None of this was happening. None of this could be happening. She must have fallen and smacked her head against one of the larger rocks that dotted the water. It was the only explanation for what she was—what she couldn’t possibly be—seeing.
The centaur blinked slowly. Her eyes were steely gray, like her hair. How nice that she’s color-coordinated, thought Regan, and swallowed what would surely have been a borderline-hysterical giggle.
“Human?” said the centaur in a wondering tone. It was the same tone Regan would have used to say “unicorn,” had she been able to speak. “Are you a human? Am I standing in front of a human?”
Regan tried to pull in a breath that she could use to shape her reply. Her lungs refused to cooperate, and all she managed to do was make a faint, wounded wheezing sound.
The centaur let go of the unicorn’s horn and clapped her massive hands, producing a sound akin to thunder. The unicorn flicked one petaled ear but didn’t run. Regan swayed in place, more sure than ever that this had to be a dream. Nothing else made sense. Unicorns weren’t real. Centaurs weren’t real either, and if they had been, they wouldn’t have been utterly enchanted by the sight of a human.
“You’ve just arrived, haven’t you?” asked the centaur. “Bright and beautiful and brand-new, and I found you! Me, Pansy, found a human before someone else had a claim to chase. That’s even better than bringing back a lost unicorn! A real human—you are a human, aren’t you, not satyr or silene playing games with poor Pansy?”
“I’m human,” whispered Regan. Her voice sounded dull, almost deadened. Still, now that she’d found it, it was willing to let her keep going, which she considered very sporting of it. “You’re not real. None of this is real. Unicorns don’t exist.”
“But here I am, and here’s a unicorn, and there you are.” The centaur beamed. “Come on, human, let’s go see the others. They’re going to be even happier about this than I am.”
Regan shook her head. “No. This isn’t real. Centaurs are characters from Greek mythology. They’re not named ‘Pansy,’ and they don’t take lost human girls to see their friends. I’m dreaming.”
“You must be a lot of fun at parties, if you always argue with your dreams,” said Pansy, cocking her massive head. “Look, you have two choices: either this is happening, and you have the chance to meet Her Sunlit Majesty, which is a rare and glorious privilege, or this is a dream, and you have the chance to dream about meeting Her Sunlit Majesty. Either way, telling me I don’t exist doesn’t seem like a very good way to move forward. You want to take a deep breath and try again?”
Regan took a deep breath. Her knees buckled, and before she had a chance to react, she found herself sitting on the ground, crushing more of the little white flowers. She stared at Pansy. “Her Sunlit Majesty?” Her butt ached where it had hit the ground. She was probably going to bruise. She’d never been bruised in a dream before.
“Queen Kagami, ruler of the Hooflands for as long as I’ve been living. Longer, even. She’s the first kirin queen we’ve had in, oh, ages, and ages.”
“Kirin?” said Regan blankly. She had encountered the word in her reading, but not often enough to know what it meant.
“Like a unicorn, but smart as a person.” Pansy sighed dreamily. “They’re beautiful. Her Sunlit Majesty is supposed to be the most beautiful of all.”
“Supposed to be?”
“I’ve never seen her. No one has. She’s too beautiful for common folk to gaze upon; only the human will get to see her. I’ve never even been to the castle, because I’m just a herder, we don’t have lots of opportunities to travel that far from our fields.” Pansy brightened. “But now I can! Because you’re here! Oh, everyone says only the human gets to see the monarch, but maybe they let the person who brings the human have a look as well! That would be a story to share a supper over. Me, seeing the Queen.”
Regan felt like she was drowning. “This is real,” she said. There were too many details she wouldn’t have invented on her own.
Looking amused, Pansy nodded. “This is real,” she agreed. “You’re human. You saw a strange door, right? And you went through it, and now you’re here?”
“Yes,” said Regan in a small voice.
“Welcome to the Hooflands,” said Pansy. “We’re happy to have you, even if you being here means something’s coming.”
“Something’s … coming?” Regan scrambled to her feet, dusting crushed flowers and mud off the seat of her jeans.
“When a human shows up in the Hooflands, it means something bad’s about to happen. You’re tricky little things. Well suited to tight spaces, and thumbs. Having thumbs is sort of like having a magical sword no one can take away from you. It’s destiny!” Pansy held up her hands and wiggled her own thumbs exaggeratedly. “Centaurs have thumbs, but we can’t fit in a lot of places humans can, and we don’t swim very well.”
“Swim?” asked Regan blankly. She was starting to feel as if she’d been dropped into a conversation that had started long before her arrival.
“Sometimes swimming counts.” Pansy grabbed the unicorn by the horn and tugged it toward her. “If you’re done being shocky and convinced none of this is happening, you should come with me. Everyone’s going to be so excited to meet you! Do you have a name? I can’t just keep calling you ‘the new human.’”
“Regan,” said Regan unsteadily.
“Good name,” said Pansy. “Well, come on, Regan. We can’t stand here all day and expect the world to come to us.” Still holding the unicorn’s horn, Pansy began walking into the trees, back in the direction from which she had come.
Lacking any better ideas about how to cope with this strange new situation, Regan hugged her schoolbag to her chest and hurried after the centaur. Pansy smelled of clean fur and good, honest horse sweat, and that alone was enough to make Regan’s shoulders relax a little. This was all strange and impossible and maybe not even happening, but horses were horses, and as long as there were horses, things would turn out all right in the end.
“So,” asked Pansy, “what brings you here?” Then she laughed, as if she’d just said the funniest thing in the entire world.
“My feet?” ventured Regan. Pansy laughed even harder, her grasp on the unicorn’s horn never slipping.
“I like you, human Regan,” she said. “You’re all right. I always thought a human would be stuck-up and weird, but you’re almost like a normal person.”
Regan blinked. “Why would a human be stuck-up?” she asked.
“I told you; thumbs.” Pansy kept walking, her hooves clopping against the ground. “Thumbs aren’t that common, and most of us that have them aren’t as flexible as a human. We can’t fit into the narrow places where humans can go, and we can’t climb like humans can. We all know we’re limited.”
Regan, who had never considered that a centaur, with a horse’s powerful legs and incredible speed, might think a human was better than them, blinked and walked on in silence. Ahead of her, the unicorn lifted its long, silvery tail and delicately defecated on the path. It didn’t slow down or make any effort to cover what it had done. Regan wrinkled her nose. Manure was manure, even when it came out of a unicorn.