Bronze Hoof

by cowboybird

What the Hell?

What the Hell?

When I woke up I had the headache from hell. It felt like the bull was still rampaging inside my skull with a flamethrower that reached to my feet. After what seemed like hours I decided it was time to open my eyes and get on with my day. Instead of wakin up in my bed (ideal), or even in the back 60 (not ideal), I found myself on top of a freakin volcano (really not ideal). Now I’ll be the first to tell you, that being on an ACTIVE volcano isn’t as nice as wakin up on fresh linen. The only reason I knew it was one of the assholes of the world spewing forth its taco bell meal was because when I opened my eyes, I saw a stream of lava not 5 feet from me. The first thought that came to my mind was “how the hell did I get here?” followed shortly by “I’m gonna castrate that old man!” But then I noticed something was off. Even though it was hot, it should have been hotter. I should be suffering from heat exhaustion or something like that, right? Well although it did feel like I was in front of a bonfire, it didn’t feel like I was next to liquid rock. That’s when I sat up and everything went wrong.

I rubbed my hand over my eyes to lose the dirt and sleep from them. Then I went to wipe the dirt from my lips, but I only felt my nose. And more nose. Then some more nose. At this point I’m guessin you’re thinkin I would start freakin out, which admittedly I did a little. Then I took inventory of the rest of my body and found that the only clothes I had on were my pants. My long…fury……..pants?

“WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY LEGS?!” The shout carried for longer than my voice should have next to a raging magma center. I frantically started feeling my legs to see if the hair on them had really frown to such crazy lengths. It appeared that the hair created a covering, or pant-like protection, from the soil and dark volcano ash. My once semi-hairy legs were now a forest of thick, black fur. Then I noticed my feet.

“WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY FEET?!” Where my regular size 13 cowboy boots used to be were two thick hooves the size of my head…oh shit my head. I was hoping that it would be the same, otherwise I’d look like a satyr.

Slowly, very carefully, I reached up and felt my face, remembering my nose…muzzle thing. Shit. Then I reached up and felt my head. Only to find that I had a normal full head of black hair, that reached down to my legs. Shit. 2 spans of bone that came from the top of my head were what I could only imagine as horns. Shit. At least I still had five fingers and a thumb right?

“AAAAH!” again the echo from my yell could have been heard for miles. Although I still had a thumb and a hand, I only had four fingers. Now although this isn’t as life changing as the other differences, but I had grown proud of keeping all my fingers during all the work I used to do.

“What the hell am I?!” I yelled to no one in particular.

I got myself together and attempted to stand, only to fall on my face the first couple of times. Turns out I became very top heavy during whatever happened to me. It’s a good thing I still had hands or I would have learned what lava tasted like a few times.

On one particularly bad fall my right hand landed in lava, I immediately pulled it out. I braced myself for the pain to race through my body. But it never came, the only thing I felt was a warming sensation where the liquid rock had made contact.

“Well that’s interesting”

Before I could further investigate I heard a screaming from over a hill behind me. A woman crying out “no” in a desperate, and fearful voice.

The way I was raised was to never fight unless you were forced, and the only things forcing you would be: self-defense, protecting someone weaker than you, and most importantly, protecting a woman. The last fight I had been in before this point was over protecting a girl in my school from being hit from these three sophomores. They had her against a locker and were about to put the works on her for some reason, I never found out. I ran at ‘em, knockin two out with a strike each, and goin to town on the third. When I was done with him, or when a teacher thought I was done with him, he had to go to the hospital and wasn’t released for 6 months. I was immediately expelled and homeschooled for the rest of high school. But, needless to say, my blood was boiling.

Without hesitation I got up and ran at full sprint at the source of the screams that were consistently comin. I didn’t stop to think about where my new found balance had come from, I just ran. I ran with animalistic ferocity. My torso and head arched down to where I could just barely see from under my horns, but sight didn’t matter, I was running. I was running to save this girl pleading for her life.

As I crested the hill I stopped to see where she was. It was then that I spotted the what was going on.

Two…dragons? At least what I would imagine dragons to have looked like, with giant bat wings, and a lizard like exterior, complimented with long blades for talons and meat cleavers for teeth. They were about 7 feet tall, I say tall and not long because they were on their hind legs. Well the dragons had a….cow-woman? I could only call her such because she was the one screaming, and it was a females voice. She had the head of a cow, with the lower half of a large, yet slender woman with some of a dirty blouse lookin thing torn asunder. Although she was still covered modestly, it was apparent that the dragons planned to change that.

Ok. Sorry, continuing… The two dragons had the cow-woman on the ground encircled by the cliff I was standing on. The dark volcanic sulfur made the perpetrators hard to see, as ones scales were a deep black, almost onyx. And the other was a dark brown. Now I didn’t know why there was a cow-lady, or dragons, or why they were hurting her, but I knew it needed to stop. Just as when I knew I needed to stop those bullies from hurting the girl in school, I needed to stop this nonsense at once.

I was about to go running down into a fight, when I noticed something that made my heart stop. There, in the cow-woman’s arms, was a bundle, with a little face poking out of it. There was blood seeping through the white (although dirty) material that the baby was in. That’s when I lost control.

I let lose a blood curdling holler and charged, horns down, at the drakes. I caught them by surprise and pieced the brown one with one of my horns, catching it right under the chin and into its brain. It felt right, to kill with the weapons attached to me. The blood of the drake was seeping down my horn and into my eyes. It burned, but that was alright. It didn’t faze me. I grabbed its lifeless corps and threw it on the ground, releasing another primal yell. The black one had recovered and had fury in his eyes. He stared at me, and I stared at him. The bloodlust in my eyes only could have been matched by the deadliest of warlords. Then it spoke.

“You know I will have to kill you now.” It motioned to the lifeless form of the other drake. “he was my friend, the only other dragon my age to come close to how powerful I am.” Its voice was that of a teenaged boy. I was completely caught off guard by the fact that this monster just spoke. I guess I figured it was just a hungry predator looking for a meal. “Today was his birthday, I was taking him out for a bit of fun, and now he’s dead.” Although he had sorrow in his voice, I could tell he was sadder at the fact that he had no one to compete with now. He reminded me of that bully in school. I always hated that kid.
“So killing a child is how you have fun!? Well, if I killed him, I did the world a favor!” I was furious. That these things had a mind to ‘em and still chose to kill a newborn. They deserved nothing more than death.

The black dragon snarled and leapt at me, grabbing onto my arm and throwing me into the wall. The pressure of the collision caused me to become disoriented. Although I was still standing, I was sure I had a concussion. This gave the dragon enough time to rush over and lay some heavy blows on my chest. This time the pain came, but this time I was ready. I grabbed onto one of his hands as he came in for a face shot, stopping it mid-strike. His face contorted as he threw another punch, which I also caught. I tried pushing and then pulling to get out of my reach, but I was too strong. I held him there, becoming more furious as I heard the mother crying.

Then the drake blew fire into my face. Without hesitation I bent his wrists back, breaking the left ones bones. He stopped his fire breath and wailed like a bitch. He dropped to the ground, shaking and crying. Cradling what was left of his wrist with his right hand. I started approaching him, slowly, like a river of lava come to destroy a home, or a life.

“Please, please no. Let me live. I don’t want to die. I’m sorry for what I did. Please!” The drake begged, crawling away from me. I kept moving. Keeping my burning eyes on him. The blood from the other dragon still pooled in them. But I kept moving.

“I’ll give you gems, lots of gems. So much money you could live like a king, your children will live like kings. Please!” His begging almost got to me. I’ve lived a hard life. Most of it I had gone without. Money could definitely help. Then I heard the mother crying again. Begging for her sons’ life back.

“There is good and bad in this world. I claim neither side. I am just here to deliver justice, and protect those who cannot protect themselves.” My voice was cold, steel cutting ice. I began to beat him. Without mercy. Without remorse. When I finally stopped he had no teeth left. His meat cleavers were on the ground or swallowed. Ten I grabbed both his top and bottom jaw and….well, he didn’t make it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I rubbed my hands in the dirt to try to get the blood off, as it had turned into a thick mucus-like substance. And also tried wiping the blood out of my eyes, I managed to get most of it out, although the burning still stayed with me.
Ignoring the pain I walked up to the cow-woman.

“Are you alright?” She wasn’t responding so I tried again. “Ma’am are you alright?”

She was rocking with her baby looking at me. I saw that the little one raise its chest for a breath, but just barely. I motioned to
see what had happened to it, but she began backing away in fear.

“I’m here to help, I need to see how bad the wound is, and if we need to get it to a doctor.” After a bit of hesitation she let me see her child. The cut wasn’t bad, but it needed to be washed, and stitched shut.

“Is there a town? Or a house nearby?” I asked. She numbly shook her head and motioned for her baby back. “Keep pressure on the wound ok? Is there a river nearby? A fast one with a lot of white water.” I was talking faster now, trying to find something to disinfect the wound. She nodded and pointed downhill and away from the volcano. I helped her to her feet…hooves, and let her lead me to the river.

It took about 20 minutes to reach it, but in that time the landscape changed drastically. The black, darkened sky turned to a dull blue. The ashy, burnt ground turned to one of rich grass. She quickly led me through a few trees and into a small clearing with a river of gushing water racing through it. Perfect.

I asked for the child again and began to clean the wound. As I have cleaned both my little brother’s, and calves cuts, it wasn’t that difficult. I also kept telling the mother that he would be alright (as I saw that the child was a boy, or male calf, whatever).

“Do you have a name?” I asked the cow-woman as I cleaned her sons’ cut.

Without taking her eyes off of the calf she said, “Minnie.” All emotion focused on her child.

“And the child’s?” I asked.

“Tin Horn.”

“What were you doin out in the middle of nowhere with those things around and your baby on your hip? And for that matter what are you?” I was a lil upset that she had put herself in danger along with the baby, as well as confused as hell as to what was going on.

“What were YOU doing out next to a live volcano? Also how the hell did you kill TWO adolescent dragons?! Furthermore, how did its fire not roast you?!” She was practically yelling at this point, the only thing keeping her from charging me was her baby in my care.

“I have no god-damn clue how I got here, where ever ‘here’ is, I killed them with violence, and I don’t know, the lava didn’t affect me either. But what are you?” I got a lil spiteful in the middle of that. I had saved her life, was saving the life of her child, and she was questioning it.

“I’m a minotaur, like you” Her mood changed from one of questionably fury, to as if she was speakin to a crazy man. We fell into silence as I got back to work. Her probably questionin the company she received, and me to take in what she had said, ‘like you’.

As I finished cleaning the wound I asked for a very thin strip of some of her blouse so that maybe I could try to sow it up using a sharp thorn from a rose bush nearby. She obliged me and with a (newly cleaned) thread and needle I began sewing up the boy. We spent the next few minutes in silence. Being so used to stitching up a cut, I let my mind wonder. I also stole a few peeks in the river to try and catch a reflection in the current. What I was able to gather was a bull-man starin back at me. I guess I was a minotaur, like back in ancient Greek mythology. As I cut the cloth, he began to cry, and so did his mother. She swept him up, and nearly smothered him with kisses. As she did this I tried washing more of the burning blood out of my eyes. Why the hell wasn’t this stuff comin out?

“Thank you so much stranger, what is your name? What do we call our champion?” That’s when it clicked. The old man, saying I could be a champion. About sending me to Equestria. Then all this weird stuff happening. I must be in the land of ponies and magic.

“Is there a land here called Equestria?” The question caught her off guard.

“W-well yeah, the land of those prissy ponies with all their magic and luxuries.”

“Holy shit, that asshole did it.” The shock in my voice must have gotten her back to her senses.

“Well I don’t know who you’re talking about, but you never answered my question, what is your name?” I didn’t know. I could say Dan and get it done with, but I’m in freakin Equestria. New world, new name.

“My name is..uh…er…Bronze Hoof” Eh good enough.

“Well Bronze Hoof, thank you for your help. But my son and I need to leave.” She started to get up and walk away, but I fallowed her.

“You never answered my question either.” I stepped in front of her, stopping her exit.

“Why we’re here isn’t any of your business Mr. Hoof, now if you’ll excuse me..” She started walking off again, having sidestepped me. This time I grabbed her by the arm, lightly, and looked her in the eye.

“I’m not here to hurt you, if I wanted to I would have already, instead of helping you and your son. Now, please, what happened?” She looked visibly troubled, but sighed.

“We’re running from slavers in the badlands. They took me and Tin from our home in the rain forest. I had to escape for his sake.” She looked down at the now sleeping form of her baby. “But they’ll be looking for us, I need to go.” I looked at her sternly and nodded. She began taking off again, but with me in tail.

“Once you get home I’ll leave you alone, until then, I’m lookin after yall.” She was about to complain, but I cut her off, “and there ain’t nothin you can do ‘bout it.”

And with that we trudged off into the dense, wet tropics.

Comments

[ShadowsInTheDark]

I like this, It new and I haven't seen something like this before :)