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[Companions Chapter 38]

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WARNING! The following text contains explicit adult subject matter. It is not intended for anyone under the age of 18. If you are under the age of 18, then you must stop reading now. The author has taken steps to ensure that this story does not appear in any subject-inappropriate or age-inappropriate forum. This version has been posted with the author's permission to Yiffstar.com.

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* _COMPANIONS_

* by Evoquus

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* (c) Copyright 2009, Evoquus, All rights reserved.

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* Feedback is appreciated: [email protected]

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Rating: R for language. No-Yiff, Human/Horse/Anthro

[Author's note:

Readers new to Companions would be much better off starting at the beginning with Chapter 1 : Little Red Pony. You'll find a lot more yiff there, too.

This episode, Part 13, takes place the following day after Part 12, and ties up a lot of loose ends in the series. Though I have included some review material in the opening paragraphs, I think it will benefit most readers who have had to wait months or years for Part 13 to re-read Part 8 (Chapters 23-26) and Part 12 (Chapters 33-37) before diving into this one. And I humbly apologize for taking six years to write it.]

Chapter 38: Welcome to Bizarro World

In the cover of darkness, the Anthraun landed. Taking advantage of an opportunity - an unguarded doorway - he entered a new world, a world without claim, a world without jurisdiction, and for now, a world without competition. The first of his kind to set a hoof on this land, he was motivated not by fame or fortune, but by self-preservation. This was primarily a life and death mission, preferably his life and someone else's death. He cared little about the monumental nature of his discovery, which was the size of a planet. Such a fantastic find would immortalize anyone, perhaps even bear his name, but that did not matter. What mattered was keeping it a secret for as long as possible.

In ancient days the discovery of a new continent meant world-renowned fame and glory for the explorer, and on the flip side, a heavy price to pay for failure. Explorers rarely financed their own expeditions, so rather than return empty-handed it was often safer not to return at all. The case with this Anthraun was no different, except that he had no use for fame or glory, for those capricious assets would do little to pay his debts. The bill collectors would find him, even here, and they would settle with him, but not for his autograph no matter how generously future historians might document him. Breathing for a few more years interested him far more than staring blankly out of an encyclopedia for centuries to come; therefore it was he who had to settle with them.

There was one trait that he did share with the Conquistadors of old: the arrogant notion of finder's keepers. Everything here was up for grabs, everything, that is, that he could stuff into his pockets, for he had not had the luxury of planning this heist. Planning takes time, and time is the only advantage of a lead runner in a race. When opportunity cracked open the starting gate, the desperate horse-man bolted through while his comrades had yet to line up. The less time wasted there meant more time here to seek his prize. How much of a lead he did not know, but certainly they would not be far behind. And they could run faster, and meaner.

Raising his nose to the sky, he held quietly for a moment. Then a smile squeezed across his muzzle. He could sense his own kind, and they were definitely here. But the signal was inexplicably weak, which meant that they had to be far away. He soured and cursed the universe for placing the doorway on the wrong side of the planet. Nevertheless, he couldn't waste precious seconds fretting. The hunt was on.

Meanwhile, deep inside the cranial cavity of a sleeping Hipponaur mare, Daniel Racher's essence was hard at work mending mangled memories of his human being. Synapse-by-synapse, the remarkable resurrection plodded with untiring persistence. Brain cells that had been blasted apart by the surgical strike of his misguided step-son, Bouceph, now quivered with new life - not only alive, but with purpose. That his brain was performing this phenomenal feat was a miracle even by Hipponaur standards. The reason why it was doing it was beyond comprehension.

The essence that flowed through every Hipponaur's veins was the distillation of pure life. It offered health and longevity for the rare few that possessed it, turning mortals into immortals, so long as they respected the limits of mortality. Broken bones, lacerations, and third degree burns were rarely life-threatening. However, recovery from trauma to internal organs presented more of a challenge, and brain damage proved to be particularly delicate. Hipponaurs had survived head injuries in the past, but the salvaging of severely damaged neurons was generally limited to the cells being born anew; each becoming a miniscule blank slate ready to be written upon by a fresh thought or feeling. The intricate interconnections that defined a previously remembered concept, such as one's favorite donut, were generally beyond hope of recovery.

Yet for Daniel Racher, it was happening.

Urged on by the lingering effects of Fred McHenry's uncanny embrace, Daniel's natural essence put his identity back together again. Though the lobotomy had been completely successful, Bouceph had carelessly left the ashes behind, and as every forensic detective knows, ashes tell the whole story. Like building a galactic jigsaw puzzle, the life force within him studied Daniel's soul pictured on the box and sorted through the burnt remains to match it. Piece-by-piece, it reconstructed his identity, and like the inevitable dawn, the unstoppable Phoenix rose.

This was not a natural thing for Daniel's natural essence to do. For the essence was technically not his at all, nor had he always resided in this body; he was, after all, born of human parents. But a small part of the Hipponaur brain was curiously receptive to human consciousness. It nurtured it, gave it self-awareness, allowed it to coexist, or in Daniel's case, exist on its own. It was the only place in the Hipponaur's head where Daniel could be Daniel, and not merely someone else's memory of him. And now Daniel was becoming Daniel again.

But the process was slowing. A little more than fifty percent of his memories had been restored when his cellular brain surgeons became lethargic, losing momentum, wondering if there were better things to do. Without the continued influence of Fred's ability to rally the microscopic troops into a singular mission, they fell back into their old ways of milling about, looking for parasites to eat or broken capillaries to repair. All of his obliterated brain cells were minimally functional again. That was probably good enough; this puzzle was getting boring.

For even if Daniel's shredded human existence were fully re-knitted, it would be but a small patch on the titanic tapestry that was now his inherited terran experience. The cumulative memories of his ordinary life before meeting Rovaun were already outnumbered a thousand-to-one by the unkind inklings of a mare named Zhorelle. With those torturous memories awakened, Daniel could now recall quite vividly centuries of cruelty and abuse that his proxy had inflicted upon his mate and upon others. These memories were unfair, for they did not belong to him, but that made them no less painful to relive every day.

Subconsciously, Daniel was confident that his divine equine gray matter could cope. With his own human identity resurfacing, guided by his human soul, the combination within a Hipponaur body made for a truly formidable being. This being needed to be acknowledged to be whole. It needed a proper identity to function, for it was neither Daniel, nor Zhorelle, nor some concoction of the two; it was something entirely new. While Bouceph thought he was resurrecting Zhorelle, instead he gave life to Pandora - a Hipponaur with humanity.

But Daniel remained incomplete for now. Half finished memories dangled confused in his head, yearning to be whole again. He found himself contemplating the wounded concepts that cried for completeness. And as one would expect of a human who thought of things as he slept, Daniel began to dream.

Once again he was in Oblivion's womb, but his role this time was that of observer rather than participant. Endless void enshrouded the theater; deathly quiet enveloped him; blessed nothingness soothed him. Peace ruled this empty realm. And then the Universal Mother gave violent birth to God. A brilliant white stallion burst forth from the infinite black uterus and splashed onto the screen before him. Though fully grown, he remained umbilically attached to his incorporeal dam. As he approached, he slowed and stood tall for the sole viewer, letting the cord fall away. Daniel felt a peculiar mix of unease and elation as the environment drew him in, modifying his role from passive to active. He found himself sitting in the front row seat that had relocated onto the screen itself. The stallion, instead of merely looking in his direction, was now looking - at - him.

When confronting such equinity, Daniel's normal reaction would be to stand up and embrace the heavenly steed, but that was not the purpose of this dream. Instead he remained content simply to gaze upon the virile splendor standing before him, the frilly ends of its perfectly pearly mane and tail lifting gently in an unfelt breeze.

Daniel reasoned that this was a memory from his early childhood, though he could not remember precisely when or where. Even back then he knew that such images affected him deeply in ways far differently than his peers. With pre-adolescent shrieks they'd briefly "ooh" and "ahh" the pretty horsey on the mountain top before turning the page to gasp and hail the fierce dragon that followed. Though he'd rather look at cliff-dwelling ponies, little Danny did not protest, for the image had already imprinted itself indelibly onto his psyche, and in his mind's eye it still stood before him, alive and powerful, like he was now, watching him, reading him, penetrating him.

He remained transfixed on the creature as something to be admired and feared. But then his focus changed when a subtle trace of color appeared in this starkly black and white tableau - a scarlet rose budded just below the stallion's left eye. This was something new, something disquieting, something wrong with this picture. The blooming teardrop wandered, drawing a red line down the face of the stallion, who remained a living statue of perfection with this singularly disturbing defect. Daniel watched the red line creep along the white canvas that made no effort to stop it. He felt a knot in his gut as it disappeared under the stallion's chin. And then a second tear of flaming red appeared, challenging its sibling to slice the flawless face into shards.

Daniel opened his mouth to plead with the stallion, to beg him to reveal what was wrong, but no sounds emerged from the muted man, for the dream would not permit any audio to defile the silent scream it depicted. The look in the stallion's eyes was that of profound sorrow, for these were not tears of ocular injury; they were tears of loss. That much was plain to Daniel, and he felt this grief as surely as if it were his own. The second teardrop disappeared under the muzzle, two streaks whose bleak future could no longer be seen. The stallion said nothing, but his message was clear: if Daniel just sat there, two innocents would die.

Daniel awoke with Rovaun and Shianna sleeping peacefully beside him. He knew where he was and who he was, but he also knew that he was not yet whole. He needed to be whole to understand what to do. His first instinct was to rouse his mate, but then something held him back. The world around him was quiet now, just as it was in the dream. The white stallion had been silent for a reason. Daniel studied the worry-free brows of his mate and his lover and believed that he understood. They would not be able to help.

He carefully rose to his feet and quietly disappeared into the pre-dawn darkness to seek the help of the only man that could.

"Fred!" he whispered desperately in a voice that still sounded very feminine. The black mare nudged the man's sleeping bag. Fred rolled over hoping the nightmare would go away.

"Fred, please wake up!"

"Pandora," he growled, "you aren't making any new friends."

"It's me... Danny!"

The words took a few moments to register, since they were not spoken in Daniel's voice. Fred opened his eyes and looked up at the mare staring him in the face. "Danny?"

"I need your help! I need my memory back!!"

The man sat up shaking the groggy demons from his head. "What's going on?"

"I don't know! But I think I'm supposed to know."

"Can't this wait?"

Daniel pawed the ground as the frustrated equine he was. "I think something bad is about to happen... and I think part of me knows what it is... but I can't remember. Please, please help me."

"Okay, okay," he said, scooting out of his sleeping bag, mostly out of fear of being trampled. The man stood up, shivering in the cool morning air, and Daniel suddenly realized that this was the first time he had ever seen Fred without clothes. The expression on the mare's face along with her obvious focus of attention was not lost on Fred, whose mood changed instantly.

"You fucking asshole," he spat, awkwardly covering himself as he pulled on his pants.

"What?? No..."

"You don't need my help anymore, jerk! Looks like Daniel Racher is alive and well. Go find someone else to ogle!"

"No Fred, please... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare. I really need your help."

"Fuck off."

"NO!" the mare whinnied, bringing Azgard suddenly to his feet.

"Companion," snorted the Clydesdale taking a defensive posture between man and mare.

"It's ok," said Fred, patting his massive flank. "Danny was just leaving."

"Danny?"

"Azgard... please," cried the mare.

"What is this all about, Pandora?"

Daniel lowered his head, trying to calm himself. "Something terrible is about to happen, but I don't remember enough to understand. All I am asking is for another embrace from Fred."

"A NAKED embrace!" explained Fred to his mate.

"No... A healing embrace."

"Yeah, right."

Azgard turned to his mate. "Companion, you are not naked. What makes you say that?"

"You didn't see him drooling ten seconds ago when I was a lot less not naked."

The stallion turned back to the mare, who stuttered, "P-please... We're running out of time... Please Azgard. Help me."

It did not take long for the stallion to choose sides. He addressed Fred without equivocation. "Embrace him," he commanded.

"Azgard..."

"Do it now, Companion."

Fred clenched his jaw at his mate, then agreed to do it just to keep things civil between everyone, but his heart was clearly not in it. He approached the mare placing his palms lightly on either side of her chest as if he were about to hug a porcupine. It startled and unnerved him when the mare brought her head down over his shoulder to pin him tightly to her chest.

"Ow... Danny, I can't breathe!"

"Please Fred," the mare whimpered, loosening her grip. "Please..."

For a brief moment, Fred felt her angst, and he patted and rubbed her sides to let her know. "It's okay, Danny."

But the mare was impatient, and her fidgeting kept him off balance. She stomped the ground, missing his toes by millimeters. "It's not working!"

"Danny, calm down. Give me a chance!"

The mare did her best to hold still while Fred tried to heal her, though he still had no idea what or how to do it. It had something to do with empathy, a particular state of mind; that much he was sure of. But the miracles he had performed hours earlier were all accidents, and he expected it might require months of intensive training to make them happen on purpose. His self-doubt was enough to turn off whatever magic he possessed.

The mare in his arms began to shake with the staccato rhythm of a soul losing its battle to hold back a flood of tears. Fred had been around horses long enough to know that they cried, and it was one of the saddest things on Earth.

"What is wrong, Danny?" he asked out of genuine concern.

The mare hugged him tightly. "Someone's getting hurt... I had a dream..."

Fred took a deep breath and sighed, determined to take this task more seriously. If Danny was telling the truth, then it was the least he could do to help. He raised his arms up and hugged the mare's neck with the same fervor that she hugged him. They held each other in silence for several seconds, then a calm befell them both. It was then that a secret was revealed - a secret as philosophic as it was scientific. The healing process went both ways. It was give-and-take; energy was conserved. From Daniel, Fred received enlightenment; from Fred, Daniel received order.

The mare began to quiver as her essence took on a singular goal again, concentrating in her brain, raucously reconstructing lost memories. Fred did not have to be told it was happening; it was obvious that he and Daniel were inextricably connected, exchanging psychic energy. Azgard watched with proud amusement.

Bombarded with fast-forwarding flashes of human events, Daniel again felt his brain catching fire, but this time he resisted the urge to break free. Fred could do nothing about that, being a neophyte in his craft. He was an on-off switch with no way of governing his psychic thermostat. The longer he held on, the more energy he conducted. Daniel fed Fred, who fed Daniel, who fed Fred in an infinite loop that began to microwave the Hipponaur's skull. Fred felt the physical heat radiating onto the back of his neck; then a sudden shot of adrenaline replaced the blood in his veins when he realized he could not shut it down. The fusion reactor he ignited now fed on its own energy, growing stronger by the second. In desperation he tried to break free, but the electricity traveling between them contracted both of their muscles, pulling them tighter together, increasing the positive feedback. Fred's curled fingers dug deep into the mare's neck, and she pulled her chin painfully into his spine. Azgard raised a concerned eyebrow but decided not to interfere, unaware of the enormity of the mental monsoon he witnessed. Blue bolts of static electricity levitated Pandora's mane and tail, proceeding to zap Fred with ever increasing frequency. Heat blisters bubbled on his spine and neck. Energy was no longer being conserved, continuing to increase faster than it could dissipate. The situation had redlined. In less than a minute Fred and Azgard would be splattered with steaming Hipponaur ganglia.

"D...D...Dan...nn...ny...st...st...op...op..." pleaded Fred between shocks, but the mare could not release him, for she was physically incapacitated, caught in a tornado of swirling memories.

Inside Daniel's braising brain, distant lightning charged the sky while he rifled through a million photographs that whipped about him. Feverishly he scanned a lifetime of unsorted images, confounded by his boiling essence tossing thousands of more pictures into the vortex. There was no chance of making sense of the storm that spun about him. Indeed his sensibilities were nowhere at all, but that didn't matter; making sense was not the point. What he needed to find was a specific sequence of events, and one image in particular that held the key. It was here. It HAD to be here. His concentration faltered when the twisting universe wobbled like a spinning top on the verge of collapse, blurring his vision, foreboding his imminent loss of consciousness, but he could not stop. He had to hold on and see this through even if it killed him, which was about to happen in ten more seconds.

And then he found it. An image flew out of the storm and zoomed into his full field of view: A friendly equine nose... floating fifteen feet off the ground.

Instantly the mare broke free of the turbulent embrace and stumbled backwards several feet. "I know!"

"Jesus Christ," yiped Fred, dropping to all fours. Azgard nuzzled the back of his head to put out the smoldering hairs.

"Thank you, Fred, you're a life saver," shouted the manic mare as she turned and bolted toward the bonding rock.

"You're welcome," he muttered, "you fucking ass."

The lives that were in jeopardy were not in this solar system, yet they were only a few miles away. Daniel knew what needed to be done, but when he got to the bonding rock, he suddenly realized he had no clue how to do it. Fifteen feet up was a spatial ulcer. It could not be seen, but it was there; at least, he prayed it was still there. He tried to step out of his body to investigate it, but his overheated brain was currently incapable of performing higher level miracles. The most he could manage to manifest was a fingernail. Still, the determined mare was resolute.

"No problem. We'll do this the hard way."

The horse looked around for anything that could be used to make a ramp. There were football-sized rocks scattered about that would be difficult to stack, and a decaying redwood tree that had fallen twenty years ago, also not particularly useful. Everything that could be useful was too big to move for an ordinary horse. He could probably build something if he had all day, but somehow he knew that there were only minutes left.

This was ridiculous. He had come so far to be completely thwarted by such a simple fact of physics: Horses can't fly; at least not right now. The mare crumpled to her knees in frustration when Azgard and his reluctant rider trotted up.

"Do you need more assistance, Danny?" asked the Clydesdale.

The mare looked up above the bonding rock and sighed. "There's an ulcer up there. I have to get through it, but I can't leave my body, and I can't make anything virtual to help. I don't know what to do."

The stallion dropped down to let his rider off. "Would another embrace from my companion help?"

The mare shook her head. "No. He's done all he can do."

Fred sighed with relief.

The massive draft horse gazed up and squinted. "I don't see it."

"It's there," sighed the defeated mare, "only fifteen feet, but it might as well be on the moon."

Azgard studied Daniel, then scanned the surrounding area for anything that could be used to raise a full grown mare fifteen feet off the ground. He approached the fallen redwood tree and nudged it loose, but the termite-ravaged trunk splintered into dust. He soon came to the same conclusion as the mare. His ears twitched as he pondered a solution. "If I stand on the bonding rock and you stand on my back, you might be able to reach it."

Daniel nodded, but it was not a nod of resolve, for he had already thought of that too. "Yes, that's how Josh had done it, but he was standing upright on legs, and even then he could just barely reach it with his nose."

"What if you guys stand on your hind legs?" piped up Fred.

Azgard was slightly embarrassed for him. "We are equines, Companion, not circus acrobats."

Secretly, Daniel pondered Fred's suggestion, thinking that maybe the idea had merit, but then he ultimately agreed with Azgard that sometimes Fred should just shut up.

Instead, he thought of his dream again, searching for clues that might have been overlooked, but there were few. The obvious main event was the birth of a bright white stallion, but what was that? God? The Big Bang? What did that have to do with his current predicament? How did that show him how to get through the hole up there? The answer was, it didn't; the stallion didn't tell him anything. The boo-hooing pretty boy just stood there not saying a goddamned thing that could have been useful. There was nothing practical in that fucking dream at all!!

If he just sat there, two innocents would die. Daniel already knew who they were, and how they were going to die. It seemed that Destiny was giving him a chance to save them but there was still nothing he could do about it. Why would Destiny do that to him? Because that's what Destiny did.

He would sit there, and they would die.

He stopped focusing on the negative and concentrated on creating a virtual ladder to climb up, but nothing at all emerged. In his current mental state, he could not even muster a toothpick. Daniel was exhausted. His head ached. He was on the verge of giving up.

Then he got angry. This situation was not hopeless - it was stupid. Of all the outlandish predicaments he had gotten himself into and out of over the past several weeks, this was by far the most trivial. He looked around again for anything at all that could help. His eyes fell upon Fred again, and he briefly pondered something absurd. [Maybe if Fred stood on the rock, and Azgard stood on Fred, and I stood on Azgard...]

But if he just sat there, two innocents would die. The clock was ticking. Daniel refocused.

If he just sat there...

His ears perked up. That's what he did in the dream - he just sat there. But why did he just sit there? Don't just sit there, stupid, DO something. But what? Daniel sensed he was close, really close.

In the dream he just sat there, which was not what he normally would have done. Normally he would have gotten up and hugged the horse. But he didn't. He just sat there. He did what he normally would not have done. "Don't just sit there, do something," he told himself. "Do something you normally wouldn't do."

Azgard cocked an ear. A solution was imminent.

"Don't just sit there, do something," Daniel said aloud. "... Do something... do anything... Don't just sit there, do some..." The dream finally clicked. "No! That's it!! It's NOT 'do something.' It's don't just sit there... MOVE!!!"

The mare moved.

"Azgard," cried Daniel, leaping to his feet, "how high can you jump with a rider?"

Azgard glanced at his companion then replied, "With him on my back I can jump six feet."

"And how high with a Hipponaur on your back?"

The Clydesdale laughed then suddenly sobered up. "Oh, you're serious. Well, um..." He sized up the mare. "Assuming I can even walk with you on my back, maybe one or two feet."

"And when I jump off your back I can probably add another three or four feet to that."

"Danny, even if we achieve those personal bests, that still does not add up to fifteen feet."

"Hmm... what if you got a running start?"

Azgard snorted, "With you on my back??... [sighs]... Assuming you're still on my back when I vault, then maybe an extra foot, but that still doesn't get you up to the ulcer.

"No," said Daniel, "it doesn't, but I'm betting that it gets me close enough. When you jump, I'll already be maybe ten feet off the ground before I jump."

"And we still are not circus acrobats."

"No, we're not," said Danny undaunted, "but I bet we could do this easily with enough practice."

"Well, certainly with enough practice, but..."

"And that means that it's possible for us to do it now!"

"In a perfect world, maybe..."

"Then let me ask you this, my tall sturdy friend, is this something that you would NORMALLY do?"

"Of course not!"

"That's all I need to know. Let's go."

Azgard sighed, then dropped down to allow the hefty mare to clamber onto his back. The maneuver was anything but graceful. In fact it was the most bizarre equine mating that Fred had ever witnessed, and he was so glad that this time it was Azgard getting screwed by the screwy mare instead of him.

The Clydesdale struggled to his feet while Daniel lurched forward, backward, and side-to-side. "Um... I may have overestimated the altitude," he said. "How much do you weigh?"

"Never mind," said the weight-conscious mare. "This is going to work."

"And you know this, how?"

"Destiny said it would."

The Clydesdale nodded, "That's good enough for me." He gathered his wits and targeted the bonding rock. "Are you absolutely sure that the ulcer is open?"

"Oh, I'm absolutely sure that the ulcer is locked up tighter than Parceph's porn trunk," said Daniel with an impish grin, "but I have a key." A virtual human nose protruded from the end of the mare's nose as she hummed a little tune. [Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight...] "Hit it!"

The stallion stumbled, then trotted, then cantered toward the bonding rock while his equine mount held on with unflappable confidence. His front hooves touched off the leading edge of the slab while his hind legs launched them both upward. Daniel waited for Azgard to peak, then leapt off his back into the ulcer. His virtual nose opened the anomaly on cue, but the altitude was predictably insufficient. His front knees clipped the bottom edge of the ulcer causing him to tumble forward into another dimension. He landed hard on his back, knocking the wind out of him, but had no time to brood about it.

The mare shook it off, rolled over and stood up to assess the environment, which was suddenly eerily calm. The frantic events that had led up to this point had occurred someplace far away. Everything else was the same. The ulcer was just as invisible as before. Nothing was out of place, except Azgard and Fred, who were nowhere in sight. No finesse, but great success.

Daniel bolted back to camp.

The planet that Daniel landed on was Earth; the time was the present; the place was exactly where he had been before. But for Daniel, he had landed on Bizarro World, for this was a world without Rovaun. The two worlds had previously been one, but every time a decision resulted in two possible outcomes, quantum physics flipped a coin that landed both heads and tails. The parallel worlds split at the exact moment when Rovaun had made a fateful decision. In one world he survived; the other he did not. As a result, day-by-day, the two worlds drifted further and further apart.

As Daniel headed back to his identical friends, he could already see the influence of his missing mate. Some areas that they had recently grazed together were untouched here. A bush he had passed on the way to the bonding rock was now missing on the return path. But the absence of Rovaun was not the only cause of these subtle differences, for upon this planet dwelt an Anthraun named Joshua - a very special Anthraun that just so happened to naturally bear Rovaun's immortal soul. The grieving human that lived here recognized it within minutes after meeting Josh, who healed his broken soul as only his companion could. Rovaun had returned to Danny in spirit, if not body, and Danny had no complaints about that hunky new body. Rovaun existed in both worlds; Daniel was happy in both worlds; together they lived their lives in both worlds; energy was conserved.

Daniel was about to find out if happy endings were short-lived on Bizarro World. His heart fibrillated as he approached the clique, for one of two destinies would be revealed. He wondered if he, too, were on the verge of splitting worlds: one where two innocents died, and one where they survived. This time the quantum catalyst was Daniel Racher; only he could make it happen, or not.

The moment of truth had arrived with the dawning sun. As the galloping Hipponaur rounded the corner, Daniel could see other horses that he recognized, all peacefully grazing without a care. He allowed himself a breath of cautious optimism, for surely if his fears had been realized, there would be more mayhem here than on his home world this morning. He located a pretty white mare, who happened to be grazing next to a tall, sexy Anthraun that he loved so dearly. Josh was singing inappropriate songs to his embryonic step-son, Tantau, while the tiny Anthraun's young betrothed, Malaya, giggled with delight. Noticing the urgency of the black mare that approached them, they rushed to meet her.

"What's wrong, Love?" asked Josh to the panting mare.

"Josh," Danny said in a still feminine voice, "I'm so glad I found you."

Shianna gasped and stepped backwards in alarm. The Anthraun glanced at her but then gave his full attention to this strange doppelganger.

"I'm Cellie," the mare said, desperately. "Is Danny ok? I must see him."

"He's... fine..." said Josh, trying to discern the true identity of the mare that looked just like his own mate but never sounded anything like this. He squinted, "Did you say you're Cellie?"

The mare nodded, but Shianna shook her head and stepped forward. "No way, Josh! That isn't Danny. That's Zhorelle! Don't trust her!"

Daniel was startled by the unexpected denial of his own female lover. On his home world, he talked exactly like this in the persona of Pandora, and Shianna could not get enough it. But then he remembered... Bizarro World.

"Shianna... I'm not Zhorelle. I really am Daniel Racher."

"Then prove it," said Josh. "Step out."

The mare stomped the ground. "I can't right now. I... I had an accident." Daniel raised his head. Maybe that explanation would suffice. "I came here to warn Danny that the same accident is about to happen to him. Only he won't be as lucky as I was because Rovaun isn't here to save him."

Wrong move. The Anthraun took great offense at that remark.

"I can take care of my mate, whoever you are." Josh and Shianna turned their backs and walked away, though Shianna continued to glance over her shoulder, never taking an eye off of Zhorelle when they shared a zip code.

"No!" said Daniel running to cut them off. "I can prove it, Josh. Ask me anything!"

The Anthraun sighed and agreed to humor the mare one more time. "All right, where did we last meet?"

"Bonding rock. Fifteen feet up!" was the instant reply.

The Anthraun reacted with more skepticism than Danny had expected. Shianna turned to Josh, "Is that right?"

"Yes," Josh said to her with furled brow, "but she answered so fast that it's almost as if she'd been coached."

"Damn it Josh," stomped the mare, "I answered that fast because I just CAME from there! I'm trying to save your mate's life! For God's sake tell me where he is!"

The Anthraun clenched and relaxed his jaw several times, making a calculated decision. Shianna had decided years ago. "Don't," she voted.

Josh folded his arms, then said enigmatically, "You'll find my mate planting a sunrise tree." Shianna sighed and looked away.

"Please tell me where," begged Daniel.

Josh cocked his head and said deliberately, "If you are who you say you are, then you shouldn't have to ask that question."

Daniel stepped back nonplused. He had never heard that phrase before, but the clumsy euphemism was clear: Danny was sticking his morning wood into someone or something. But who? More importantly, where? He looked around the camp, but detected no evidence of a human getting laid. Unfortunately, this clue from Josh didn't narrow things down very much. Daniel cursed himself for being such a whore. Not only that, it didn't make sense. If he were in Danny's place, the only creature getting his morning wood would be Josh. Bizarro World strikes again.

Maybe that was it... think Bizarro World. That was the main clue in the dream that got him here. To get to Bizarro World, he had to do what he would not normally do. That meant Danny was fucking someone that he would not normally fuck. But who? That was the problem! There was no one that he would not normally fuck, because Danny would fuck anything. Wait, turn it around... Who would not normally fuck Danny? The most obvious candidate was Fred. The idea was absurd but he had no time to debate it.

"Danny's doing Fred?"

Josh drummed his fingers on his forearm, not amused in the slightest by the mare that continued to insult him.

Daniel grew weary of having to divine all these obtuse dreams and riddles on the spot when lives were on the line, yet it was plain that Josh expected him to know this. And if he didn't figure it out soon, then Josh, Shianna and the entire clique would overpower him to prevent him from contacting Danny. And then two innocents would die.

Time was running out. The sun had just cleared the horizon. Daniel glanced at it anxiously, then suddenly stared right at it realizing his mistake... Planting a sunrise tree... It wasn't a euphemism at all. Danny really was planting a tree during the sunrise. Where would he plant a tree that could see the sunrise? It had to be on a mountain or a hill facing east. But which one? There were dozens of possible locations within a three mile radius. Yet Josh expected him to know which mountain. To make matters more confounding, Danny was not normally a morning person. He watched plenty of sunsets on mountains but never a sunrise. This was a dead end as well, and there were no more hints.

Planting a sunrise tree.

Daniel studied the sunrise again. Danny was planting the tree during the sunrise. That had to be the key: the tree didn't care about the sunrise, it was the planting of it that mattered. It was a ritual.

The mare exhaled deeply to regroup. If Danny was planting a tree, then Daniel should know where it was. The only trees he ever planted were back at the barn when he tried to start a small apple orchard that ended in disaster. That couldn't be it. Think damn it! If he were Danny, which he was, where would he plant a tree? That was the problem. He WOULDN'T plant a tree; he hated trees. Every tree he planted died. This had to be a trick question. He looked up at Josh, who began to unfold his arms in disgust. The answer was supposed to be easy in Bizarro World, where everyone does what they don't normally do. In Bizarro World, Danny is a morning person. In Bizarro World, Danny plants trees. In Bizarro World euphemisms are literal. In Bizarro World, Shianna loathes Pandora. In Bizarro World, Rovaun is... having a tree planted in his memory!

"Thank you Josh!" shouted the mare as she dashed off to Rovaun's garden.

Shianna shrugged, admitting that maybe she was wrong. "I think we'd better follow her."

"I agree," said Josh as they headed in the same direction. "Do you still think that's Zhorelle?"

"It sure sounds like her," said Shianna, "but I've never seen her act this way. Zhorelle certainly wouldn't give a shit about Danny. But she IS conniving, and if she somehow found out that Danny was inhabiting her body, I can imagine her trying to do something about it."

"In that case, my mate is now in danger whether or not she was telling truth."

While galloping to Rovaun's garden, Daniel kicked himself for not figuring it sooner. Planting a sunrise tree made perfect sense. The sunrise symbolized life. Danny's love for Rovaun was forever and always; Rovaun would always be alive. Daniel prayed that the wasted seconds reaching that obvious conclusion did not rend Bizarro World in two.

When he reached the protective thicket of brambles that shielded the garden from casual travelers, he tore through it without regard to the thorns that did their best to strip his hide from his equine skeleton. It was then that his fears were realized. Near Rovaun's grave, a black mare lay prostrate on the ground, while a large gray Hipponaur bent over her.

"Bouceph STOP!" shouted Daniel as he sprinted toward his biological son.

The gelding looked up in surprise, then down in even more surprise, then stood up confused and wary of the second Zhorelle. "Mom?"

"Yes Bouceph, it's me," said Daniel as Zhorelle, the deception not being difficult at all. "What have you done to him!"

"Mom, what's going on?"

"Tell me what you have done to him!" she demanded.

"Nothing... you mean the guy living in your body?... Mom, why are there two of you?"

"Have you hurt him?" she asked desperately.

"Well, I was kinda thinking about it, but then you showed up. Did you know about this?"

That's all Daniel needed to hear. Two innocents were safe. Bizarro World was intact, but if not, he could take some small comfort knowing that the ulcer connected him to the more pleasant of the two.

With the crisis averted, the mare calmed down to deal with Bouceph, and Zhorelle provided the perfect arsenal to do so. Daniel tapped into her cunning cortex to manipulate her son, which was something that Zhorelle would normally do, even on Bizarro World.

"Yes, Bouceph," said Zhorelle. "I set him up in there as my personal life insurance policy."

"Um,... why are there two of you again?"

Making up a lie was not going to be any more believable than the truth. However, when it came to Zhorelle, some sprinkling of lies was standard operating procedure.

"That version of me came from a parallel world where I died. I allow the human soul to cohabit my body in order to keep it alive. That way, if I should die, my soul will have a healthy body to return to, and then I can kick him out when he's not looking."

Bouceph stood slack-jawed for a moment then grinned. The preposterous idea that his mother could travel between parallel worlds was made perfectly believable by the fact that she had found a devious way to exploit it. "Oh, Ma, that is fucking brilliant. Hee-hee-hee, does the squatter know?"

"He knows that I'm allowing him to live in my body, but he doesn't know why. I am cordial to him, and I expect you to be the same."

The gelding rose up. "Why should I? In fact, right now I think he's in the perfect position for a good boning."

Zhorelle steamed at her belligerent offspring; blackmail usually got him to come around. "Because I have also set YOU up with a personal life insurance policy on his world... and I can always UNset it up."

Bouceph snorted. "Are you saying that somewhere I have a human living in my body too?"

"That's right."

"Who is it?"

"Parceph's companion." Suddenly Zhorelle winced for spilling too much information that was actually true.

"Parceph's human is living in my body?" laughed her son. "Oh that's perfect! I kinda wanna drop dead right now just so I can boot the jackass out."

"Yes, well, I'm sure a lot of us would want that."

Josh and Shianna burst through the thicket just as Danny was stirring. Bouceph resumed his standard slack-jawed gape at the Anthraun. "What the fuck is that thing," he mumbled to Zhorelle.

"Parallel world," was the entirely believable reply.

Josh bent down to help his mate up. Zhorelle and Bouceph stepped back to give him room.

"Are you ok, Love?" he asked.

"I think so," said the mare in a masculine human voice. Danny stumbled to his feet and glared at the gelding. "Bouceph attacked me."

"Sorry," said Bouceph. "I didn't know you were renting."

"Shut up," snipped Zhorelle.

While Bouceph remained transfixed by the bizarre display of his dead mother hugging an alien mutant, Zhorelle took a private moment to visit the grave of her beloved bond mate, where a newly planted apple tree kept him company. She could not help but silently mourn the loss of her dearest companion, though logically she could not comprehend why. Back home, Rovaun was alive and happy and as sexy as ever. In Bizarro World, Josh fulfilled Danny's every emotional and physical need that Rovaun's departure left wanting. And yet, so much had changed in so little time. So much pain seemed to envelop the entire planet without him. She could not explain to her brain or her heart why she missed him; she just did.

Bouceph joined her and stood quietly beside her, obviously affected by her apparent remorse. "Is that Dad?" he asked solemnly.

Zhorelle nodded softly.

"Did he have a life insurance policy too?"

She shook her head as tears began to well. Bouceph didn't recognize her anymore.

"Why are you crying?" he asked. "There's his grave. Start dancing like you always said you would."

She glared at him in screaming silent disgust then returned to the others without saying anything. Bouceph didn't understand. His mother hated his father; she reminded him of that every time they fucked. The clueless Hipponaur looked at the grave and the apple tree and then suddenly got a clue. He lowered his head and returned to his mother.

"I'm an ass," he said. She did not disagree.

"I'm going to be leaving soon," she said. "I need to go back to take care of business."

"Can I come with you?"

"No."

Bouceph did not bother to argue. With his mother, the only time 'no' did not mean 'no' was whenever he asked her if she wanted to be raped.

The Anthraun diverted his attention from his own mare to her. "I owe you an apology, Danny."

Bouceph's ears perked.

"I am Zhorelle," she said, calmly. "Danny is over there."

Josh caught on quickly. "Oh, sorry, well you gotta admit that it's not easy telling you two apart."

"Tell me about it," said Bouceph. "Good thing Mom showed up when she did, otherwise there'd be two of her walking around here. Probably make a bitchen cat fight."

"That's a cheery thought," said Shianna sarcastically.

Bouceph greeted his bond mare in the usual fashion. "Nice ta see ya, Cunt."

"Likewise, Eunuch," was the icy reply.

Bouceph had been called a lot of terrible things in his life, but this was the first time he had ever been called that, the incident of his castration in Arizona having occurred only two weeks ago. He had no clever comeback, so he just glared at her and then dropped his head again. In Bizarro World, Bouceph had shame. He wandered over to the pool to set down alone and feel sorry for himself.

For a moment, Shianna perceived that she was starting to feel the slightest iota of empathy for the witless gelding, but like a horse fart, she let it pass.

Daniel took the opportunity to drop the charade and talk privately with Danny and Josh. He strolled back to Rovaun's grave, motioning the other two to follow.

"Are you sure you're ok?" he asked Danny. "And Tattoo?"

"We're fine," he replied. "But the real question is, are YOU ok? What the hell happened to you?"

Daniel nodded to Zhorelle's pathetic progeny by the pool. "Bouceph destroyed every brain cell in my head that belonged to Daniel Racher and then returned Zhorelle to the throne. For several hours I was Zhorelle in nearly every conceivable way."

"Holy sh...," said Danny, extrapolating the consequences. "Thank God you got here when you did."

The mare smiled at him, recalling how this morning had started. "Yes, thank God indeed."

"So... are you Zhorelle or not?" worried Danny.

"You can stop worrying," he said, knowing what the other would be freaking about most. "I am Daniel Racher. But it's more complicated than that, now. I also have a feminine side that I can access at will. My female persona is named Pandora, and she is as feminine as a mare can get."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Daniel chuckled, "I know this is hard to believe, Danny, but I actually enjoy being Pandora sometimes. She can be very entertaining."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Don't worry, the first thing I'm gonna do when I get home is give Rovaun a big strong human man-hug, then maybe a manly blow job as only us real men can do."

Danny smiled and nodded, happy for his gay manly self. He slipped a virtual hand down Josh's pants just to remind everyone. The Anthraun swatted it.

Daniel reflected upon the hapless Hipponaur by the edge of the pool. "If Bouceph knew I wasn't really his mother, then he'd be much less controllable. Funny thing is," he said pitying him, "I really do feel like he is my son, worthless though he may be. I don't want to see him hurt."

"I will hurt him if it comes to that," warned Josh.

"I know you will, and if it comes to that, don't hesitate." Daniel sighed at his offspring. "He has been killed, or executed on every other world I've been to except this one. I hope he can figure out how to coexist here."

Daniel tested the progress of his recovery, managing to produce a full human hand that flexed its fingers. "Oh good. Virtual Danny is waking up."

Josh hugged his mate affectionately. "If that happened to you, Love, I'm sure I could wake you up with one of these." The prince kissed his prince.

"I don't mean to offend you, Josh," said Daniel, "but quite honestly, you would not have been able to save Danny if Bouceph had been successful. Only Rovaun could have done that... in fact, now that I think of it, Rovaun did help save Danny's life by dying right here. It took Bouceph extra time to find him because he was here tending the grave. I could not have stopped Bouceph yesterday."

The Anthraun snorted getting tired of being reminded of The Great Rovaun, who was so awesome that he could save lives while decaying into methane.

"Josh, you misunderstand me," said Daniel. "I'm not saying that you are not capable of protecting Danny; you ARE. But what you are not capable of doing is convincing Zhorelle of anything that she doesn't want to believe, for the simple fact that she doesn't love AND hate you." The mare turned to Danny. "The things I did to Rovaun would make your skin crawl. I tortured him, humiliated him, blackmailed him, and the big lug took it all in stride out of love for me."

"And so would I!" insisted Josh.

"Of course you would," replied Daniel, "but Zhorelle doesn't know you. She has no history with you. She wouldn't care enough to do those things to you. If you tried to convince her that she's really Daniel Racher, she'd just tell you to fuck off and give you directions to the nearest freak show. And that would be the end of the conversation no matter how persistent you were. And then..." Daniel took a breath, "Zhorelle would realize that she's still pregnant with Danny's child, and without Rovaun around to use that as leverage against him, she would have no reason to keep it. Both Danny and Tattoo would be gone."

Danny shivered, "I think he's right, hun." Then he let out a long slow exhale to blow away the awful fate that was seconds away from becoming the rest of his immortal life.

The Anthraun stood silently willing to concede. "Thank you for saving him," he said softly.

"Josh," said Daniel approaching him to offer an affectionate nuzzle. "I don't have any doubts about you and Danny. I've seen your future; it looks pretty good to me."

"Oh?" said Danny intrigued. "What have you seen?"

"This place," replied Daniel. "You and Josh, Tantau and Tattoo frolicking in the pool."

"Sounds idyllic," smiled the Anthraun hugging his mate again.

Daniel sighed quietly, admiring the recently planted arbor. "That's a really sweet gesture, Danny."

"I think Rovaun would have liked it," he nodded.

Then the mare cocked her head as if something were out of place. "Hmm."

"What is it?"

"That's odd," said Daniel. "I don't remember seeing this tree in the dream."

"You don't?" said Danny, bewildered.

Simultaneously, the two mares sighed at each other, "It dies."

[End of _COMPANIONS_ Chapter 38: Welcome to Bizarro World]

[Next in series: Chapter 39: The Odd Couple]