Thoroughbred

Stereotypes are not always true. Connected to "AFOWIS".

     I've always known I'm different.  From my very first breath, I've been aware of what I am.  But, I haven't always accepted it.  My name is Clayton Palomino Equineson.  Pretty elaborate name for a simple guy like me.  Well, mostly.

     At the moment, I'm in 10th grade.  I don't really go to a "high school," per se...  I attend a school called AFOWIS, which stands for Academy for Other-Worldly Inclined Students.  You may ask why I attend school there, and this is the part where I'd say, "Oh, it's a long story."  But it's much simpler than you might think.

     Instead of being born like normal people with one pair of legs, I have two.  Sure, go ahead; label me as a freak, that's nothing new.  It's in my genes.  From my waist up, I am normal, but the rest of me is a horse's body.  So, I have two sets of shoulders, one long back, fur as well as skin and hair, stuff like that.  They call us centaurs.

     I've heard so many flipping stereotypes about us centaurs, it's not even funny.  Some of them are true, some of them are not.  We do, in fact, speak English (duh!).  We don't have those weird twitchy horse-ears.  Though, we are usually adequate archers; I can shoot an arrow through a size five ring from 50 yards away, but my father is better.  We don't fight in wars; we're pretty chill.  The rumor that probably bothers me most is that we're all drunks.  Definitely not true.

     People might think that because I'm part horse that I'm spooked easily, but that's not the case.  I'm usually cool with everything, although I can be hot-blooded, which people are surprised to find out.  They don't usually expect me to be angry.  The first time my best friend Barnabus witnessed my anger was when Lea left me for that sleazy kid, Byron.  He's a jerk.  He used to be my best friend, but then he stole Lea from me.  Now he makes rude comments about me right to my face.  I usually ignore it, but now I can't take it anymore.

     The reason why Byron is so harsh is that he's a blood-sucker.  Almost like a mosquito, but more like a leech.  Okay, yeah, he's a vampire.  You would assume that he would be one of those sparkly people from Twilight or whatever that crap is, but you'd be wrong.  He's pale, but not sparkly.  He's not superfast, but he's swift.  He doesn't feed off of animals, he drinks human blood.  But his parents and siblings don't, which is strange.  He's tried to suck the blood of every student that is at least partly human at this school, but he's never succeeded.

      I met a new freshman kid named Stepha.  He's pretty cool, but he's painfully shy.  Poor kid.  I understand why, if he's half dryad.  He has anxiety attacks all the time and passes out.  I feel really sorry for the poor kid, so I promised him that I would protect him, like a bodyguard.  But I regret not always being there when he needed me.

      Before I met Stepha, Byron had already had his dark red eyes on him.  I told Stepha, and his winged archangel-like friend Genevive, to stay away from Byron.  But one afternoon, somehow, Byron caught them in the woods.  I don't know why I wasn't there.  Byron had climbed a tall tree while holding Genevive by the base of her wings, threatening to slice them off if Stepha didn't give into his commands.  As I heard the story, I totally understood why Byron didn't just go after Stepha; he always had to do everything the hard way.  Stepha couldn't risk having his best friend hurt, so he gave in.  Byron threw Genevive to the ground as he jumped down from the tree to meet Stepha.  As he sunk his fangs into Stepha's neck, Genevive basically had a mental breakdown.  She let out a terrified and despairing wail, which even I heard from where I was.  To both Byron's and Genevive's suprise, Stepha just stood there.  It turns out that since he's half dryad, most of his blood is actually tree sap.  Byron ran away disappointed, and to wash his mouth out.

      After Stepha and Genevive finished telling me the story, I was laughing my face off, as well as feeling extremely proud of Stepha.  Byron definitely deserved that.  Stepha had told me that he had remembered my bravery, and used me as a role model in that situation.  I felt honored.  I've never been that big of an influence on anyone.  I guess you can say he learned well, but what do I know?  I'm just an average centaur.

Author's Note

Sorry if this can be slightly offensive, Clayton has a few strong ideas. This is also a little spin-off of a story I am already writing, that's why it's a story-within-a-story kind of thing.