Second age, Year 356
As always, the revolving lantern. The mories of all my lives were forcefully imprinted in the brain of my new body during the first minutes of my new life, making all of them as fresh as yesterday's lunch. I heard voices but I was too enraptured by the flow of information to do anything. Once it ended, I tried to get my bearings. I expected to be a baby on so crib but I found... grass underneath . I moved my hands and grabbed so blades, pulling them. Since I was covered in amniotic fluid and blood, I failed miserably.
"Stand up!" A female voice said.
As if a baby would stand up imdiately after being born, or even understand what was being said. Instead, I wiped my eyes. The first things I could see were hooves and horse shins trampling the grass. Erm...
Body check. I had hands with five digits, human-like teeth, a nose, a chest with ribs, although these ribs extended too far down, covering the stomach region. and underneath it.. fur. Legs... yes, legs. But sothing was wrong. The prioceptive response ca back with too many legs. I moved them and counted.
Four.
I've had a snake tail and a dolphin's. I was no stranger to weird lower bodies. But coordinating four legs required to stop thinking and just let my body move. After all, walking was sothing brains did even without conscious input.
Success. The grass was pushed away as I wobbled on my four hooved legs. Cue in that scene from Bambi. It was almost like that but much gooier. Less cute too.
"C'mon, take your first steps!" The sa female voice said. While I could see normally, it seed either the goo or my eyesight was too nearsighted. I could only see a blur of a... centauress in front of . And so other centauress was dressing her buttocks.
"Hey, Callatea! Get that foal to walk already! The tribe needs to move on!" So rude male voice rang from further away.
They threw cold water over , washing away the blood and fluid. I shook the water off and got so giggles in return. So centaurs clopped away.
I stood on my feet... hooves, and tried to take so steps. After a minute of trying, I followed the centaurs rejoining the pack. Looking up, I saw a starlit sky and a full Ayla, the silver moon, moving above. It seems centaur foals, just like rmaids and lamias, were born with full mobility. Nothing like the almost-larval state of human babies.
Just a few wobbling steps and I was walking... trotting after my mother. She had a chestnut snowflake coat, brown with small white dots. her hair was as brown as her fur, without the white spots. I also noticed that centaurs had a strip about as wide as one's stretched hand of scalp running down their backs along the spine with hair growing from it. The mane? Looked like it.
"Good," she cooed as she looked behind. "Now, what shall I na you? Since your fur coat is spotless and shiny white, I'll call you Snowdrop."
I turned to look behind . Yes, a spotless silver coat. A dandy dewy downy fur. I liked it that much.
We rejoined the main herd as the tribe road the plains. So centaurs riding on the flanks broke formation to go gather so herb or kill a critter, galloping back to the morose herd and returning to their positions. These scouts kept their eyes peeled for dangers lurking in the plains. From the tension and attention, they devoted to the task, I guess this stretch of land was pretty dangerous.
We were at the tail end of the herd along with several other foals and their mothers. Centaurs didn't seem to have a breeding problem and after an hour or two listening to their conversations, I found out that the old and weak were at the end of the herd to be used as bait should sothing dangerous attack the herd.
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While that may sound callous, it made sense from an economical point-of-view. Food seed to be scarce under the still-long nights of the Age of Eclipse. Centaurs too old or too young demanded a huge investnt to either maintain or grow up. If soone had to be eaten, it was better to be one of them than an able adult. And by the way the weaning mothers protected their children, they were ready to sacrifice themselves to let the foals live another day.
Equipnt and tools were plentiful only when compared to clothing. I an, it wasn't. They didn't pull carts or wear saddlebags over their equine backs. The few that carried anything had leather backpacks or sacks slung over their human backs.
Centaurs wore close to nothing. A leather codpiece slung underneath their hindquarters for the warrior males, a wrap made of rough linen for the females with large chests. The A and B cup girls went bare, naked as a wildflower. Once I got a better look at the middle of the herd, I noticed not all males had the codpiece. Only the bigger and stronger ones. The young adult and adolescent males didn't have it, their genitals dangled exposed to the open air.
The sun rose and the herd sprung to action. We were atop a morose hill that had soft slopes in three directions and a canyon on the fourth. There the centaurs started to lay stakes on the soft ground, cut down so tall grass, and prepare a primitive camp. Dozens of scouts and warriors went down the hill to hunt and forage. Campfires were starting to co to life.
The ones that remained in the "camp" - there were no tents - skinned the prey. Horned rabbits, the ubiquitous al-Mi'raj monster. The horns would beco spear tips from what I saw the hunters use, while the pelts were destined to make waterskins and other implents. The at and viscera went to rough iron cauldrons to make stew for the tribe.
Callatea sat next to and beckoned closer. I approached and she revealed a brush and a wooden pail with warm water. She humd a nursery song as she washed and brushed my dandy dewy downy silver fur. Then she brushed my head - it seed I was born with a carpet of hair on it - and back-mane. Leaving just so water on the pail, she used the rest to clean up my legs and tail. No soap but that was what went for a bath in these parts.
Finally, she used the last scoop of the bucket to wash her breasts after removing the linen wraps. I guess it was dinner ti. The al-Mi'raj stew surely slled good.
The herd basked in the sun. I went to sleep as my newborn constitution demanded it. Callatea woke up as the sun was about to set. I had no idea how many hours of sunlight we had but it seed to move slower than before, back in Atlantis. The tribe rested and dined in the sun hours then slept after sunset. I didn't have System access but so of my Perks still worked, mostly the tabolic ones. I still required ten minutes of sleep to get rest equivalent to eight hours and I slept a lot. I also needed only one-twenty-fifth of the nourishnt so I had a banquet.
I was a young mare full of energy. I slipped out of my mother's embrace without waking her up and went to explore the camp.
Sentries walked along the periter, their backs to the campfires to keep their night vision. The light sleepers were on three legs, their bodies twitching every now and then. But the vast majority was lying down, their legs tucked next to their bodies or just stretched out. So of the most muscular warriors were snoring loudly.
had big noses. Big noses with wide nostrils. They made middle-eastern noses look like petite delicate supermodel buttons. The air intake of a male adult could make a vacuum cleaner work. The reason was obvious. We had two sets of lungs. I sucked in a deep breath and felt as my body moved. The lungs in the upper, human torso filled then the lungs on the horse torso. I believed that with so training I could control the muscles to breathe with only one set of muscles. The neck was also thicker than a human's. The strong males had just a trunk connecting shoulders to head, with not a single dimple behind the ears, while female necks looked like they ca from a human man.
Just having two ribcages was odd enough. We also had two hearts. The heartbeat in my upper chest was strong. Like, drumming strong. I could feel the pressure as the blood pumped fast through my body. And another synchronized heartbeat deep down in my lower chest, just as strong. I later learned that we had a chanism to shut down circulation in one heart and keep functioning with the other, in case we got a heart wound. Sa with the lungs. That redundancy helped centaurs survive what would be fatal wounds for other species.
And how muscular they were. Centaur males had wide torsos with corded and well-defined muscles. The average centaur man looked like Mr. Schwarzenegger in his Mr. Universe days. The strongest ones felt like they ca straight out of so shonen ani like JoJo or Fist of the North Star. The females were more delicate, as far as bodybuilders went. They could make the amazons in a Wonder Woman comic feel inadequate and weak.
It was obvious to I was in a warrior culture. One that prized Strength and Endurance more than anything else.
I kept exploring but a pair of hands scooped away from the ground. I looked around to protest but it was Callatea. "Where do you think you are going, young filly? It's dangerous for you around here. You can admire our warriors later."
I rolled my eyes. Admire the warriors? Oh, well. I guess I was. Back to our section of the camp, she pinned under her front leg and brushed my dandy dewy downy silver fur with her hand. Without a choice, I pretended to sleep.
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