#then he saw the soothsayer and was like ‘bitch i didn’t die’ and the soothsayer was like ‘yet’ and then he died

[redgillan]

be careful what you wish for, king

[docholligay]

Destiny

“Guard, I can’t be in here,” Seth seemed surprisingly menacing, despite her height, “I am,” she lend her voice an otherwordly tone, “the CHOSEN.”

She had her eyes dance as if she were seeing something faraway, the odd color of them, like a paste jewel faded in the sun, lending to the illusion, and the guard seemed impressed for a moment, leaning toward the bars. Closer...closer….

Suddenly, there was a guffaw from behind her. “Hell, me too, now as you mention it,” There was the clacking of hooves behind her, and she looked over to see the very annoying white and brown leg of the centaur from the pub, “I’m the chosen one. And...you better let me out of here, before fate itself comes crashing down on you. Cosmos. All that.”

“Me too!” Came the call from the back of the cell. “I’m the chosen one!” Soon, there was a cacophony of claims, and the guard rolled his eyes, unimpressed, and smacked the bars with his stick, sauntering off toward the office.

“Excuse me,” Seth let out somewhere between a growl and a hiss, turning slowly toward her “The fuck do you think you’re doing?!”

“Oh for shit’s sake,” the centaur tossed her chestnut hair, “That’s the worst attempt I ever saw at--” She looked down at Seth, examined her face, and backed up a touch, “My god, you actually believe it. Well,” She tipped her hat, “been nice meeting you.”

“Oh, you throw a bottle at me, but I’m the crazy one.” Seth threw her arms up.

She whirled around, quicker than Seth would have assumed she was capable of in such a small space. “I didn’t throw a bottle at you, you got in the way of the bottle I was throwing, and that’s a difference,” she snorted and shook her head, “was it my fault you outright flung a red hot nail at my damn head?”

Seth rolled her eyes. “And here was me wondering why centaurs don’t come around the cities much.”

“Yeah, on account of they’re full of goddamn loons whose hair looks like sagebrush on a rough day.” She stamped her foot, frustrated.

Seth tried to think. She could get out of the cell itself. Hardly difficult, one man, one charm, one moment. It was escaping the city after that. There had to be a way, if not by force, which she never contained enough of for her liking, then by trickery.

A drunk man leaned over toward the centaur. “Shouldn’t you be in the stables?”

She bucked both her back legs into the wall, shaking dirt from the ceiling of the cell. “You want to die tonight, you little bitch?”

Actually, force wasn’t out of the question, now as Seth considered it. She strolled over, past where the man had wisely decided to cower in the corner and forget his observations on where centaurs belonged, and stood alongside the centaur.

“Listen, I don’t like you.”

“Take a goddamn number, pinky.”

“But,” She pointed up to her, “I think I can help you. And you can help me. We can help each other, you see.” She smiled in a way she thought was charming. Charm was not foreign to Seth, exactly, but there was a certain quality of effort to it, and she always wondered if today was the day her gift failed her.

“You gonna chosen me free?” She looked down skeptically.

“Listen, do you want help or not?” Seth put her hands on her hips. “I think I can get us free, and, as much as I hate it, you’re the least useless person in this cell. After that, we can both go our separate ways. Free.”

Kitty considered for a moment, and then gave a stiff nod. “What’d’you got?”

Seth smiled, and called for the guard.

____

There was a delight unmatched by very little, to Seth, as the delight at watching her magic sway over their eyes, and hearing them do her bidding.

It was very nearly matched by the way the centaur stared at the scene, as the guard led them to collect their belongings, not even flinching as Seth took her small dagger, and even handing the centaur her shoulder holster, which she clipped back across her body.

“You know there’s a whole mess of officers in the next room, short stuff.” She strapped her bag to herself, and put on her tan leather coat.

“Really??” Seth sang mockingly. “And here I was just bringing you along because you’re so friendly, and you smell so nice. See that back door?”

She gave a glance backward. “Yeah?”

“This is a human city, there’s no way it can stand up to you.” Seth looked at her. “Just…” she whinnied, and pawed at the air.

She scowled, the brim of her hat tipping over her eyes. “I’m not a horse.”

“Whatever, just--”

But before she could finish, the centaur had burst down the door, running out into the night, Seth barely behind her, suddenly regretting that she hadn’t come up with a reason for them to stay together, when she stopped and looked back at Seth.

“Your short little goddamn legs are gonna get us both caught up.” She knelt down. “Get on.”

Seth nodded as if this had been in her entire plan from the moment she stepped into the pub. “You know, it’s only right you’re my beast of burden since, you’re THE ENTIRE REASON I WENT TO JA--”

The cowgirl took off like a shot, one hand on her hat, the other at her gun, safe in its shoulder holster, barrelling down the streets, as the officers poured out behind them, screaming and shouting, pursuing on their own horses. Seth had read about riding before, and when the centaur had allowed her on her back, she had pictured herself elegantly astride her, hair flowing in the wind.

But the whole thing was so much faster than Seth had ever imagined, so much more abrupt, and Seth imagined that usually, when one rode a horse, you decided where they went. Riding a centaur was very different, she reflected, as her ride flew down the streets and cornered hard down alleyways, the police behind them firing arrows close enough that she could hear the whistle next to her ears.

“Use your magic! Just tell ‘em not to shoot us!” She called back to Seth, who bounced on her back, less graceful than either of them might have hoped.

Seth barely grabbed her belt before falling, just steadying herself. “It doesn’t work that way! ….usually.”

“What the hell use are you?!” She shot backwards, scattering them briefly, startling the horses with the thunderous sound, but they collected too quickly, and there was a gleam in the young man’s eye as he shot.

The arrow shot true, and Seth had a moment of wondering how she could tumble away, in the ensuing scuffle, the arrow firmly planted in the centaur’s hip. It was the perfect distraction. Then it flashed in her mind, the centaur’s hooves on cobbles as she turned around, the moment she wasted kneeling and letting Seth on her back. She didn’t understand why she had done it.

But Seth was not about to be undone in gratitude by a centaur.

She summoned up her magic, and focused on the arrow, willing it to slow, willing it to weaken, and by the time it hit the centaur’s hip, it glanced off, leaving only a thin red line instead of the open wound it should have been.

She felt the centaur’s eyes upon her, and then they both looked forward. A large barricade of barrels and crates were in front of them, coming nearly up to the centaur’s human shoulder.

Seth gave a sharp intake of breath. “Uh, question. Can you make that?”

“Great Mare willing!” She shouted into the air.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Seth braced herself and held on tighter to the back of her temporary steed’s coat.

She leapt into the air, and Seth held her breath, waiting for the inevitable tumble, but it never came, just the sharp jar of landing, the centaur catching her from falling off, as she blazed out of town, toward the the forest at the edge.

_______

“You know, if we got some sort of bridle for you--”

“I hope you enjoyed that, as it ain’t never happening again.” She set Seth down on a stump in the camp where she must have been spending the night, which made a certain amount of sense--Seth wasn’t sure which inn in town might be okay with having a centaur stay, and she must have simply decided not to hedge her bets on it.

Although, with her scintillating personality, it might just have been to keep a lower profile.

“Kitty McCrae.” She extended her hand.  “Sharpshooter, mostly.”

Seth looked down at Kitty’s extended hand, mildly disappointed that centaurs were like every other creature in the one they most often offered.

“Seth. Seth Fuzlae.” She extended her left in return, and waited for the question, or maybe some quip, but Kitty merely glanced at Seth’s right hand, noticed, and extended her left in return, with nothing to add for commentary.

Seth decided she liked Kitty very much.

Kitty started up the fire in her stone ring, heating some meat over it and toasting a bit of bread. It was simple fare, but it likely sufficed. She put on a pot of water and offered it to Seth, who was forced, painfully, to admit that she didn’t have much to contribute to it. Kitty gave a smirk, but sat by the fire and peeled a few potatoes into it. They sat mostly in silence, the stars spreading out like a carpet over them. Seth looked up and thought of the stories the gnomes told in them, and wondered if centaurs’ were the same.

“So what’s this chosen thing, other than a figment of your tiny imagination?” Kitty took a bite of steak wrapped in bread.

“None of your business.” Seth huffed.

“Seeing as I sprung you hoping to collect on this chosen thing,” she took a swig of her ale, “it kinda is.”

“It’s destiny, they tell me,” she gave a mirthless laugh, “they never stop telling me. The details are different, depending on who you ask, and the day, but they all say I’m here to do something great. Great good. Great evil. Could be either. Great bullshit, if you ask me. Which you did.”

“All anyone ever thought I was destined for was jail.” Kitty looked into the fire, and there was a moment of sadness danced with the flames reflecting in her deep brown eyes, but she laughed, “Which. Guess they were soothsayers after all!”

“Is that what you’re looking for? A destiny?” She took a bite of her potatoes.

“Next bottle, mostly. So you looking for this greatness?”

Seth exploded like an ember in the fire. “Looking for a way out of it! I’ve searched everywhere, for years, trying to find a way to get out of this damn chosen thing. I won’t be a slave to destiny. This doesn’t deserve my life! I will not let it define me!”

Kitty stared at her. “You’ve been searching after this chosen thing for years of your life so it won’t rule your life?”

“Exactly.”

Kitty laughed and shook her head. “Alright, then.”

“He shouldn’t have said that to you in the pub.” Seth offered it cautiously.

“Well he sure as shit found that out, didn’t he?” Kitty shrugged. “Not stupid enough to imagine the world’s any other way. One thing every race can agree on, ‘s thinking I’m half-wrong for living.”

Seth suddenly felt a bit of guilt, and a bit of solidarity.  “I’m sorry I whinnied at you.” There would be a time, later, when she would happily whinny at Kitty, and Kitty would simply roll her eyes and ask if she was going to go make some cookies in a tree or something, but those times, when both of them felt something like belonging, were written in the stars still, and not yet reflected on earth.

Kitty shrugged again, wordlessly.

Seth toyed with the blue scarf around her neck.  “If you’re not looking for anything but a bottle, I know a town where you can find one. I’m going there. My magic, your speed, your gun, my, for example, actual social skills. We could do okay. ”

“I go on by myself and for myself.”

Seth grinned across the fire. “Of course. That’s why you didn’t let them capture me, even though you could have gotten away without me, it must all be part of your great plan to serve yourself, lone gunslinger.”

“You woulda ratted me out.”

Seth snorted. “I didn’t know your name, Kitty.”

Kitty gave a smirk. “Well, magical gnome who’s,” she wiggled her fingers dramatically, “chosen, and all that...might be of use to me.” She smiled and extended her jog. “Ale?”

“Thanks. ” She accepted it gratefully, and took a deep drink.

“I might could see my way to running with you a spell.” She rolled her blanket out on the ground.

“Partners, then.”

Kitty hung her hat on the tree and pointed at Seth. “Let’s get one thing straight, you try that little mind trick on me, it’s the last thing you ever do, we understand each other?”

“Fair enough.”

Above, the stars moved and turned into position.