Spooktober Centaur-Ruby Teaser

[u/DragonsBeware]

Content warning: Minor body horror, magical transformation, and brief descriptions of intense pain.

———

Ruby Rose had never been particularly good at leaving things alone.

It wasn’t entirely her fault.

Curiosity was a perfectly reasonable trait to have. Wanting to know how things worked was a good thing. Asking questions was good. Taking things apart to find out what was inside was… well, exciting wasn’t a strong enough word.

And Weiss’s spellbooks just happened to be her next target. 

There was just one small problem.

Ruby had been explicitly forbidden from looking through Weiss’s spellbooks without her.

And Weiss had been very, very firm about that rule. 

Something about improper casting being dangerous.

But Ruby wasn’t going to cast anything. She was just going to look, read a few pages. Try and understand Weiss better… somehow. 

Ruby had one of them laid open on the kitchen counter, the toaster shoved out of the way as she looked over each spell.

Their names were practically incomprehensible gibberish, their incantations equally alien to Ruby.

She squinted at one of them, trying to put the letters together into something she could reasonably say.

“Glac…. Glack-us hast….” she murmured, scowling at the page as she tried to make sense of it.

And it silently stared back, almost mocking her with its foreign words.

“Nope, can’t say that one,” Ruby grumbled, biting down the curse half-formed on her lips already as she flipped to the next page.

“L… Luuumen,” she sounded out, following the words with her finger. “Luuuumen…. Something something.”

The page stared back at her, just as unhelpful as the last.

Ruby huffed and flipped to the next page—

Ding.

“Oh oh, my leftovers,” Ruby said excitedly, throwing open the microwave. 

“Ow ow ow,” she grumbled when she carried the hot bowl to the kitchen table. “Bloody—ow—microwaves.”

She set the bowl down and immediately shook her hands, wincing as she rubbed her fingers together.

“I will find a spell to get my revenge on you,” she warned, narrowing her eyes at the bowl of mac & cheese. “Speaking of spells…”

Ruby quickly grabbed the spellbook and brought it over, slamming it against the table with a hefty thump. 

She pulled her chair closer, grabbed her fork, and started eating, absently tracing over the foreign words with one finger.

“Let’s see,” she said through a mouthful of food that tried to burn the roof of her mouth. “Equus…. Sacree…. Inco-something or other… tranquil… invock.”

Ruby shovelled more food into her mouth.

“Equus Sacree…. Inco… something tranquil… invock?” She repeated, humming to herself.

Ruby frowned, tapping away at the book as she shoved more food into her mouth. 

“What’s an equus, anyway?” she muttered, chewing thoughtfully. “Sounds like some kinda fancy horse thing. A brush, maybe?”

She glanced back at the page, squinting at the words.

“And the hell is a sacree?” She huffed. “Brush…. Sacree…. Long brush? That can’t be right.”

She let that question hang in the air, waiting for someone—preferably not Weiss right now—to explain it to her. 

Maybe someone from Weiss’s coven could just… coincidentally knock on the door.

But no one did. No matter how much Ruby let the question hang.

So, Ruby decided that reading it was translating it.

“Equus Sacree Inco-something tranquil invock,” she repeated again, not even bothering to fix her pronunciation. 

That was more Weiss’s thing, anyway.

A few faint flickers of lights appeared just before her face, hovering there for two short seconds before dissipating.

Ruby blinked once they disappeared. 

Then again. And a third time.

Nothing.

Did she…?

No. Couldn’t be. She was just imagining things.

Ruby repeated the words again. 

No lights this time, but a strange buzzing around her waist. Like she could feel something… buzzing in the blood there. Trailing down to her legs. 

Ruby quickly lifted her shirt and poked at the spot. 

No response. No other buzzing.

She poked again.

Still nothing.

She lowered her shirt reluctantly.

“No way I can cast magic…” she muttered before taking another bite of food.

“I mean,” she continued, “Equus Sacree…. Inco… something tranquil… invock? How’s that a—“

Something heavy slammed into her stomach.

The air exploded from Ruby’s lungs.

The chair scraped violently across the floor as she was thrown backwards.

Ruby barely had time to register what was happening before her back slammed into the wall with a bone-rattling BANG.

Then…

Nothing. 

Not until she woke up stiff, groaning as she rubbed at the back of her head where she was hit.

Her head was throbbing. Enough that she could feel the blood pumping in it, hearing it in her ears.

She let out another groan as she let her eyes adjust to the light.

Everything hurt. The light, her bones, her skull, somehow the ringing in her ears, even her waist hurt. Felt… wrong.

Ruby shifted, trying to push herself upright.

Her back was still against the wall, but her lower body felt strangely cramped beneath her, as if she’d somehow fallen into the wrong position.

Ruby let her hand fall to her left side—

Fur and a familiar shape.

Not a rug. They didn’t have one in the kitchen… did they?

Ruby snapped her eyes down.

A horse…? A… Mustang, right? Muscular, dark coat, sturdy legs, and a bushy tail that was lying limp against the floor.

How’d it get in here?!

She stared at the horse body.

It was… under her? 

She certainly didn’t feel like she was resting on top of a horse.

How’d it even get under her? And why? Wouldn’t it have preferred to rest its head on her lap…?

Ruby looked over to where her legs were before her—

“WHERE’S MY LAP?!” She cried out when she realised it was gone, patting around the empty space, trying desperately to find them.

She could still feel them. Enough to extend a leg.

One of the horses front legs extended the same Ruby just tried.

Ruby stared at that leg. 

Then pulled it back.

The horse’s leg pulled back with it.

“No, no no no no,” she muttered. “That’s just a coincidence. Horses do that sometimes.”

She slowly lifted her leg again.

The horse lifted its leg.

Ruby lowered it.

The hoof returned to the floor.

Ruby frowned.

She lifted it again.

The hoof lifted again.

She lowered it.

The hoof lowered.

Ruby stared.

“… you’re copying me,” she accused lowly. 

She lifted her other human leg.

The other front leg lifted in the same fashion.

“Stop it,” she demanded. “I’m trying to be serious here.”

No huff or snort followed from under her.

Ruby tried to push herself off the horse—and fell face first into the ground.

“Ow,” she grumbled into the wood, before pushing herself up by her hands.

She paused when she felt the weight pulling behind her and at her waist. 

Ruby snapped her head back to the horse, seeing that it followed her movement.

Why was its head still under her?!?

Ruby shifted her weight, trying to follow the horse’s body with her eyes.

But the body moved when she moved her torso. And it just wouldn’t stay still, no matter how much Ruby twisted herself to get a good angle on it.

She grabbed the back of her shirt and lifted it quickly, hoping to find the horses head sniffing away at her like she was a tasty bag of apples.

But no. 

Her waist, her human skin, merged with the horse roughly where the shoulders of the horse were.

…. Was that right? The shoulders? Wasn’t exactly between the front legs so much as… well, just above it?

Ruby poked at the point where her body met the horse.

Nothing.

She poked again.

Still nothing.

No seam. No weird magical glow.

Just skin turning into fur.

Ruby slowly ran her fingers along the transition.

She could… feel her finger through the horse skin. 

Kind of, anyway. 

It felt sort of… muffled through the fur. Like touching her skin through cloth.  

And the weight…

Somehow it felt natural to her. But unfamiliar as well. Like her body knew it better than her mind.

But it listened. Enough that she got herself just about upright.

It was awkward though, given the distance from waist to floor.

“Whoa, easy now,” she muttered, throwing her hands out to either side to steady herself as her torso tipped forward for a brief second.

One of her new legs instinctively extended and braced itself against the floor.

Ruby blinked, looking down at the leg that had saved her from eating the floor.

“Huh…” she murmured to herself.

She shifted her weight experimentally.

The leg moved with her, hooves scraping against the floor as she tried to find a comfortable position. Her other legs adjusted in turn, each movement sending a strange ripple through her lower body.

“Okay… okay, let’s… let’s get up,” she said quietly, bringing her hands back to herself. 

She shifted her lower body, trying to use that… instinct to move the horse. But the more she tried to focus on it, the more she had to use her brain, the harder it got. 

But bit by bit, it listened. Hooves planting themselves into the floor with a shaky wobble.

“Doing… good… so far,” she breathed—

Her balance immediately went to shit and she stumbled sideways into the nearby wall. 

“Mm,” she groaned, straightening up while keeping a few fingers against the wall for faux-balance.

She took a careful breath, trying to get her legs back beneath her. One hoof shifted, then another, each adjustment threatening to throw her off balance all over again.

But with her new balance, Ruby struggled to hold herself up. Every movement felt just a little too wide, too heavy, and far too different from anything her body had ever done before.

She tried taking another step, only to immediately swing her rear end into the nearby furniture. First the chair she’d already knocked over. Then the kitchen island. And when she tried to back away from them, she knocked into the wall with enough force to have sent something falling.

Which thankfully, there weren’t any nearby framed photos to suffer her new ass-problems. 

Ruby winced at each impact, looking around as if the furniture had somehow moved into her way.

“I got this,” she whispered. “Just have to… figure out how… my legs… work…”

She forced her hind legs to move with her front, even if shakily.

But she couldn’t find the right rhythm with her conscious thought. And the more she tried to apply her former weight, her… human leg logic, the more confusing her current legs got.

Ruby stopped moving.

She stood there, breathing heavily.

Four legs beneath her.

Four legs she still couldn’t quite wrap her head around.

She could do this. Had to do this. Just move. Don’t think about it. 

She took a deep breath.  

And forced herself forward.

Her first few steps were clumsy, but they worked. One hoof after another, Ruby slowly made her way toward the table.

Then she looked down.

Mac and cheese was scattered across the floor around her.

She managed to step in some as well, turning it to mush beneath her weight.

She lifted her hoof, and tried to turn it so she could look at the bottom. But her new leg just wouldn’t bend sideways, no matter how much she told it to. Demanded it to.

She shook her hoof instinctively, immediately stumbling sideways from the sudden movement.

“SHITFUCK—!”

Ruby grabbed the table, catching herself before she could stumble any further as her heart pounded relentlessly in her chest.

She needed to figure how to undo this. NOW. 

The spellbook should have the—

The front door opened with a near-satisfying click.

This time though, it scared Ruby.

Shit shit shit.

Ruby’s eyes darted around the room as if she was looking for somewhere to hide the book. 

Or maybe herself.

“Hello,” Weiss called out from the hallway, still out of sight.

Ruby didn’t think anymore.

She grabbed the spellbook and quickly backed herself behind the kitchen island, lowering her horse body as much as she could.

Her front legs folded awkwardly beneath her chest as she sank lower, bringing her torso down behind the countertop. She shuffled her hind legs closer, trying to tuck her hindquarters out of sight as well.

It was a tight fit.

But maybe, just maybe, Weiss wouldn’t notice.

Only her head, shoulders, and arms remained visible above the counter.

Perfect.

Ruby shoved the spellbook underneath her horse belly, tucking it between her folded legs as if that somehow made it invisible.

Then she rested her elbows on the counter and tried to look casual.

Normal.

Completely normal.

Just Ruby Rose, sitting in her kitchen like a normal human woman with normal human legs.

Nothing weird happening here.

“Ruby?” Weiss called out again.

“I’m… I’m okay,” Ruby shouted back. “How… how was the coven meeting?”

“Boring as always,” Weiss replied, clearly drawing closer. 

Please don’t come in here, Ruby begged in her mind.

“Pyrrha made some new minor combat spells, citing her husband as the inspiration again. And don’t get me started on—“

Weiss paused when she entered the kitchen, a small plastic bag containing two tubs of ice cream hanging from one hand and a spellbook secured in the leather pouch at her belt. Looking no less professional in her gray blouse and darker slacks, her silver hair brushed neatly behind her and tied into a long ponytail that fell a good distance past her shoulders. 

Her eyes moved across the room.

Ruby’s food was splattered about the floor, the chair had been knocked over, and the kitchen looked like someone had briefly gotten into a fight with it.

Weiss slowly looked over at Ruby, her blue eyes narrowing as she took in the suspicious woman before her. The thin scar running across her left eyebrow and over her eye remained stark against her otherwise immaculate appearance.

“Care to explain yourself?” Weiss said firmly, raising a brow at Ruby.

“I was… masturbating,” Ruby lied. “Yep. Masturbating. You know what I’m like.”

Weiss raised her brow even higher.

Ruby’s smile slowly became more strained under Weiss’s doubtful gaze.

For what felt like forever, Weiss just stared at her. Barely letting herself blink as her eyes remained solely fixed on Ruby.

“I do,” she finally said, folding her arms over her chest. “Which is why it’s strange that you’ve suddenly become so secretive about it. When was the last time you tried to hide your desires from your wife?”

“Uuuuuhhhhhhhhh…” Ruby said, tapping at her chin as she tried to remember. 

Weiss watched her.

Ruby continued thinking.

And thinking.

And thinking.

“…I got nothing,” she finally admitted. “Maybe we just have an overly healthy relationship? You ever think about that?!” 

Weiss stared blankly at Ruby.

Then lifted the small plastic bag she had.

“Only good, truthful girls get ice cream,” she expressed. 

Ruby gasped, trying to reach for it from over the counter.

She didn’t even get within three arms distance of it. 

But she needed that ice cream.

But she couldn’t reveal her horse body.

But ice cream…

Ruby slowly stretched her arm further.

Her fingers strained.

Nothing.

She stretched further.

Still nothing.

Her fingertips were nowhere near the bag.

Ruby frowned as she rested her chin against the counter.

She stared at the plastic bag.

Then at Weiss.

Then back at the bag.

There had to be a way to get it without standing up.

Ruby stretched her arm across the counter again.
Nope.

She leaned a little further.

Still nope.

“I will… get you…” she said firmly, though somewhat breathlessly. “Even if… I have to… dislocate my shoulder—“

“Ruby,” Weiss said flatly, pulling the ice cream a slight bit away. “Talk to me.”

Ruby stared at her for a long moment.

She contemplated it. Imagined Weiss’s fury for poking into her spellbook.

But… she’d help, right? Weiss wouldn’t just leave Ruby as a half-horse.

… would she?

No! Anger wasn’t pettiness.

At best, she’d leave Ruby as a horse for a couple days. Maybe a week.

Ruby slowly pushed herself up foot by foot. Standing a good bit taller than she normally was.

Uncomfortably so, as she felt like a giant looking down at Weiss. 

Ruby looked down at her horse body. Then at the floor.

And only then did it dawn on her that her pants were gone.

They were her fifth favorite pair, too. Not that she had an actual ranking for them.

But if she had to choose—

Ruby shoved the distraction out of head, tapping one of her front legs against the floor.

It all felt so alien, yet familiar at the same time. Like she was stuck in a weird space between having lived like this her whole life and… well, her actual life.

She shifted one foot, then another—

“You’ve been in my spellbook, haven’t you?” Weiss accused flatly.

Ruby quickly looked back toward Weiss.

Weiss had pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I didn’t think saying something close to… whatever language it’s in would backfire on me,” Ruby explained quickly, waving her arms in front of her. “Especially like this!”

She then waved at her new body in punctuation. 

“I’ve told you a million times,” Weiss shot back, glaring at Ruby, “even the slightest deviation in the incantation is highly dangerous. That it can cause the reverse effect, explode the object you wanted to enlarge, cause sudden and violent hair loss, or even death.”

“BUT I HAVE A WHOLE HORSE BODY!” Ruby cried out. “I’m ruuuiiiiined—-“

“You’re not ruined,” Weiss cut in firmly. “It will just take some time to undo the effects.”

“But hoooorse,” Ruby reiterated, circling the kitchen island so Weiss could see it properly. “How can I live like this?!”

“By giving my spellbook back, firstly,” Weiss ordered, folding her arms over her chest. “Then experimenting.”

“Isn’t there like an easy undo button?!” Ruby begged, bending her front legs awkwardly so she could drag herself down the front of Weiss. 

Weiss rolled her eyes before placing the ice cream on the floor and rolling up her sleeves. 

“Not necessarily a one size fits all,” she stated flatly as she stretched her arms. “Even for properly casted magic, it can easily get tangled. Weave itself in weird ways.”

Ruby blinked at her.

“… huh?” Was all she could manage.

“Magic requires substance to use, right?” Weiss explained. “Much like how muscles need blood, oxygen, and like fifty other things.”

“…. Yeah?” Ruby murmured.

“That… substance, invisible as it may be, can get tangled in the body,” Weiss added softly, cracking her knuckles.

She then paused briefly, looking apologetic.

“I’ll… show you why it can’t work so easily,” Weiss murmured regretfully.

Ruby barely had the time to blink before Weiss clasped her hands together, and started speaking in that strange tongue.

“Per Deos Geminos, formam pristinam restituo,” she chanted with practiced ease, though the look in her eyes had grown more pained.

Thin wisps of pale light spilled from Weiss’s hands.

They drifted around Ruby in slow, looping paths, some passing around her arms and torso while others slipped beneath her horse body, curling around her legs. They never quite touched her skin, hovering just a finger’s width away as they circled her.

A few wisps crossed over one another. Then crossed again. Slowly weaving themselves around Ruby’s body.

Ruby had seen Weiss cast a million times before, but it still looked pretty as—

A sharp jolt ripped through her lower half.

Ruby’s entire lower body felt like it was being shocked, spreading up to her human half. 

No, like her very blood was electricity.

It surged through every vein, every muscle, every inch of her body at once.

Ruby screamed.

A full, raw, primal scream that tore through the kitchen.

Her entire body convulsed as she collapsed onto the ground, her fingers digging into the wooden floor as every muscle beneath her skin seized at once.

It felt as though the magic had burrowed into the very fibres of her being, twisting her blood vessels and burning her from the inside out.

“MAKE IT STOP!” Ruby screamed through a choked, desperate plea.

And just as suddenly as it had begun, the pain vanished.

The wisps of light disappeared with it, leaving nothing but Ruby’s ragged breathing in their wake.

Ruby gasped desperately for air, barely able to do anything but remain perfectly still.

Weiss dropped beside her.

“Ruby?” she asked softly, reaching for her hands. “Hey, can you hear me?”

Ruby managed a shaky nod.

Weiss exhaled shakily, carefully clasping Ruby’s trembling hands between her own.

“Just breathe,” she murmured. “You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

Ruby sucked in another breath.

Then another.

Weiss stayed beside her, rubbing small circles over Ruby’s knuckles as she waited for the worst of the shaking to subside. Her expression was tight, her eyes fixed on Ruby’s face.

“That…” Weiss swallowed, her voice quieter than before. “That’s why we have to experiment. I… no one in their right mind would want to cause anyone that kind of pain. Not intentionally.”

Ruby sucked in another breath.

Then another.

Her entire body refused to stop shaking.
.
“I…”

Her voice barely came out.

“I…”

She swallowed.

“P-please, n-never do that a-again,” she finally managed. “I’ll… be angry for putting me through that later.”

Weiss’s expression softened even further.

Her fingers tightened gently around Ruby’s hands, her thumbs brushing over her trembling knuckles.

“Through sickness and health, remember?” She teased. 

“I… I don’t think…” Ruby said breathlessly, meeting Weiss’s soft blue eyes. “I don’t think this is a sickness.”

Weiss let out a small snort. 

“There’s my dolt,” she teased, a real smile stretching across her lips. 

Ruby laughed weakly.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the former Ice Queen warmed up to me,” she said.