As I should have seen coming, the top part of the hot cross bun got stuck in the toaster. Cue digging around with a knife while sighing. It was just after remembering that you’re meant to turn the toaster off before doing this that I heard the voice behind me.
“Ooh, those smell nice.”
And freeze. I know that voice.
I sigh again, this time in resignation. I turn.
Great. The horse is back.
For some time now I have been getting visits from a magical horse, you see. A perfectly pleasant, broadly polite magical horse, yes, but a magical horse all the same. Just showing up to revel in my hospitality.
Typically on Fridays, though not every Friday and not exclusively Fridays either, so I couldn’t get complacent.
“They’re hot cross buns,” I said, returning to my digging, this particular bun proving recalcitrant.
The first time she had appeared I had been understandably unsettled. The sudden arrival of a horse was always a cause for concern. And if that horse could smile at you? And talk? And ask for tea? Well, take that concern and double it.
Hell, triple it, why limit yourself? Why not have a seance? Why not go mad?
I’d seen people about this, of course. My GP. After waiting a few horse-spattered weeks for an appointment.
Not wanting to explicitly lay out that I was dealing with semi-regular intrusion from a talking, magical horse I had been forced to be vague. Just asked what - if anything - could cause a person (say, me) to see something (say, something unusual. Not a magical horse, just, you know, anything).
Partly this was a worry about being accused of taking the piss and wasting time, partly worry about a bit of a ‘They’re coming to take me away, haha, they’re coming to take me away’ kind of situation. I had enough on my plate.
Mostly though it was because I genuinely was pretty certain that there was actually a magical horse that kept appearing in my place on a semi-regular basis. Proof? Hoof prints on the carpet, a recurring divot in the sofa that I know for sure I couldn’t make and also feathers.
Fucking feathers. They didn’t fall out! I know they didn’t. I’d watched her and they didn’t fall out. They only appeared when I wasn’t looking. She was putting them around the place for me to find deliberately! Tucking them behind the cushions.
Found one in my bed, once. That was just unsettling. When she’d even found the time to go in there?
But anyway, the ultimate conclusion had been inconclusive. My health was apparently broadly positive, and nothing had leapt out to suggest some underlying root cause for the sudden appearance of a magical horse. Everything was tip-top, perfectly adequate.
Also, she had told me she wasn’t a horse but rather an ‘alicorn’ but clearly this was her just messing me around as that wasn’t a real thing. I mean, beyond talking horses not being real, obviously. So made up on top of not real, then.
But anyway again, the ultimate point to all of this is that I have come to accept these visits. Or at least accept these visits are real. Or at least real enough that I couldn’t just stick my fingers in my ears and close my eyes and wait for her to go away.
That would have been rude.
Not that I appreciated anyone popping around unannounced and uninvited, magical horse or otherwise. That in itself was at least some breed of rude. I’d made this clear to her before, but apparently it had yet to sink in.
“You really can’t just keep inviting yourself in here, you know,” I said, finally having retrieved the top half from the toaster and finally now being able to move onto buttering.
I heard her step into the kitchen. Clip clop.
“Oh, but your door was open - I thought you wanted to see me again!” She said.
Now that was just a lie! I rounded, offended, brandishing my becrumbed and buttery knife!
...not that threatening given the bluntness of the thing, but then I hadn’t intended it to be. I was just holding it at the time.
“None of my doors were open! Well, internal ones, sure, but not the front door! How did you even get in?” I asked.
A valid question given that despite my front door never having been opened to her she had always managed to get in. She sure wasn’t squeezing in through the windows!
She just kept smiling at me!
“Ah, but you see, there are doors that open by themselves, there are sliding doors, and there are secret doors,” she said.
That one made me stop and have to start over again.
“...what?” Was all I managed in the end.
She just giggled and nodded past me.
“Your buns will get cold.”
Accursed horse. In the time it took me to turn and check my buns - as though I could tell how hot they were by sight alone! - she’d clip-clopped her way out of the kitchen again and away out of sight. How she maneuvered about my rather pokey little place without knocking into anything was anyone’s guess, but I suppose magical horses play by their own rules.
I buttered my buns, unmolested by the horse.
She hadn’t left me though, not that I’d expected her to. Instead she’s moved to the lounge and taken up resident sprawled across the entirety of the sofa. She’d also managed to take the blanket that I’d been planning to snuggle under and get it stuck on her head, that horn of hers poking through the hole I’ve always been meaning to fix but never have.
“This is a very nice blanket,” she said from beneath the blanket.
“Do you need a hand?” I asked, reasoning that it would be difficult for a horse to take a blanket off, what with hooves and all. Her head immediately whipped in the opposite direction to me.
“Who said that?”
Okay, I’ll admit that one was alright, I got a little smirk out of that one. Still took the blanket of her head though, which let me see that the smile on her face had now graduated to a grin.
You’d think it’d be unnerving to be grinned at by a magical talking horse and, well, it was at first, but now I’ve got rather used to it. Certainly, there are worse things in the world.
“Hello again,” she said.
“Fancy seeing you here,” I said.
I then swung the plate around so that it was foremost in her attentions. On the plate were four halves of buns. They sat there, delicious, buttery, warm. My God they looked good.
“I did another bun, for you,” I said. Because I had done another bun. For her.
Her face lit up.
“How nice of you!” She said.
“It’s just because I didn’t want to share mine.”
Felt this was important to clarify, lest she just think I was being nice for the sake of being nice. I wasn’t. I was being nice for pragmatic reasons. She didn’t seem bothered, just nodding seriously and saying:
“Ah, clever.”
Before using magic to hover one half of one bun over to herself.
Really, the magical telekinetic field shouldn’t have been a surprise what with her being a magic horse and all, but this was the first I’d seen of it. Would explain a few things, though.
Wish I could do that.
“Oh!” She cried out in rapture around a mouthful of hot cross bun, finishing off the rest, swallowing and following it up with: “Oh it’s good!”
The other half of the bun was promptly devoured as well, this one much faster.
“That went down well,” I said, still standing and holding the plate, a little alarmed by what I’d just seen. She seemed to notice the look on my face and went a delightfully bashful shade of pink, belching quietly into one hoof.
“Pardon me,” she said.
“Happens to the best of us. I couldn’t sit down, could I?” I asked.
She didn’t move off the sofa but she did move enough that I could about squeeze onto the sofa. Which was about as good as it was going to get, I knew. Personal space apparently not a big thing for magical horses. Whatever. I had my buns, I had my blanket, I was content. I settled in.
“I know I’ve asked you this before but don’t you have anything better you could be doing?” I asked her while I faffed with the television. The thing was being stubborn. It was a day of things being stubborn, it seemed.
Buns, televisions, horses refusing to get off sofas - stubborn.
“Presently? No. Why? Do you want me to leave?” She asked, fluttering lashes at me with deliberate intent. Not that she needed to stoop to such tactics.
Saying yes would have been rude. Bloody guests. It’s like trying to take the last biscuit.
“No, it’s fine. Just seems like you would have something more important you could be doing. Didn’t you say you were a queen?” I asked.
This had come up at least once prior to this point and I’d rolled with it. I mean, why not, right? Magical horse? Why not go that bit further and be a magical horse queen, too?
“Princess,” she corrected.
Sorry, magical horse princess.
“Right, right. Seems like you could be doing more important things than hogging my sofa and scoffing my buns,” I said.
That got another giggle. Good. I’d been angling for one.
“I’ve had a day of important, now it’s time for quiet,” she said, stretching a little and melting more across the sofa.
Fair enough answer. Kind of like my day, actually, only my day had been stupid and not important, but that was as good a reason for quiet in my book so fair’s fair. I nodded.
The television continued to be stubborn and I had to get up, go over, turn it properly off and on again and then sit back down.
“Why me?” I asked once I’d done all that.
“That is a very human question to ask. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?” She asked.
I looked at her sideways. It looked like she was biting her tongue.
“I haven’t, and I know where you’re cribbing this from. Have you been at my bookshelf?”
Definitely biting her tongue now and also glancing past me towards said bookshelf.
“I might have...borrowed...one or two. For a friend,” she said, hurriedly.
That old chestnut, huh? Think I was born yesterday, horse?
“Uhuh. And did you ‘friend’ enjoy them?” I asked.
“She did, actually. Then I read them, too.”
Huh. Direct answer. Maybe she hadn’t been messing with me to start with! Maybe she did have a friend! Suppose she did seem at least a little friendly so it wasn’t wholly outside the realm of possibility.
Fancy that.
“And did you enjoy them?” I asked.
“I did! That one was, uh, perhaps a little maudlin in parts but overall enjoyable,” she said.
Couldn’t argue with her on that one.
And I suppose I should be angrier at the interloping magical horse for just helping herself to my books (for her as-yet-to-be-confirmed ‘friend’ or otherwise) but, really, I just can’t muster the energy to do it. Out of all the things that could be going wrong in life this hardly ranks and - , craning my neck to look at my bookshelf - what was borrowed has been returned anyway.
So no harm, eh?
“Glad to hear it. Though perhaps ask next time? I know they say it’s easier to beg forgiveness but I am quite open to sharing,” I said. A token nod towards reproach.
“Of course. Very rude of me in retrospect, I can only apologise.”
“It’s alright. So it goes, heh.”
At this point the television finally remembered that it was supposed to be working and, well, started working. Hurrah. Things could move forward. Well, barring one thing. The big, warm, soft thing I was doing my best not to lean against too much.
“As much as I appreciate company,” I said, despite not appreciating most other company all that much. “This has put rather a kink in my plans for the evening, you showing up again.”
“Has it? How so?” She asked.
“Well, I had been planning on watching the Crystal Maze and falling asleep on the sofa here. But you’re on the sofa now, so I can’t do that.”
Seemed pretty obvious to me. The sofa was currently at maximum capacity with no leeway for napping, and I sure wasn’t sleeping sitting up - doubly so perched on the edge as I was, clutching my buns!
From the corner of my eye I watched her tap one of those gold-shod hooves against her chin. Such bling. Surely gold wasn’t a good choice for horseshoes? What with it being so soft and heavy?
Then again, magic. Probably magic.
“You could always fall asleep on me,” she suggested, eventually. I had to put my buns down (having just been about to take my first bite, damnit) and look at her for that one, to gauge how serious she was. I’m not an expert at curiously non-horselike horse faces but she looked pretty sincere.
“Really?” I asked. Not in an earnest ‘Oh can I please’ sort of a way but more of a ‘You are having me on, get serious’ sort of a way.
She looked a little wounded at that, which made me feel bad. I hadn’t meant it unkindly! Just she’s a randomly-occurring magical horse! Not a pillow. I felt I should make this clear.
“You’re not a pillow,” I said.
It had sounded better in my head, but at least she stopped looking mildly hurt.
“What a charming thing to say. But really, feel free. I daresay you might find me quite comfortable, and I honestly don’t mind. I may even drift off myself, who knows?”
I really did find myself considering the offer presented to me. Rather than conking out on the sofa on my own, why not instead conk out on top of the magical horse princess who shows up at mine every so often? Her with the magical hair, magical wings, magical horn and magical crown? Why not just have a snooze on her? After all, she is warm and soft, so why not?
It spoke volumes to how sleepy I must have been to start with that it all sounded very tempting indeed.
“...I’m trying to come up with a reason to say no but I’m too tired,” I said.
She was now back to smiling that ever-warm smile of hers, lifting a wing.
“Well then,” she said. “I’d say you definitely need some sleep, don’t you?”
Christ. Anything for an easy life. With a bit of shifting I got into an alarmingly comfortable position resting against her and her wing - with a quite-frankly unnatural degree of dexterity and strength - wrapped over my like a superior, feathery (though also not? Figure that one out) blanket. It, too, was lovely and soft and warm.
“I better not wake up to find you hiding more of those feathers,” I said, stifling a yawn.
“You have my word,” she said softly.
I did yawn then. It just slipped out.
“Good,” I said, and with my last ounce of energy I got Crystal Maze actually going.
Some time later - no idea how long later - I drifted back to consciousness in a broad, generally, groggy sense. Opening one bleary eye I looked around. Saw the wring still wrapped around me. That’s fine. Saw the television had turned itself off. Also fine. Saw an empty plate.
Empty plate…
Wait...
“You ate my buns…” I said, opening the other eye just to make sure.
The wing pulled further up and pulled me into the warmth of her even more.
“Shh, you’re imagining things, go back to sleep,” she said.
I yawned. Couldn’t really help myself. Closed my eyes again.
“I’ll...get you...for...this…” I swore.
I think I heard her giggle, but I was falling asleep at the time so I couldn’t really be sure.