Short Story Collections

Palor

I Know It's been forever but this one took a long time to write, I've been working on it since May(2020) and I figured it was better to post one very large chapter than a two part thing; we all know how well that went last time... anywho, thanks for reading!! 

Taking place in a world where magical/mythical creatures exist casually , such as pegasi, unicorns and puppers with random abilities like teleportation and stuffs. Happens before Amelia meets her wife.(reminder these stories aren't connected)

Warnings: talks about animal cruelty and abuse. light cursing

POV Amelia

It's not uncommon for animals to wind up at the front of my property, It's also not uncommon for these animals to be injured. The type of injury had no set range, I've had three legged dogs bounding down my driveway along with cats who would later be three legged. I don't know how all of these animals get hurt, if it's them being animals and accidentally getting cut on a sharp rock or stick, or hurt by someone who needs to stop breathing. Regardless of the animal, I always find space around the house or even barn for them. Being a vet, I'm usually equipped to help and treat these creatures, magical or not. I almost always get them adopted out after they heal, others grow on me and they end up staying. I was essentially running a one person rescue, sometimes friends will help out . Though I may not know how the majority of these pets get injured, there was no other explanation for this one equine.

It was December and the sky was dark by 6:45pm, which happens to be feeding time. I pulled on my light sweater and trekked down to the barn, not too far away from the house. The barn itself has about 30 stalls it it, about half are occupied. Outside however, I have paddocks where other horses stay. Even though it is December, it's still Texas and doesn't really get cold until january.

I moved the wheel barrel and dumped another bag of feed into it, grabbing the scoops I moved through the barn, pouring feed scoop after feed scoop into each horse's bucket, some getting more than others. After the last horse in the barn was happily devouring his feed, I headed outside to grab more feed for the paddocks, they were all in a line so they were just like outdoor stalls that were five to ten times the size of one. All of them were standing right next to their gates, it's funny how during feeding time they suddenly don't mind being right next to each other. I'd emptied another bag of feed into the barrel and made my way up the gentle hill the pens were on. Going down the line of pens and filling feed buckets I counted heads to make sure they were all okay. But when I reached the last paddock, there was a silhouette of another animal by the hay ring that wasn't supposed to be there. At first, I figured a pegasus had flown into the pen and was getting a snack, no big deal. I filled up the rest of the feed buckets for the pen and then turned to flick the lamppost switch so I could possibly get a better look at the extra creature in the pen. At first when the lights turned on, all the horses in the pen shifted a bit, not used to the light yet. But I was able to just barely see the other equine figure in the middle of the pen, it was asleep, eyes closed and breathing- umm, not exactly steady. Instead of a constant and gentle rise and fall of its back, I could hear a raspy inhale and exhale like they had an infection of sorts. The animal was almost facing me to where I could see its face and a small portion of its side. Then I saw its horn, or lack of one. So now I know it's a unicorn at least. But where the horn is normally supposed to be a little less than a foot long(depending on age), this one has a broken stump of color like it was snapped off. Okay, maybe they ran into a tree or got it stuck somewhere while grazing and spooked. When I was about to step closer, another horse decided to move in front of me so he could ask for more food, perhaps some treats. Unfortunately, I didn't have any horse cookies for him. So I pushed his head away