Annie Morphs 04

Have Hooves, Can Canter

It was supposed to be a video call, but there was no sign of Annie. She’d propped up her phone in her kitchen, giving me a less than fascinating view of her fridge and microwave and disappeared off screen to make her breakfast. I could hear her voice, though, fading in and out as she moved around, out of sight.

‘It’s no good waking up bored. What can I turn into today?’

She always liked to start the day with a spot of morphing, and yes, I was into it. I’d tell her off for how much time she spent on her transformations, but really, I think I was trying not to seem too eager.

‘You get too carried away with all that stuff,’ I said, not entirely convincingly. ‘You should take a break from it for a while.’

Her voice grew distant and there was the faint sound of dishes clattering.

‘Hah! Not right now, I don’t think. There’s a terrible ache inside me and I’ve got to change.’

‘Don’t be so dramatic!’ I snorted back.

I had to be careful, though. I felt I’d put up enough mock resistance to disguise my enthusiasm but I didn’t want to discourage her. I gave a sigh of ‘defeat’ that wouldn’t have fooled anyone and quickly switched to the positive.

‘So, what’s it going to be?’

Annie’s face suddenly popped on to my screen, close up to the camera. She smiled.

‘My favourite Marx Brothers film is “A Day at the Races”. I’ve a feeling for fetlocks and four legs today.’

I was surprised and a little excited.

‘Can you do something that large?’

‘Oh yes,’ replied Annie without hesitation. ‘But I tend to need a run up for the big ones. I’ll have to go into the back garden to get underway.’

With that, Annie picked up her phone and the view on my screen somersaulted and spun. There was a giddying sense of movement before the picture steadied once more, focussing on the washing basket in the corner of her kitchen. There was a pause, and then Annie’s old-fashioned striped pyjamas flew into frame, first the bottoms – landing with a satisfying ‘whuff’ right into the basket – and then the top – flopping against the side and hitting the floor. Annie didn’t stop to pick it up. The view spun away once more and the next thing I heard was a rattle of keys and the back door being opened.

Annie’s back yard was private enough, with large privets on two sides and a high wood panel fence on the third. In theory someone looking out of an upper window of a neighbour’s house would be able to see her, but they didn’t usually bother. The owner of the house to her left had made a noise complaint once, when she had howled at a full moon, but Annie had apologised and promised to keep noise from her transformations to a minimum in future. I had seen Annie change here before, both in person and over video, and I was soon presented with a familiar view as she set up her phone to get the best coverage.

Annie got into position on the small lawn, her naked form well away from the flower beds

‘Okay, I’m ready,’ she announced and turned sideways on to the camera. ‘Here we go...’

She began swinging her arms, almost like a diver on a high board afraid to make that final jump. Annie had no such fear – she threw herself right in, almost literally. She thrust her hands forward and bent her back as if she was about to crouch down on the ground. She gave out a strangled wail of frustration, like someone trying to move a heavy object that just wasn’t having it. She straightened up and caught her breath.

‘I told you this needed a run up. And again...’

She flung her arms out once more and crouched over, again gasping and wailing intermittently with the strain. Her struggle looked like it was bearing fruit as coarse grey hair spontaneously began to sprout from her bare shoulders and neck, but this didn’t last and the hair melted away with the sound of Annie’s cries. She swore and tugged at her ears in a not-entirely-serious show of trying to kickstart her transformation. She calmed herself down and refocussed her efforts.

‘Now I’ve got the measure of it,’ she announced, smacking the naked skin on her arms and torso, perhaps to stimulate her circulation. ‘Under starters orders...’

This time Annie exploded into action. Her cry almost became a scream, but it changed in tone and quality as Annie herself began to change. Her arms, flung forward yet again, started to crack and realign as the bones and joints changed position or reversed.

The grey hair returned, this time spreading rapidly, like an ink stain along her shoulders and down her hunched back. It continued to spread up her neck, which was now thickening out to support a head which was lengthening and stretching into the familiar equine shape. Simultaneously, fingers which had become stubs dissolved into what were now clearly hooves.

Annie fell forward and took the weight of her bulking body on them. Her horse face was nearly complete, but human-like expressions could still be made out upon it. She shook out large, twitching ears and a ragged mane and then turned her attention to her rear half, at this point still recognisably human.

She shook her body and stamped her feet, pounding them into another pair of hooves. Her thighs blossomed with strength and power, the ripple of transforming muscle preceded by a wavefront of grey hair.

She was almost entirely horse, stood there on four legs, head high, snorting and chuffing in the morning air. A final series of shakes and strains tidied up the few irregular patches of grey and evened up the muscle tone of various parts of Annie’s body that had transformed at different rates. Those shakes worked their way down to her hind quarters and terminated with the emergence of a tail, dock and skirt arching out of her coccyx in one fluid movement.

There, on the lawn in Annie’s back garden, was a large, grey mare.

She trotted over to her phone.

‘That was unbelievable,’ I shouted down the line to her. ‘Look at the size of you.’

For a second, I almost believed she was going to talk back to me. But the little whinny of reply was somehow just as satisfying. I was gutted I wasn’t there to see her up close. To pet her and maybe even to ride her..?

But for now, it was enough to see her getting her transformative kicks and enjoying herself as she went for a very short canter around the garden. I hadn’t believed she’d be able to change into something so big.

Would she be able to do something even bigger?