secrets.

Pegasus

It was a freak accident for the first horse to be born with wings.

A massive white shire stud, measured in at a daunting 18.2 hands, bred to a mild mannered grey 17 hand quarter horse mare, and a pregnancy which lasted 465 days (the average was around a year, the record before had been 420 — the breeder had assumed she'd miscarried) she dropped a beautifully formed white colt (unusual given her dominant grey genes) with a mane longer than any before.

That is, beautifully formed aside from the small, ridged nubs on either side of his withers.

The breeder had thought they were tumors (the vet said it could be a rare form of scoliosis or something similar after the tests came back negative).

The horse was abandoned on the side of the road and rediscovered two years later. Found by a family hundreds of miles away from his breeder and without any identifying marks, he was taken in and trained to be led.

Once again he was cleared by a vet after vet and the chore of fitting a saddle pad around his growths began. Removing the nubs was out of question; all sorts of nerves swam through them, and regardless, his new family felt it set him apart from the rest of their barn.

The new owners got to riding him, very light work without much turning. It was years until they started to search for his breeder.

When they found him, they were told his mother had died shortly after his birth (likely from the chore of hoarding a foal for as long as she had) and the father was killed because of his "tainted blood."

The new owners let him grow older before they considered breeding him.

But, seeing as he had no genetic problems and he was so gorgeous, and as tall as he is (taller than his father was — 18.3) they decided to go for it.

One 16 hand thoroughbred, an average and uneventful pregnancy later, and a nub-free chestnut filly was born.

The stud had plenty of healthy foals and lived to be twenty-nine before he died without ever having passed his nubs on to the next generation.

Years later and another case, conveniently with the same vet though older now, of a long pregnancy (470 days) with a white shire stud was reported.

The foal was dropped with a crystal white coat, a long and thick mane, and two folded growths on either side of his withers.

The vet tracked the bloodlines of both shires and, as far back as he went, couldn't find any common horse.

However this did catch that vet's attention, who then asked to take the colt (the breeders were more than happy to give the vet both the colt and his mother) and got to work running every test imaginable.

None gave them any clue of what the two had in common. Further breeding of the mare showed her healthy, happy fillies and colts despite them all being with a white shire stud.

Both horses died, the vet as well, and there was no more progress made than before.

That was what started the mad hunt of generations to find an answer to these harmless nubs.

Breeders purposefully avoided white shires, which left more for those researching what was dubbed the "Pegasus defect," for obvious reasons.

White shire studs were living out the extent of their lives in stalls, never getting to run, never really being bred (no one wanted a defected horse), only getting to socialize when being fed.

Only two more colts were born in the 68 years of study before a scientist suggested developing the colts by specific gene tracking.

They harvested the semen of hundreds of white shires and the eggs of thousands of mares of different breeds and colors. It took only 20 tries before the tank in which a fetus was developing showed signs of forming the malformation.

The fetus died shortly after, and further combinations of the specific egg and sperm showed no signs of a Pegasus defect.

A conclusion was formed which most of the researchers supported; that it was merely a malformation. An error in the coding during combination of egg and sperm.

But then one of the successful fetuses, which had the malformation, showed some of the most promising vitals of all of his predecessors.

They agreed to keep him in the falsified utero until he was ready.

Only, 500 days passed and he was still steadily developing his nubs. They got longer, spindly, coated in wispy feathers like a bird but massive. He measured the height of a fully developed, 14.2 hand horse at birth with a wingspan equal to a bald eagle. While his proportions and behavior was similar to a foal, he was larger than any person thought possible.

While the colt developed, researchers swarmed his stall and watched him closely. Another promising foal was developing as well, this one being the first filly. They were hopeful about breeding the creatures to see what came of it (unfortunately, the filly and all those following her died suddenly and without warning on day 365).

The colt showed a significantly lowered rate of growth. He filled out to look like a stunning white shire, and his mane and tail were long and he became one of the most gorgeous horses the world had ever seen, but he grew only to be 15.3 hands at his tallest.

However, it was years later when he shattered his fetlock during a training session (they were trying to pinpoint the extent to his trainability and whether it equaled that of an average horse; it did, but he was rather too clever for his own good) that they discovered why his growth rate was so low. During his adolescence, his bones thinned like that of a bird, until they were light enough for his wings to someday carry.

Unfortunately, with the bone being so ruined and his species being so incredibly rare, the vet opted for amputation.

The speed at which he adapted was almost hard to believe. He began using his wing as a leg, like a wyvern.

The bones shifted, but they worked. He'd never fly, but the researchers didn't care.

It was several years later that they finally developed another Pegasus, another colt. Years after the first died, and the first filly was born (after a rushed surgery to prevent heart failure when in utero).

After both a natural and an artificial breeding, there were two more healthy creatures brought to life.

White shires quickly became the most sought after horse in the world.

Laboratory breeding and selling became a great business, and the beasts were used for everything from riding to hauling goods to lawn ornaments.

A Pegasus high swept the nation, and soon enough, animal rights became an issue.

As the Pegasus was technically a separate species from the horse, it took a long while before rights were passed for their conservation and well being.

They were kept as horses under the law; labs were shut down, and it became illegal to export a Pegasus for fear of poor treatment in foreign countries.

War use was kept to a minimum because of the frail bones, and new sports came about because their wings made it difficult to judge jumping or Western events and Pegasus owners were becoming impatient.

And, so, the first Pegasus was an accident. Unforeseen to change the future so drastically, to change the outlook of science on anything from fairies to wizards to mermaids, but still successful in doing so.

So, what I'm trying to say is don't give up. Don't stop believing, and please. Don't ever give up.

i have no idea what this is or why i wrote it but i fucking love it anyway