Once upon a time Raul walked the earth, a horse with a tan complexion, golden hooves, and a hair that transformed into an array of natural palettes and themes. In fall, his hair matched the leaves. Wintertime, he froze his mane in the cool blue-whites of an ice king. Springs, he ignored because daisies and bumblebees weren't his wave, so he more or less appeared as a normal horse—but with glossier skin. Summers, he was fire.

But of course his mood was the true deciding factor as to how he wore his fickle locks.

Unlike the other animals, he didn't subscribe to the typical wiring of the rest of his species. Sure, he performed horse-like behaviors, grazing and neighing and running and such, but he refused saddles and plows and carts. He refused labor. He rejected the expectation of production. Horsepower was a dirty word, an insult, a slur. "If you have power, then do it yourself. Why do you need a horse? Manpower is a word, too, the fuck?"

Even the stable horses near the meadowlands in which Raul freely roamed woefully spoke of his wasted potential. It was no secret that Raul possessed the speed and muscle tone of a derby winner. "Don't waste your potential," they'd tell him, "You're gifted and strong. You can be a better horse than us all."

"Neigh," Raul said.

"What's a neigh? Do you mean neeiiighghgh?" The horses lifted their heads to the sky, strained the corded muscles in their necks while producing their tribal cry.

"Neigh means neigh," Raul said, clearly unimpressed.

"Do it right. Like it a proper horse."

"What's a proper horse?"

"You know? Like us. Using your horsepower is a virtue. Pull a cart. Accept a rider. Do an honest day's work for once."

Raul turned his head to the side, surprised, baffled, affronted. It was a warm spring day but his mane appeared to smoke and smolder. You could detect the summer in his hair—and in his voice. "Work? Why do I have to work?"

"What else are you going to do?"

"Anything but." He turned to leave and flipped his hair, ash scattering toward his brethren, purely cosmetic of course.

So Raul left the wild, his comfortable meadow, his relative freedom. There was a better living to create for himself anyway. Horses traded stories about the honorable and useful applications of their horsepower, and all of them had to do with manual labor, with taking direction—but Raul, his golden hooves and naturally blessed hair, possessed a broader vision for his life. As he migrated away from familiar lands, he peered into the adjacent stream and saw in his reflection an artist. What would a cart, a saddle, do for the revolution he knew himself to be?

Within a day, Raul migrated from his native meadowlands past a mountain sign that declared in white block letters, HOLLYWOOD. Raul kept off the road and observed the city from afar. He'd only been around rural folks but had seen enough TV through their windows to know where he was. The coffee shops, the unusual clothing, the golden jewelry that people wore on their wrists and necks and ears that Raul, himself, had been born with on his very feet. Civilization. Style. Raul couldn't help but sneer at the thought that he should choose work when this mecca of flamboyance existed.

He toured himself around the town, sticking to the mountains, walking along a street called Sepulveda until arriving to the ocean. Venice Beach, read the signs. He marveled at the people, the diversity of one species, all the ways a person could be. Some humans were muscled like thoroughbreds. Others were slender and shapely as show-ponies. Others wore visors and fannypacks and black sunglasses. They wore suits and dresses and a host of unfamiliar, non-denim fabrics. There were tattooed images on their skin. And the colors—so many colors in their hair. Upon first sight Raul knew he wasn't going home, not today, not ever to be honest. Horses could be more! He thought, he lamented, he prayed. I will show them! I will pave the way!

And immediately, his unattended presence began to generate a buzz amongst the beachgoers. Whose horse is that? Do we call the police? Animal Control? Raul did his best to ignore the uncomfortable murmurings. But the buzz chased Raul like gnats in the heat. He swished his tail from side to side, beating aside the annoyance that came with the attention. He wanted to shine, to achieve notice and stardom, but all of these folks saw—for all their diversity of shapes and colors and fashion sense—was a horse without a rider.

Immediately, though, he calmed.

His attention was taken by one man in particular, a tattooed fire-eater.

And, thankfully, the fire-eater paid Raul no mind. He simply inhaled the flames, shot them out. Over and over as the surrounding crowd gasped in awe. His face was sweaty and sooty. His chestnut skin appeared tanned by the flames. But there were no signs of pain or discomfort, nothing to break his focus from the combustion.

Raul found the concentration to be beautiful.

He approached the fire-breather who danced about, twirling his flaming baton. The man soon stopped, unable to ignore the horse inches from his face. The flame was held upright and Raul opened his mouth, swallowed it. The crowd gasped. The fire-eater gasped, too. Silence. People held their phones up. Others were dialing numbers. And when Raul opened his mouth, a black trail of smoke escaped his throat in steady O's. And then it happened—WHOOSH!—a tremendous flaring of fire igniting from his mane. His hair had become flame.

The crowd erupted.

Clapping, shutter clicks, little kids calling him Rapidash—whoever that was.

Raul relished in his moment, quite comfortable in the knowledge that as his mane were steadily aflame, no one would dare to ride him.

*

His first commercial was on a cruise ship.

The second on a snowy mountain named Polar Bear's Peak.

The third happened back home, within the wild meadows which he'd recently left.

Ever since that first public display of fiery hair, the phone videos turned him into a widely known sensation. He wore the hair most fitting for the shoots—ocean-colored and seafoam for the yacht, ice crystals in the snow, the earthen orange-yellows of fall back home.

These shoots were for Gilton Luxury Pastures. The Gilton family were eccentric billionaires that dominated the hospitality business, as they called it. Raul didn't know what "hospitality" meant exactly, but it sounded luxurious, so he agreed to the shoots.

Turns out, they meant hotels. Glorious, natural ones, where the horses and other animals could roam free, get their hooves filed, and their stables tended to on a near-hourly basis.

"Smile for the camera," the director told Raul. He smiled, yes, but that hair flip—so severe. He served them enough looks to populate a generation of calendars. "Yes, yes!" Raul neighed. "I am here for this!" Shutter clicks. Flash bulbs. Bright lights and aluminum panels. A crown of cameras turning Raul into a star.

The farm horses were nearby, grazing, side-eyeing the shoot. "You call that work?" one loudly heckled.

Raul, prancing in the open field as an unbothered, carefree horse, recorded his response in what he knew would be a killer close-up. Dramatic pause. Neck whipped upward. Mane flowing in the most perfect caress of the wind.

"Work? Call it living."

Humans typically couldn't make out what horse-kind had to say, even if horses, creatures that tended to take direction, were bilingual. People, being simple folk, only heard neighs. Raul didn't have that communication barrier, though, not when he possessed his expressive body language, when the subtle palette revisions of his locks—darker for calm, brighter for being extra—transformed his impassioned neighs into messages that people understood.

Raul spoke in horse, and his drama was the translation.

So when Raul paused, neck-whipped, neighed—the folks on set went wild.

And when the commercial released, the Twitter-verse erupted.

"Call it living" became a sensation.

Memes. Pins. Bumper stickers. Fanfic.

Folks said he was fabulous, outrageous, that he absolutely slayed.

Slay. What an odd word Raul thought, especially since he wasn't in tune with the city-folk ways, but the word tingled from his ear canals down into his spine. Somehow, without knowing what it was, he embodied slay. When the folks said slay, Raul knew he was killing it.

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Raul kept track of his social media following on a custom tablet his Gilton employers got for him—massive dimensions, hoof-proof screen. He scrolled his Twitter, read all the DMs full of love and fanart and random sponsorship offers. Gummi Bears, Cheetos, even Nike—whatever sense they thought that made. Overnight, Raul's star-power soared. Raul was the old name, the non-glorious one, but @Slayhorse_Official was a star.

Raul became larger than the No Quiero Taco Bell dog, the Twix Rabbit, Count Chocula, and even the Kiebler elves. But unlike his animal contemporaries, he switched up his style. The hair set him apart, fabulously so. He became known by a new moniker: Slayhorse.

The best part about becoming the Slayhorse was that he took no money—he couldn't, being a newcomer to the human metropolis. Instead, he was provided a contract, one which he stamped-signed with his glittering golden hoof. The contract's stipulations were simple: personal assistants, accountants, stable-hands. Anyone who did business with him had to arrange service for him, their finest arrangements worthy of his deeds.

And the service was grand to say the least, for in no time at all Raul landed a movie role. A Horse With No Name was the title. The producers said it was from a famous song. Raul didn't much like the name but he loved the script.

Naturally, it was about horse.

He just traipsed into town one day. No name, no rider. Simply a strange, unclaimed horse. The horse had a name, though, but the townsfolk didn't speak horse, and heard his introduction as rhythmic neighs. But they were decent folks and let the horse wander around. And they soon learn that the horse is a complete dear. He racing the elderly to their bingo games. He races to the outskirts of town to save a man who'd fallen into a well. When a stove fire engulfs a home, the horse races there too and drags a woman and infant out of the building. By the end of the movie, the horse has no name but he's a good horse. He's so fast. And so good. And also fast.

"There's a lot of racing in this" Raul said in the conference room. He tilted his head in perplexity, accidentally tapped the lamp right next to him.

"Plenty!" A producer said. "Action is the wave."

"Absolutely" seconded the director, Michel Bayless. He loved explosions—but he wanted badly to work with @Slayhorse_Official, so he made do with racing. As a creative, he thought himself flexible.

"If you like it, I love it," Raul sighed. His mane was a smoky gray that day, like his mind-state, muted, apprehensive.

Months of shoots, 12- to 14-hour days, labor (ugh!), but a labor of love. So Raul endured, he persevered, he acted his heart out.

Premiere day. He wore his fiery locks to match the red carpet. His hoofprints destroyed the carpet but nobody cared. It was his night. Fans disguised as media members snipped away at squares of destroyed carpet, and later posted their framed Slayhorse hoofprints on Twitter.

Raul even posted on one. "I destroyed the carpet because I am a horse? But what's your excuse? Must you do so much?"

Everyone loved the sass. Everyone, as in the 858K likes on that comment.

He soon learned that stardom couldn't be turned off, that you could turn the Raul into a Slayhorse but you couldn't turn a Slayhorse back into a Raul. In his regular horse life, the size and species already earned him stares and murmurs. Now folks approached him, screamed and hyperventilated their love in his face. The double-edge of his fame became a hindrance—in the pizza shop, the tofu bar, the grain dispensary, even the luxury stable in which he slept. Nobody had real faces anymore. They were always holding up their phones. Eyes, nose, mouths—all replaced by a rectangular block and half eaten apple. Even in the dark at night, shutter clicks invaded his rest.

He thought back to when he was on set and listened to other actors speak of the trials of laying low, of needing disguises in public, secret dining arrangements, of hiring security, security, security—and he figured the humans were being complicated again. He assumed he'd only be a little homesick, and logistically inconvenienced as a too-big, too noticeable city horse. But he'd underestimated the cost of slay, gravely so. He missed the wild, the anonymity. He missed the other horses in spite of their disagreements. He yearned for a return to his unfettered, unbothered best, but these days he could only achieve that within the confines of a camera lens.

I can adjust, he told himself. I'm built for this.

Yoga, a set-mate suggested, so Raul scheduled sessions at an outdoor studio. Downward dog gave a good stretch but the eyes of the women and even the instructor were too noticeable. When standing poses occurred, Warrior and the like, he almost hoofed a woman's head clear off.

He tried meditation as well. He closed his eyes, stood in an expansive room with a rock garden, a waterfall, a couple exotic butterflies, a monk with dark orange robes and matching Nike slides. Breath control. Clearing of the mind. Perfect, immaculate silence. But in the deepest reaches of Raul's mind, the shutter clicks invaded intermittently. Click. Click. Even in a cleared brain-state, the iPhone sound effects were ever-present and oppressive.

Healthy eating. Tofu from Whole Foods, tofu from a farmer's market, tofu prepared by a team of internationally renown chefs. People often suggested oats and apples (What? Do they think of me as a work horse?) and he politely explained that that was racist—"othering" was the proper term but calling it racist scared people more. Unfortunately, dieting didn't help his case either. He didn't feel better, he didn't feel free. Pizza it is! Pizza, Raul's one true love. His assistant ordered 30 boxes of frozen deep dish express-delivered from a Chicago pizzeria and called it a day.

He'd stand on the fortified balcony of his penthouse and enjoy his pizza'd evening. He ignored the distant camera flashes and shutter clicks as best he could. He munched as the onlookers—and there were always onlookers—shouted up hair change requests.

"Frost! Be a frozen horse!"

"Constellations!"

"Be lightning, @Slayhorse_Official! Electrify us!"

One night, he provided his answer.

Fire.

His red mane, Raul's favorite color, burned with devilish embers. The neighbors stared at their beloved Slayhorse, the fiery mane glowing upon his shiny skin. Shock and awe upon all of their faces—no fear or recognition that the Slayhorse was angry, frustrated. As soon as Raul leapt off the balcony, someone even released a thrilled whoop!

Raul bounded down the highway. His tremendous strides overtook each vehicle—the Corvettes, the Bugattis, the Mustangs—as he blazed a trail straight out of town and past the glimmering Horse With No Name billboard at the city limits.

Within a short fifteen minutes he'd once again entered wild grounds—trees, brush, dewy air. Blessed silence. Raul grazed in the moonlight and gnawed at the grass. Typically, he'd just eaten but he'd run himself into a remarkable hunger. He ate quickly, voraciously, and soon stirrings were audible from behind some bushes.

"Hey!" A wild horse appeared from the bushes, "You're burning!"

"Oh." Raul realized that the flaming mane was in full effect. Flames receded into his hair and the reds and oranges gradually drained until the hair became perfectly black, the color of shadow.

The horse was impressed. "Wow, I've never seen hair so dark."

"My hair just does what I feel."

"Well I hope you feel better! Anyway, if you're up for it you can come meet the herd. Make yourself a home as the people-folk like to say." And the horse turned around and left.

Raul remained a smoldering shadow, the most tired night-horse in all of existence—but what a relief it was to be normal. The horse didn't speak to him like he was dumb, or particularly exceptional either. He was spoken to like just a horse in the wild. It'd been so long since he'd gotten a normal response, nobody expressing the love or brilliance or inspiration or genius of his changing locks. Everyone spoke to Slayhorse as if giving a movie review in real-time. But tonight he was Raul. And the relief was immense.

Raul sauntered off into a nearby clearing of tall trees and found a cool spot to lay in. He relaxed in the dark and closed his eyes. The shadows of his mane grew amorphously around him, cloaking him, concealing him, and as Raul was pleasantly surprised to discover, he couldn't even hear himself breathe. His darkness was soundproof. Yes! Raul thought, Oh my fucking God yes!

*

He awoke refreshed. He felt like spring, he felt like bumblebees and daisies, but he maintained his shadow locks to accentuate his stubborn, dramatic nature. His rest was great and he rose to a new day—

And the sudden realization that many strange horses encircled him.

Among the horses, Raul spotted the kind one from the night before.

"Good morning," the horse said.

"Uuh, morning?"

"My name's Buddy!"

"Okay Buddy, that's nice, but you and your other...buddies...are crowding me."

"Sorry, we were just excited."

"Why thank you, I appreciate it. But please be excited three steps back."

And the herd complied—1, 2, 3 steps backwards—and in unison at that.

The confusion set upon Raul once more. He'd heard about such things in human society. "Are you guys a cult?"

"Colts? Sure, we have some young colts that need guidance," Buddy said.

Raul had feelings about this. Befuddlement for one. But the earnest answer meant that there was no danger here, no horse scientology to fear and flee from. "Guidance is good," Raul said, "But I'm not a role model."

"Become ours."

"Oh no."

"We heard about your adventure. Take us with you! Show us how to be incredible, too!

"Wow, well, that's a big ask—"

"—Please, Raul, be our leader." The horses began to close in—they took their 3 steps right back. They displayed their toothy smiles and shimmied in place. Horses that wanted to be more—Raul respected it.

"Goodness, okay. But on one condition."

"Anything, Leader."

"Two conditions. One, don't call me that. Two, 3 steps back—please.

They stepped back again, and Raul, the reluctant slay captain, went back to sleep.

*

@Slayhorse_Official deactivated his Twitter account and moved out of Hollywood. A flash in the pan as the saying goes—but he proved to be so much more. News stations covered the sudden disappearance of the celebrity horse. There were fundraising events to fuel the search efforts. There were online support groups. Widespread grief counseling. Hundreds of Twitter montages and clips of everyone's favorite commercials and movie scenes. An outpouring of love you could never have anticipated. And that's the thing, the fans would live with the hole. They'd continue their lives not knowing where to spend their love. With the disappearance of Slayhorse, everyone wondered where their society, their immense and supportive fandom, went wrong.

So they'd decided to do better for horse-kind. Saddles were abolished. People asked horses for their express written permission (hoofprint stamped of course) to touch, pet, and mount them.

Horses knew Raul was out there somewhere, living freely. The farm horses lived around Slayhorse before his rise, back when he was Raul, the colorfully maned one. And in light of the changes in their treatment, they began to see the point. The horses didn't neglect their work—because they loved it—but they enjoyed being considered. They weren't Slayhorses but being a simple horse began to feel like so much more.

Meanwhile Raul had his own favorable arrangement. As lead mare of his horse fan club, he showed them the life they asked for. He was done with Hollywood. The glitz and glam also came with people, so he reevaluated his ambitions.

The Gilton Luxury Pastures contract remained active and tons of Slayhorse commercials needed shooting. Their facilities were being constructed and booked well in advance of their grand openings. Raul trained his herd in the ways of artistry, of exploring all the ways a horse could be. Instead of hording the spotlight, he prepared his brethren for it.

They practiced prances and head turns. They rehearsed fantastic leaps. They refined iconic poses that'd put the Mustang emblem to shame. They simply needed the platform, the support, and Raul happily obliged them.

When it came time to shoot, the collective energy was unmatched. The stage, as they say, was set. Gilton brought the scripts, cameras, and hair-related CGI.

And the horses brought the slay.