Chapter 1 - 1

Pegasus

Everybody’s heard of a Pegasus. Everybody’s seen one too-it’s just that most people don’t fully understand what they’re looking at. When most people think of one, they think of a flying horse. Well this is true. Pegasus’s do take that shape, but rarely. Most stay in a form that normal people think of as a human. That’s were they go wrong. A Pegasus is not a human. A Pegasus is not a horse. It’s a being that was meant for travel. Most Pegasus’s spend their whole lives traveling, which can be a long time because they are immortal. They only die from illnesses or being killed by someone or something. They don’t just grow old and die. In fact, they never grow past the age of 30. Forever youthful, these are the last fantasy creatures alive. I would know because sadly, I’m one of the last ones.

When most people see me, they see only a tall young man, with long white hair and a distant expression. That’s pretty much all there is too me. I don’t talk much, in fact I rarely talk at all. My name is Al-Bell, but nobody calls me that. Nobody but my wife that is-and my son, neither of which I can find right now. I guess that’s why I’m talking to you. Maybe because of that or because I have no purpose. At least, none that I can find.

So you wanted to know what a Pegasus is? It’s me. I look normal, except for my hair, which is naturally white. Most of them remain in their human form. In fact, the only way to tell a Pegasus, is at birth. If a Pegasus is born, it will appear in the form of a human child around the age of six, but it will have a thick black horn on it’s forehead. For the first six years of it’s life, the child is unchanged and it begins to grow again at the age of seven. Once it reaches that age, it can use it’s other forms, meaning it can go into public because it can change into a hornless-human. It is at this time, when the child and the parents will begin their roaming again.

The reason Pegasus’s are so good at traveling is they can transform into five different beings, all of which are superb at some type of movement. If you have ever heard of a centaur, it was a Pegasus. Ever heard of a mermaid? That was a Pegasus too. We have the ability to transform into a centaur for easy land mobility, a mermaid for sea mobility, a horse with wings for flight, and a human for…well come to think of it, the human form is pointless. I guess it’s just there so we can try to fit in with normal people. There’s also the birth form, which almost all Pegasus’s use the most because that’s what we really were meant to look like. That’s how we were born.

I’m sorry to bore you. I hope you don’t mind listening to an old man tell pointless stories. Well, maybe I don’t look old but yes, I’m 756 years old. Hard to believe huh? I guess if you have the time I could tell you more. Most people don’t get to hear his stuff but if you won’t tell anybody, I see no harm in letting you know more about Pegasus’s. Let me think a while. Trying to think 756 years back is difficult.

* * * * * *

A Pegasus can have human parents, Pegasus parents, or even animal parents. It doesn’t matter what creature gives birth to it, because the Pegasus is not a race but a being. It’s simply a soul, born into the world to search and to hunt for something, anything. I’m still trying to figure out what I’m looking for…

But anyway, my parents. I was born into an animal family. My mother was a small mule deer, my father, a large territorial buck. The two were always together, in a small herd of their own, just the two of them and nobody else. Had I been born a deer, it would have been a relatively nice life. The two lived in a national park and were protected from hunters, so my father was relatively old for a deer. I never knew his exact age because I couldn’t communicate with him, seeing as how I was born a different creature entirely. I did know however that my mother was young, and I was probably her first child.

She had an unusually long term, about 2 years, in which I grew slowly inside of her. Pegasus’s take almost three years to fully mature but I was born premature because my horn slit her uterus and killed her. Because I had the intellect of a six year old child though, I knew what a terrible thing I had done. I crawled out of her and looked up, to see my father looking horrifically down at me and the slaughtered deer. I tried to speak to him, to ask him for help, but I couldn’t talk because of the blood and discharge clinging to my face and in my mouth. I reached up to him and he stepped back snorting perhaps because of the smell or the way I looked. I coughed up the fluid in my mouth and turned back to him, trying to call to him again, and stretching my hand out further. He continued to stare at me so I stood up, slowly and shakily and took a wobbly step foreword. At this, he reared onto his hind legs and struck me with his front hooves, however the first sign of my powers took over. I fell back and a purple force field blared out, keeping my father at bay.

I lay shaking and afraid on the ground as he pounded away at the purple dome, shorting and shaking his massive antlers in frustration. After several failing attempts, he stopped and simply watched me, and I felt the static of the force field melt away. He continued to stare at me and I whispered to him, trying to receive comfort and love from the creature who saw me as nothing but a threat, a thing of hate. I couldn’t understand but I knew that he would never love me. I knew that he never could. In silence, he backed away, never turning his back on the thing that had killed his doe and I felt the hate he showed drilling into me. I lay cold and crying as I watched him abandon me.

For the next two day, I curled up in my mother’s remains. She was warm for the first day, until the night came, and wet as I was, I almost didn’t survive. The next day though, I grew stronger, and I became aware of my nakedness. I huddled deep within her womb and stared wildly around me for signs of life, which came quickly. The smell of rotting flesh drew scavengers and flies, who settled themselves around her body and began to eat her. For a while, I tried to fight them off, tried to protect my dead mother, but the hungry animals didn’t have much fear of me, and in time, they ignored me completely. I watched them eat my mother in agony, but there was nothing to be done. I was weak, hungry, and naked in a forest where human encounter would be slim. I needed food if I was to survive.

I wandered for about a week, hiding behind trees and trying not to be seen, because I was so ashamed of what I was. I forged on leaves, grass, anything I could chew. Surprisingly, none of this made me sick, and I would later find out, that because I could transform into the body of a horse, I could eat things a horse would eat. During that time, I saw my father once in the distant, bugling a long, lonely pitch. I tired to mimic the noise and his massive head swung in my direction. Again, the hate oozed from him and I dipped my horned head in shame. When I looked up, he had already gone.

When I was about three weeks old, I had gone to the edge of the forest and out into the open for the first time. It was a meadow, and at the center was an old shabby looking cabin, but there was smoke curling slowly up from the chimney, so I walked closer, sliding a hand in front of me to cover anything I wished no one to see. I slide close to the window and peeked threw. There was nobody inside but it looked warmer, and I had never been warm since my birth. After several minutes of pushing the walls and windows, I found the door and pushed my way inside.

The first thing I noticed was the warmth. It spilled over me and I hurried over to the fire. I sat down and let it wash me for several minutes, but when I had sufficiently warmed up, I got up and looked around the cabin. A set of black and white picture frames stood facing each other on a small wooden desk, and I picked one up to look at it. The people look friendly enough, but they didn’t seem to be right. I reached up and touched the think horn on my head. They didn’t have horns. I picked up the other picture. These people didn’t either. I set both the pictures down and walked across the cabin to a dusty mirror and raised my hands to my horn again. I wasn’t supposed to have this. I was different, and something told me, it was going to cost my dearly.

I pulled some of the black curly locks down across my face to try and hide the horn, but it protruded so far that I gave up and wandered back over to the pictures. The people were wearing clothes. I wasn’t. I put the pictures down again and looked across the room. I red and black shirt was laying on the floor so I picked it up and slide it over my head. I found a pair of tan pants, and some socks and put those on too. The clothes clung to me in an odd way, and I realized that I was still covered in the aftermath of my birth. I stripped the clothes off and walked threw a hallway, to what I guessed would be another room.

I was right. There was a large basin and a slimy bar of soap sitting below a rusty pump. I walked over to it and pulled the faucet, then the level and watched in amazement as water spurted out. I tugged on the level and before my arms gave out, managed to get about a foot of water into the basin. I climbed in and shivered at the cold, but I was getting more and more used to being cold, so I got over the chill swiftly.

After bathing and scrubbing every inch of me I could reach, I climbed out, but I didn’t know what to do with the water. I decided to leave it there and went back to the other room and the clothes I had selected. I threw them on and shivered in the wet clothes. Nobody had come into the house yet, so I sat down next to the fire and stretched out my hands, which were no longer brown, yellow, and smelly, but pink and soft. I touched them and felt for the first time like a real being. Maybe not human, but real.

I’m not sure how long I sat by that fire, but my clothes had dried by the time I heard noise coming from outside. I reached up and plastered my hands over my horn, trying to conceal it. I tugged sharply on it, as if to yank it off but it wouldn’t move, and I realized, that I was going to have to find some other way of hiding it. I looked around, and found the nearest object and slid it over my horn.

The door opened and a young girl of about 12 came in, holding a stack of blankets in her arms. She shuffled about, humming softly to herself and placing the blankets around different chairs and on the large bed. She stopped when she saw me and she stared at me for some time.

“Hello.” she said suddenly. “Who are you?”

I was about to answer when I remembered, I didn’t have a name. I couldn’t tell her who I was without a name. “Erm…” I stammered.

“Why are you wearing a cow bell on your head?” she asked suddenly, seeing the large brass object I had slid over my horn.

“Well? Can you talk? Why are you wearing the cow bell?”

“Al bell?” I said timidly. I didn’t understand what she was asking and she was talking so fast. I hadn’t had a conversation before in my life, and I felt pushed to hard to answer her questions.

“So your name is Al Bell? That’s a funny name.” She paused and considered something, then lost interested and turned back to me. “I’m Clara.” she said proudly, and she walked over to me and stuck her hand out. The cow bell jiggled as it clicked against my horn and I waited for her to yank it off, but she never did. She just stood there, smiling at me with her hand out. I stuck mine out too and she shook it vigorously.

“Hang on,” she said. “All go get Pa.”

With that, she turned abruptly and ran out the open door. I stood, blinking after her, trying to understand her bazaar behavior. Before I could give it much thought, she came back in dragging a fat gray haired man by the hand.

“Pa, I want you to meet Al Bell!” she said proudly.

“The big man advanced on me and I cowered, my cow bell clinking softly.

“Welcome!” he bellowed, as he spread his hairy arms wide. “It’s nice to have visitors. But where are your parents? They must wonder where you are?”

I looked over at Clara for comfort and she smiled at me, that happy confused smile. I looked back at Pa. “Dead” I said. “They both died.” I looked down at the floor and could sense the two look at each other quickly. “Then consider yourself one of us!” Pa bellowed. “Clara, go get the rabbits. We gotta fatten this kid up. He’s skin, bones, and black curly hair!”

Clara rushed out and Pa moved around to the big wooden table and pulled off some animal furs.

“So kid, where’d ya come from?”

I considered my past and pushed the idea behind me. “I’m not sure. I was so young when they died and I’ve traveled so often that I can’t recall. “

Luckily for me, he did not press the matter further. “Well, you can call this home from now on, so you don’t have to worry about traveling anymore. Clara’s never been out of this park!”

Pa turned around and looked at me. “Why you wearin’ that cow bell?”

I reached up and touched it. “I just am sir. If that’s okay with you.”

Pa shrugged. “Suits me just fine, I don’t care what ya wear.”

I let me breath out and looked around the cabin more closely. It was small, only two rooms in all, and the fire had the place well heated. There were furs and animal heads all over the walls and floors, and trapping equipment lay in a heap in one corner.

“So how old are ya?” Pa asked, clearing the table once again.

“I guess I’m about six.” I said, knowing that even though I was only three weeks old, to him I appeared six.

“You’re pretty bright for a little six year old feller.” he said, not looking at me but at the table. I was about to respond when Clara came back with five dead rabbits clutched in her hands. “Got ‘em Pa!” she exclaimed proudly and she raised the rabbits in the air to show her father.

The two chatted happily to each other and Clara giggled and for the first time in my short life, I began to feel I was loved. I sank down on the bed and cried.

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