Captured

I never really believed the old stories, the ones where the half-man, half-horse creatures would raid simple villages like my own, looking for young women… To take them in the dead of night, never to be seen again. No, everyone always wrote those stories off as pure rumors, or tales to scare girls into obedience. Had I given it any thought, perhaps I wouldn’t be where I was. Not that I really knew… A cloth of some sort covered my eyes, blinding me, while more cloth gagged me, and my hands and feet were bound with a plant-like material. I could hear quiet voices, deep ones; a chuckle here, an approving sort of grunt over there, and the smell was something like my family’s barn. Suddenly, there was movement – hooves, it sounded like, and then I was hoisted to my feet while my bindings, blindfold, and gag were removed. My hands and feet were the first to be freed, and I stumbled a little, right into a pair of powerful legs.