Theophanu the Centaur

In six days she would be homeless. This thought consumed her focus as she trudged back to her precarious home through the cold rain, wearing a jacket meant for a crisp day and not the deluge she found herself in. She wrapped her arms tighter around her torso and hunched herself against the cold. Long golden hair, much darker in the wet, plastered itself to her scalp. Thunder cracked over the city.

She arrived at her door and huddled under the alcove, bodily pressing her flank against the wall, while she fumbled for her keys with numb, shaking fingers. At least her studio was on the ground floor. She entered pointedly ignoring the yellow eviction notice plastered to the door. Hooves clopping along the bare cement floor.

She shed out of her soaked clothes, tossing the shirt and jacket into a small pile of dirty laundry and began the process of toweling off. Steam began to rise from her back. She was so tired. Tomorrow she would go out again and look for a new job, and a new apartment, but tonight she wondered about her place in this world. Her people once roamed the grassy plains, eating when hungry, sleeping under the stars when tired, beholden to none. Now it seemed she lived in a world meant less and less for her, with its glass spires and cramped offices and desks she couldn’t use and stairs. Did anyone realize how hard it was for a centaur to go up and down stairs?!?

She paused in front of one of the hanging mirrors to pull the wet hair away from her face and wring it out over the sink. She was young, fresh out of college, and pretty. Pretty like a summer day, despite the unexpected rain. Once dry or, dry enough, she carefully settled herself on the thick woven mats, a gift, from when she had first set out to the big city. They were bright and colorful and scratchy. She loved them, her fingers traced patterns over the surface. “Tomorrow. I’m going to be fine. Tomorrow.”