An awesome piece of art by the amazing  DrPickelle that I just couldn't resist when I saw it.
Attached beneath is a quick story I threw together, surprise featuring the great horsifier himself  Silao

Comments accidentally disabled, will be back in 24 hours

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Somehow he knew it all to be too good to be true. The offer of work, housing and food all seemed a bit too much, but he was in no situation to turn it down, though standing there in the empty stall he would have wished he could. He'd spent his whole life around horses, the opportunity of working with them for the whole summer was too good to pass, and he needed the money to pay for his education anyway. The asinine owner had seemed confident in him anyway, though something about the glint in his monocled eyes felt deceptive. But still this ranch was huge and surprisingly new, having only sprung up recently, yet the horses produced there were known for being impressively intelligent and easy to handle. So it went without question that when he was offered the job he took it straight away.

The anthropomorphic donkey owner had keenly sent him on his way to explore. The grounds were large but surprisingly quiet; the horses must have been in their stalls, so this was immediately where the young human headed. Finding nobody else around and following his gut instead proved a mistake, finding himself instead in a small wooden outhouse, nothing more than a cabin-like building with a single set of double doors, perhaps a farriers workplace.

Sliding the door open and finding nothing, the man allowed himself inside, just to look around quickly. It could easily have been re-purposed to anything, the single central room a barren expanse of dirt floor surrounded by 6 large wooden posts presumably for tethering horses. Tools hung from the walls around the room; farriers picks, hammers, tack and grooming gear of all different manners and purposes for every occasion- certainly well prepared for any horse. On a small worktable close to the door lay a pile of leather strips and metal buckles instantly recognisable as a bridle. Though this bridle was obviously different. The ones that hung from the walls seemed worn, their fabric frayed from use, but this one was glossy and new. Stepping into the room he scooped it up, allowing the glossy black leather to play through his fingers as he admired the craftsmanship; the finely polished buckling and the neatly engraved nametag bearing the black inlay of 'Windsor'. This must have been one valuable horse; on the table was a diagram of anatomical proportions that the saddler must have used, the heavy-looking leather saddle of the same material on the floor beneath the table, the red stitch seeming remarkably elegant in the rich light of morning setting through the door.

But that wasn't something that dwelt in his mind too long. Instead he was lost to the fact that the bridle now lay on the floor in a mess of reins, bits and bands. Stooping first to pick it up, the young man abruptly stopped as his hand reached for it, only to find that his once dexterous fingers could no longer grip beneath the leather. Lifting it back up in a panic he found his fingers almost totally immovable and it was apparent why. Where on the back of his hand there had once been four nicely defined knuckles there was instead only one large, rounded looking one. Indeed he flesh from that was visibly shifting, swelling outwards to accommodate this change in bone structure and the bones within his fingers as they too began to merge, swelling into his middle finger to develop one singular finger.

By the time his ring had been pushed from the end of his hand and fallen to the floor with a metallic tring his attention had been drawn away from the shifting hands up to the swelling pressure pushing through his face. His skin felt so tight around his nose it was as if it were going to rip, the shifting facial structure visible as his bridge crooked and the very tip of his nose grew fatter and wider across his face.

In his distress he went to cry out, but the sounds were muffled by the cracking changes of his adjusting mouth, the teeth within shifting to accommodate the fat growth of muscle pillowing the middle of his palette. The tongue unmistakably equine tongue, though he could not see it to tell, pushed at the roof of his mouth with a determined force to escape, threatening to starve him of oxygen. His nose therefore was driven into overtime, the nostrils flared wide to drink in as much air as he could, snorting heavily with each rise and fall of his chest.

With each breath he wanted to scream out, to shout and curse the donkey, who he was in no doubt had to be behind this. But that was no option, even if his mouth were free the burning in his lungs limited him to anything more than a disgusted animalistic snort. Inside his torso his organs were growing, changing to adapt to his new body at a rate his skeleton almost couldn't keep up with. As the pressure grew inside his ribcage the bones began to grow themselves, barrelling out and easily shredding through the sky blue top his sister had gifted him for Christmas. He would have been sad to have seen it lost were there not far greater issues on his mind, the arcing pain down his back as the vertebrae within split and grew to lengthen his torso.

The changing pressure in his head was like altitude change on a level he had never experienced, his ears rung loudly in his head even greater than before as they too began to shift, journeying upwards into his thickening crop of hair and pointing into rigid tips of cartilage that flicked around on command. The whole sensation of directing his ears was too much for him, shutting his confused eyes and slumping his body forwards. As if by instinct his arms hinged under him to catch his weight, the enormous barrel of a chest supported with ease by these two strong arms.

Though now the were very clearly not arms. His whole shoulder had adjusted forwards to form his new withers, his upper arm angled back as if flexing a bicep. Though not longer than before the bone was clearly thicker, the flesh more neatly moulded into his torso, running down from that powerful equine shoulder to his forearm and the oddly distended remnants of his hand. The flesh was strangely twisted to house the new joints, the singular strong digit capped in firm hoof. All up those new legs and across the rest of his body were sprouted coarse black hairs, matting into a rich pelt of fur across his body. It was short, black and glossy, save for the fur at his newly hooved feet which were capped with a white ruff of fetlocks which hung around his pasterns as if he had just stepped into four inches of snow.

A twist of his long neck allowed him to see down his body, huge in length by comparison to his human form and still growing. Remnants of his riding breeches clung wistfully to his rump and hock, a former pair of chelsea boots tattered and trampled beneath the two heavy hooves, unable to take the pressure from within. More strips of fabric fell as the black flank and rump continued to pulse and twitch with new muscle flexing in it's virgin prime. His whole body thrummed with an energy he had never felt before, this need to be wild and free.

But he couldn't focus on this new power and will to be free just yet, the pressure again returning to his face. Finally he was able to breathe properly, his mouth becoming free as his chin expanded forward in a great jut away from his eyes. He could only watch, trotting uneasily on the spot and stamping a hoof in instinctual caution as the great white band that ran down his face was thrown more into view. Even once his face had expanded forwards into an elongated snout it continued to broaden across. Heavy brays and whinnies echoed around the small room as finally his body settled into one, face fully pushed out into an equine profile. The final broadness of his eyes as they reset themselves to positions wider on the side of his now richly chiselled athletic face to give him a greater all round vision revealed to the stables' latest employee that his transition from man to horse was now complete.

In the doorway, grinning with a stupid pride in awe of his newest stallion stood half-illuminated in the darkness of the shed, was the donkey man. He stepped in, leaving the door wide enough for the new stallion to look out to his new home- the pastures around the ranch. A great myriad of new smells and sounds filled his senses as the hooves clacked softly on the dirt floor. Outside he could hear the birdsong, smell the fresh grass, and the distance sounds and smells of his new herd called with an oddly comforting ring to his primal side.

"Such an inquisitive boy, we'll have to straighten that out with some training." The donkey spoke with a flat calm, hand raised to pet down his rump and pick away the last of the white fabric breeches from beneath his tail. The stallion stood rooted still, tail lifting a little to allow his new owner access. The touch to his rump was softly satisfying as it peeled away the material, casting the last of his human traces to the floor to leave him shamelessly in the nude. "You weren't supposed to find yourself in here for a while, boy. You were supposed to get accustomed to the other horses first. But that's no matter, you've turned out just as handsome as I could have hoped." The soft voice of the donkey cut straight to him, ears twisting to pick up every word as he felt the hand gliding through the new fur of his rump all the way up his flank and to his side where it inspected his new shoulder and breast. There he stopped and crouched to pick up the bridle from the floor, one hand constantly up and scratching beneath the mane.

Without even trying to fight or resist the leather and metal the former human stood and allowed the donkey to cast the reins over his neck and rise up his left side to hold the powerful cheek. He accepted the hand docilely as it forced its way into his mouth, the hooved thumb pushing back to his teeth followed by the bridle which was slipped neatly into place. The leather was tight but soft, comfortable on his new furred head as his ears were fed under the straps and the nose band tightened to secure it to his head.

"Well then, Windsor- you're going to quickly learn to respond to that name- you've been carefully designed to be a good all-round horse. You'll be used for everything we need from you, from hunting to showing, and if you're a good boy then I'll make sure that you're pleasantly rewarded." With his words the handsome donkey dipped into his pocket and offered a peppermint to the nose of his new mount, scratching it softly as he hoovered the sweet up eagerly. "We'll get you started on some saddle work soon, but first you have to meet your new herd buddies. Don't worry, all of them have been through the same, you'll be welcomed very nicely, especially by our mares!" The donkey laughed, clipping the lead rope to him and giving a soft tug to lead him on, the confused new horse following the guidance and beginning to trot onwards to his new fate.