‘This is not Earth,’ Sylvie concluded. ‘Where is it?’
‘Eden, as I said,’ repeated Maxim. ‘It’s not anywhere, really. More like between places.’
Sylvie grimaced. ‘It’s like a Fairyland then?’
‘Good comparison, Ma’mselle Masson. Some have called it so, though no fairies live here. In fact no one does apart from Elementals and now the pegasuses.’
‘Why did you bring us here, Maxxie?’
The boy shot her a cold look. ‘That would be for Judgement.’
Sylvie stared. ‘Who are you, Maxim?’
The boy grinned and flounced. ‘Took your time asking that one. I am the Promised One, the Golden Elphberg, the King of Rothenia, Prince Imperial of the Oecumene. Heard of me?’
‘No. I skipped Current Affairs in Year 11.’
Maxxie shook his head. ‘I can of course do magic.’
‘You certainly have a big, magic wand.’ Sylvie grinned apologetically. ‘Some jokes just have to be made.’
‘Pity you don’t have a bigger audience then,’ said Maxxie and then waved in greeting. ‘But here it comes.’
Sylvie saw a number of quadruped life forms emerging from the eaves of the forest across the stream. They looked like horses until she noticed the wings folded to their flanks. ‘They’re pegasuses,’ Maxxie commented, not entirely sure a girl as defiantly unintellectual as Sylvie would recognise them without help.
The small herd of about a dozen equines approached them and then paused, all making an elegant bow of their long necks to Maxim, and then, in one concluding act of strangeness, the leading pegasus spoke. ‘Hail to thee, Maxim of Rothenia, Lord of Earth, Anointed Son of the Creator.’
Maxim stood and gave his own bow. ‘Hail to thee, Brunhild the Great, Empress of All Equines, Queen of the Pegasuses. I bring thee and thy Imperial Court a gift.’ He indicated the bale of hay. ‘Feast at thy leisure, Great Lady.’
‘Oh goody!’ commented a cheerful stallion at her side. ‘Real grass! It’s been ages.’
‘And who are you, sir?’ asked Maxim.
‘Prince Whiteblaze Brunhildscolt of the Laund Herd,’ the magnificent chestnut stallion responded.
‘How come they talk?’ Sylvie asked, walking slowly up to Prince Whiteblaze, staring into his dark, gold-flecked eyes. ‘You’re beautiful,’ she said as she caressed his snout.
The equine prince whinnied and snuffled Sylvie’s face. Then he licked the nude girl’s upper chest and bare breasts with his long tongue.
‘Oooh! That was fresh,’ she objected, though she was giggling all the same.
‘You taste salty and nice,’ he remarked, muzzle twitching. ‘I'd almost forgotten you humans have your uses.’
‘Cheeky pony,’ Sylvie said.
The stallion gave a hearty laugh and parried. ‘Want a ride? Maybe, if you’re good. I understand human females can get very excited from the … er … stimulus.’
‘You certainly know how to be fresh, your highness,’ said Sylvie, with a grin. It occurred to a rather impressed Maxim that this wild girl was all but impossible to faze.
Maxim summoned the pegasuses to settle down and witness the sentencing of these human criminals.
‘The case is thus, your majesty and highnesses,’ he said. ‘This male deals in illegal drugs and uses this female to market them irresponsibly to children. This in itself was not why they are brought here. That was because the male decided to enslave a boy whom the female has seduced, to rape and dominate him and have him work for him instead. So my sentence on the male is thus: he shall be sent naked into the valley of the River of Life, and there offered as prey to the Elemental spirits who haunt it. It will be left to the Elemental who captures him to determine his fate.
He paused and took Sylvie’s shoulder. ‘The female’s crime was not so heinous, for she intended no harm to the boy. Nonetheless she dabbled in corruption for her own amusement and profit. So my sentence is that she accompany the male till he has been captured and dealt with, and will see his pain and degradation, and so witness that heaven will do justice upon heedless evil, and so she will be cautioned.’
The assembled equines erupted in discussion and generally approved the sentence on the man, but not that on the filly called Sylvie.
‘You find it unjust, highnesses?’ smiled Maxxie.
‘Not unjust, Your Majesty,’ said Whiteblaze, ‘just unimaginative.’
Maxxie laughed. ‘I feel chastened,’ he said. ‘So what is the wisdom of the equine people on the subject of Miss Sylvie Masson?’
The Empress Brunhild consulted with her councillors and pronounced her own verdict. ‘Your Majesty, Miss Sylvie Masson has failed as a young woman, developing neither honesty or the nurturing a true female should show, human or equine. We ask then that you use your great power and transform her into a mare, and thereafter she will live for as long as Your Majesty determines in one of our herds here in Eden as a mare and grow up in a more wholesome way, as our own females do.’
Sylvie stood with a fallen jaw. ‘What! You’re gonna fucking turn me into a horse! You can do that?’
Maxxie grinned. ‘Definitely. And not a pegasus either. Maybe I’ll make something new, just for you. But you have to earn your wings, girl. Well. This will be no small spell, but it’s not beyond me. Get on all fours, Sylvie. It’ll be easier for you that way.’
Maxxie raised his hand. No haze of magic shimmered around his fingers — no lightning, nor fire, just a barely detectable hum of ancient power.
‘Wait—’ Sylvie began. The hum grew louder and it seized her. Warmth flooded her body — not painful, but overwhelming. Her legs buckled, her spine arched, her fingers spasmed, and then… Her skin darkened and shifted as the skeleton and muscles beneath were rearranged. Her hands elongated, fingers melding, bones reshaping in elegant, merciless precision. A thick, silken coat of rich chestnut swept over her arms — no, forelegs now — as her joints snapped, realigned, her body narrowing, lengthening, growing powerful and sleek.
‘Oh shit—’ The words twisted in her throat, became a rough, startled whinny. Her face pushed forward, vision shifting, nostrils flaring wide as her jaws reshaped into a perfect, velvet-soft muzzle.
Sylvie’s hips widened, back arching again as a long, lustrous tail unfurled behind her, flicking instinctively. Her bare breasts flattened, vanished beneath the growing barrel of her equine torso. Strong, tapered legs pressed into the grass as sturdy hooves clicked into place.
In moments, Sylvie Masson, street girl, drug dealer, scam artist… was gone. In her place stood a young mare — sleek, beautiful, defiant. Her coat gleamed, her dark eyes wide and wild. Her ears pinned back as she snorted at Maxxie, nostrils flaring.
Prince Whiteblaze stepped forward, his nostrils flaring as he took in the sight. The tip of his tail twitched with unconcealed interest. ‘Now that’s a set of hips a stallion notices,’ he remarked, his voice low and warm. Sylvie, still reeling, stamped a hoof and tried to fix him with her sharpest glare — but it faltered as the unfamiliar heft of her new body shifted under her.
‘I’ll— I’ll kill you—’ she managed, but the half-articulated words stumbled into an indignant whicker. Whiteblaze whinnied softly, circling her once with the slow, assessing grace of a high-born stallion appraising potential… and a future mate. ‘Might want to master walking first, sweetheart,’ he teased. ‘Then we’ll talk about killing.’
Maxxie, arms folded, grinned as the court murmured their approval. ‘Give it time, Sylvie,’ he said, the hum still vibrating on the air of Eden, where such arcane magic could happen. ‘The herd’s got plenty to teach you.’
***
A disappointed Louis von Carolath muttered, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck … and your supplier is gone! Just like that?’
‘She moved abroad to live with some relatives,’ Maxxie shrugged. ‘So that source of weed has dried up. But she has a cousin from Brum, and I got hold of his last consignment.’
‘Phew,’ Louis breathed out. ‘How much have you got?’
‘It’s a big stash, cuz. Enough to keep you yippy for weeks. But after that, I’m done with supplying. You’re going to have to explore what the comp boys are offering.’
The German prince sighed. ‘But you were so easy to deal with, Maxxie, and you didn’t ask for much, indeed it was all freebies while we stuck to weed. The comp kids are predators. Any chance you’re going to find a new source?’
Maxxie chuckled, ‘Weed, you mean? No. It’s the other thing she offered that I’m gonna have to work harder to replace.’
Louis laughed. ‘There’s a dozen boys over in the Grooming Parlour who’d be happy to provide. Our queer students idolize you. There’s Franklin in Year 11 who’ll go full femme for just one kiss from you. Horton from my team tried him out, says he has the full range of underwear and is very keen on big boys.
Maxxie pondered that option. He was not homosexual, but he knew the gay cadre in Medwardine adored him. Leo had told him there was a Year 9 boy in Lang who had papered his dormitory wall with Maxim of Rothenia pictures. ‘It’s weird, Maxxie,’ his brother said. ‘He wasn’t embarrassed about it at all. I think he wanted you to know, so he showed me his superfan shrine.’
Maxxie contemplated the Franklin option, but his mind veered away. The boy was older than him and there was no way he’d go under with such a boy, or even on top. Franklin was not femme enough for him even to contemplate it. And eyeliner was as far as his drag ever went. But on the other hand Franklin did have contacts, of that he was sure, and they were more … possible … to his raging libido. And Franklin might be willing to provide them.
He found the boy in the Year 11 GCSE study suite. ‘So this friend of yours,’ Maxxie said, voice lazy and low, eyes heavy-lidded. ‘You really think she’s my type?’
Franklin’s Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘She’ll sort you right out. But…’ His eyes flicked down, lingering shamelessly at the visible bulge shifting beneath Maxxie’s grey sweatpants. His tongue darted over his lips. ‘I could sort you now too… if you wanted. Really.’
Maxxie gave a small, cold smile — dangerous and bright as a razor. ‘Could you now?’ His fingers slid to the waistband of his sweats, thumbs hooking inside, dragging the fabric downward so that Franklin all but goggled with anticipation. Franklin made a choked sound, eyes locked on the prize, breath quick and shallow.
‘You want it, Franklin?’ Maxxie murmured, stepping in, so close now their bodies brushed. His voice dripped mockery, but the invitation was unmistakable. ‘Go ahead. You can look. But only if you’ve earned it.’
Franklin’s hand hovered, trembling, before darting forward — to be slapped away by Maxxie’s abrupt counter stroke.
‘The number,’ Maxxie prompted, rolling his hips faintly, making his cock sway under Franklin’s hand. ‘First. Or I zip up and this little dream of yours goes poof.’
Fumbling, one-handed, Franklin scrambled for his phone, eyes glued to Maxxie’s groin as he stabbed out the contact details. His fingers shook so badly it took two tries, but finally the name and number landed in Maxxie’s inbox.
Maxxie took the phone, glanced at the screen, then let it drop back onto Franklin’s chest.
‘Good boy,’ Maxxie purred, curling his fingers around the back of Franklin’s neck, drawing him forward — not for a kiss, but to let the boy’s mouth hover where a lover normally would be.
Franklin’s breath ghosted across him, hot, panting, eyes glassy with want. ‘Please …!’ he begged, his voice cracking.
‘You can look,’ Maxxie allowed, ‘but no sucking. This isn’t that kind of transaction.’
Franklin’s lips lunged down towards Maxim’s groin, but his neck was caught in the vice of the boy’s grip, and he grunted with frustration. Satisfied, Maxxie stepped back, tucking himself away, the sharp snap of the waistband signalling the end of playtime.
***
Maxxie didn’t waste time. Half an hour later, the address pinged onto his phone — Franklin, predictably, eager to deliver.
17, Birchfield Road. Ring twice. Say you’re ‘Franklin’s friend.’
He considered it, stretched out on his bed — black vest rucked up, waistband slung low, that smug post-hunt air still clinging to him. The censorious part of him wanted to skip it, well aware of the dangers of such an adventure. Another part — the gnawing, restless, wrong part — was already getting hard at the thought. A tranny whore. Exactly the sort of thing Louis would smirk at, Franklin would salivate over, and Maxxie could use, like everything else if he so chose. And choosing it at this time seemed no longer to bother him, and definitely pleased his insistent libido.
Birchfield Road was exactly as scuzzy as he expected — big Victorian semi-detached houses off the end of Castle Road backing on to the canal, converted in the fifties to cheap flats stacked like bad teeth, a flickering streetlamp, discarded kebab boxes tumbling in the gutter.
He rang twice. The door buzzed. Upstairs a door was cracked open, leaking out a stench of cheap perfume and cigarettes. She was tall in the cracked doorway — towering, really — all legs and peroxide, face too sharp, voice dulcet and wrong.
‘You Franklin’s pretty boy?’ she asked, one hand braced on the doorframe, eyes glittering with knowing. Her accent was the thickest rural Shropshire could offer. Maxxie smiled faintly. ‘I’m Maxxie.’
‘Yeah you are. I’m Claudette. You live up to young Franklin’s description. Come up here and drop yer kekks, I want to check out his biggest recommendation,’ she said, eyeing the half-naked boy head to toe, like a purchase. ‘Come in, darling. I imagine that’s exactly your plan.’
The flat was every bit as cheap as Maxxie expected — too-sweet perfume hanging thick in the air, ashtray overflowing, curtains yellow with old smoke. On the threadbare bed, Claudette perched cross-legged, long legs, peroxide hair scraped back in a bun, a slip of silk robe doing little to hide what was beneath. She had boobs, bigger ones than Sylvie as it happened.
She smiled faintly. ‘You’re a little young, sweetheart.’
‘I’m not here for chitchat.’
‘Course not. You’re a big boy and you know what you want. Frankie says I won’t be disappointed.’ She stood, robe slipping open, revealing flat hips, delicate surgical scars peeking at the crease of her groin. ‘First time with a girl like me?’
Maxxie’s lip curled, defiant. ‘Let’s just get on with it.’
She did. Lube already applied, practiced hands guiding him into her waiting opening — slick, warm, not wrong, exactly… but not right, either, the way Sylvie had been for him. The heat, the wetness, the narrow, taut walls — it all felt engineered, even clinical. Her eyes stayed distant the whole time, detached, focussed somewhere behind him. No moaning, no spark — just cold, mechanical routine. It rattled the boy, who had learned a different sort of sex from Sylvie Masson.
Afterwards as he left her, she lit a cigarette, robe hanging loose again, unbothered by her nudity or the boy sitting still tumescent by the bed. ‘Get what you wanted, little prince?’ Maxxie hesitated — belt half-threaded, shirt crooked. His gaze drifted, unbidden, to the faded scars tracing her hips, the faint, puckered line at her groin. He thought of the feel of her — slick with lube, warm but empty, too much artifice.
The harshness and truth clawed at him. ‘Is that what you wanted?’ he asked her, voice quieter than he intended. She exhaled smoke, eyes flat. ‘It’s what there is.’ Maxxie’s mouth twisted. His shirt felt heavy as he squirmed into it, his own skin too clean. It’s what there is. But he was the one person in the Universe who knew it didn’t have to be. And with that thought came a great temptation to him. After all, who was it who set the rules these days?
***
Later, back at Medwardine Grammar, sprawled on his dormitory bed, phone untouched beside him, the idea still simmered. It was feral, enticing.
To gift Claudette real female sex: Organs. Glands. Warmth. Wetness — not lube, not clinical fakery — but Claudette reborn into the proper, biological beauty she desired to be, and which he wanted to exploit. He had the power and the resources. If anyone could gift her that, it was him. Not in pity, and certainly not in love. Something more dangerous. It was possession, control and (perhaps) redemption for that girl-boy. Yeah, said a voice in his head he guessed might be Mark Tolmie’s — or maybe just abuse of power disguised as kindness.
There was a knock on Maxxie’s door, his drawling, ‘Yeeeah?’ gave permission for his little brother to stick his head around. Leo looked a little troubled to Maxxie’s eye. ‘What’s up, little bro?’ he asked in Rothenian. Leo snuggled up next to Maxxie on his bed.
‘Y’know I was nervous about leaving the International School and coming to England?’
‘It was obvious enough. Even Dad noticed and lectured me on my duties as a big brother. So what’s up? Have I let you down?’
‘You? Course not. You’re everything a big brother should be, Maxxie. It’s not me you’ve let down.’
Maxxie sat up and looked down at the younger boy. ‘So it is about me, then.’
‘Yeah, sorry. Dad said a thing before I left. He said you were in great danger. Not that anyone or anything can touch or harm you, Maxxie. But Dad said that the danger was deep inside you. You’re a boy who has the power to do anything, and the most dangerous thing about that is that you are a kind and generous soul, who if he sees a problem or someone hurting, you want to put it right. And the thing is you can, but maybe you shouldn’t.’
Maxxie looked intently down on his brother. ‘What d’you mean Leo?’
‘Uncle Henry made a prophecy about you. He told Dad that you will try to heal the world’s hurts, but you’ll do it the wrong way. You will see pain everywhere and people carrying their wounds and needs and you will try to make it better for them as you encounter them, one by one. But that’s not your real job. Your job is really to change the world not just make individual humans feel better. He said Salvation can’t be piecemeal and you’re going to burn up, and instead of being a source of goodness and balance that transforms the world, you’ll just blaze up and end up as a lump of exhausted and useless clinker.’
Maxxie stared. ‘They said all that? Henry and Dad? And why are you telling me, little bro?’
‘Dad said I would know better than anyone when you were beginning to burn out. And he was right. You’re … wrong.’
***
The Queen of the Laund Herd stood on the rise above the stream in Eden, her dappled coat gleaming under the strange sky of Eden. Her mane hung thick, her eyes glared cold and unreadable as she surveyed her herd, dotted across the great green space in the Unlikely Forest, an area called The Laund, where she ruled and its princely stallions mated under her direction. The exception was the imperial colt, Whiteblaze, who took his pleasure where he wished, and he increasingly wished only for the mutated slut mare, Sylvie. And now the slut was ready to gestate his seed, though not of course in Eden.
Below her on the green plain, Sylvie shifted — belly heavy, tight, skin rippling with the need to gestate. The possibility of foals was undeniable now. So was the attention. The Queen’s gaze settled on her. Sharp. Measuring.
‘You are mating with Prince Whiteblaze, and you both want you to carry his offspring,’ the Queen said, her voice clipped, formal. ‘That means you must soon go to the Nursery Planet found for us by the magician, Wollherz of the Dead. The healers say that inside you have taken two foetuses, a colt and a filly but they cannot come to term here in Eden.’ Sylvie said nothing, ears tilting back. ‘It is no longer a private matter,’ the Queen continued. ‘The herd invests in what may grow inside you. And the herd will oversee its arrival. Whiteblaze is the Prince Imperial, the favoured grandson of Empress Brunhild, who is beyond the authority of any herd queen, and his foals will share his standing, as I suppose you would too had you wings. And then indeed you would be able to contest the rule of my Laund herd’
A ripple of uneasy movement passed through the watching mares. ‘The birthing will not happen here,’ the Queen added, gaze as cool as glass. ‘You will be taken by the great wizard Wollherz to the Nursery Planet. You will foal there in a year’s time — in safety and under regulation. There growth to maturity is possible, as it is not here.’
The words sat heavy in the air — safety sounded suspiciously like control. Sylvie’s tail flicked. She shifted her weight, belly swaying. ‘And when I return?’ The Queen's lips curled faintly. ‘If you return… you will find the herd as you left it. Unless, of course, your status changes, if perhaps your foals are winged.’ The message was clear. Birth on the Nursery Planet was a necessary tradition — but it was also exile, temporary or not. Long enough for power to shift and be renegotiated and for loyalties to change. Sylvie bared her teeth. It was long enough for a Queen to make her position secure again, or to be undermined.
Whiteblaze watched from the edge of the gathering, his expression unreadable. Sylvie snorted, low and defiant. ‘I’ll return,’ she promised, and when she did — with two winged imperial foals at her flank and nudging at her nipples — nothing would be as it was.
The Queen’s words still hung in the air as the herd began to drift — the ripples of power shifting through them, silent but undeniable. But Sylvie didn’t linger in the murmur. She turned, hips rolling, and trotted toward the edge of the gathering — toward him. Whiteblaze stood apart, as always — chestnut coat gleaming, head high, eyes cool. He watched her come, expression unreadable, imperial arrogance wrapped around him like noon sunlight.
Sylvie slowed as she reached him, halting just close enough for her scent — ripe with incipient pregnancy, with him — to curl around them both. ‘Say nothing?’ she challenged, tail flicking, eyes sharp. ‘Or say enough?’
Whiteblaze's ears tilted forward. His nostrils flared faintly, taking in her scent, her condition. His gaze slid across the curve of her belly, the weight that would soon pull at her spine, the promise swelling inside her.
‘You know my position,’ he said at last — voice low, lazy, deceptively soft.
‘The Queen doesn’t,’ Sylvie replied, stepping closer, brushing their shoulders. ‘The herd doesn’t.’
Whiteblaze’s jaw flexed. ‘The Queen’s position will weaken with every pulse those foals’ hearts beat inside you.’ Sylvie’s eyes glittered. ‘Then you say it.’
A pause. The sound of the stream bubbling nearby. The distant shifting of hooves.
Then, without moving, Whiteblaze’s voice rolled out — loud enough for those still watching to hear. ‘She carries my foals,’ he announced, eyes never leaving Sylvie’s. ‘The imperial bloodline swells in her belly. Any mare who forgets that forgets her place, for she is my chosen princess.’
The silence that followed rippled across the vast clearing: mares whispering, heads turning. The Queen, still on the rise, stiffened — rage cooling to calculation behind her eyes.
Sylvie allowed herself the faintest, dangerous smile. ‘Good boy,’ she muttered, low, only for him. Their eyes caught and Whiteblaze showed his teeth.
***
The apartment in Birchfield Road smelled of smoke, stale perfume, and rubbish too long in the bag. Claudette lounged on the stained sofa, legs parted, her groin entirely exposed, her face angry and hurt. Between her pale thighs was still nothing but the neat, pink, artificial slit — a crude and unfinished promise of the girlhood she had pursued by surgery.
Maxxie stood by the window, equally bare, cool as ice. His body — golden, beautiful, untouchable — gleamed faintly under the sallow light.
Claudette’s voice coiled out — brittle, sharp. ‘All this…’ a hand swept vaguely over her hips, her flat, surgically-altered groin ‘…and still, nothing from you? Not even curiosity?’
Maxxie’s lips curled faintly, unreadable. ‘I’m not here to fuck you, Claudette.’
‘Then why strip?’
Maxxie stepped forward, bare feet sliding across the carpet. His eyes dropped to Claudette’s groin, He looked down at the desperate trans-girl. ‘To remind you,’ Maxxie said softly, dangerously, ‘of what you still aren’t.’
Claudette’s throat bobbed. Her gaze burned — desperation and rage tangled tight.
‘You did this,’ she hissed. ‘Dangled the gift of the real thing. Teased me with it. But still you’ve left me… unmade. You’ve done nothing. Left me hanging. I believed you, you bastard.’
Maxxie crouched beside her now, close, unreadable, his palm on Claudette’s belly.
‘You begged,’ Maxxie replied, voice cold. ‘And I let you chase the dream. I didn’t promise when. Or even if. But you have things to do for me first.’
Claudette’s hands clenched, muscles taut, lips trembling. Her groin ached — not from arousal, but from absence, her incomplete transformation. Maxxie stood again, all cool detachment, walking away, his delicious male ass moving.
‘Patience, Claudette,’ he murmured. ‘Gods like me… we take our time. Try some earnest supplication.’
‘You … you want me to beg you to fulfil your promises? That’s sadistic.’
‘It’s what gods do, Claudette. Be pathetic for me. I like you like that.’
Maxxie looked over his shoulder to find that Claudette was following him on hands and knees across his dirty carpet, burbling something pathetic. His heart beat high. He loved that he could so cast down such a drawling arrogant whore, whom he intended to break and then reform into a shape of his own choosing, a shape that would make Claudette happier of course. It was the same satisfaction he got from remaking Sylvie as a brood mare. It looked like there were compensations for being made a god, if you could put aside the sharper edge of your moral compass. Maxxie gave a mental shrug. He would grant Claudette what she wanted. He sniggered. Labia, a womb, eggs, milk glands and all, the full package, and what followed on would perhaps not be quite what Claudette expected. Not the birth of a new female, but the birth of a new species, the missing keystone in his new world.
Copyright © 2025 Michael Arram
Posted 8 October 2025