A sheen of sweat was starting to make Trevor’s dark red fur glisten. He’d been walking through the field for nearly twenty minutes now and his fur color was starting to absorb the afternoon sun really well. Trevor was just glad he didn’t have black fur like some of the other horses here, did.
Trevor had just made it in to the second paddock and was searching for lake or pond Irene had told him about. As hot as he was right now, he was just looking forward to a place to cool down. At the very least, he just hoped the lake had some shade trees around it.
Down below, his stomach grumbled again and Trevor snorted in exasperation. On top of being hot, he was getting pretty hungry, too. He guessed the transformation had really taken it out of him earlier and sort of regretted not stopping at the barn to have some oats before heading out in to the pasture.
The smell and even the look of the grass all around him was tempting, but somehow Trevor just didn’t feel ready for that yet. Plus, he kept reminding himself that he’d be at the lake in no time, and there would probably be much nicer grass over there.
Letting out an exasperated snort, Trevor looked ahead and sniffed experimentally. He caught a whiff of water on the wind, and it was stronger than it had been earlier, but he could still tell it was a probably a good ways off. And, with the exception of a small group of trees about a mile to the right, the pasture was still mostly featureless. The fact that he hadn’t seen any horses or any other animals for a while now was starting to make him wonder if they were hiding out in the shade right now, too. Or at the lake maybe.
Grunting and shaking his head, Trevor glanced back at the group of trees again. “Oh, screw the lake,” he coughed under his breath, and changed his course to start heading for the oasis of shade ahead. A short time later, he broke into a trot to try and get there faster. He was hot enough right now that he actually didn’t feel like galloping. Plus, he was going uphill a bit. It wasn’t as hard doing in on four legs instead of two, but he could still feel the extra exertion.
After about a minute, Trevor arrived at the trees, which were nothing more than a small gathering of cottonwoods, and quickly made his way into the shade. He stood there for a second, feeling the breeze caressing his sweat drenched body and whisking his tail across his backside a bit, and debated about whether or not he should lie down.
A prompt grumble from his stomach clinched the debate for him.
With an anxious twitch of his tail, Trevor dipped his neck down took a deep sniff of the grass first. It smelt just as tasty to him as it did when he first got out of the transformation room. Swiveling his ears forwards, he used the bristles on the end of his muzzle to get a sense of where the grass was, then opened his thick lips and used them to start grabbing clumps of grass together. After pulling them toward his teeth, Trevor took one experimental bit and was surprised at how easily he had cropped the grass off with his front teeth.
Pulling his head up, he surveyed the surrounding pasture as he figured out how to chew his first meal as a horse. Even with his instinct guiding him, it was still a bit harder – or different, really – than he expected. Eventually though, he was able to work the lump of grass into a ball and then mash it down with his molars.
The taste wasn’t too bad. Kind of like eating spinach leaves that had been left in the sun for a while.
After swallowing his first mouthful of grass, Trevor bent his head down again to grab some more. This time, he was skilled enough in it that he didn’t have to pull his head up to chew it and kept filling his aching stomach with the green stuff growing under the trees. Time and the outside world started fading away with each new clump of grass he chewed up.