One Man Becomes a Mount

Tempted in Transformation

They needed a pony but I didn't think it would be me. I didn't think that mouthing off to my employer, me an angry young man with a mop of ragged, black hair that always seemed to be unkempt, would end up so badly but he'd locked me in a stable and scorned me, knowing that my scrawny arms would be too thin and weedy to lift my body out and over the tall stable door, designed for the heavy horses in the stable. And all because I hadn't wanted to waste a day going out to the auction house to look for a pony for his children.

Stupid, so very, very stupid. If I'd just done as he'd asked, I wouldn't have sworn and beaten on the walls of the wooden stable, searching for a way out that simply wasn't there. I wouldn't have stumbled and fallen face first into the straw only to lift my head and wonder just why my nose was bulging out like something from a horror film.

Drawn back by the scene before me, I screamed, hearing it as if from a great distance. No, I wasn't really there, not really, not experiencing every last sordid detail of that and so much more, the horror that was to become my life. My chest burst and prickled with a spill of golden hair – just like the hair of that prized palomino stallion in the end stable, the one that had such a breeding fee attached to him simply because he was that particular shimmering shade. I knew even then what was happening but I just didn't want to acknowledge it as I heaved for breath, eyes wide and straining with a prickle of tears that I would never again shed or admit to.

Move, move, move... Yet I could not, my legs no longer mine to do with as I willed, ears pinned back and eyes wide, straining to see something that I would never again be able to take in as a human. Pain lanced sickeningly through my back as it stretched out into a curve and a shape that I was too familiar with, only dimly aware of my clothes tearing at the seams, hopelessly unable to stretch to cover my new, swollen mass of a body.

Maybe it would have been too grotesque as I writhed in the straw, the joints of my arms clacking into a new position, becoming knees, my elbows higher up than they should have been – but that was just the way of it for horses. There was too much for one body to do, too much for my mind to take in, and I grunted thickly and deeply in the back of my throat, knowing already that any form of human voice was stolen from me. And yet the will to care about it slipped away from me more and more, ears pulling up softly from my head into equine petal shapes, twisting and turning even as they covered themselves with hair, trying to catch other sounds in the barn.

My face. My heart pounded, even that shifting position in my ribcage, and my nose pushed out and out, a blind spot before my nostrils and my peripheral vision vastly increased. I could even see down the sides and length of my body – but not directly behind either, that was what my hooves would be for in the end – observing the changes in real-time as they happened. My barrel rounding out, ribcage aching as it expanded drastically. The joints of my new legs slinking into place, forming the angle of hocks for the hinds. My shoes must have burst open at some point but I simply had not noticed as fingers and toes melded into the hard form of hooves.

They were as they needed to be and so was I. Or, at least, I was getting there and that was all too that I needed to know for myself. There was only so much, after all, that I could worry about as my mind and my life changed forever. Just why had I fretted about such human concerns as a tail swished from my rump, thickening out with hair even as the dock slunk out, velvety smooth protection for my under-tail.

Ah, under my tail... Well, they didn't need a stallion on the farm, or so it seemed, as my maleness sunk back into my body, smoothing out, and was swiftly replaced by the neatness of a mare, all tucked away where no one had to look at it. Lips formed as my teeth grew chunky, perfect for chewing and grinding away all day long. The forelock that came forth was too thin to spill into my eyes but the children would soon have fun with that, braiding and playing with it as if it was the most important feature of my golden palomino body, standing at pony height: perfect for them.

Taking a shaky step forward, I groaned and shook myself off, my skin itching something fierce. Already, I was trying to shed, my coat going through the cycles it needed in order to be healthy, and I itched on the doorframe, tipping my long, lengthening neck at an angle that just would not have had much effect at all if I had merely been a human. It was comfortable though and I settled into my final form with a sigh, the final light dimming from my eyes. It's okay though as I did not know of my past life and times, licking my lips and eyeing the centre aisle for a kindly human who would surely come along with a bucket of grain.

My life is not so bad now. They take me on pony rides on the end of a lead rope and put pretty ribbons in my hair, all sorts of colours. It's a simpler, stranger kind of life and not a bad one in the slightest – not once I got used to it. But there is talk of putting me to a stallion as a little mare that they would like to see the next generation of.

Maybe one day that will come to pass. Until then, I am content to be their pony.