The birthing fields of the Nursery Planet stretched in soft, endless pastures of silver-green grass, swaying beneath skies of perpetual dusk. The foaling paddock was secluded, bordered by low stone walls and ancient trees, their branches woven with the imperial herd’s sunburst insignia—crimson and gold rippling in the gentle wind.
Sylvie stood apart from the others, her chestnut coat darkened with sweat despite the cool air. Her hind legs trembled under the weight of her belly, grotesquely distended with the burden of twin foals. The other mares watched from a respectful distance, their soft whickering carrying both curiosity and unease. Few mares bore twins. Fewer still bore imperial heirs, and one of the expected twins was a princess and might one day succeed the Empress Brunhild were she born pegasus with wing buds.
Sylvie was not entirely alone. Willem Jarnic, the Rothenian stablemaster brought long ago to the Nursery Planet by his former employer, Karl Wollherz, knelt by her quarters, his gloved hands steady, clinical, as he palpated her abdomen with calculated firmness, monitoring by his mysterious magical arts the sluggish, elevated rhythm of the dam.
There was something unsettling about Jarnic, though not in his manner, which was quiet, precise, and almost weary. The mares sensed it in his scent—off, not of the timeless Nursery Planet, but not quite mortal either. Lifted from the timestream by the incomparable magician Wollherz, plucked from some forgotten century to tend the Imperial herd, Jarnic carried with him the weight of a life unnaturally prolonged and wrenched out of its proper place.
‘You’re early,’ he said, more to himself than to her. His voice was neutral, professional. His eyes, however, lingered on the faint feathering along Sylvie’s withers—the tell-tale sign of her forced pegasine mutation. ‘But not dangerously so.’
Sylvie stamped a hoof, the pain mounting in tight, rhythmic waves that rolled across her pelvis. She could feel the first foal shifting, hooves pressing downward, her body preparing to expel them. Beyond the paddock, Whiteblaze watched, his great mane rippling in the wind. Forbidden to approach, yet his molten gold eyes never left his chosen mate, his queen.
‘Cervix is dilating nicely,’ Jarnic muttered, slipping a lubricated hand into her vulva, feeling for position. ‘First one’s anterior, head down. Perfect presentation. Second…’ His brow furrowed. ‘Posterior. But I’ve managed worse.’
A contraction gripped Sylvie. Her hindquarters clenched involuntarily as a sheen of fluid dripped from her vulva, the thick, gelatinous cervical plug dissolving. ‘Amniotic sac’s intact,’ he continued. ‘We’ll let her do this naturally, as far as possible. Twins complicate, but she’s healthy—designed for this, more or less.’ Designed. The word lodged sharp and sour in Sylvie’s lingering human mind. Maxxie had designed this. Not nature. Not choice. The first clear bubble appeared at her vulva—the amniotic sac glistening like a pearl, within it neat, damp hooves tipped with soft white eponychium. Her body bowed with effort, her nostrils flaring, teeth bared as she groaned through the contraction.
Jarnic stood back, monitoring, ready but unobtrusive. ‘Textbook so far. Dorsal spine visible… that’s it, little prince…’ The sac burst as the hooves slid free, followed by a slick, angular head coated in copper-chestnut fuzz. Wing-buds, no larger than human hands, lay limp against the foal’s shoulders, their delicate filaments curled from the womb.
‘A colt,’ Jarnic confirmed, deftly clearing mucus from the nostrils as the foal gasped its first breath. The lungs inflated with a faint whistle, ribs expanding as the tiny prince shuddered into life.
Sylvie barely had time to lick at his damp flank before the next contraction seized her.
‘Second’s posterior. Bear down, girl.’ His arm, slick to the elbow, guided the second foal’s limbs into alignment. ‘Come on, little princess…’
The birth was messier, complicated by the awkward presentation. Sylvie groaned, her body strained, and at last the second foal tumbled into the hay. Smaller, daintier—a deep chestnut like her dam and her brother, but with flaxen wing-buds tucked behind her shoulders, their soft down already gleaming faint gold under the nursery sun’s ambient light.
‘Two healthy imperials,’ Jarnic reported. ‘Colt: 24 kilos. Filly: 19. Wing development present. No skeletal anomalies. Genetic confirmation pending.’
Sylvie, spent, collapsed onto her side. The colt, already staggering up on to spindly legs, nosed blindly at her flanks, searching. Milk letdown came hard and fast, the natural reflex surging as the foal’s warm muzzle bumped against her udder. Instinct warred with Sylvie’s resentment, but the ache of her teats eased as the colt latched, suckling greedily.
His wing-buds twitched weakly as he drank. The filly followed, more tentative, her tiny mouth nuzzling for a teat. Sylvie’s tail flicked aside as the second foal found purchase, sharp little tugging sensations sending shocks of milk flowing into her.
Jarnic stood nearby, arms folded, watching. Not interfering now. His eyes, ageless and clinical, took in every detail—the sheen of the foals’ coats, the twitch of their delicate ears, the subtle pulsing of their wing-buds. ‘You’ve done well, my lady’ he said, voice low but carrying. ‘The empress’s bloodline’s secure now.’
Hoofbeats sounded. The paddock gate swung open, and Whiteblaze entered with the slow, deliberate confidence of a warrior king inspecting his heirs. His presence filled the space—immense, rippling muscle under chestnut coat, his golden mane tangled in the wind. His nostrils flared, taking in the scent of afterbirth, milk, and new life. He approached, eyes fixed on Sylvie first—a silent, possessive gaze—before lowering his great head to the foals.
The colt lifted his damp, fuzzy head, blinking at the stallion, utterly unafraid. The filly mewled softly, her tiny hooves shuffling in the hay. Whiteblaze snorted approval, lips curling as he nuzzled first the colt, then the filly, his warm breath ghosting over their fragile wing-buds.
Jarnic inclined his head slightly, almost formal. ‘Your little royals, sire.’ The great stallion made no reply, but the pride in his stance spoke volumes. His family’s lineage was assured, and his grandmother would reward him accordingly. His new position was unassailable. He was the only recognised Prince Imperial, and now he would be his filly’s tutor and possibly one day the Equine Regent. Sylvie lay still, the taste of salt-sweat and milk in her mouth, as the subtle machinery of politics and biology wove itself tighter around her. The game was not over yet.
***
The foaling paddock had been cleaned. The placenta, the afterbirth, even the faintest tang of blood and amniotic fluid were gone. Only the scent of milk, of new life, lingered in the short, cropped grass where Sylvie now stood, flanked by her foals. They were sturdy for twins. The colt was already exploring, his wing-buds twitching, his copper-chestnut coat drying sleek in the sun. The filly, smaller, followed more cautiously, her flaxen winglets folded tight against her ribs.
The mares of the Nursery Herd watched from a distance. Dozens of them—chestnuts, greys, bays, and duns, their coats gleaming under the golden sky. They were not ordinary mares. Each had bloodlines tangled with the imperial herd. Each was here for one reason alone: to breed imperial foals. But none of them was the Herd Queen. The Nursery Herd had been leaderless for three seasons now. No mare had risen to command—the position was unclaimed, unstable. And now… this. A human-turned-mare, forcibly reshaped by Maxxie’s divine and incontestable will, had birthed not one but two imperial foals, complete with wing-buds, and one was the possible future Empress, if and as her great-grandmother would determine. The implications rippled across the paddocks like shockwaves.
They gathered in small clusters along the treeline, the sleek mares lifting their heads to scent the air, ears twitching as they exchanged soft, conspiratorial whickers.
‘She shouldn’t even be here.’
‘She wasn’t born to the blood.’
‘She is the blood now—look at their wings.’
‘Mother was once a girl,’ hissed another. ‘A two-legger. She walked on feet.’
‘She walks on hooves now. And carries royal stock between them.’
They weren’t wrong for the biology was blunt. The winged foals, nursing at Sylvie’s flank, were irrefutable. Yet instinct warred with tradition. A mare not born of the herd? Who had never run the great plains of the Nursery Planet as a foal? Who hadn’t been suckled by the royal wet-nurses, raised by the blood mares, vetted through generations of breeding and hierarchy? It was dangerous and disruptive.
Beyond the paddocks, on a rise shaded by ancient cedar-like trees, the imperial stallions watched. Seven of them—brothers, half-brothers, cousins—each sired by the legendary lines of the pegasid Imperium. And at their centre, unmistakable, stood Whiteblaze.
His coat shone like seasoned carved wood, his mane thick and wild as a storm cloud. He had earned his place—the Nursery’s senior imperial stallion, first among equals, sire of the most promising foals. And now, sire to twin royals by the magically turned girl-mare.
‘We can’t let this stand,’ snorted Silvermane, his younger brother, a sleek grey with faint dapples along his flank, but not born with the imperial chestnut coat. ‘The herd won’t accept her.’ ‘They’ll accept the foals,’ Whiteblaze replied, eyes narrowed. ‘That doesn’t make her Queen,’ interjected Ashpelt, their darker bay cousin, pawing at the turf. ‘The Queen must be born to the herd.’
‘A Queen must command the herd,’ Whiteblaze corrected, ears flicking. ‘The mares are unsettled and divided. You all see it. No one fills the role. The herd fractures by the season.’
His great head turned, golden eyes fixed on Sylvie below. The colt gambolled awkwardly at her side. The filly nuzzled her belly for milk. ‘She gave us two royals. A prince and a princess, who may be the empress to come. Wing-budded. Healthy. By Imperial custom, that alone lifts her above the brood mares.’
Silvermane’s ears pinned back. ‘She’s a two-legger’s experiment.’
‘She’s ours now,’ Whiteblaze snapped, baring his teeth. ‘And in the end the herd is ours to command.’
For a moment, none spoke. The unspoken truth lingered: the Queen was not simply a title. She was the focus of the stallions’ power, the anchor of the herd's stability. Without her, the Nursery Herd risked fragmentation—political and biological.
Whiteblaze’s gaze grew sharper. ‘If we don’t move, they’ll choose for us. Rumour. Rebellion. His brothers exchanged glances.
Ashpelt’s nostrils flared. ‘You mean to make her Queen.’
‘I mean to make her mine. Publicly. Officially. No more sneaking. No more resentment. She is claimed. And through her, the herd stabilises.’
By evening, the stallions returned to the lower paddocks. Sylvie grazed quietly, her foals asleep in the grass. The other mares still circled at a distance, their uncertainty heavy in the air. The rutting began without warning. A young stallion—Boldnose, a copper-bay with ambitions beyond his station—approached Sylvie, his neck arched, nostrils flaring. His flanks rippled with testosterone, his pricked ears and low whicker unmistakable. Sylvie’s eyes widened, muscles tensing. Whiteblaze’s warning snort cut through the air like a whipcrack. Boldnose ignored it. In three strides, Whiteblaze was upon him—shoulders crashing into the younger stallion’s side, teeth bared. His jaws snapped, catching Boldnose’s crest, biting deep into the fleshy ridge of muscle along his neck. Boldnose squealed, rearing. Blood stained his copper coat. He twisted away, cowed.
The message was clear. Another stallion tried his luck—Blacktail, older, dark and lean, eyes glittering with challenge. He approached cautiously, circling Sylvie, testing boundaries.
Whiteblaze didn’t wait. With explosive power, he surged forward, his teeth closing on Blacktail’s withers. The stallion bucked and twisted, but Whiteblaze held firm, biting until the challenger retreated, nursing his wounded pride and torn hide.
The mares watched, ears forward. The hierarchy reasserted itself. The stallions withdrew.
Sylvie, panting, her flanks quivering, stood still as Whiteblaze approached her.
His breath was hot on her withers. His teeth grazed her skin—not in attack now, but in dominance, claiming her before the herd. Her body, despite the exhaustion of foaling, responded to his pheromonal command. Heat simmered under her skin. She knew, somewhere deep beneath her human memories, what this meant. She was no longer simply a vessel. No longer a curiosity. She was the Queen of the Nursery Herd. The only question was whether the other mares would accept it.
The Nursery Herd had gathered by the salt flats as twilight descended, the low golden haze bathing the paddocks in molten light. Sylvie stood apart still, flanked by her nervous foals, but all eyes—stallions, mares, even the wet-nurses tending to the other winged young—were fixed on her. Or rather, on Whiteblaze, the great imperial stallion striding toward her with the slow, unstoppable purpose of a king enforcing his will. The ground quivered faintly under his hooves. His chesnut coat glowed against the darkening sky, mane tangled and wild, eyes burning gold with territorial lust. This was not a courtship. It was a coronation.
Sylvie’s ears flicked back, nostrils flaring as equine instinct clashed with the human remnant of her mind. But her flanks softened. Her tail lifted under the powerful flood of pheromones pouring off Whiteblaze’s heaving chest. He circled her once, massive shoulders rolling, teeth bared in a quiet, possessive snarl. The other stallions stayed well back now—bloodied, cowed from earlier challenges.
Without warning, Whiteblaze mounted her. The weight of him crashed onto her back, his muscular forelegs clamping tightly over her withers, pulling her hindquarters square beneath him. His cock, thick and slick with pre-ejaculate, slapped heavily against her flank as he adjusted his hips. Then he plunged inside. Sylvie gasped, the instinctive clench of her vulva wrapping tight around him as he drove deep. His shaft filled her utterly, the blunt flare of his glans stretching her as he bottomed out. He bit her crest—hard. Not to injure, but to anchor her, his teeth locking her still as his hindquarters bucked his penis inside her with relentless, rutting power.
The herd watched in silence, the only sounds the heavy slap of his hips against her rump, the wet, squelching friction as he drove into her again and again, marking her body, and with it, her status. Sylvie’s hind legs braced wide, her body trembling with the force of him, her own heat rising inescapably with each thrust. With a final, violent plunge, Whiteblaze hilted himself entirely, his shaft pulsing as his testes drew tight. Hot, heavy jets of semen burst inside her, squirting past his plunging cock, the excess spilling in creamy ropes from her stretched vulva onto the grass. It wasn’t sex. It was a declaration.
His rutting finished, Whiteblaze dismounted with post-orgasmic grace, standing tall over her, his cock still semi-erect, wet and dripping with a stream of his own seed.
A tense silence hung. Then, one by one, the mares of the Nursery Herd stepped forward. The eldest, a steel-grey matron, bowed her neck low, muzzle nearly to the ground—a gesture of submission older than any crown or banner. Another followed. Then another. The entire band of broodmares, dozens strong, lowered their proud heads in deference to the Prince Imperial’s chosen mate.
Sylvie, her flanks streaked with sweat and semen, stood trembling but tall. The game was over for now. She had won. Her flanks ached. His seed leaked down her legs. Her body reeked of him. But when the mares bowed, it wasn’t disgust that filled her. It was something colder, sharper — satisfaction. She had clawed her way to great power in the only way left to her. The mother of a new equine species, half human and half pegasid
***
The Nursery Planet had adapted quickly. The paddocks, once open and grassy, now bordered a low palace of pale stone and timber, built not by hands but conjured by the will of Karl Wollherz, following on from King Maxim's decree, that a new equine species should rise, half human and half imperial, Centaurids. It wasn’t many—the Centaurids were few as yet—but the House of Whiteblaze now gleamed like an ancient temple nestled among rolling pastures. Within its halls, the royal family lived—if this fractured, species-blurring arrangement could be called life.
The twins were everywhere. Fleetfoot, the princess and imperial heir, a flash of golden curls and budding wings, chattered incessantly in human guise, climbing furniture, racing barefoot across stone floors. Her small, sharp voice piped up with perfect syntax far beyond her visible five or six human years.
‘Mama, when I'm bigger, can I have a foal too? Will they be with wings or not?’
Sylvie, seated by the window, naked for a while and once more in human form by grace of Wollherz, her wild, chestnut hair falling down her bare back, tried to answer. But every reply tangled in the knot of her changed reality. Prince Oakheart, by contrast, was quieter—watchful. His boy’s heart held the unsettling, impossible weight of the Imperial Herd. His wing-buds twitched as he stood by the hearth, solemn as a small statue.
‘Papa says when I want, I can run as a colt again. But I like my hands.’ His small, perfect fingers flexed in demonstration. They could both speak, think, and smoothly shift species from equine to human. One moment, human children with wing-buds. The next—colts and fillies again, their coats sleek, their tiny wings furling against young equine shoulders. The change was instinctive, playful, effortless.
Sylvie still had to concentrate to shift. Whiteblaze, of course, moved proudly between forms with disturbing ease—sometimes a winged man, tanned and hugely endowed, other times the immense stallion, chestnut coat rippling with pride, his penis the same in either guise. And occasionally, triumphantly, a new shape: a horses’s four legs, wings tucked to his flanks and a human torso risinh from his horses’s chest.
***
The centaurid royal household fell into rhythms. King Whiteblaze, despite his raw, massive masculinity, proved domestic. He helped tend the children, brushed their coats, combed Fleetfoot’s wild curls with his fingers. In human form, his size made simple tasks absurd—carrying the twins effortlessly under each arm, his still-heavy shaft swinging and slapping unashamedly between his knees, a persistent reminder of the stallion beneath the skin.
Sylvie adapted. In quiet moments, she took her human form to bathe, to sit with tea in the sun-bathed courtyard, to let her fingers trace the arch of her own new wings—alien, beautiful, hers by gift of Wollherz. Other times, she returned to equine shape—muscle and hooves, milk-heavy teats, her body betraying its new biology yet somehow fitting. Queen of the Centaurids. Mother of impossible children.
Wollherz visited often. Sometimes as a youth, lounging naked on their stone steps, sometimes briefly as himself in centaurid guise, especially when he was intructing Oakheart and Fleetfoot. He watched, smirking, offering cryptic advice to Sylvie: ‘You’ll find domesticity suits even monsters, my dear. But don’t mistake peace for permanence.’
On occasion he brought other new Centaurids with him. Not many, yet. All were equine turned human, rather than Sylvie’s origin as human turned equine. Like him they were golden haired males, and mostly boy-colts, some already sexually potent, and soon to be set to breed amongst the royal nursery herd of mares by the wizard, which happened joyously and publicly in open paddock.
And though Sylvie's days filled with the lull of family, her womb swelling with more princes and princesses, feeding Fleetfoot as a filly, and braiding her daughter’s human hair, dozing in Whiteblaze’s heavy arms after his vigorous coupling with her as a human male, or under his powerful chestnut flanks as a stallion, the sense never left her. It was only the beginning. Queen. Mother. Centaur Mare. Woman. This was her future and she embraced it. And there was no turning back, and she blessed Maxxie who had done it for her.
***
And one day Maxxie himself appeared at the paddock gate. He came as a nude boy, golden and beautiful, and with him he brought a new female Centaurid in equine form, a bay with dark mane and tail, a most unusual colouring. Wollherz was in residence and went to his knees in front of Maxim, taking his hand and kissing it. ‘My lord,’ he said. ‘Welcome to our stud. And is this the mare you said you were going to create?’ He surveyed the bay. ‘She smells off, strange. Why …? Oh I see, she was not born female. She was once a male.’
‘Yes, Master Wollherz. This is Claudette. Former Shropshire trans-girl and prostitute, once a citizen of Earth, now a centaurid mare of the Equine Empire’. The days were lengthening again. The planet's slow, tilted orbit meant golden evenings that lingered, warm and still, over the paddocks and palace alike. Sylvie, now fully human for the evening, sat cross-legged on a low couch in the nursery chamber, her legs bare, her copper hair bound loosely in a braid. The twins sprawled beside her—Fleetfoot humming tunelessly while arranging carved wooden pegasus toys into a regimented line, and Oakheart, more serious, flipping through a slim book of illustrated myths.
Whiteblaze entered in human form—his enormous frame squeezed into a robe that barely reached mid-thigh, the knot at his waist already undone. He moved quietly, barefoot, and carried a steaming clay bowl of root stew and wild greens.
‘Eat,’ he said, setting it before Sylvie. ‘You skipped lunch again.’
‘I wasn’t hungry then.’
‘You’re nursing two foals. You’re always hungry. You just forget.’
She took the bowl with a faint smile. ‘You make a fine nagging husband, you know.’
‘I’m an excellent husband,’ he replied gravely, then leaned down and kissed her forehead. His cock, soft but heavy, swung briefly along her back. She didn’t react. It was normal now. Just part of what he was.
Oakheart looked up from his book. ‘Mama, what does ‘centaur’ mean?’
Sylvie blinked. ‘It’s an old word. From ancient human stories, I think. A person who’s half human, half horse.’
‘Like us?’
‘Sort of.’ She stroked his hair gently. ‘But we’re something new.’
Fleetfoot chimed in: ‘Papa says I’ll get my full wings by the next season. Then I can fly all the way to the northern cliffs and back without changing!’
‘Only if you practice,’ Whiteblaze rumbled. He dropped to the cushions beside them, stretching out his legs with a sigh. ‘Your flight muscles won’t grow if you sit around playing generals.’
‘You’re the general,’ Fleetfoot said primly. ‘I’m the Empress.’
‘Not yet you’re not,’ Oakheart muttered.
Sylvie laughed, a sound she didn’t hear enough from herself. ‘Play nice. You’ll rule better together than apart.’
For a moment, silence settled over the chamber. A soft wind stirred the gauzy curtains. Somewhere far off, a foal whinnied. Whiteblaze’s arm snaked around Sylvie’s shoulders. He pulled her into his side, warm and solid. ‘You’ve done well,’ he murmured. ‘We’re building something here. A future.’
‘I didn’t ask to build anything,’ Sylvie said softly. ‘I just wanted not to be erased.’
‘You weren’t erased,’ he said. ‘You were remade.’
She didn’t argue. Her hand found his and squeezed. ‘I love them,’ she said simply, gesturing at the twins.
‘Then you’ve already done more than you had to.’
Fleetfoot had fallen asleep against Oakheart, her small wing-buds twitching. He tried to wriggle out from under her but gave up and lay still.
‘You’ll be a fine prince,’ Sylvie whispered to Oakheart.
‘And she’ll be a terrible empress,’ he whispered back.
‘Then it’s a perfect match.’
They all sat that way for a while—two parents and their impossible children, wrapped in the silence of twilight and the scent of hay and steam. Outside, the stars were beginning to burn over the Nursery Planet, and inside, the hopeful future flickered quietly in the peace the little family had made.
***
Sylvie in equine form trotted out of the palace the next morning into the paddocks, Little Princess Fleetfoot trotted uncertainly after her, to be greeted and nuzzled by the other Herd mares. Overhead her brother and father were beating upwards into the sky, the colt’s wings stronger and wider than his sister’s and easily able to climb after Whiteblaze. The mocking neighing of her brother from overhead disgruntled Fleetfoot.
‘He’s an idiotic musclehead, mum,’ she oberved to Sylvie, as she butted her nipples for her milk.
‘That sums up the male gender, my daughter,’ the queen snickered.
A bay mare who had sidled up snorted. ‘Not necessarily true, your majesty. Some of us were mild and gracious creatures and broke our programming.’
‘Ah, Claudette. When we were in primary school together, you were Clive Rowntree, and no sweeter little gay boy was ever known. Not that we girls were any nicer to you than those rough and foul-mouthed boys who made your life a misery. And now you are a woman, as you always wanted to be. But you’re a centaurid mare. What happens when you switch to human form?’
‘The magician guy said I would manifest as a female human, but I’m nervous about trying.’
‘What if I appoint you to be the Lady Claudette, lady in waiting to the Queen of the Nursery Herd. Would that make things seem more real?’
Claudette gave a very deep and human laugh. ‘Real? I’ve got wings, a tail and hooves and a line of nipples down my belly. Real has never felt more negotiable.’
Sylvie laughd with her. ‘Do it. For your queen. Hang around too long in equine guise and one of those randy stallions will be on your back. This place is all about breeding remember.’
Claudette stood a while, trembling slightly, head down. Then as her head rose, she transitioned and a full-breasted, wide-hipped human woman stood there. She looked down at herself with wonder, and then came a loud wolf whistle came from the paddock rails. A grinning Maxxie was giving her a double thumbs up.
‘Told ya!’ he bellowed.
Copyright © 2025 Michael Arram
Posted 11 October 2025