Cresting the hill of a windswept moor, a mighty herd of noble centaurs could be seen. But look for a moment longer and you’d notice that the man-horses were acting like hooligans; shoving each other, trampling grasshoppers, and belting out sea shanties best kept out of earshot of children. The one female shoved so hard that her victim would be too busy regaining consciousness to shove back. Oh, and they were in a horse pasture fleeing from a human at the barn. “Hey! I need you up here! C’mon, guys! You need your hooves trimmed!” Jasper slowed down slightly. “She’s calling us, we better go up…” He told the others anxiously. Oreo stopped cantering and gave him a disbelieving stare. “And do work? No way! I bet she’s gonna make us do, uh, um…” “I saw the farrier’s trailer pull up.” Princess informed them distractedly. He was watching a bird. “To the edge of the pasture!” Oreo cried. He galloped down to the very back of the pasture that bordered with the forest, and the herd followed. Some benefits of hiding back there were that it was downhill, so their owner’d have a hard time going up and down to catch them all. The grass was taller, too, so it’d be hard to walk anyways. Joe peered through the fence at the dense trees behind, panting. They were fairly short here, but if you stepped back you could see the towering pines farther on. “H-, hey, what if we, h-, hid in the forest-,” He suggested breathlessly. Joe was the least spry of the herd. Jasper’s face brightened. “Yeah!” But then it clouded. “Wait… Didn’t Twinkle try to go in there? I haven’t seen him in a while…” Oreo shoved him into Sparky, who shoved him into Crane, who broke his fall. “He’s up at the barn getting a manicure, the stupid llama!” The other centaurs nodded in agreement. Meanwhile, something in the woods heard the racket they were making, and poked it’s head through the branches to get a better look at them. Crane gasped. “Dudes, look! A centaur’s in the forest!” As the herd was jostling each other to see, the creature burst into tears. “I’m n-not a c-centuarrrr!” It bawled, bolting back into the trees and leaving a clear path behind it. He had certainly looked like a centaur, but under further inspection it would become apparent that instead of a horse-human he was a donkey-human. Crane stared blankly where the donkey-human had been. “So, you dudes know any good jokes?” He asked. “Duh,” Oreo responded, flipping hair out of his eyes. “How did the centaur get through the electric fence?” Crane put on his thinking face, while Joe responded uncertainly, “Um… He didn’t?” “No, numbskull!” Oreo shoved him into Sparky, who shoved him into Princess, who broke his fall. “He- or she- gets someone to do it for him or her!” He pointed at Princess, who had just gotten back up. “You do it!” Princess scowled at him. “Why do we want to go in there anyways? Besides, Twinkle’s already tried, and he’s a llama. Llamas are way smarter than centaurs.” Everyone nodded at this, with the exception of Oreo, who countered, “Because we don’t want to start a war with the donkey-centaurs, duh! It’s obvious!” The herd kept nodding. It was one of the things they were good at. “Now get to work!” ✤ It was 10 minutes later, and their efforts so far were fruitless. Princess had tried jumping over it, kicking it, pleading with it, and a rather magnificent headbutt. This was all rather impressive considering the fence was electric. After said headbutt, Princess was swaying uneasily on his feet. He groaned. Wobbling over to the strange part of the fence that wasn’t electric, he leaned up against it. It made an annoying jangling noise and the others flinched. Curious about the noise, Sparky poked the electric-less spot with her nose: it went cling-cling-cling jangle clingity cling. She reared, bucked the fence, and cantered around in a frantic circle. Rinse and repeat for the others (excluding Princess, who was too worn out to care). (cont. )
Eventually, the chain making the noise snapped and fell to the ground- the gate swung open- and Princess fell over. He lay there, wondering what it would be like to be the only centaur on the farm. “Good work, Sparky! Tally ho!” Oreo bellowed as he plunged into the forest. Not stopping to question it, the rest of the herd followed (with Princess lagging behind). By the time they found the donkey-human in a clearing, the already visible trail had turned into a highway. “W-what do you want?” The human-donkey sniffled. He was lying underneath a scruffy tree in the center of the open space. “Just here to apologize for, uh, doing something. So you don’t go to war with us or anything.” Oreo stated confidently. “I don’t c-care. You h-hurt my f-f-feelings. Go away!” Oreo blanked. He hadn’t thought this far. Turning to the others, he said, “Centaur huddle.” They all huddled together, with the exception of Jasper, who was nervously watching more human-donkeys appear from behind trees. “Um,” Oreo announced. “What now?” “Declare war!” “Run away!” “Bribe him!” “Blackmail him!” “Say sorry again?” “Well, I agree with whoever said run away.” “You said run away.” “Oh yeah…” “WAAAAARRRRR!!” As you can see, centaur huddles are noisy affairs. “What are you doing?” Someone asked bossily. The huddle dispersed and turned to look at the owner of the voice. It was a female donkey-human, and apparently their leader judging by the respect in the other donkey-human’s expressions. “We’re figuring out how to… uh… declare war, blackmail, and bribe one of you guys, then run away.” Jasper replied; he’d only been half listening to the huddle. The rest of the centaurs glared at him. Surprisingly, the leader mulled this over. “Keep the bribe part, ditch the rest, and by the way my name is Bossypants.” She told them. “The subject of your bribery is Shorty.” “Why d’you dudes call him Shorty if he’s so sensitive?” Crane queried bluntly. Without even blinking, Bossypants responded, “Because only onocentaurs can be mean to onocentaurs. I’ve got the thickest skin of these babies, so I deal with outsiders. And everything else.” “Makes sense, I guess.” Sparky spoke up. “It’s like how Twinkle spits on people if they tattle-tale, because we always tattle-tale on him.” “Are you sure?” Jasper asked her skeptically. “I thought he just liked spitting on us.” If you will now move your eyes back to Shorty, you will see that he is glaring accusingly at the centaur herd, sniffling occasionally. “And what about my bribe?” He interjected indignantly. “We were just getting to that,” Bossypants told him. “What’ve you got?” She asked, this time addressing the centaurs. Not even stopping to think about how she didn’t ask why they were bribing Shorty (they don’t stop to think much), they went back into huddle mode. “Alright. What can we do that’s low effort, preferably something we already have?” Oreo asked them. “Uh…” “Nothing?” “Sparky’s turtle shell collection!” “She’d kill us!” “You bet I would.” “How about a hug?” “Shorty doesn’t look like much of a hugger.” “Except for his mother! Har har!” Oreo turned to Bossypants and Shorty. “We, uh, promise to never ever do it again.” “We did?” Jasper wondered. “Ow!” Oreo had kicked him. The onocentaur leader turned to Shorty. He shook his head angrily. They went back into their huddle. After many attempts (lemonade for a month, a gift card to Coastal, and an ‘I’m Sorry’ dance), they presented this: “We’ll let you boss around someone less stubborn than you, who’ll cave easily.” They were leaning on the assumption that Shorty wasn’t a very high ranking member of the onocentaur hierarchy, and got pushed around frequently. This was a moment of genius for the centaurs. And it looked like it worked. For once, Shorty wasn’t giving them an evil look. He was actually smiling to himself. “Who is it?” He asked gleefully. “Our farrier.” Writing contest host [] @Glitter_Butt_Rules Writing [] mee Music [] A Horse With No Name by America (played backwards (because I like to do that))
