, after facing bulbous gelatinous masses of tentacles, being burned by an acidic air, and narrowly missing out on being imploded he wasn’t very worried about some half a man who had a boner for beating on the other him of this world. In fact, he was feeling like giving out a little payback on behalf of his duplicate.

“Sarah,” he said with a devilish grin, “If I beat Allen in a fight does that make me the new stallion?”

She made a raspberry sound as she snorted, “Look, hot to trot, if you can beat Allen, then you know that you automatically become the new Stallion of the herd. And that’ll mean that I’ll have to do whatever you tell me.” She gave him a wink, “But we both know that’s never going to happen. Get out of here before he seriously hurts you.”

“Does it matter how I stop him? What if I kill him?”

This time everyone in the shop burst into laughter, a few unprepared customers did a spit take, and even Sarah the centaur had her hands on her hips and was laughing herself silly. “Honey, you are gonna hafta kill him if you want to survive this day.”

Declan smiled inwardly, that was just what he wanted to hear. His holographic hooves clomped over the counter and he asked Sarah the centaur to bring him some black coffee. He was feeling the ache of having been running and fighting for the last several hours and needed a cool down. Coffee would hit the spot. She brought it, shaking her head in sadness, as she knew what was going to happen very soon. “No charge,” she said.

He stood there sipping it pleasantly for about ten minutes before he heard loud hoof steps coming in their direction. The swing doors creaked open slowly, and a gruff voice barked out a single word, “Mason!” All Declan heard, however, was “McFly!”

An obvious alpha male stepped into the café and pointed a thickly muscled finger at Declan. Jesus, Declan thought, it looks like his finger could kick my ass. The brute stepped forward and then started doing body builder poses. First, he did the Front Lat Spread while giving Declan a half-cocked nod with one eye closed, then he transitioned into the Front Double Biceps stance that he paired with a wolf-like growl, then he shifted into doing the Side Chest pose holding it for a solid twenty seconds, after which he performed the “Most Muscular” position. Finally, he french kissed each of his biceps; then he put his enormous mitts together and intertwined his fingers, turned his palms outward and stretched his arms until his fingers cracked. “I’m gonner beat’cha till you can’t breath, then Imma gonner break each of yer legs, and leaves ya outside for the wolves ta eat you alive. Imma gonner make you regret comin’ back inta my herd.”

To Allen’s astonishment, Mr. Mason trotted over to him, and brought his face up to look the brutish equinoid in the eye. Allen snorted, but Declan did not flinch. Instead, he snickered. “Not only are you too stupid to realize that you are outmatched, but you can barely string together a coherent sentence.”

The stallion was faster than Declan had anticipated, and drove a fist towards the false centaur’s stomach. Thankfully, Kristine had swifter reflexes and swiveled her leader out of the way in the nick of time. She was unable to dodge the uppercut that Allen had followed the first punch with. It snapped into Declan’s jaw with a crack, but Declan hardly felt it.

Declan calmly backed up and turned around and withdrew his .45 from his back. “Sorry, Biff, but I’ve done about enough fighting for the day.” He leveled the hand cannon at the big bearded centaur’s head. He had to admit that this Allen guy was a bruiser. He was twice the size of Schwarzenegger, and he was uglier than a homeless three year addicted crackhead needing a morning fix. His beard was black and unkempt and his eyes were bloodshot, and Declan assumed that he had just come off a long night of drinking. Declan blew him a kiss and pulled the trigger. He couldn’t feel bad about it since he would have made sure that he had died in the apocalypse that he was going to initiate, and in fact, it sort of eased his conscience to know that the stallion went fairly quickly.

The brute hit the ground like a turkey that had been dropped from a helicopter for a Thanksgiving day giveaway. His brains sprayed all over his son, who had been standing behind him. Declan noticed that Allen, the now deceased stallion was holding a knife in his hand, so he chalked that one up to self-defense, even though shooting the man had pretty much been his plan the entire time. Reflexively, Allen’s body made the most muscular pose once more as it laid on the ground and then went still.

Everyone in the shop stared at Allen’s corpse. They couldn’t believe that he was dead. He heard all sorts of exclamations from the crowd.

“Holy Horse Hockey!”

“How in the hell do he do that?”

“Didja see that?”

The best came from behind him. It was Sarah, and she actually sounded relieved. “You got the bastard.”

Declan twirled the gun in his hand and then returned it to his backside under his jacket. He took his time turning around to look at Sarah. She wore a look of shock and surprise, obviously unable to connect what happened with he who had just done the deed. He was about to make a smart remark, but the look on Sarah’s face shifted from shock to that of a warning, and she yelled, “Look out!”

Declan turned his head to look behind him, and saw the blood covered colt approaching him with his father’s knife in hand. The boy made a diving motion towards his flank, but the blade and the boy who followed, fell through the false image of his horse half. The boy had clearly intended to tackle his flank and stab him repeatedly until he’d killed Declan, but the illusionary horse hide was immaterial and he ended up diving right through it. The colt hit the floor hard and lay still. Declan could see that the fall had driven the blade into the boy’s chest just below the sternum. A pool of blood began spreading and if Declan had actually been on the ground rather than floating three feet above it he would have been standing in the lad’s life blood.

Nonplussed at the event that had just occurred Declan turned to face the crowd; he imagined that they thought of him as some kind of wizard what with him killing a man from ten feet across a room and then becoming ghostlike when he was attacked from behind.

“All right, by your own proclamation that dead jerk,” he pointed to Allen’s corpse, “Over there just handed me the title of top dog. As the Stallion of this herd I hereby order Sarah to come with me. Any of you yahoos don’t want to die I suggest that you follow her lead and come with me too. Or don’t, it’s your call, but if you stay here you will die.” Declan then tapped his temple and told Mother to open a gateway for Sarah and any others who wanted to, to go through. Sarah and several others spooked when the crackling blue energy portal appeared but calmed down when Declan showed them it was safe by putting his hand into it and withdrawing it whole. She entered easily, but Declan noticed that two of the centaurs could not pass through the threshold no matter what they did. It reminded him of a magnet repelling another magnet with a similar pole, no matter how they tried they couldn’t get close to it. This felt familiar, like he had seen it somewhere else, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on where or when. Declan shrugged. He could always ask Mother later. He had bigger fish to fry. He had an apocalypse to perform.

How did one deal with what were essentially horses? He wasn’t down for disease again, and he had to do something that would take care of business. He flipped on his HUD and looked it over when he started thinking about an article he had read when he was a kid about how they had reintroduced wolves to Yosemite National Park and how good they were for the environment. Their presence had knocked back deer populations that had been ravaging the area for years. Wolves loved to eat four legged beasties. The bad news was that they only killed one or two animals at a time, and then laid off hunting until they were hungry again.

He needed wolves on steroids. He needed rabid wolves on steroids. He needed giant wolves with rabies on steroids that were angry at their mothers and had become addicted to methamphetamine. Screw that he thought, he needed giant freaking Dire wolves with claws that could cut through steel that were utterly ravenous, insane, and came in droves. He began typing on his HUD, Dire wolves that suffer from Acromegaly suddenly appear in packs that outnumber each centaur by five to one. These packs will appear within five feet of every individual currently alive and begin ripping them to shreds. Each wolf will seek to sate its hunger by devouring no less than five centaurs, after which it will be in a bloodlust and will kill any centaur it sees heedless of the danger they pose to it. If a wolf does not manage to eat a centaur every five minutes it will go into a blood lust and kill any equine creature it encounters with the centaurs taking priority. When the last centaur on the planet is dead they will then turn on each other and kill one another until only a few are left. These Dire Wolves will have claws that can cut through steel, and teeth that could bite through plate armor. They are sterile and cannot reproduce, and if they do not eat centaur meat within twenty four hours they will die. The wolves will appear as soon as I leave the planet and begin their grim work. He pressed enter and closed his HUD. He saw there were messages flashing, but Kristine was on his back, and if something important came up she would let him know. Right now he had one more world to get through before he was finished.

“Kristine, you ready to go?”

She dropped him to the ground and released from his back. “As I’ll ever be,” she purred. His outward form wavered and in a second he looked just like a normal man again.

The two remaining centaurs were yelling at him since they hadn’t been able to get through the portal, and now it was gone. Declan shrugged them a, hey whatta ya want me to do look, and vanished after asking Mother to take him to Earth 876.