Everything That He Desired by TBA

[Warning: mild adult content, no sex]

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This story may not be distributed or sold without prior permission.

It was approaching the end of the day. The stables had been cleaned, the yard swept, the troughs emptied and re-filled with fresh water from the stream. For Tokras, it was nothing new, but for his friend Aranthus, it had been quite tiring. Yet the races could not wait. In a week the crowds would arrive to bet their money, and everyone from the racemaster to the stablehands had to have everything looking proper and organized.

"You've started to work at the worst time of the year," Tokras told his younger friend. "When I started, planting season was ending and I had more time than I knew what to do with."

"I suppose if I survive the races, I'll survive anything," Aranthus grinned. He sat down tiredly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm so exhausted. It's the water."

Tokras nodded. "The water. That's what takes the longest to get done. Although with both of us we'll save time from now on. You'll get used to it."

The two friends sat and relaxed on a square platform of stones in the exercise yard in silence for a while, following the creeping edge of the shadow of the wall float across the dirt as the sun began to drop, a warm breeze blowing.

"I suppose," Aranthus commented, "That unless winnings are better, they won't be able to improve the racing tracks."

"It's true." Tokras looked around at the state of the yard. "This was never designed to have races of this scale going on. It was almost sixty years ago that it went from a training track to a racing track. It's not been kept in good condition."

Aranthus sighed. "I wish I could have been there then. Someday I dream of being the best trainer and racer in the Aegean. And I start here. My thanks to you, my friend, for getting the stablemaster to hire me."

Tokras laughed. "How could he /not/ hire you? With honeyed words of praise dripping from every farmer's lips for miles around, he would have been thought a fool to neglect your talents! Stablehand is a required position. Soon enough you'll be promoted to traininghand, believe me. In less than a year."

Aranthus gave his friend a doubtful look.

Tokras grinned wider. "You think I'm joking? The only hurdle in your way will be mythical. You'll have to outlive the legend of Patrius and Miantes. Which no one believes, so your success is guaranteed."

"Why, who were they?"

"Well, so the story goes around here, Patrius was a beggar and Miantes a horse. Patrius hung around the races, begging for alms, and befriended the stablehand, who would give him bread. One day the beggar bet that he could be just as good a horsetrainer as him. The stablehand quit in disgust, never to be seen again, and Patrius showed up a week later with a horse named Miantes. How a beggar got a horse, no one knew. They say he raised up his hand and called, 'Great Pan!', and Pan thought it would be an amusing joke on us mortals to have a beggar race horses. Since the position of stablehand was open, and since many were eager to see Patrius make a fool of himself, he was hired. But to everyone's surprise, Miantes won race after race, and made Patrius the most famous trainer in the Islands."

Aranthus laughed. "What a story. So what happened?"

Tokras shrugged. "They say Patrius never wanted to train any other horse but Miantes. Any money he won he gave to the family of the disgruntled stablehand. Miantes ran and won for twenty years before he died. Or something like that. I've heard various endings."

Aranthus' eyes boggled. "Twenty years? This is indeed the stuff of legend!"

"Well, that's how the story goes," Tokras nodded. "It seems to be a favorite around the stables, although I've never known why. Not a very colorful myth."

"So, Tokras, what myth do you aspire to?'

"Oh, none really. What any man can dream of. My father recently passed on to me our family ring." He took it off and handed it to Aranthus so his friend could better see it. "In a few years I want to find the most beautiful woman in the Islands. I want to show her such feats of love that she would never think of another. I want to wed her and have us live in joy for eternity. Too mythical?"

Aranthus smiled. "Too mythical. Well, perhaps not; time is the only test. We are still young!" He nudged Tokras and laughed, then turned to inspect the ring. It was gold, worn with time, bearing the insignia of a plough within a seven-sided figure. "It looks like it's been in your family for a long time," Aranthus commented while handing it back, but too hastily as it missed Tokras' palm and rolled off over the flagstones, disappearing into a crack. "Curse the fates," Aranthus muttered as he reached too late to grab it.

Tokras sighed. "Here, let me..." he got up and crouched, poking into the space with his hand. "I can't reach in far enough. You try, you have smaller hands."

Aranthus did so. "I can feel nothing. There's just empty space. What's under these stones?"

"An old well. I didn't think it opened up on this side. Do you think it could have fallen in? It hasn't held water for decades, that's why we have to go all the way to the stream."

Aranthus looked down at it. "Come, help me lift these stones, and I will get you your ring back."

Together, the two friends hefted the large slabs. Sweating, they finally revealed a large, round hole. "I'll get some rope," Tokras said. "We should do this while there's still light."

Soon Aranthus had secured himself to the rope and Tokras lowered him down. The old well's edges were unpaved, allowing Aranthus many footholds. "Anything?" Tokras shouted hopefully into the shaft. Suddenly the tightness of the rope in his hands loosened. "Aran? Why is the rope looser now?"

"Water!" came his friend's surprised cry from down the well. "This well is fine! There's even an old bucket down in here. I think your ring fell in it - give me some more loose rope, I'll dive for it."

Tokras did so, and soon he felt three sharp tugs on the rope, and managed to lift his friend out. Aranthus was soaked through and through, shivering slightly from the cold of the water, clutching an ancient bucket. Water dribbled out of its cracks. Tokras fetched his friend a blanket, while Aranthus took off his shirt to wring it and hang it to dry.

"It's strange," Tokras said, "That the well should have been covered all these years. I wonder when the water returned."

"I could not see any signs of the water ever having left," replied Aranthus, wrapping the blanket around himself, shivering a little. "Why block off a perfectly good well? But here, your ring."

Tokras fished through the silt at the base of the bucket. "Why, there are two rings in here! Mine, as well as another. Here, look."

As Tokras washed off his family's ring, Aranthus inspected the second one. It gleamed of solid gold, the mud and silt of the well slipping off without resistance. It was a larger ring, very old and its edges worn soft. The band was woven of gold threads with what could have once been leaf designs. Its main design, however, was of a ram's head, the forehead strangely taller than it should have been, its eyes stern and intelligent, flanked by two thick spiraling horns.

"It looks sort of like the religious rings worn by the old priests for the harvest festival," Aranthus told his friend. "Odd how the design stayed so crisp while the band became so worn."

"Maybe the ring was repaired once?" suggested Tokras. "If you don't keep it, you could probably fetch a good price for it in the temple quarter. Maybe at Pan's temple."

Aranthus smirked, rubbing the ring clean. "Ah, the hard decisions of life. It would be nice to keep a ring like this. Perhaps my luck will improve to even greater heights than that of the mythical Patrius. Patrius and his impossible horses and godly interventions. 'Great Pan'!" he grinned.

"Yes?"

The voice was not that of Tokras. Tokras stood motionless, feeling suddenly limp as the ring dropped to the ground, staring at something behind his friend. Aranthus turned, following his gaze, and, to his amazement, saw a god.

Pan was not extremely tall. Yet there was a finality to his presence, an invisible power within him, a being which did more than simply be. He was as sure as the ground under one's feet, as the roar of the raging waterfall. Tokras and Aranthus stood frozen in place, the air still, timeless. Something about Pan made them want to flee in utmost terror, or make them dance wildly without reason. But behind this they somehow knew the god was kind.

He was man-like in shape but covered in dark brown curls of goat- like fur, which shone like gold in the light of the sunset. Although small, he was stocky, standing upon thick goat's legs and large black cloven hooves. Behind him was a short goat's tail, and his head was also a hybrid of man and goat, with a short muzzle, goat's ears and large horns that matched those of the ring. His eyes were dark and too deep for them to comprehend, yet they could not tear their eyes away until the god blinked slowly, after a long moment of thoughtfulness.

"You have summoned me with the ring," he said. Yet, Pan's lips did not move, although they did smile quizzically. He turned his gaze onto the damp, dripping Aranthus. The god's voice whispered in their ears like the wind.

Tokras shuddered with sudden cold, his voice dry and hoarse. "Are you truly the Great Pan?"

Pan's lips smiled wider, now with amusement, as he shrugged softly and opened his arms as if to wonder at the same question. But vines erupted from under his hooves, splashing in all directions, their tendrils spreading out on the ground around him like spokes of a great web, entwining about their legs and lower bodies. The god locked eyes with Tokras, his eyes no longer amused but serious and challenging. Tokras swallowed, realizing that his mortality mattered as little to the god as the vines cared whether they climbed upon stone or flesh. He knelt, with difficulty, the vines creaking. "My lord Pan." The vines shrank back down to the ground, freeing them.

Pan's gaze returned to the startled Aranthus, with a hint more impatience. "As part of the pact of the ring, you have this time for me to grant you one request each. You will not be granted any more during your lifetime, should you choose to take this opportunity. The ring shall then cease to work until the Fates give it new owners and fifty years have passed. What say you?"

Aranthus hardly knew what to say, wide-eyed and blushing. "You can grant us anything?"

Pan's eyes reflected truth, he did not need to nod. "Anything in the realm of that which I control and am worshipped for. I can fulfill your dreams beyond your imaginings. So it was, fifty years ago, with Derigus and Patrius. The Fates teach that the cycle repeats."

"Patrius was /real/?" said the amazed Aranthus, echoing Tokras' thoughts.

"He stood where you are standing now. I know not how the ring came to him, but so it was."

Tokras almost could not believe his ears. "You would grant me a request as well? What have those who came before us asked for?"

Pan bowed his head. "That I will not say. It is not for me to interfere with the thoughts of mortals, though a guide I may be. But of this I can say nothing. Only you can know your heart's desires. I will try to fulfill them as best as I can, given what I have the power to do. I am not a god of the air, should you wish to fly, I could not make you sprout wings like a bird, for birds are not my domain. But there are other methods within my influence that could achieve such a thing, in different ways."

Tokras looked at his friend, who was smiling ear to ear at his good fortune. "All right," Tokras said. "Then I am ready. I wish to be the greatest lover in the Islands!"

"And I," declared Aranthus, before Pan could respond to his friend, "Desire to be the greatest winner of the horse races in the Islands!"

Pan nodded. "And so it shall be."

There was an indecipherable change in the air, as if the world had been fundamentally altered at a deeper level. Pan's eyes were closed as he took methodical, slow deep breaths, tilting his face and twitching his ears in thought. When at last his eyes opened, they were bright and pleasant. His goat's visage smiled at them, and Tokras and Aranthus felt a great warmth inside of them as a hot wind began to blow.

Tokras, in fact, was beginning to feel very warm, and swooned on his feet, dizzy with the heat, finding balance difficult. Aranthus stared at his friend in amazement as Tokras stepped sideways, his feet slipping effortlessly out of his sandals, the skin strangely different. He watched as Tokras stepped onto his tip-toes, toes which were gliding together, fusing and thickening, polished and black, until they became solid and goat-like under shaggy fetlocks.

Tokras groaned, the damp blanket around him falling to the ground. Aranthus stared in surprise as a ripple of change coursed through him. What was happening to his friend? Tokras' feet elongated, his knee joints bending as the bones slid gracefully into new positions, covered with shaggy brown goat fur where once there had been pants. More goat-like than human now as the changes quickened, Tokras now stood fully upon the legs of a beast, with a short tail appearing behind an animalistic rump.

"What are you doing to him?!" Aranthus said as Tokras' face gasped for similar words, but unable to speak.

"Making his wish come true beyond his greatest hopes," said Pan's voice in his mind. So too did Pan speak in Tokras' mind. "Don't fight it - let the magic take you, fill you, change you." Tokras' brain wheeled with thoughts both unfamiliar and instinctive, trying at first to resist the changes taking place within him, when suddenly he truly understood what was happening to him, and his mind softened, and embraced it.

Aranthus watched as his friend's upper body grew virile and more athletic, his chest covered with dense brown hair like his legs, while his face turned elfish. Tokras blinked, and his eyes became large and dark like those of a doe, his nose and mouth sneakily lecherous, his ears pointed, with two white horns cresting his forehead.

"He... he is a satyr," Aranthus gasped. Indeed, Tokras' new form was unabashedly excited and matched perfectly the exaggerated myths of the town story-tellers. Tokras trotted up to the god and embraced him, rubbing against him sensuously, the god tousling his hair.

"Youthful satyr," Pan said, smiling. "You are now this island's greatest lover. Your desire to make love will know no bounds, and you are as one of the immortal spirits. I shall send you to my land of forests and fields, where you may romp with your fellow satyrs and nymphs forevermore."

Tokras turned his face to smile at his friend. Aranthus looked into his strange, animal eyes. Tokras was still there, somewhere, but was now but a small part of the satyr spirit within him, happy, wild, erotic, without regret of his old self and concerns. Was Tokras upset? Somehow, no; his desires and needs were no longer that of a mortal man. Tokras the mortal man was gone. And then, Tokras the satyr faded from sight. For a brief moment Aranthus could see heavenly fields and sunlight, smell the scent of pollen in the air, and then Tokras was gone.

Tokras found himself in a paradise of forest and field. The nights were warm, and he could run with the deer, or pass the time playing a flute made of reeds from a cliff-top overlooking deep valleys of green. There were other satyrs there, fond of romp and play and love. They would tend vines and make sweet wine, and join up with the nymphs and dryads, maidens of flowing elegance and music. He learned to put aside his human needs, and lived life for the sole reason of perpetual joy. He was complete.

* * *

Pan turned now to Aranthus in kindness, but Aranthus shrank back. Tokras was happier now beyond his wildest dreams, as Pan had said, but what would the god do next? Aranthus stumbled, staring down in amazement. While he had been watching his friend, his own legs had already begun to turn to horse's legs, stocky and strong, covered with glossy black horsehair. Aranthus spun, trying to stamp his legs and feet to stop the changes from happening - in the sand of the yard, human footprints gradually shifted to heavy hoofprints. He felt the brush of a long, sensuous equine tail against the back of his thigh and neighed in surprise.

"Great Pan," Aranthus said with difficulty, his mouth and tongue starting to feel heavy and awkward. "Your magic - What will happen to me, within a beast...I beseech you..." He fumbled for the ring, but his hands and fingers were becoming larger, the skin turning a shiny black, the color spreading up his forearms while his veins pumped with new blood.

"You shall have the mind of a stallion, and think as one," Pan's voice spoke peacefully to him in his mind. "But your human mind and soul will always stay with you. You will be a horse that understands the mind of man." Aranthus pawed the ground with a hoof in acknowledgment, failing to notice that he was doing it instead of nodding. Pan smiled as the black glossiness enclosed the human's waist and midsection and genitals. "I can only fulfill the wishes of those things I am god for, and soon you shall be one of my realm."

Aranthus gasped now, slouching forward onto his hands and feet, trying to flex his fingers but instead watching them come together and harden like rock. His body bulged with muscles, clothes magically slipping off him as every inch of his skin now became black with downy horsehair pushing its way out. His whole being felt alive, reborn, and powerful.

Pan walked forward. His goat's muzzle smiled kindly as he gently placed his hands on the transforming man's back, massaging the new muscles as they moved into place, forming a wide barrel chest, watching as Aranthus' arms and legs lengthened. "Embrace that which you desire to be, young mortal. Fear not the loss of your loved ones. The magic of the ring makes it such that they will not remember you. Aranthus the man no longer exists in their world, they will have no one to miss. You too can forget them - do not cry, mortal. Be more joyful than you could ever have been as a man. Become Aranthus, the stallion."

Aranthus' inward struggles began to rest - it was dawning on him that this was what he had wanted, in a sense, and it was good. He felt the rustling of something horse-like within him. It was calm, centered, aware of its world, desiring to run and be free and alive. And it was not so different from what Aranthus had desired in life. For a moment his body shuddered as his penis felt warm and lengthened, drawn up against his abdomen, and he felt a soft covering settle over his genitals.

Pan reached over to stroke his hair as it began to cascade into a beautiful black mane. Aranthus bowed his head in relaxation as the changes swept through him. He felt more alive than he ever had before. His life, now free of all burdens, could know more joy than he had ever realized. He felt the burning touch of the god's hands on his growing, stretching neck, while his nostrils flared, and stamped his hands - hoof-clad beneath him - nickering happily as his thoughts began to slip into those of a horse.

"Be a horse, Aranthus, be a mighty stallion, the greatest runner in the land," Pan guided him, his soft hands stroking softly under the man's chin while it elongated out into the long face of a horse, rubbing him behind his increasingly equine ears, watching the stallion's mighty hindquarters evolve, and the cascading black tail.

"Fifty years ago it was much like this," Pan said, speaking calmly as Aranthus' body began to complete the change. "Derigus the stablehand wished the same as you." He patted Aranthus on his emerging horse barrel as his arms and legs became fully grown. "But Patrius did not wish to join him, and instead wished to become his trainer and keeper for a long healthy life, renaming him Miantes. Had your friend Tokras not been so hasty, he might have wished the same for you. Although he is happier now as a satyr than he would have been as a man. There now."

Pan stroked the changing horse-creature as he sensed Aranthus' inner workings correctly shift into place. "Patrius threw my ring into the well and covered it, but now its time has come again." He watched as the horse form filled out, the last details being completed, from the swish of the tail to the shape of the body to the expression of the face. And lastly, he watched the eyes darken.

Pan smiled as Aranthus the human was gone, a noble equine beast before him. The final vestiges of man had vanished within the body of the large, glossy black horse, wild. He was thick-set and muscled, stomping his hooves, snorting and nickering proudly in the evening air. Something Aranthus-like still remained in the dark, piercing eyes, but the virile stallion was now something greater, the most powerful and fastest horse in the land.

The stallion nuzzled the god, nipping at Pan's fur affectionately. Pan gently led him away, leaving the ring in the sand as he walked and faded out of the yard, as he brought Aranthus towards his realm. "Come, my charger. You shall be cared for in my best stables and run free in my fields. In a week I shall run you in the races, and win you mares, that you may sire a great lineage that the whole world shall revere."

The stallion neighed and walked proudly beside the god. Pan's realm was indeed a paradise. His stable was as large as a barn, and he was never tied nor harnessed. He would run in the wild for weeks before returning to the god, who groomed him and trained him to race. And he won many races, both in the realm of the gods and in Greece, and sired many foals. One day, pleased with his years of service, Pan set him free to live in the wild, but he wished to stay. And so the stallion Aranthus became Pan's glossy black steed, pulling his chariot into battles and through processions.

But eventually, not even with a god's magic can a stallion live forever, and the Fates had set their time. Pan placed Aranthus among the stars, and Aranthus was the proudest and happiest stallion that had ever roamed the earth. Indeed, it was everything that he desired.