A Rarity

Author's Note: As of right now, I'm still working on the third installment on my Wish Granted series. Since it's taking a long while, like ... painfully slowly, I think I'll publish something else just for the fun of it, something short. Warning, here there be centaurs. There won't be sex right away. I wanted to put in some world building. However, there will be some sex. I'm considering maybe making a more complicated story in the same universe as this one, or maybe smaller sillier stories, maybe both. I don't know yet. I think I need to work more on my Wish Granted series, though. By the way, all descriptions of sexual actions involve characters that are at least 18 years old. Just wanted to make sure everyone was reminded of that.

******

She was running.

Everything was blurry and dark. Branches seemed to slap and scratch her face every few moments. Sometimes, she ran into a tree's sturdy trunk. Her ankles were sore. Her feet were worse.

She didn't care. She had escaped.

Her uncaring mother had sold her to a group of strange men. In the middle of the night, they had tied her up and put her in a cart.

Fortunately for her, the idiots had used an older, frayed rope. One would think they would've spent the extra bit of copper to find a better rope to keep their investment secure, but no ... they had to be both evil and stupid. And so, she'd found a random sharp nail in the cart, rubbed her bonds against it, and set her limbs free. She'd lightly scratched her flesh in the process, but not enough to draw any blood.

Quietly, almost casually, she had tucked her body up and rolled out of the cart. Then she got to her bare feet and ran.

She wondered if her feet were bleeding. They hurt enough for it.

The only light she had was a weak moon that couldn't do much through the trees' leaves.

Eventually, she gave up. She pushed her hand against the rough bark of a tree and leaned her body against it. Then her legs gave in. Her body was scraped by the bark as she went down. Her knees felt the hardness of partially exposed tree roots.

Soft little crying reached her.

There was a child's miserable noise coming from somewhere.

"Hello? Is someone there?"

The crying stopped. There was a sniffing sound. Then a little voice called out, "Hello? Who is it?"

"My name is Aniu. Have you been harmed?" She tried to make her away around the tree, her hands clinging to the great plant.

"Ah ... nee yu? Ahnyu? That's a funny name."

"That's fine, Dear. Now tell me your name." Aniu thought she heard something rustle near her feet.

"I'm Fifi."

Aniu crouched down and said, "Good evening, Fifi. Are you a boy or a girl? I can't see you clearly."

There was a tiny laugh. "I'm a girl! You can tell by my bottom!"

Not quite understanding the meaning of that statement, Aniu decided to ignore it. "What are you doing all the way out here without anyone to protect you?"

"I ran away from home. What are you doing all the way out here, hmm? Did your Pa hurt your feelings?"

Aniu reached out in the darkness. She thought she saw a little figure's outline. "Some horrible men took me away from my home. I escaped, and now I'm here." Her fingers brushed against something made of leather. "Is that your shoe I'm touching?"

"Yep! I have pretty girl's feet!" Her voice had a bouncy pride in it.

"I'm certain that you do." Aniu smiled, even though she knew the child couldn't see her face. "Do you suppose your family might find you soon?"

"My Pa always finds me, except when Uncle Judok does."

"What's your Pa's name?"

"Odilon," Fifi said. "He's one of the border guards."

Aniu decided to sit down on her backside instead of putting her weight on the balls of her feet. The ground was quite unpleasant. "What does your uncle do with his time?"

"He used to do masonry work, but now he's a merchant."

Aniu sighed, and then she slapped her arm as she felt an insect bite her. "That's lovely. How long have you been out here?"

"I don't know. A long time. Ma will be truly cross when I'm home again. She'll whack my backside really hard."

Aniu's head tilted. She felt her long curls shift around her face. "Are you frightened?"

"No. It'll hurt for a bit, but then she'll stop. Sometimes, Pa says he wants to spank me himself, but he's too strong. So either Ma or Grandma needs to do it." Fifi didn't have any hint of sadness nor dread in her voice.

"Why did you run away?"

"Because I want to be alone sometimes."

Aniu pulled her hair over her shoulder, her brow furrowing. "Do you require an escort often?"

"You're stupid. Of course I do. I'm a girl."

Stupid, huh? Aniu rolled her eyes. "Well, where I'm from, plenty of girls don't have escorts."

There was a ruffling sound. Perhaps Fifi was moving her limbs about. "Where are you from? Around here, girls are always riding a man's back when they aren't at home."

"What?" Aniu couldn't quite imagine how that could be done, or even why. "How can the men get anything done if they're carrying people all the time?"

"That's easy. They just use their hands to do stuff while the girls do whatever they want to do."

"But wouldn't they use their hands to hold the women up? Or perhaps, do they have special slings for the women?"

Fifi made a frustrated huff of a noise. "The men usually have belts around their waists to keep the women from falling off, but I don't think anyone uses a sling, except for babies."

Suddenly, there were men's voices. There were lights too.

"Fifi!"

"Fifi, where are you?!"

"Pa?! Uncle Judok?!"

"Stay right there, Poppet! Pa's coming for you!"

Aniu stood up. She wobbled a bit, but she managed to get to a straight position. "Hello?! We're over here!"

The pounding of hooves against the forest floor echoed in her ears.

But as the men approached, weaving themselves through the trees, Aniu realized that something was wrong with them. The torches they held revealed something strange.

Their horses didn't seem to have heads ... and the men didn't seem to have legs.

Aniu frowned. Her brain wasn't connecting any of the facts. All she could do was observe and hope that something made sense soon.

Their noses were odd. Maybe it was some peculiar trick of the firelight, but their noses seemed very broad, and the nostrils were strangely large. Other than that fact, the men seemed handsome overall. Their tunics covered broad shoulders and thick arms.

"Poppet," one of the men said, pointing his face away from Aniu. A rush of air shot out of his nose in something of a snort. "Come here, Poppet. You need to come home. Dinner's waiting on you." His long hair seemed to be a little pale, not black or brown.

"A spanking too." That was the other man. He had much darker hair. "If you were my child, I'd tie you to your mother."

Aniu turned her face to look at the child, since she finally had a bit of good light. Fifi looked like she was around ten years old. Aniu couldn't quite figure out the color of her hair, but it looked like something paler than brown. She had very long pigtails draped over her shoulders and tied up with ribbons. Her dress had luxuriously long sleeves that opened up at the elbows and dragged down on the ground. She nearly tripped on those sleeves as she got up and walked closer to the men.

Fifi put her little foot on something that hung on the side of the man's horse, if it even was a horse. Then the child actually mounted the horse. Aniu then realized there was a saddle there, a side-saddle.

Then what were the men sitting on?

As the dark haired man approached her, the truth shocked her brain.

These were centaurs.

Aniu turned around and tried to run away, but a sturdy arm yanked her up. Her feet dangled in the air.

"Where are you going, Miss? This is an emergency situation. Don't you want to return to your family?" She was certain the man who held her was the one speaking. His voice was a ravine, deep and frightening. It echoed throughout her body, putting a buzz in her nerves.

"No! No, please! No!" She didn't mean that she didn't want to return to her family. She meant that she wanted to be set down. "Please don't harm me!"

There were awful stories of centaurs, the mighty horse-like men from Breden, plucking up women as if it was the most normal thing in the world, then raping them and tearing their bodies apart. Aniu had always imagined that it wasn't likely for all centaurs to be so cruel, especially since their country was technically allies with hers, but she didn't want to take any chances. She was in too delicate a state.

"Come now! Give me your father's name. I'll carry you to him." Her back was pulled up against his humanoid torso. His body heat was rather intense. She only had on a chemise.

That statement had Aniu pausing for a bit. He wasn't going to rush her off somewhere and rape her? Her words were quiet, uncertain. "You ... you wish to take me home?"

"Of course ... Hm? Why aren't you wearing any clothes?"

Her toes wiggled in the air. Her breath was struggling against the pressure of the man's arm. "Please ... put me down!"

"Alright, but don't run away. We're not going to trample you."

Once her feet met the ground again, she felt the arm slide off of her. Aniu hugged herself and stepped a bit away. She turned around to face the tall creature who was looking down at her with curious, worried eyes.

Fifi was completely unconcerned. If anything, she seemed bored.

So ... maybe these particular centaurs weren't crazed rapists?

"My ... my father is dead." Aniu decided that there really wasn't anywhere to go. She could either put herself at these centaurs' mercy or wander around in the woods, half naked and with no way to care for herself.

The dark haired centaur's lips made a wincing expression. Then he said, "I'm very sorry about that. What's your name?"

These centaurs were certainly NOT acting like a bunch of monsters. Aniu's senses chilled down. She tilted her head up to give his eyes a bit more scrutiny. She couldn't tell what color they were. "My name is Aniu. I'm from Irvell."

His thick eyebrows rose in surprise. "My name is Judok." The hand that didn't hold a torch made a light gesture towards the other centaur. "This is my older brother, Odilon."

Odilon nodded to her. "Why are you in Breden?"

Aniu took a hard breath. "My mother sold me to some men, and they brought me here. I escaped their cart and ran into these woods."

"Oh," Odilon said very simply. He gave Judok a worried look.

Judok gave his brother a stiff nod. Then he looked back to Aniu. "They were probably going to sell you to someone else. It's best if you come with us."

"We have a large house you can sleep in." That came from Fifi. She yawned into her little hand. "Ma's always complaining about not having enough women in the house, but maybe everyone complains about that, huh?"

Odilon turned his waist as he looked back at his daughter. "You'll have to be very sweet to her. Do you understand?"

Fifi nodded. "Yes, Pa. I understand."

Judok said to Aniu, "Get on my second back. I have a woman's saddle on."

Fortunately for Aniu, she had learned how to ride a horse a long time ago. Her father had been rich once, and he'd wanted his child to be educated as well as any noblewoman. Aniu nodded to the centaur, although a nagging, biting feeling in a corner of her brain told her this was insanity. She walked closer to him, suddenly wondering if he had reins, as a normal horse would. When she was properly seated on the saddle, she looked around and couldn't find any.

"You have to be belted, or else he won't go," Fifi said after a moment. "You really have no idea what you're doing, do you?"

"Don't insult her, Fifi." Odilon reached back to put a very weak slap on the girl's arm. She didn't even flinch at it. The father added, "There aren't any centaurs where she's from."

Aniu mumbled something self deprecating as her fingers found the loose, leather belt around the centaur's upper waist. She put the excess around her own waist and secured herself.

"Are you ready?" Judok asked, turning his head.

"Yes."

A jolt, and then her body was bouncing as the centaur trotted along, his brother near him. Jodok's body was quite warm. He smelled like dust and honey with a hint of musk.

Aniu wasn't the type to love awkward silences. She asked, "So, Fifi is Mr. Odilon's daughter?" She was convinced that Fifi had been adopted, since she looked human. Instead of outright asking if she was adopted, though, Aniu chose a less obvious question. "Where was she born?"

Jodok was the one who responded first. "Don't you mean when?"

Aniu looked at Odilon when he said, "We once lived in a small house. Fifi was born there. Soon, though, Jodok purchased a larger home, and the family moved there."

"How many people are in the family?" Aniu hoped she didn't take up too much space.

Swatting away a tree branch, Jodok gave the answer as his long dark hair put more of that dusty sweet scent into Aniu's nose. "There's me, Odilon, Fifi, Odilon's wife. Her name's Katell. Then there's our parents. Amado is our father. Dasuna is our mother. Katell's parents don't live with us. They have her brothers to look after them. And there's Odilon's youngest, Masaron. He's only five. He was recently sent to the man's side."

Aniu's fingers tightened around the belt keeping her safe. "What do you mean by the man's side?"

"The man's side of the house," said Jodok, giving a short laugh. "Goodness, things truly are different in Irvell. An upper class house in Breden is divided in half. One side is for women. The other is for men. Women can visit the men's side, but men don't normally visit the women's side."

"You'll understand when you're home with us," Odilon said.

***

They told her that the city they lived in was named Anath. The forest that Fifi had a habit of running away to was considered to be hunting grounds for anyone with a special permit. Aniu noticed there weren't any paved roads anywhere. There was only grass and dirt. There were snoozing goats hanging around the buildings, looking rather orange under the glow of the torches.

Even though she was told this place was a city, it was quite rare to see any building that was more than a single story tall. Aniu was accustomed to buildings that had a ground level of stone with a dirt floor, and second levels of timber framed walls on top, usually slightly larger than the previous levels.

The buildings in Anath were mostly long rectangles. She was able to notice that the few buildings that had multiple floors usually had spiral ramps winding around them, supported by sturdy columns or thick sections of a wall. Sometimes, they weren't ramps, but very gentle stairs instead. They reminded Aniu of equestrian staircases she had seen in old temples. Normal stairs were difficult for horses, but equestrian staircases were much easier for them.

They stopped at a brick building that had two floors. Aniu craned her neck to see the curving path that was around the building. It turned out to have stairs. Aniu wanted to dismount, but she was told to wait until they were inside the building. There were two entrances. They weren't connected under one doorway. There were two separate doorways with two doors. The one on the right was significantly taller than the other. They were both very pretty, though. Trees with swirling branches were carved in each door. The one on the right seemed to bear nuts. The one on the left was bearing flowers.

Odilon opened the taller door and walked inside. His pale tail flicked at the air. Fifi made an exhausted groan as she was carried inside.

"We'd better wait here," Jodok told Aniu, reaching back to gently pat her hand. "It's better to have family matters settled before we introduce you."

So, they waited a bit. Aniu was tempted to comb Jodok's dark hair. She didn't really understand why. Maybe it was because of the way it hung down his more humanoid back. Maybe it was because he smelled so pleasant.

"I want to ask an uncomfortable question," Aniu said.

"Hm?" Jodok turned his head again. An outdoor sconce put a glow on his face. He had a very strong jaw, and even his broad nose seemed handsome. His lips curled up in a gentle smile. "How uncomfortable is this question?"

"Well, I was finely educated, Mr. Jodok, but it seems that most people in my country don't know much about centaurs."

He nodded to her. "I understand. The only people we share much of our culture with is the dwarves."

Aniu had met a dwarf once. She had seemed to be very practical. Dwarves tended to be rather short when compared to an average human adult, but very broad and sturdy. Aniu shrugged at her thoughts and asked, "Well ... I hope you'll forgive this question."

"Go on, then."

"How exactly ... is Fifi Mr. Odilon's child?"

His brow lowered. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, she's not a centaur."

"Ha!" His great hand flew up to his mouth as he tried to muffle his laughter. "I ... oh gods! I'm sorry!" He swiped some of his hair out of his face. "It's our fault, honestly. Throgan is the only foreign place we have for tourism." Throgan was the land of the dwarves. "We don't have any female centaurs. Our mothers give birth to either human girls or centaur boys."

"Oh." Aniu looked down at her fingernails. What she had just learned seemed to explain quite a few curious things.

Wait ...

How in the world were children ... conceived?

She didn't want to ask that question. She chose a different thing to say. "So, this is your house?"

"Yes," he said firmly, still smiling.

"I'm rather grateful to you. Perhaps I could find work here?"

"All my servants are men. It wouldn't be wise to hire a woman. I'm very sorry."

She blinked. Then she tugged on her thick curly hair. "I don't understand."

Just then, the taller door opened a little, and Odilon peeked out. "You can bring her in now."

Jodok nodded and moved in as his brother stepped aside to make room.

Various floor lamps were lit. There were also a few simple chandeliers bearing glowing candles. Aniu saw a dirt floor and several tables and shelves that seemed especially tall to her. She also saw various centaurs moving around, sliding wooden panels open and closed with only slightly noisy rolling sounds. It seemed that most of the interior walls could simply be moved aside in order to provide more space when needed.

To her left, though, there were walls that no centaur dared to open. Instead, a centaur knocked on a wall and said, "Mrs. Rundle!" That particular wall was slid open from behind, and a kneeling woman was revealed. She had a clean, round face, and she wore a gown with long sleeves. It didn't seem to be made of any expensive materials, though. She did, however, have lovely brown hair braided into two long sections. Aniu realized that the area the woman knelt on was elevated a bit off the dirt floor. There were occasional pairs of fully wooden clogs neatly tucked underneath the raised rooms. Aniu wondered, was this woman on the "woman's side?"

Mrs. Rundle said something to the centaur, handing him a large bag of something, probably clothes or something else that needed to be cleaned. Then the centaur walked off, hiding himself with a wall that he slid closed. Jodok carried Aniu towards the recently revealed woman, saying, "Katell, has Odilon mentioned our new guest?"

Katell nodded up to Aniu. "Yes, well, I'm glad she's here." Her voice brightened up when she addressed Aniu specifically. "Hello there. You're looking a bit undressed. We can change that, if you have the patience. First, though, we need to wash you and put some good food in your belly." Her dark eyes went up to Jodok's face as she moved aside and patted the space beside her. "Would you please set her down here?"

Jodok turned back and said, "Unbuckle yourself, please."