The man helped Clay to his feet and brushed him clean of the fur sticking to his naked body.
The man glanced approvingly at his body and Clay never wanted to run away more from anyone in his life. But he could not. The sight of this silver and gold haired man laying helplessly in the alley had haunted his dreams guiltily since then. The human had been bleeding to death and Clay really should have called for the Keep Guards as soon as he had seen the man's condition. But he hadn't. Instead, he had drooled over the injured man's body like a love starved girl. He would stand here and take it like a man.
Except the unchanged man didn't do anything to make it seem like punishment. His touch was gentle and soothing and his eyes, still muddy where there should have been white, were a deep emerald green that seemed to accept everything they saw. He stared at Clay expectantly and Clay stared back at him uncertain of what he should say.
Then the man smiled and gestured slightly to the stall they were in and then gave a look at the rigging on the nails. Clay whusked out a breathe, his horsey version of an, "Oh," and began to change into his full draft pony form. His vision stretched out the stall in an odd way. The unchanged human actually seemed to become bigger and the stall smaller. Colours became a bit flatter and the smell of the nearby horses in season became almost unbearable.
When the change was complete his body was huge, but his head was about the same distance off the ground. Energy twitched and yanked on his body and it was all he could do to stand still. He looked down on himself and between his forelegs to see what other embarrassing changes he had brought upon himself. He was surprised to feel his vision pivot and that the world did not seem upside down, as it would have had he'd been a human bent over and looking between his legs.
He'd only assumed the full draft pony form once before when Doug the stable master had insisted on it. The intent had been to give that stablehands some pointers on horse care. Clay didn't handle all the scents and visions very well and nearly trampled half the stablehands in his panic. The stablemaster used the occurrence to point out how dangerous a spooked horse could be and never asked Clay to stand in again for a real horse. Clay had come very close to running away to some nearby farm that day.
But the unchanged man was only one man, with a kind scent and an incredible amount of patience. He used to think his father was this type of person, but the curse had changed him slowly over the years. Or maybe Clay just got to know him better. The human's green and brown eyes reminded him of little pieces of clover in the dirt. The man's eyes were like a spring day, and when those eyes took in his new four legged form, it was like winter was gone before it even started.
Nobody ever looked at him like that before.
His pottery, yes. But before his hands had become thick and short, his hands had pulled one work of art after another from the red mud where he got his name. His charcoal sketches, too, had been highly priced by most people. In the last weeks before the curse had hit him, Clay had actually made quite a bit of coin drawing Keepers before the change had hit them, so they could remember the way things used to be. It was coin his father had taken from him, but that didn't matter to him. Or it wouldn't have mattered if his father had only been grateful.
As the man brought the rigging over his head, their eyes met and Clay realized that this older, unchanged human man from exotic places, rumored to be pirate, minstrel, and/or royalty-in-exile, wanted him. He did not know if the man wanted him as beast or man, but he closed his eyes and held back tears as he admitted to himself that he did not care.
It was just nice to be wanted for a change.
Wheeler tried not to read too much into the tear rolling down the horse's face. The rigging had brushed up against the stallion's left eye and just may have irritated it. Wheeler could see the horse was fighting to keep still, as if the transformation to draft pony had filled him with limitless energy. Maybe it had, or maybe he was just excited to have someone put him in gear.
As Wheeler found himself working the bridle into place, he tried to tell himself not to get his hopes up. Since coming to the Keep, Wheeler had heard quite a few tales about what it was like to be an animal morph. And while he never really wanted to become an animal, the stories were intriguing.
One of the things he had learned was that many animal morphs, especially the younger ones, like to play predator and prey games. Cat and mouse games, some of them called it, even if the morphs involved weren't cat or mouse. It was meaningless and considered to be almost completely harmless (there seemed to be some free-floating concern that somebody was going to go too far one day, but so far, no one had). This could be just another version of that game.
He led the draft pony around the stall three or four times. It was a big stall, designed for royal steeds and maybe a Knight and two retainers, but the draft pony was huge himself. A lap was barely more than fifty feet. At first shy and uncertain, the pony soon lifted his head up and almost pranced about the stall on the last lap. Wheeler offered to the open the door leading to the sideyard, but the horse's enthusiasm seemed to dim a little and his ears went back with a formality. "I'll take that as a no," Wheeler said understandably. Many of his friends were out there and a few of them no doubt had noses that would make a dog blush.
Wheeler found a nice saddle blanket and brought it towards the brown draft pony. The horses eyes went wide but his ears did not fall flat against his head. Wheeler stood near the nervous pony for a moment and then said, "If you don't want me to rig you up, put your ears back."
The ears twitched and moved but they did not go back. Instead, the horse lowered his head and closed his eyes in a distinctly human gesture of reluctance. Wheeler patted his neck reassuringly and arranged the blanket no his back. In the stall next to them, Wheeler found a saddle wide enough for the draft pony's back. The stallion was frozen wide-eyed at the sight of the saddle and Wheeler again asked the stallion to lower his ears back if he wanted not to wear the saddle.
The horse whusked and blinked but his ears did not fold back.
Wheeler lowered the saddle onto the stallion's back as carefully as he could, but the horse's shoulder was a good 16-17 hand high and the man could barely see over the horse. The sudden weight surprised the stallion as he jerked a bit in shock. The reaction nearly made Wheeler stumble, but he leaned into the horse's mass and said soothing things. The apologies were sincere and the horse seemed to understand that.
Well, of course he understood, Wheeler chided himself. There was a young man in that horse flesh, even if he couldn't speak at the moment.
He worked the straps across the belly, glad to have gotten some recent practice on the caravan. Wheeler lingered a second longer than necessary under the Keeper's stomach.
He did not tighten the straps across the belly too much. It wasn't like he was actually planning to ride the Keeper. At least not in the stall, there were too many low beams.
He took the horse around the stall once or twice more. It was hard to read the look in the young stallion's eyes. He was breathing harder than he should have been, but it wasn't labored breathing, either. The eyes were moist and Wheeler remembered the mixed emotions he'd felt when Chang had trotted him about as a horse.
"I know," Wheeler said quietly as he turned a corner, which he was doing every three seconds. "I know." The stallion's ears flickered towards him and there was the slightest look of disbelief in those huge brown eyes. Wheeler patted his neck, feeling the steel cables underneath the fuzzy brown coat of hair, and smiled his most sincere smile. "I do know. Really. It's all right, nobody's going to judge you."
Not anyone who counts, at least.
With that, the draft pony began to prance just a bit. Somehow, Wheeler's smile got wider and he actually laughed. The horse nickered almost cheerfully, as if trying out the sound for the first time, and then picked up the pace just a little bit more before letting loose with a hearty nickering that was like laughter.
Night comes quickly on a mountain. Shadows as heavy as the mountains themselves can fall upon you with extreme suddenness. The human barely paused to set up a lantern. Clay was afraid that might attract unwanted attention but no one came near the Royal row after the studding, for which he was extremely grateful. He and his new friend were working up quite a sweat in the tiny stall. He trampled his own clothing, but he didn't really care. He'd never felt so alive in his life and he owed it all to the man tugging gently on his reigns.
"Done now?" the unchanged human asked but Clay was not. With night newly fallen, his bravery had increased 100 fold. He pushed his ears back in their secret language they'd invented and felt a thrill that he could communicate without talking. He looked significantly at the door leading to the sideyard and whickered in what he hoped was an invitation.
The older man caught his meaning and his eyes went wide. His breathe was making a tiny clouds but he lit up at the thought. "You want to go outside?"
Clay nodded his head up and down, surprised that his field of vision seemed to move independently from his head. He was ready to try something else, all right. He'd seen the way the man had looked at him, that look that boys got when Tina entered a room. A look that no one had ever given Clay before.
The side yard gave them more room to play and after a few laps and there was no one around. Clay built himself up enough courage to ask the human to mount him, but now he had to figure out how to do it. In a moment, he started sidestepping towards the older, unchanged man. It was not a natural movement for a draft pony to make, but there was hardly anything natural about his desires.
He laughed as the older man sputtered good-naturally at Clay's sudden odd behavior, and then caught on as the saddle continuously presented itself to him. With an odd mix of joy and hope apparent on his face, even in the moonlit darkness, the human mounted Clay and squeezed his legs together. At first, Clay wanted to take him clockwise, but the gentle pulling on the reins made it impossible for the horse to head that way. To his surprise and shock, he moved almost against his will towards the other direction. His head was awhirl with both fear and delight and his body shivered with an emotion he couldn't place. The sensation of being a puppet was overwhelming and his heart raced with fear. The man atop him seemed to sense his resistance and let the reigns go slack and leaned forward over the pommel to caress his neck soothingly. He'd seen Sir Egland do it a dozen times and he'd always thought the knight was probably annoying his horse more than he was assuring his mount. This man proved him wrong, for while the saddle did shift uncomfortably, the gesture of being touched on the neck by a creature on his back stirred something satisfying deep within him. He wondered if it had anything to do with the way horses mounted each other for sex.
"Did you want to show me something, my friend?"
Actually, Clay had only really wanted to go in a slightly different direction than his rider had chosen. However, with the question asked, Clay did indeed have something he wanted to show the older man. He nodded emphatically and was glad the man was not in a position to see the physical reaction the thought was invoking.
The man let the reins go loose and squeezed Clay's ribs firmly twice. "Let's go, you lead." Clay turned towards the gate and trotted gracefully through the paddock and across the small fairgrounds that sometimes doubled for a jousting field. He trotted through the moonlit streets of the Keep and came to a courtyard with a single lone larch standing in it. A knee high metal fence wrapped the base of the tree to protect Laracin from casual harm. Clay sent a mental hello to the silvimorph, curious to see if the tree would respond. It did not, but then it was not only night but fall, so Clay was not too surprised.
He did not slow, but sped up as he approached some shrubbery and leapt over it.
That's when the saddle betrayed him and wrenched across his stomach painfully. It burned like fire and he felt the man's weight shift suddenly. The man's comforting pressure on his back suddenly vanished as Clay fought his own momentum and came to a stop. The reins tugged suddenly and painfully. Clay thought something exploded in his mouth for a second as the man's weight suddenly pulled and suddenly the ground was rushing at them both. Only instinct of his horse body kept him on all fours.
His vision cleared in the next instant and Clay had a second to wonder if the pain had been real at all. Then, as if his senses were slowed by the panic, the horse felt the saddle cruelly digging into his left side. The absence of his rider hit him a second after that. He tried to call out, because he could not see the poor man anywhere, but only a panicked whinny came out of his lips.
Mentally kicking himself, Clay pulled the draft pony form back as far as he could and melted to a fraction of his previous size. He scrambled naked to the bush and found the human trapped within it. It wasn't a thorn bush but the foliage was stiff and tended to poke those careless enough to brush up against it. Clay could not imagine what it felt like to fall into it.
The human looked up wide eyed at Clay. His legs and arms reached for the sky like he was some sort of upturned table. It was obvious he was wedged in there tightly. Clay sputtered not knowing how to remove the human gracefully and he told the man not to panic and he paused guiltily not knowing what to call the man he'd just spent one of the most happiest days of his life with, sad as that was.
The man looked up expectantly as Clay made a few forays into the bush, backing out as he realized that the way he planned was going to hurt the unchanged man. Clay looked down helplessly onto the man in the bush and tried to think. The thrown man continued to look up as the gears worked in Clay's head and then finally the man couldn't stand it anymore.
He inhaled through his nose deeply and then blew the leaves Clay's struggle had dislodged off his face. His eyes sparkled in the moonlight and then he brayed with laughter over the look on Clay's face.
Clay was startled but relieved and when the man flexed his hands towards the horse, Clay smiled hopefully and took his hands. The man's legs went down and he pulled up with his hands and worked him out of the villainous plant. They were both laughing hysterically by the time his impromptu rider and trainer was freed.
Clay hugged him, laughing but noting the scratches. He noticed his shirt was ripped in the back and he leaned over the man to get a good look. The cuts and bruises set off little plucks of emotion within the horse morph's body and he suddenly wanted to bring the man home and care for the man. "You're hurt," he gasped but the human melted into his body with a chuckle.
Suddenly, Clay realized he was still naked except for the bridle hanging loosely off the back of his head. Clay froze, afraid what his mysterious rider might intend to do; afraid what his new found friend might NOT do. Then the man proceeded with a brilliant tactile demonstration of what it was exactly he intended to do. And just so that there would be no mistaking his intent, the unchanged human bit lightly into the back of Clay's neck.
With tears and only a second's hesitation, Clay pushed the man down behind the bush.
It was still relatively early in the evening, but the Keep conspired to divert traffic from the courtyard until the next morning.
It was hard to say who limped into the Deaf Mule first, dawn or Wheeler.
The dawn this morning was thick and sluggish with fog. Wheeler was equally sluggish, and limped in with the limp rays of the day's first light, but the human was brighter than any morning Shinto Zhing, the Solfire Monk, had ever seen since coming to the Keep. It was almost disgusting, the coyote thought as he picked at his mushroom and cheese omelet. Eggs and cheese. Eggs and cheese. Now that was disgusting, but at least it wasn't meat.
The monk's hangover buzzed painfully just looking at the grin on his still-unchanged friend's face. The man's clothes were ripped and torn and his face was full of tiny rodent-like scratches. The monk wiggled his paw-like hands towards a chair the human favoured. There were three very different chairs for the other friends that usually ate breakfast with the Monk. There were all relatively new arrivals with the coyote being the senior resident at six months. "Found your rat, Grey?"
Wheeler made a face of a little embarrassment. The monk never forgot anything he'd hear when he was heavy into his cups, too. But it was too late to do anything about it now, and besides the coyote seemed to have accepted his social needs. "Actually, Shinto, he wasn't a rat," Wheeler said wryly as he lowered himself into his seat, and stopped with a painful grimace. He rubbed his chest absentmindedly and sighed. "I'm incredibly sore."
The Solfire monk smiled and some bits of food fell out of his mouth. He still wasn't completely used to not having cheeks even after half a year. "I didn't think it was a rat," Shinto said absently as he tried to recover a few bits of escaping mushrooms. "I was told there was only eight of them. None of them have blue eyes. So what kind of animal was Clay, anyway? You were with Clay, last night, I assuming?"
Wheeler shifted uncomfortably in his chair as if the question reminded him of his discomfort. "Oh, I was with Clay last night, all right," he said, with a smile. "He was a Horse."
Shinto's jaw dropped another mouthful of breakfast. He blinked and then blinked again as he tried to decide in what way his odd friend meant that. "A horse morph... or just hung like...?"
"Both, as it turned out."
The monk looked as his mushrooms carefully. "Well, that explains why you can't sit down."
Wheeler laughed, "I'll have you know I feel into a overgrown bush."
"Is that what they call it where you come from?" Shinto said with his best mystic seer voice and then laughed. "Seriously, how did you ever confuse a horse for a rat?"
Wheeler could only shrug. Donny brought over his usual plate of biscuits and cheeses and the human dug in but Shinto was still curious how Wheeler could mistake an equine for a rodent. "A muskrat or even a Opossum, those I could understand."
Wheeler just shrugged again and got up. "It's a long story. I'll tell you about it later. Really." He tossed two coins onto the table and patted Shinto on the head playfully. "Meanwhile, I've got to hurray to make myself presentable for my cousin."
Shinto ignored the petting as he would any one who was being a little rude. "That's right, you have court this morning."
Wheeler nodded as he bounded up the steps to his room. "And the Duke is the presiding judge."