Luckily, Jade was compliant under my direction – and she stayed on the trail of the others in the chain of mounts racing across town ahead of us. However, she had to slow down when we entered a part of the settlement that we hadn’t seen before, where most of the buildings had cracked walls. I soon got to see why. This district had been built on a wide cliff, exposed to what I now smelt to be winds from the sea. Subsidence then. How long had this town been deserted? At least I could now hear the cries of seagulls in the breeze, which at least made the town seem not actually devoid of any life other than ourselves. Our band of three humans, one horse and one pony. And now these centaurs.
With Darwin stopping to offer me advice, I was able to get Jade to climb carefully over a fallen pile of rubble, as we navigated the last few yards to reach a wide, low building with stained glass windows one three sides, and a set of large double doors on the fourth end. The doors were now open, and I could see torches, set in wall brackets, providing fiery light inside.
“Where’s my sister and Icaro?” I breathed, as I got Jade to pull up.
“They’ve gone inside in the church,” Darwin answered, as he lowered himself so that Robyn could dismount from him. “I will look after your pony here. You should both head inside and assist Icaro.”
“How will…this goddess…help Imogen? She needs a doctor!” I began to bristle.
“Epona will use her magic to save your sister, I assume you…” Darwin paused and sniffed the air as his pointed ears twitched. Seconds later, both Robyn and I could hear pounding hooves approaching us from a road that led downhill, towards the opposite direction of where we’d travelled from.
“Citrine – and that young…centaur, Jeremy?” I guessed.
“No. It’s the rest of our scout party. Our two trainee nurses, who are both on the cusp of mare-hood. Tim is with them, I detect their scents,” Darwin replied. “Now, go inside so that you can comfort your sister.”
So, back on our own feet, Robyn and I entered the church, seeing Icaro untying Imogen from himself, at the end of the wide aisle before us. We were about to head over and help him, when Robyn staggered, pressing her hand against her forehead – as if struck with a migraine. Then the same thing happened to me. Thankfully, it was momentarily for both of us.
“What in god’s name…,” I groaned. “Robyn? Are you alright?”
“Just the same as when we were in that woodshed…,” she muttered. “Something’s changed in my mind. Like I’m now remembering…”
“…someone who we have completely forgot about!” I completed her sentence. “I was telling myself…that there was only you and your husband in your household before your divorce. But now I think…that you had…a child…”
“I…I did! How could I have forgotten that!?” Robyn wailed. She quickly whipped out her purse and the photo within. Before our very eyes, it glowed with a brief light that startled us. Then the glow disappeared – to reveal Robyn smiling for the photo booth camera, her arms wrapped around a miniature version of herself. The shape that I’d last in the photo last time was now a perfectly-clear image of a giggling eleven-year girl with blonde hair, wearing a summer dress. “It’s C-C-C…,” Robyn stuttered.
A 1970s song that I had heard, years ago, flared up in my mind, at the bizarre situation. The title was: ‘Maybe Then I’ll Think Of You’… Had coming to this world restored…?
“The goddess is telling me that your memories of her are being returned, along with the correct image of the…photo, because you have been brought into our world,” Icaro called out to us, confirming my suspicion. “Further explanations later! Help Imogen off me!”
We shook off our confusion and ran over to the Criorro centaur. Imogen was crying out in pain, and Robyn and I held her between us – all three of us on our knees, finding ourselves facing a stained-glass image of a centauress with a grey coat, copper spots on her flanks, and bearing a rainbow-hued mane of human hair. She smiled down upon us – one hand holding a sheaf of wheat, the other wrapped around a spear. There was a halo of golden light depicted around her head. She was the largest image in the stained glass at the end of the church – the other scenes depicted various centaurs hunting, farming, fishing, trading, racing, and in conversation with each other. Mainly adults, but with child centaurs here and there.
“Epona… Their goddess,” Imogen croaked, gazing with reverence upon the striking centauress. “I feel her magic, right now…”
Suddenly there was a rush of hooves pounding along the aisle – and a strikingly red-haired girl, looking to be about twenty years old, appeared in our vision. Well, I say girl – but she had the lower body of a zebra. A zebra with red – not black – stripes, to go with her white stripes. The red matching her hair colour. A zebra-taur, then. And like the centaurs that we had encountered thus far, her human half was dressed in a shirt and tunic. She held a large urn between her hands. And a white cloth satchel was slung around her shoulder, with the Caduceus snake-staff symbol. A first-aid kit, then, I instinctively realised. Good.
“I’m Maggie. A trainee nurse,” she breathed. “Has she vomited yet?”
“She did on the way here. I will have to wash my mane!” Icaro grumbled.
Imogen suddenly began coughing. Between myself, Robyn, and Maggie, we got my sister to retch into the wide-mouthed urn. Then, once she’d got her breath back, Imogen cried out in pain again.
“I-I feel that I’m a-about t-to burst apart!” she screamed, startling us.
“Quick – get her onto her side. Into the recovery position. And get her shoes and clothes off!” Maggie prompted us. “Her clothes below her waist, I mean.”
I was shocked by the request – but Robyn and I got to work. We’d just managed to yank Imogen’s shoes and socks from her feet, when another young female voice called out from behind us with a warning.
“It’s too late! Get clear of her legs! She’s about to cha-”
Without further warning, Imogen’s body exploded. By that, I mean that it abrupted transformed and expanded. Her long dress, underskirt, and knickers all ripped apart, giving way to the pressure from within as the bottom half of her body, below her waist, grew backwards and elongated swiftly – as if invisible hands had seized hold of Imogen and were pulling her apart, stretching her legs and pelvis away from the rest of her, in the manner of a plasticine doll. Only this new trunk being created was also becoming taller and wider. Underneath the stretching skin, I glimpsed the sides of her pelvic bone as it grew to in time with her larger lower body, and finish tilting bottom-outwards. Robyn and I fell backwards on the stone floor in shock and scrambled backwards, as Imogen’s frame grew before our eyes. Maggie and Icaro moved in, and helped to pull away my sister’s torn clothes, exposing her now-naked legs and buttocks.
As we watched, two nubs of forming tissue set below her waist, on either side of the front of her new trunk, rapidly grew downwards – to form a new pair of legs. Short-furred legs with hooves at the end, that was. Meanwhile, her original legs were now growing to match the same full length as her new ones. Only the skeletal structure and the surrounding tissues and skin were all changing – the joints and bones rearranging themselves with a series of ‘snaps’, ‘crunches’, and ‘pops’. As we watched, the wide eyes of Robyn and myself took in the sight of Imogen’s toes merging with her now-misshapen feet, which quickly hardened and transformed into the ergots, coronets, heels, and hooves of a horse. That was followed by my sister’s privates, facing backwards above her now rear legs, altering into the teardrop formation of a mare’s vulva, before a thin, fleshy appendage emerged from the end of her now-longer spine and quickly grew to form a horse’s bushy tail, to cover her altered, leathery genitals. Then, as acting as additional touch, I saw a mare’s udder form underneath the lower half of Imogen’s transformed body. With two teats now visible.
Still human in her upper body, Imogen wailed – and Icaro moved over to grab her hand and comfort her. As this unfolded, the new trunk of her enlarged body filled out to the size of an adult horse, before developing a coating of shiny black fur that completely covered her everywhere below her waist.
The sounds of transformation came to a halt. The only things now moving on Imogen were her chest as she recovered from the shocking ordeal – and her tail, twitching, as her altered nervous system aligned itself with her brain. Then Icaro slowly unbuttoned my sister’s blouse and removed it. To reveal (apart from her bra) that Imogen’s chubby stomach was now just as taut and gym-toned as the centaurs around us, and that Imogen now had a fully-fledged russet-coloured mane, stretching all the way from the lower edge of her short, neck-length human hair to her new equine shoulders.
Just like a horse. And just like we had seen on each of the centaurs that we’d seen.
Also – whilst she was still able to wear her spectacles, Imogen’s ears had become just as elf-pointed as Icaro’s and Maggie’s. My sister had just transformed before us into a perfectly-proportioned centaur, like the others. Still on the floor, propping myself upright upon my palms, I shook – trying to comprehend it all.
“Wh-what have you done to Imogen!?” I yelled. “Change her back!”
“We cannot. It is not our doing – it is the will of our goddess,” Maggie told me and Robyn, her tone solemn. Then she smiled, giving way to an impish impression upon her face. “But in transforming her, I sense that Epona has saved Imogen from… Oh! the goddess is confirming in my mind that it was a drug overdose!”
“Then get your goddess to change my cousin BACK! Please…” Robyn pleaded.
“No one is ever changed back. We have two sets of vital organs, compared to a human. Any reverse transformation will kill us,” the unidentified female voice called out. “And soon… You will adapt also. You will not want to go back to being…human halflings…ever again.”
“You mean that Charlie and I will also change…!?” Robyn trailed off as she turned round to face the new speaker. I did so do. Once again, our mouths hung open.
The blond-haired girl who had recently reappeared in Robyn’s photo was crouched besides us, nodding at the question. Only this girl, in the flesh, was now about the same age as Jeremy, Maggie and Tim. And she bore the same slightly-pointed ears as the others. Which made sense, give that she too was a centaur. One with cream-coloured fur that had a metallic shine that was in contrast to her dark mane and tail. And black-fur that covered her lower legs.
“This world is now your home planet – just as it is ours,” she added, her lip quivering.
“C-Ci-Ci-Cin-CINDY!?” Robyn yelled.
The young centauress smiled, her eyes glistening with tears. “Hi again, mom. I’ve been looked after very well in this world, and I’ve been so happy here with my friends and new family – but I’ve still missed you.”
Robyn scuttled over to Cindy and the two of them embraced fiercely in their shared hug.
Utterly bewildered now, I turned my attention back to Imogen. Scuttling over on my hands and knees, I patted her face, seeing that she had passed out. “Sis! Are you alright?”
“Please… She needs to rest. And her mind needs to adjust to her extended set of nerves,” Maggie informed me.
“Stuff this! I need to know she’s okay…,” I muttered, as I patted her again. “Why has she passed out? Is that normal after…the transformation?”
Maggie nodded. “The process takes a lot of energy out of the newly-made centaur. But also… Think of it as a computer that’s just received a major update. What happens to it?”
I paused before answering. “The computer needs to reboot. It shuts down – before starting up again.”
“That’s right! And the brain of the new centaur also has to be…rebooted…in order to adjust to their new form. The former horses have hands, arms, and a human brain to adapt to – and the former humans have to learn to gaining a tail and two more legs, and extra weight. And all of us gain a second set of vital organs!” Maggie looked down at my sister. “She will wake up again before very long.”
It took a few minutes – but then Imogen’s eyelids fluttered open. “Urr… Hello Charlie. That felt intense… I feel big and heavy. Um… Why is my blouse off?”
I glared at Icaro. He bowed his head.
“Apologies. I wanted to make sure that your sister was fully reformed and that her stomach is fine.”
“Yes. Has your stomach now cleared itself of those pills, Imogen?” Maggie put to her, lightly pressing her hands around my sisters abdomen.
“I believe so…” Imogen gasped as she first took in the centaurs around her, then looked down and saw her new front legs. I guided her hand to feel them and her furred equine trunk. Her other hand touched her twitching ear. “I’m…like them! I’ve become…!”
“…one of the children of Epona. You are now a pretty centaur mare. You have joined our herd,” Icaro declared, smiling as he patted her shoulder and handed her blouse back to her to put on. “Fear not! We will all take care of you – and you will soon adjust to your new life and be happy as one of us.”
“I’m a centaur…!? My god! My fur… It’s so black and shiny! What equine breed am I, Charlie? You’ve got such a good knowledge of horses breeds,” Imogen tested me.
I shook my head, muttering that I didn’t recognise her markings.
“You are the same breed as Cindy. An Akhal-Teke.” Maggie piped up, with a grin. “Only she’s creamy white, as you can see here.”
“Cindy…?” Imogen turned to take in the young, blonde centauress, holding a hand to her head in confusion. “W-wait? Robyn’s…d-d-daughter? I met you once, when I was on holiday in the states, visiting your mum. How come I’ve forgotten about you?”
Cindy came forward to face Imogen. “I will explain later, Aunt Imogen. Umm… Is it okay if I now call you ‘Aunt’?”
“Yes! Oh god! Come here…” And so, the two Akhal-Teke centaurs were soon fiercely embracing each other, eyes shedding tears of joy. Then, breaking apart, Imogen saw my expression.
“Charlie…? Why are you looking at me like that? I’m not ugly – am I?”
“Your face, sis… Someone, give her a mirror to look into…,” I managed to say.
“Got one in my first-aid kit, right here,” Cindy declared. Meanwhile, Robyn was staring at Imogen in dumbfoundment, as my sister took the offered hand-held mirror and saw her face.
“Oh, my god! I don’t look forty anymore! My winkles are gone! I look…as if I’m a decade younger!” she exclaimed.
“And I don’t feel sore and whacked out anymore. I feel full of new life. In fact…” Imogen used her hands to push her now-larger body off the floor, as – to the shock of myself and Robyn – my sister folded her four legs underneath her. With Icaro and a now-present Darwin assisting her, Imogen rose and stood up upon her four hooves, grinning widely. It had been such a long time since she had looked so happy…
“I sense that she will soon no longer have need of it,” Icaro had said, of my sister’s wheelchair, back at that dwelling. I had misinterpreted the meaning of his words...
“Im-impossible!” I stammered. “Your legs were broken in that car crash, Imogen.” My heart was pounding now. It had been one shock after another, and my head was reeling.
She nodded. “They were. But the goddess of these centaurs has healed me, even as she has transformed me. I felt her touch my mind.” She took a few hoof steps forward and turned around – with the centaur stallions still holding her hands. Then Imogen screamed with joy. “Yes! I can walk again! Thanks, Epona!”
The other centaurs all smiled. Then the Icelandic centaur – Darwin - spoke up. “Welcome to our race, our new sister. But the pony I’ve left outside with Tim… She has not transformed alongside Imogen.”
Icaro turned, his eyebrows raised. “Then that means…”
“Hang on! Where is Jeremy and Kimberley?” Maggie interrupted.
“I-I’ve got to get out of here…,” I muttered, my anxiety reaching a peak. Suddenly, I turned and bolted off. Ignoring the startled cries of the others, even Imogen’s and Robyn’s, I ran out of the church and out into the night, surprising Jade as I ran past her, and I raced down the hillslope – not knowing where I was going. Only that something within me was urging me go in a certain direction. I just knew that I had to get away from all of those new faces, the centaurs. To retreat to a quiet place, so that I could hug myself and recover from the series of life-changing shocks that I’d just witnessed. Remembering out of the blue that my cousin had a daughter, seeing my physically-disabled sister become a creature out of Greek mythology– a centaur who could now walk. Cindy implying that the transformation was irreversible. And that my cousin and I would also be changed…
I paused, panting as I steadied myself against a ruined wall lying amongst an area of subsidence – a landslip from what must’ve been years ago. And I could hear the centaurs chasing after me.
So, squeezing myself in-between the collapsed piles of broken masonry, where they couldn’t reach me, I ran on…