Jan 7, 2021
Thundering Hooves | Vestiges | 2021
UK Black/Death Metal
Artwork by Katie Vicary
https://thunderinghooves.bandcamp.com/album/vestiges
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Thundering Hooves | Vestiges | 2021
UK Black/Death Metal
Artwork by Katie Vicary
https://thunderinghooves.bandcamp.com/album/vestiges
11:40 PM EST December 20, 2019:
Acid Witch - "Thundering Hooves\" From the album Stoned (November 15, 2010)
Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last\.fm
File under: Detroit Stoner Doom
Thundering Hooves p. 1
(Warning: this fic might induce severe brain damage. Careful while reading.) (This is a multi-part crackfic. Other writings can be found on Masterlist.)
Okay, this made completely no sense.
She didn’t have a darn clue, how she managed to lead that rude guy out of that damn temple, but she did and he seemingly took a liking to her. Unfortunately, a very persistent liking. She tried to get away, God knows she tried, but failed.
Very surprising. Like if her short legs had any chance to outrun a horse, yeah right. High heels didn’t make any difference, really, more than just to ensure her even more epic fail at an escape. The fail would be even more epic if she fell from the cliff she ran onto, but got caught in time by that Hideyoshi guy. She didn’t manage to get really far either, but was talented enough to almost die immediately after the first step she made.
So she ended up in this weird looking castle that seemed completely grotesque in comparison to cosy, familiar traditional Japanese mansions.
This was ridiculous.
She fell on her futon, face flat, and sighed.
No good, she was more in the mood for screaming and shouting but probably shouldn’t disturb these... people.
Yeah, let’s call them people.
What was going to happen to her anyway?
Loud sound of footsteps echoed in the hallway as someone arrived at the sliding door that kept everything out of the room and helped her pretend nothing unusual happened. Ignoring the specific look of the room wasn’t as difficult as ignoring anything else, despite the ceiling was much higher than she was used to, and everything was taller, like if she was watching a panoramic movie squished into one of those old, almost square screens of analogue TVs. Like the TV at her grandmother’s place. Oh God, great, the best time to get homesick.
“May I enter?” she heard a boyish voice from behind the door. “I brought fresh clothes for you.”
The voice belonged to Mitsunari Ishida, who was probably the only one nice person in the whole castle and the only one who really tried not to accidentally kill her, which was a very difficult task since she was so fragile in comparison to anyone here.
“…I’m changing,” she lied. “Just leave it there, I’ll take it in a moment.”
“I’m sorry to disturb you then.” He seemed sincerely sorry to bother her and she felt slightly bad she dismissed him like this.
“Don’t worry about it.” She tried to sound reassuring, but wasn’t sure if this attempt at politeness actually succeeded.
“Then I’m leaving.”
She listened to him walking away and when she finally couldn’t hear him anymore, she rolled out from futon and opened the door. She looked around, but fortunately no one was there, so she grabbed the neatly folded kimono and jumped back into the room. The kimono seemed quite normal, just much shorter than she’d expect from Sengoku period female attire.
What was this dream? She dropped the kimono and curled on the futon again, hiding her face in her hands.
And why was it so shitty?
And so stupid?
“Pssst!” she heard a voice from up above and froze completely horrified.
There he was, peeking into the room from a hole in the ceiling. The guy she saw before! At least one familiar face! Well, not very familiar, but he was the only link to sanity she still had.
“Who are you?”, she asked quietly, coming closer, as he put aside the ceiling panel he removed.
“I’m Sasuke, Sasuke Sarutobi,” he whispered. “I got sucked through the wormhole too.”
“What? A wormhole?”
“Yes. The lightning sent us back to the past, to the Sengoku period.”
“I’m pretty sure it is NOT how the Sengoku period looked like,” she scowled, increasingly annoyed. How could he be so oblivious to the obvious problem with this… place? The only answer she could think of was that she just dreamt and dreams are supposed to be nonsensical and absurd.
“Well… yes. We landed in an alternative universe,” he agreed reluctantly. “But just for three months. After three months we’ll be able to come back to our world. Just try to find some friends here. Nobunaga’s retainers could make powerful allies for you and protect you from this world.”
“Protect me? How am I even supposed to interact with them?”
“You’ll… you’ll get used to that. But be careful not to fall in love with any of them.”
His advice was so absurd she decided she hadn’t heard it.
“Sasuke, for heaven’s sake, did you see these guys?! They might just accidentally sit on me or something! I’ll be flat and dead after one damn day!”
Sasuke fidgeted as if he was unsure whether or not should he mention something insanely important, but reached his decision quite quickly.
“D-don’t worry about it,” he said. And that was it.
She literally couldn’t find words. How is she supposed NOT to worry?! Not only did she end up in the middle of some crazy war, and dropped into a fire, she still had three months of living around these… monsters and had to befriend them? He even expected her to be attracted to them?
“You’ll be like them after the first night here,” he added reluctantly, probably seeing her expression getting more murderous every passing second.
Then it hit her that all the time they talked she was seeing only his upper body through the hole in the ceiling. He didn’t come down, was it because…? No, no, this is impossible. The ceiling would just… fall otherwise, right? Cold sweat crept on her back as she tried to keep calm.
“Sasuke… don’t tell me…”
“I changed,” he sighed and moved closer to the hole. He hanged his legs through it.
No, not legs.
Hooves.
There was a fucking centaur in the ceiling.
This was… disturbing.
And then the tiny link to sanity broke and she fainted.
(Inspired by @yaystew‘s fanarts - 1, 2. Proofread by @tsundere-mitsuhide - thank you!)
(Part 2 can be found on masterlist)
Thundering Hooves p. 2
(This is a multi-part fic. All fics to be found on Masterlist.)
( @tsundere-mitsuhide, thank you for the betareading! Also the root idea comes from @yaystew‘s fanarts.)
(Part 1 can be found on Masterlist.)
She woke up in the morning in an unfamiliar room, different than rooms she was used to. So it probably wasn’t just a dream, that much she could tell. But it seemed so weird yesterday, so bizarre that she lost her cool.
Oh boy, the smoke from that fire must have been really toxic to induce such hallucinations. She could tell the effects hadn’t worn out completely yet; her vision seemed to be still distorted as the room looked squished from the sides and much too high – so basically the same as yesterday. But she was thinking clearer now.
After what happened, no wonder she couldn’t manage to take it all logically and with reason. She thought about it and was breaking her head to understand, but still couldn’t really make heads and tails from it. She got struck by lightning and ended up in an alternative universe, thrown deep into the past by a wormhole. To a Sengoku period full of ahistorically handsome warlords.
Who were centaurs, by the way, but no matter how unsettling it was, it must have been a hallucination. She would expect burning paint to be toxic in the present, but was genuinely surprised by the toxicity of paint in the past too. These centaurs looked very realistic. Her eyes were definitely 100% convinced by the view.
No time to cry over spilled milk though. Time to get up.
She stretched her arms and all four legs.
Wait.
Again, how many legs?
She stretched again, fear creeping into her heart.
Four.
Definitely four.
She kicked of the blanket she was under and howled like a very horrified banshee from the revelation.
Horse legs. Slim, chestnut horse legs.
She kicked again. The hooves flailed desperately in the air.
No doubt those were her legs. They reacted, moved the way she tried to move, and actually were pretty linked to her body. She touched her lap just to realise it’s gone and replaced by a horse chest.
A hoof flailed in the air again.
She just laid there, absurdly appreciating the small, smooth hoof of her front leg, a leg covered with short, shining fur of the same shade as her hair. She could tell she was blessed with Arabian horse shape, which was probably very suitable for a girl. Yeah, that’s a good thing. Keep saying this, this is a good thing.
Don’t worry about your bottom turning into a horse, just think you could have become a damn Percheron. You’re not a Percheron. You’re a graceful Arabian horse. Yes. Good. Positive thinking.
She got up and tried to stand up, but it didn’t go well. She didn’t have a clue how to use her legs, so she repeated the struggle every foal had just after birth, trying to remain standing steady.
But the ceiling was still quite high. Not so absurdly high as she looked at it from human perspective, but she turned into quite a small horsie, probably still smaller than even small breeds. A pony? But most ponies are quite sturdy, only a few were blessed with more slender built.
She was aware that this stream of consciousness didn’t make much sense, but she needed to keep her mind busy not to burst into hysterical laughter. It was working at least somehow.
Sasuke said they had three months to another wormhole they could use to come back, so that would mean she’d not be stuck in this body forever. The moment she comes back to her world, she’d regain her normal human legs. And being a centaur would definitely help her survive – she tried not to imagine what would happen if one of them ran into her while galloping in hurry. That’d be the end. Game over. Without any saves nor checkpoints to start out from.
She finally managed to calm down a bit.
Anyway, she couldn’t roam around in modern clothes. Especially that after a fire and a night she spent sleeping in it her shirt wasn’t the most pleasant thing to wear. The kimono felt cool and silky on her skin and she couldn’t help but appreciate the luxurious cloth that she wouldn’t get if she stayed in a commoner’s house.
She always liked to sew clothing, got her dream job back in the modern times, everything was going nicely… maybe she could join the seamstresses? How absurd it might seem, the ability to sew pretty outfit for horses could come in handy just in case some equestrian tournament needed something like this for the winners.
Yes, good, positive thinking was going smoothly.
She combed her hair deep in thought.
Anyway, wasn’t it a bit cool? Galloping and other things, being majestic and beautiful. As majestic as a pony can be, but still!
And her coat was quite beautiful. She started to brush her back, which turned out to be a very pleasant sensation, on the top of the fur winning a marvellous shine just after a few strokes. She processed brushing further into the caudal direction of her spine.
And then she realised her kimono covered only her upper body. It was short enough not to get in the way, but…
But she didn’t have any pants! Her butt was completely bare!
What now, she couldn’t walk around with her butt exposed! She just couldn’t! Oh, forget the butt! Bared butt is still not THAT bad in comparison…
She’d have to keep her tail down, at best between her legs. But what if she’d instinctively swing her tail – which she just inadvertently did! – and expose...
OH GOD NO!
A high-pitched cry echoed in the hallways.
The Grand National.
Thundering hooves and Skies by British artist Kathryn Sassall.
1:58 AM EST February 15, 2024:
Acid Witch - "Thundering Hooves" From the album Stoned (November 15, 2010)
Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm
File under: Detroit Stoner Doom
12:47 AM EDT July 28, 2021:
Acid Witch - "Thundering Hooves" From the album Stoned (November 15, 2010)
Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm
File under: Detroit Stoner Doom
