Work Text:
They had never expected children of their own. It just didn’t seem possible; even in Centaurworld, a cross-species liaison rarely produced offspring, and those children such pairings had tended to be short-lived and fragile and incapable of reproduction themselves. Adoption was likely to be the only way they would become parents.
Until one day, she woke up, nauseous and overtired, and remained that way for months, until a doctor finally thought to ask if there was any chance she could be pregnant.
She exchanged a look with her elktaur. “Well…”
The doctor seemed to assume she had cuckolded her centaur spouse with a human man, and withdrew with apologies. But she and her elktaur knew what was true.
When their daughter was born, pink and squirming, with the torso of a human and two perfect, gangly elk legs, so did everyone else.
They called her their little Faun.
Everything was difficult for Faun. She seemed to have far more awareness of the world around her than a human baby her age, and those gangly legs seemed to want to walk already, even if she couldn’t balance on them yet. Eventually she learned to walk, but it came much later than either a human or centaur child would begin. She tripped along on those spindly legs as if she expected a second set behind her, to catch her when those faltered.
And even when her own body wasn’t being difficult, the rest of the world was. They introduced her to children both human and centaur, but she could only be a novelty to them all, something strange and peculiar to be stared at, but not befriended.
So Faun made her own friends among the animals around her, which had gained an unusual measure of intelligence due to the proximity of the portal to Centaurworld. She could often be found sporting with the palace cats, playing games of pounce and chase, or down among the hounds, tussling like one of their puppies.
And then one day, she introduced herself to the horses. There was a foal there, a perfect silvery gray with a white blaze up her nose, as gangly and awkward as she was herself.
They edged around each other cautiously at first, faun and foal. Faun could scarcely believe anything in the world was as perfect and beautiful as her Horse. She won her over bit by bit, with apples and carrots stolen from the castle kitchens, until her Horse would sit with her head in Faun’s lap and let Faun braid her pale mane and tail.
Eventually, Faun’s parents decided she was old enough to learn how to ride. Her father had spent months modifying a saddle to fit Faun’s ungainly legs, but in the end, she didn’t need it, not really. Once she’d learned the knack of it, she didn’t need any tack at all. She and her Horse knew each other so well by now that they moved as one creature.
With four legs beneath her and the wind in her hair, Faun finally felt whole.