Chapter#04

Where was Zel? The centaur had been there for a while, but had vanished. Mike excused himself and checked in her garage. They had redone a good portion of the small building. The door to get in was now a stall door with a top that opened separately. They had built her a comfortable stall to sleep in with hay scattered on the floor and a comfortable quilt for her upper half. Her alchemist table was a mess - clearly she had been working on something.

Stepping back out into the night, he skirted the fountain and walked around the house. There was a narrow corridor behind the home that used to be thick with Mandragora vines, but that creature had left last week to replant itself. Walking toward the greenhouse, he saw that the door was open.

"Zel?" He stepped through cautiously. Inside the greenhouse was a jungle that went for miles from the door, the door itself built on top of a large cliff overlooking it. He had been assured that the greenhouse held many rare and valuable specimens for potions and spells, but it was never anything he had gotten involved with. Zel spent most of her day at her table working with the ingredients she had brought with her, and would go back into the greenhouse from time to time.

"There you are." He spotted her on the edge of the cliff. She was slightly taller than he was, her skin pale in the moonlight. Zel was wearing feathers that she had braided into her hair and a sleeveless tunic. Around her human waist was a large sash that matched the rest of her outfit. Her ankles were adorned with bracelets she and Tink had woven out of leather scraps with bits of ribbon mixed in. "Everything okay?"

"We're about to find out." Zel pointed at the sky. The moon was rising in the distance. It looked different than the one over his house. His best guess was that the greenhouse was somehow on another plane of existence. "I've been waiting for that."

"The moon? I mean, is it technically the moon? Our moon?" Mike had no idea what the name of the moon was. "That moon?" He at least felt like he was asking the right question.

"Yes, that one. I could have used the moon in the backyard, but I didn't want to do this in front of the others. Come here." She patted a rock next to her so Mike sat down. She pulled a slim vial from between her breasts. "I have to drink this right when the moon climbs over the horizon and I want you to be here just in case."

"In case what?"

"I've never told you the truth about why I'm here. Emily never let me live in the house, so I lived out here in the wilderness by myself."

Mike nodded. He had initially been distrustful of the centaur because of this fact, but had quickly learned that she was worth the risk. Her potions had amazing curative properties, although he didn't always approve of the ingredients she used.

"Well, in a lot of ways, I was actually hiding. From my tribe."

Now this was new information. "Why would you want to hide from your own tribe?"

"I was betrothed. It isn't uncommon for centaurs to do such a thing shortly after birth. It allows us to monitor bloodlines, make familial alliances, whatever. Breaking a betrothal is essentially forbidden without very good reason."

"I see. Were you hoping to marry for love or something like that?"

"What? Oh, no, nothing quite so simple." Zel walked along the edge of the cliff, her tail swishing in the light breeze drifting across the cliff tops. Mike noticed the ripples in her human hair, how the gusts caught the edges of her tunic and revealed a little more of the tanned skin beneath. "Centaurs are proud. I believe this is a stereotype that carries over into this world, yes?"

"Of course."

"Then understand the differences between us. When a human is born with a disability, what do you do?"

"Depends on the disability. Do surgery if it's fixable, otherwise learn how to raise it and love it anyway." It's what he would do, anyway. Life wasn't always so kind.

"Centaurs will meet you halfway. If it can be fixed, they do it. Our medicine is second to none, and plans will immediately be made to prep the child for recovery. However, if something is really wrong, something that can't be fixed with medicine, then there's a different solution."

"What's that?" Mike thought he knew where this was going.

"When I was young, my dam's friend gave birth to a child that was born with legs that would never hold him up. They were hideous and malformed. The chief of the tribe killed the child for them so that the tribe would never be burdened."

"That sounds terrible." The death of any child would be, and he winced inwardly. His hunch had been correct.

"Yes, but is it actually? A tribe can be forced to move at a moments notice. It can be for reasons of war, or a hunt, or even something as simple as a forest fire. Such a creature would be unable to hunt or support himself, and he would never be allowed to breed. Is it crueler to end such a creature, or to allow it to live with the misery of its own existence?"

"That's one of those workplace conversations you're not supposed to have." Mike gave Zel a grin, but she clearly didn't understand what he meant. "For humans, we have an argument similar to that. For a lot of people, it comes down to what it means to be alive, and maybe if their god disapproves of it."

"Centaurs have no such debate... usually." Zel had stopped, her eyes on the horizon. "You see, I was born with a disfigurement that could not be fixed. However, it wouldn't hinder my contribution to the tribe either, so my parents chose to hide it. When I was young, I lost them both to a troll raid, and only my aunt knew of my condition. She was, after all, the midwife at my birth."