The rat and zebra gazed at the wooden stalls filled with fresh hay with some surprise. The walls separating each stall were almost six feet in height, providing a degree of privacy uncommon for feral horses, but there were no other accommodations to distinguish it from a normal stable. The raccoon in the stetson and chaps guiding them around seemed to anticipate their question, "Most of the time you spend here will be adjusting to your vacation forms; besides, if you cannot handle it here, you ain't handling it for two weeks on the mountain trails!"

"Good point," the rat, Charles, admitted with a nod of his head and a swish of his long tail. His nose twitched at the strong equine scent filling the stables. Even the zebra, Lauren, walking at his side, appeared surprised by its intensity.

"Is the scent magic, Master Truck? I've been around horses before and... been a feral horse before, and I don't remember it being this strong. Especially when you don't have any horses in here."

The raccoon, a one Richard Truck, rancher, trail-guide, and journeyman-level wizard, grinned and nodded. "Very good nose, Mrs. Rivers. It helps with acclimation and eases the transformation. Though we do not notice it, our own scent is the strongest one to us. But here, the scent of horse is stronger still." He stepped toward one of the stalls and lifted a latch, pulling open the door. "Now we do insist on separate stalls; not just for privacy but so you won't accidentally hurt each other. This one is for you, Mr. Matthias"

Charles waved his hands and squeaked as he stepped toward the open stall with only a hint of trepidation in his paws. "Oh that's fine. Is it time?" He put one hand on the stall door and peered inside. Long with high walls all fashioned from wood, the floor was covered with a fresh bed of straw. There were no feeding buckets or water troughs within and while both of them wondered about that, neither was in a hurry for such a bland diet either.

Richard shook his head and moved to an adjacent stall and opened the latch. “And this one is for you, Mrs. Rivers.” After Lauren had stepped to the entrance to see that it was the same as the rat's, the raccoon continued, “There's a few details I need to clarify before we can begin. And a couple waivers you both need to sign.”

“Wouldn't it have been better to sign them at your office when we arrived?” Lauren asked.

But the raccoon only chuckled, “Most of our customers appreciate the ambiance of the stables while signing away their anthro-hood for two weeks! But before you can do that, I have to ask you certain questions; I know you've already considered it or you wouldn't be here, but company liability and all that rot. So! Welcome to Truck'n and Hoof'n Mountain Trail Tours. You both signed up for our two weeks trek and requested the special option of being the horses rather than the riders. This means for the next two weeks you are going to be horses; you won't be able to speak and unless there are other telepaths on the trek I'm the only one who will be able to understand you at first. That kind of isolation can do strange things to folk. You understand that, right?”

“Yes, we do,” Charles answered. Lauren nodded and turned her ears forward.

“You won't have much choice about the food you eat. We try to have a little more variety for our anthro mounts, but it ain't going to be chez cuisine if you get me.” When neither rat nor zebra showed concerned, the raccoon continued, nudging his stetson with one claw to push it back farther atop his head, splaying his ears out to the side. “Now, fortunately you both have riders already so you don't have to worry about that awkwardness. Course, we ain't marriage counselors out here; as long as you don't throw them or dump them in the creek, we won't let them wear spurs!” His striped tail flicked as if he were remembering something. “Unless of course, you are into...”

“I don't think you have to worry about marital strife with us, Mr. Truck,” Charles cut in, his saucer-shaped ears reddening in embarrassment.

“Good! Always a pain in my tail telling an irritated wife that I have to turn her ass of a husband back at the end of the trip.” He chuckled there was a gleam of mischief in the raccoon's eye. “Of course, there've been a few times I was sore tempted!” He lifted his hands and laughed again, “Just kidding! Just kidding! We've got some strict rules about that sort of thing. The waivers you'll be signing state that you go through the magic knowingly and that the risks have been explained and that we at Truck'n and Hoof'n are not responsible for mishap, yadda, yadda, yadda.”

“So what are the risks,” Lauren asked, crossing her arms, almost lining up the stripes on each. “And what do you do to mitigate them?”

“It's a two week horseback excursion into the wilds of the mountains of Wyoming. There's storms, predators, stepping on a rock wrong and throwing out your leg, food spoiling, etc... etc... We do our best to keep in touch with the ranch here with both science and magic, but Nature is fickle and we cannot promise that nothing will happen. The real danger is you getting separated from the party and stuck as a feral horse. You don't have a lifetime of experience in these parts to help you out. The last thing we want is somebody to get stuck as feral so we have two backups.

“My chief wizard performs all the transformations. He'll take a magical image of your entire body so that when you return he can restore you without a complicated ritual. He is a Templar and his Order's rules prevent him from divulging your body map so you can be assured of privacy there.”

“Why will we need a body map? Won't a simple Reverse spell work?” Lauren asked.

Richard shook his head. “Our spells are shielded against such charms to prevent vandals and hooligans from ending your vacation early or trying to make it permanent. You both can enjoy being a horse for the next weeks safe in the knowledge that you won't change back until the trip is over; not for anything short of an emergency. And that's where the backups come in.”

The raccoon tapped his forehead and eyes them both. “The first backup will be encoded in here. You pick a phrase that you can think if you need to change back early. Once you think it, it unlocks the backup spell in you and you return to anthro.”

Charles drooped his whiskers. “But we'll almost certainly think it several times on the trip, whether we want to or not.”

“Ah,” Richard lifted a claw and grinned, “there's the beauty of it! You have to want to become anthro again for it to work. Thought and intention must be there or it won't work.”

“And if we're unconscious somehow? What then?”

“That's the second backup. Each of you will have a mark on your hide with the body map encoded into it. You can choose the image so nobody will be able to decipher the map. But all of the riders will be instructed on how to activate them in an emergency. And they've also been told that if they do it when it is not an emergency they'll be liable for your fees and whatever travel costs you incurred to get here. So don't worry about that. Everyone is here to have a good time and an adventure. But you also aren't going to get stuck as feral horses either!”

Charles narrowed his eyes. “So where is this mark on our hides going to be?”

Richard patted his thigh. “Same place they used to put brands, on the thigh. It's always visible even with the tack on that way.”

Lauren laughed. “So we're going to have cutie marks?”

But the rat glowered and crossed his arms. “Cutie mark? On me? No. Way. In. Heck!”

Matthias and story is matthiasrat
Lauren is
Art is