Mean Old Mule

Her Personality Becomes Her

“Just what do you think you’re doing? Git on!”

The old horsewoman scowled, digging the sharp spurs into the sides of the brown mule that she rode, perhaps a shade too small for her long legs, heels jabbed up at an angle just so she could get them into the most sensitive parts of his flanks. Grunting, he threatened to kick, crabbing sideways, and she swore, clumps of brown, sweaty hair sticking out from beneath her Stetson. As fashionable as it was for the working riders of her ilk, it was hardly practical in the slightest and would, one day, prove the downfall of enough for hard hats to be pressed upon those resisting.

The old mule snorted and ground his teeth over the harsh bit, jawing and flinching from her, although it was not in fear but anger. His small, tough hooves skittered as she sawed at the reins and forced him on, driving and kicking until that one little mule could take no more from his mean old mule of an owner.

He didn’t know her name. Never before had he cared to understand it. She wouldn’t need a human name for very much longer.

For, as she rode the old mule into the ground, his eye gleamed and he grunted, although he neither had a bray nor a more equine sort of cry to sully the air with. No, he had much more to give her than that and the weight of the woman’s body dragged her down and down and down, her shoulder connecting with the hard-packed soil with a solid thud before her mind even caught up with what was happening to her.

But that was fine. No longer would she have to worry about her mind, her human intelligence, her sense of holding on to human notions and the reality of that kind of life. The woman gasped but no air entered her lungs, chest tight and aching as her back dragged out sharply, clothes ripping straight down the middle. No, no... She couldn’t get a grip on what was happening to her, eyes bulging obscenely out of their sockets and a vein jumping at her temple, pulsing madly as if that alone would give her some form of release.

Of course, it was not to be and the mule snorted and watched her with a knowing bob of his head, wiser beyond all of the years that she may have otherwise have claimed for herself. She strove to claw at the ground but her fingers abruptly sealed themselves together, melding into a hoof as she stared in horror, Stetson on the ground and hair falling out in thick lumps, only to be replaced with something more. Mules were not known for their coats and she gained one that was, perhaps, halfway through the shedding process, grotty and clumpy in all the wrong places. Heaving for breath that would not come, she grunted and struggled up, wavering on two feet before tumbling down once again.

The ground was a friend. It was what she walked on each and every day of her life. It was about time she learned to keep all four feet on it.

Nothing more for her, nothing at all on the human side of life. As a rough hide of hair coated her from head to toe, her face bulged out into an animalistic snout at the same time that a thick tail stretched from her spine. The pull came with a ring of pain as if was not actually meant to be there and her mule brayed with laughter, the broken sound of a donkey crossed with a horse. It was neither one nor the other and neither was she as her nostrils stretched into that typical shape, allowing good airflow for her tough, little lungs, swelling to fill the cavity of her chest, ribcage rising out in prongs of protection. Staggering, she got onto all fours, her hooves and fetlocks cracking anxiously into shape, once change hustling awkwardly in after the other as if her body simply could not keep up, needing something more in order to keep going.

And yet she could have avoided it all if she was only kinder to her animals. In that way, it was sad. But never again would a mule feel the cut of her spurs or lash of her whip as he dawdled in the arena as his last owner’s hind end shifted to that of a male mule, intact and ready to be used, although he would never again be allowed that kind of pleasure.

No... The magic didn’t work that way. Sterile as a mule, the male mule who used to be a woman grunted and heaved, sounds rolling up from his churning gut as if that was all he needed to spill out. His hindquarters trembled, rounding out with muscle that they were known for and not an ounce of spare fat, small and tough and agile. Ah, there was much to be gained from a mule if only he had known, before, how to tease that out but that was no longer a problem as his rough brown and grey coat sealed itself around his fetlocks, hocks pointed and ready for action, tucked smartly beneath his body.

Shuddering, the mule’s eyes dulled to less than animalistic intelligence, no longer partial to the world around him and obedient to all. He would be used to the end of his days for all that his body could do for the world and learn just what it meant to be a pack mule, something just to be pushed around for human gain. And it would be nothing more than he deserved for all the animals mistreated in the course of his human life.

And the old mule who had started it all could not think of a more fitting end for ‘her’. If he could have smirked, he would have done so, kicking up his heels and trotting off in search of hay or perhaps someone who would treat him more kindly. Either way, it did not matter when the old, mean mule behind him staggered and groaned, striving to make sense of a body that that dull, little mind could not hope to understand.

The best-worse things really did happen sometimes!