Hooves: An Introduction and Introductions: Part One

This is the first update of Hooves. Hooves will be a long ongoing story. I have no possible endings for it, and don't plan on thinking any up for a long time to come. I do plan on updating it every week on at least Thursday or Friday. I hope that you all will stick with it and enjoy it as I write it.

Hooves: Introductions: Part One

Elsie braced herself inside the trailer as the truck pulling it came to a stop. It wasn’t too jarring, but this was only the second time that the centauress had ridden in a trailer. She wasn’t exactly used to the sudden movements.

At least this would be the last time she rode in a trailer, hopefully. She had that much to be thankful for. Nothing much else was particularly enjoyable, especially the fact that she was here. The fact that she was here meant that her parents were unable to take care of her anymore. Though, perhaps the word unable was interchangeable with the word unwilling.

That wasn’t Elsie’s main concern though. Her parents had been distant from her for the past year and a half, and it was something that she had simply adjusted to. Her main concern was just what other beings might be living here. She had been told that the Mercury Estate took in all those fantastical creatures who, as the brochures she had been given said, “...are afflicted by conditions both physical and psychological that do not allow them to live among normal society.” She had also been informed that multi-limbed creatures such as herself would be kept apart from the more humanoid creatures, due to what the brochures deemed “...specialized care and a desire to keep similar species with other similar species.”

This worried Elsie. For all she knew, this could just be some vaguely disguised attempt at segregation of a sort, keeping it so that the more humanoid beings didn’t have to see the more animalistic ones. Still, it was something that she did not have a choice in. Her parents had chosen this place, they had already paid all the money and made all the arrangements. They had even paid the Mercury Estate extra to have them come out and transport Elsie themselves.

She remembered the last she had seen of them, looking back over her shoulder as the trailer was taken down the road. They had been standing in the doorway of the barn, watching as she was taken away. For the first time in forever, she had almost envied the two legs each of them had stood on. Then she might have been able to stand with them. But she had four legs, not two. And nothing could change that now.

The trailer door behind her clattered as the lock was turned. Elsie shook her head to clear her thoughts as the one who had come to get her, a boy about her age that called himself only Tom opened the doors.

“There you are, Miss Elsie,” he called up to her. “Just back up out of there all nice and straight like now.”

Elsie nodded as she slowly began to back out of the trailer. It was not a movement that was very easy for her. A horse’s body was not meant to move backwards at a very quick pace. At least she could look behind her. This was a luxury afforded to her that was not afforded to regular horses.

At last she was out of the horrid trailer. Tom walked up and shut the trailer again. He turned back to Elsie with a bright smile on his face.

“Well, that’s enough of that now,” he said, leaning back against the door. “Take a look around for a moment. Get adjusted before I take you to the multi-limbed quarters.”

Elsie quietly looked around at where she was. The Mercury Estate looked just like she had seen in the pictures that were in the brochures. The two main buildings, a pair of houses that resembled mansions, stood near the edge of a green wood. A little farther out, a collection of one story buildings stood, ringed by a large corral. All around, the countryside stretched. The nearest civilization, a town almost too small to be put on a map, was a good two hours away. This was home now, if only by virtue of there being nowhere else to go now.

Tom walked up beside Elsie and patted her on the back. He stopped and held his hand back almost as soon as he had done it. “I’m sorry, Miss Elsie,” he said as she looked to him. “I ought to have asked.”

“It’s all right,” Elsie said with a shrug. And, it really was. Even now she was tugging at the shirt she wore, wishing that it could be off. Whereas most humans turned fantastical had issues adjusting to the parts of them that had been changed, Elsie had trouble adjusting to the parts of her that had not been changed.

Tom looked her over carefully. He seemed like he was about to say something, but in the end he simply held his tongue. “Well, shall we go on down, then?” he asked at last.

Elsie nodded her head and the two of them began to head towards the Mercury Estate.