another Savage eclipse ( https://f95zone.to/threads/savage-eclipse-v0-45-aurostatic.296089/ ) inspired image. working on a animation for this one, will wait to post animation until this image is approved XD. might write a short story for this one as well...we will see. XD

got around to writing a short story for this one, based in the world of Savage eclipse, set on the day the curse began.

First Light: A Savage Eclipse Story by Qortez.

Marcus Ironhoof took a long sip of coffee as he stepped out into the crisp morning air. The liquid warmth spread through his chest, chasing away the last remnants of sleep. His weathered hands gripped the chipped ceramic mug, the same one he'd used for five years now, since the handle had broken off and he'd never gotten around to replacing it.

The sun hung low on the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. Another beautiful day in Aldren's agricultural district. Marcus nodded to himself as he walked toward the barn, his boots crunching against the gravel path. Fifteen years working these fields, fifteen years caring for his horses, and mornings like this one never got old.

He set down his coffee on a wooden post near the barn entrance before heading inside. The familiar smell of hay and horse hit him, that comforting combination that had become as natural as breathing. His fingers worked the latch on Luna's stall door with practiced efficiency, pulling it open to reveal the space he'd prepared yesterday evening.

The stall was already clean from last night's cleaning, fresh straw spread across the floor in an even layer about six inches deep. Marcus ran his hand along the wall hooks where his brushes hung, checking mentally: curry comb, dandy brush, body brush, hoof pick, mane and tail comb. Everything was ready.

He smiled to himself as he gathered up the tools, remembering Luna's reaction from last week's grooming session. The mare had practically leaned into each stroke of the curry comb, her eyes half-closing in what could only be described as contentment. She'd even made that little whinnying sound she did when especially pleased, high and soft, almost like a chuckle.

"Luna!" Marcus called out toward the pasture, his voice carrying across the morning stillness. "Come on, girl! Time for your spa day!"

Even before he finished speaking, he could see her moving. Luna's dark head rose above the other horses as she separated herself from the herd with purposeful strides. Her coat caught the early light, glossy and black, with that distinctive white star marking just between her eyes.

Marcus felt that familiar warmth in his chest when he saw how eagerly she was trotting toward him. Fifteen years of working together had built a bond deeper than any contract or ownership papers could define. She knew him as well as he knew her, every quirk, every preference, every signal.

She approached the barn entrance at an eager pace, nostrils flaring slightly to catch his scent mixed with the hay smell from inside. Her hooves clattered against the concrete floor as she entered, then stopped just beyond the threshold.

"Come in, come in," Marcus encouraged gently, gesturing toward her stall. "Right this way."

Luna stepped into the prepared space without hesitation, turning to position herself where he preferred, the same spot every time, a few feet from the door with enough room for him to work all around her body comfortably. She lowered her head slightly, waiting.

Marcus set down his coffee cup on a nearby bench before approaching her with the curry comb. His calloused fingers ran along her neck first, that soft patch of skin where horses couldn't quite reach themselves. Luna's ears swiveled back toward him at the touch, and she leaned just slightly into his hand.

"There we are," he murmured, more to himself than to her. "Good girl."

The curry comb came next, circular motions starting at her withers, the prominent bones at the base of her neck, and working their way down along her shoulder. Luna's muscles tensed briefly under the pressure before releasing again as she relaxed into the sensation.

Marcus had done this routine so many times he could probably perform it blindfolded. But today felt different somehow. Not in any specific way he could name, just... charged. The air seemed heavier than usual, or maybe that was his imagination playing tricks on him after too much coffee and not enough sleep.

He worked methodically down Luna's left side, shoulder, chest, hip, each circular stroke of the curry comb followed by a long sweep with the dandy brush to remove whatever loosened dirt and dead hair. The rhythm was meditative: pressure, release, sweep, repeat.

Luna stood perfectly still for it all, her breathing steady and calm. Her eyes had taken on that half-lidded look they always did during grooming sessions, complete trust radiating from every angle of her body language.

Marcus transitioned to the right side now, working his way up along Luna's flank toward her shoulder again. The sun had climbed higher while he worked; its rays streamed through gaps in the barn walls now, casting long shadows across the floor that shifted and moved as Luna breathed.

His fingers found a knot in Luna's mane, a tangle of coarse black hair that hadn't been there last week during her previous grooming session. Marcus frowned slightly at it, knowing this would take some careful work to undo without pulling too hard on sensitive skin underneath.

"Easy now," he said softly while his hands gently worked through the tangle, separating individual strands from the knot one by one. It was painstaking work but necessary if he wanted Luna's mane looking its best for next week's showing at Aldren's agricultural fair.

The knot slowly came apart under his patient fingers until finally it was gone entirely, just loose strands now that he could brush through easily with the smaller mane comb from his collection of tools.

Luna shifted her weight slightly during this process but never pulled away or showed signs of discomfort. Good girl, Marcus thought affectionately while working his way through another section where several smaller tangles had formed near where the mane met Luna's neck.

The sensation struck without warning.

Marcus's entire body went rigid as something, light? Sound? Force? He couldn't name it, penetrated him like a needle made of pure energy. It shot through every cell simultaneously, reaching down past skin and muscle to his very bones themselves. His skeleton became a tuning fork resonating at some frequency he'd never experienced before.

The vibration was wrong in a fundamental way that made his teeth ache and his skull feel too tight around his brain. For one eternal second, Marcus couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't even think beyond the overwhelming sensation of being *violated* by whatever had just passed through him.

Then it ended as suddenly as it began.

Marcus blinked rapidly, trying to clear the spots dancing behind his eyes. His hands trembled slightly where they rested against Luna's neck, or where he'd been resting them a moment ago. Now both palms pressed flat against his own chest instead, feeling the rapid drumming of his heart beneath calloused fingers.

"What..." The word died in his throat before fully forming.

His vision swam for just an instant as he tried to focus. Everything looked normal, the barn walls, the hay-strewn floor, Luna standing right there beside him, but somehow different too. Sharper. More vivid than it had been moments ago.

Luna's ears were pinned flat against her skull.

That wasn't normal.

"Hey," Marcus said quietly, taking a small step toward his mare with raised hands in what he hoped was a calming gesture. "Easy now."

But Luna's eyes were wide and dark, pupils blown open to maximum dilation as she stared at him. Her nostrils flared rapidly, three sharp snorts in succession, and her head bobbed once, twice in an agitated rhythm that made Marcus's stomach clench with recognition.

He knew these signs. He'd worked with horses long enough to recognize fear when he saw it.

"It's okay," he said again, though his voice carried less certainty this time. "I'm here. You're safe."

Luna stamped once against the floor, a sharp crack of hoof on concrete that echoed through the barn.

Marcus took another step forward, and that was his mistake.

The mare's head snapped down with lightning speed, jaws open wide to reveal strong white teeth. Marcus barely had time to yelp before her mouth clamped around the fabric covering his chest, the worn denim shirt he'd put on this morning after pulling it from the drawer without thought or care.

He felt the pressure immediately as Luna's powerful jaw muscles flexed against him, the teeth sinking through cloth and pressing into skin beneath. Not breaking flesh yet, she wasn't crushing down hard enough for that, but the threat was unmistakable nonetheless.

"Luna!" Marcus shouted in shock more than fear. "Luna!"

The sound of his own voice seemed to snap something inside him back into focus. His hands shot up instinctively, trying to wedge themselves between Luna's jaws and his body even as he stumbled backward from the force of her grip.

"Let go," he commanded firmly, using the same tone he always used when correcting misbehavior in young horses. "Luna, let go *now.*"

But she didn't release. Instead she pulled back with surprising strength for a mare normally so gentle and cooperative. Marcus felt himself being dragged forward off-balance as Luna's head jerked upward while her teeth remained locked on his shirt.

The fabric strained audibly under tension, the sound of cotton fibers beginning to tear, and Marcus knew he had seconds at most before the seams gave entirely.

The shirt tore with a sound like ripping canvas as Luna jerked her head up again, harder this time.

Marcus felt the fabric part across his chest in jagged strips before falling away from Luna's mouth along with several tufts of his own skin hair that had been caught in the teeth when she pulled free. The sudden absence of pressure was shocking, he'd expected worse somehow, and Marcus stumbled back onto his heels, arms pinwheeling to catch balance.

"Luna!" he gasped out again but now there was more than shock coloring his voice; there was confusion too as if calling her name could somehow make sense of what just happened.

But Luna wasn't listening anymore.

The world lurched sideways as Luna's teeth found purchase again.

This time she'd gotten more than just fabric, her jaws had latched onto the waistband of Marcus's jeans with such precision that he felt the pressure even through his boxers underneath. The grip was absolute, unyielding, and when she began to shake him like prey in a predator's jaws, Marcus realized with sickening clarity how utterly wrong this situation was.

His body became weightless for an instant as Luna jerked upward with all her considerable strength. Fifteen hundred pounds of horse muscle working together could move objects far heavier than one adult man, Marcus had known that intellectually his whole life, but knowing something and *experiencing* it were entirely different concepts.

The barn walls blurred past him in a flash of brown wood and shadow as Luna shook him again, harder this time. Marcus's head snapped back against the motion then forward with enough force to make his vision swim. He tried to grab at her jaw, some desperate instinct screaming that he needed to get free, but his fingers found nothing but smooth horseflesh that slipped away like water whenever they touched.

*How powerful,* his mind supplied uselessly even as his body was tossed around by forces beyond its control. *They're so damn powerful.*

He'd always known horses could be dangerous if provoked or frightened, had spent years teaching young handlers how to read the warning signs before a spook became something worse. Had watched videos of people being kicked, trampled, crushed under hooves during shows gone wrong. But those were always someone else's problems, distant tragedies that happened to other people who'd made mistakes in their training or been reckless around animals they didn't understand.

Marcus Ironhoof had worked with horses since childhood. Had spent fifteen years building trust through consistent care and patient teaching. Luna herself was his pride, the mare he'd raised from a foal, every bit of her training done by his own hands following every best practice he knew. She should have been safe to be around.

But those thoughts were drowned out by the tearing sound that split the air like thunder rolling across an open field.

The fabric of Marcus's jeans gave way with multiple simultaneous sounds, the snap of belt loops, the shredding of seams, the pop of buttons, and all in one catastrophic failure that left him suddenly exposed to cool morning air against skin that had never before felt such vulnerability on his farm.

His boxers went with them too. The waistband stretched and stretched until it couldn't stretch anymore, then parted like butter under a knife as Luna's jaws released their grip and shook once more before dropping everything onto the floor in a heap of ruined denim and cotton.

Marcus found himself airborne for one impossible moment, suspended between earth and sky by nothing but momentum, and then gravity reasserted itself with brutal efficiency.

He crashed backward against something solid that gave under impact. The world tilted at an angle as he fell, and then there was impact again, a softer landing this time as his body sank into the pile of hay bales stacked near that end of the barn for bedding changes.

Marcus lay there breathing hard, staring up at the barn rafters overhead while his mind struggled to process what had just happened. His legs dangled off the edge of the hay bale where he'd landed, toes touching nothing but air while his body remained supported by compressed straw packed into dense enough blocks that they held him despite their deceptive softness.

"Luna?" His voice came out hoarse and uncertain, nothing like the confident tone he usually used when speaking to his horses. "Luna?"

The mare stood at a distance now, several feet away from where Marcus lay. Her chest heaved with rapid breathing that sent plumes of vapor into morning air still cool enough for condensation. But more disturbing than her state was the way she was looking at him, not *at* exactly, but rather past or through him as if Marcus had become something unfamiliar and possibly threatening.

His mind raced through possibilities even while his body remained frozen on top of this hay bale: Was Luna sick? Had some toxin gotten into her feed? Could it be a neurological event, stroke perhaps, or tumor pressing against parts of her brain that controlled behavior?

But then another thought occurred with such sudden clarity that Marcus's breath caught in his throat:

*The light.*

That... whatever had happened earlier, the sensation that pierced through him like being struck by lightning made visible, could *that* have affected Luna too? Had she felt it as well when the sun rose this morning, or had something else triggered this change?

Marcus held absolutely still, every muscle in his body locked in place as Luna continued to stare at him with those wide, dark eyes. He could see the whites showing now, that telltale sign of distress or agitation he'd learned to read years ago, but there was something else too that he couldn't quite identify.

*Don't move,* his mind screamed even as every instinct wanted to scramble off this hay bale and run for the open stable door just ten feet away. *Stay still, don't provoke her.*

But Luna didn't attack again.

Instead she turned away from him, presenting her profile against the morning light streaming through gaps in the barn walls. Her tail swished once, twice, and Marcus felt his breath catch in his throat when he saw what happened next.

The mare's hindquarters lifted slightly before descending again in a rhythmic motion that had no business occurring this early in the season. It was unmistakable: Luna was displaying signs of estrus, her body moving through behaviors associated with being in heat despite the calendar suggesting she should be months away from her next cycle.

"Impossible," Marcus whispered to himself, though his voice came out barely audible even to his own ears. "That's... that's months away still."

But the biological reality was clear as Luna continued her display, tail raised high now and swishing more deliberately while her hind legs spread just slightly wider than normal standing position would require.

Then everything went wrong at once.

Luna backed up toward where Marcus lay on the hay bale, each movement deliberate despite the agitated energy still radiating from every muscle. She positioned herself with one powerful rear hoof planted directly beside him, so close that Marcus could feel warmth rising from the dark surface, and then shifted her weight onto three legs.

Marcus's breath caught in his throat as Luna lowered herself, deliberate, purposeful, each movement calculated despite the mare's obvious agitation just moments before. The massive animal's hindquarters descended until he could see the dark opening of her vulva emerging between powerful thighs, swollen with the clear signs of estrus that shouldn't have existed this early in the season.

His body reacted before his mind fully processed what was happening.

The first contact made Marcus gasp involuntarily.

Luna's vulva pressed against his exposed penis, not quite entering but grinding across the sensitive head with enough pressure to make every nerve ending scream awareness. The mare's body moved rhythmically now, lowering and lifting in a pattern that could only have one purpose despite how utterly alien it seemed coming from an animal he'd known since birth.

And his body responded.

The flaccid flesh began to swell almost immediately, his cock thickening under Luna's ministrations as blood rushed to fill empty chambers with mechanical precision evolution had designed long before consciousness or reason could override biological programming. Marcus felt himself harden against her vulva even as his mind screamed that this was wrong, impossible, shouldn't be happening,

But it didn't matter what his conscious thoughts were saying because his body had already made its own decision.

Luna grunted, a low sound from deep in her throat, and pressed down harder onto him. The pressure changed angle slightly and suddenly Marcus felt something else: warmth wrapping around the base of his shaft as more of Luna's vulva slid over him.

Marcus's mouth opened, but no words came.

The sensation of Luna's powerful muscles clenching around him had stolen every coherent thought from his mind, leaving only raw awareness of what was happening to his body. Her vulva wrapped around his length like a living vice made of flesh and heat, each squeeze deliberate and purposeful as she began to move faster now, raising her hips before slamming back down with increasing force.

*Wet flesh meeting wet flesh.*

The sounds filled the barn in obscene detail: rhythmic slapping of Luna's hindquarters against Marcus's pelvis; the slick glide of his cock dragging through her passage as she pulled away only to thrust down again; soft grunts from the mare each time she impacted him fully, all of it creating a symphony that should have horrified him but instead made his breath come faster, more ragged.

His hips moved involuntarily now, small jerks upward to meet Luna's downward thrusts even though every rational part of his brain knew he shouldn't be participating in this, shouldn't be *enjoying* it. But participation wasn't really a choice anymore; his body had taken over entirely as evolution's programming asserted itself with ruthless efficiency.

The mare was picking up pace now, her movements becoming more forceful and less controlled. Marcus could feel every muscle contraction inside her passage clenching around him, could sense the heat radiating from deep within that should have been impossibly hot but somehow felt perfect against his length instead of burning like it logically should have.

His breath came in short gasping bursts between each downward thrust: *huff-huff-huff* synchronized with Luna's rhythm until suddenly...

Release hit him like a physical blow.

Marcus's entire body went rigid as the orgasm seized control, every muscle locking tight from shoulders down to his toes while his cock convulsed within Luna's grip. The mare seemed to feel it too because her thrusting became erratic for just an instant before she pulled away entirely and walked forward several steps on wobbly legs.

He collapsed back onto the hay bale with a groan that sounded more animal than human, chest heaving as he tried to breathe through the aftermath while his vision swam behind his eyes.

Marcus's mind struggled to reassemble itself from the fragments scattered by release when sound reached him, high-pitched and familiar.

A neigh. Then another.

His vision swam into focus just long enough to see movement at the stall entrance, shapes pushing through the doorway in a way that made no sense until his brain finally processed what he was seeing: more mares. Elora leading them, her chestnut coat catching morning light as she trotted purposefully toward where Marcus lay gasping on the hay bale.

*No.*

The thought came too late to matter because Elora was already positioning herself above him with movements eerily similar to Luna's seconds before. The mare's vulva appeared between powerful thighs, also swollen with estrus that shouldn't exist for months yet, and lowered onto Marcus's still-sensitive cock with mechanical precision.

His body responded even as his mind screamed in protest: flesh swelling once more despite having just climaxed moments ago, the biological response automatic and overwhelming.

"Please..." Marcus tried to speak but it came out breathless and weak. "I can't..."

Elora didn't care about his protests if she'd even understood them at all.

The mare began immediately with more force than Luna had used initially, perhaps learning from watching her predecessor or simply less inhibited now that the first taboo had been broken. Marcus felt himself being clutched and released in rhythm as Elora's powerful muscles worked around him, each squeeze deliberately designed to milk response from his body whether he wanted to give it or not.

And oh god did she succeed.

His second orgasm came faster than the first, body already primed for release even through mental resistance, and when it hit Marcus felt himself completely consumed by sensation. His vision went white with the intensity of it, consciousness narrowing down to nothing but the heat surrounding him and the rhythmic clenching that squeezed every drop from his exhausted member.

*More.*

He barely registered Elora stepping away before another mare was there, Aurora this time if he could still tell them apart anymore, and then another. His mind had stopped trying to track who came next because it didn't matter; they all moved with the same single-minded purpose that transformed familiar faces into something alien.

Through peripheral vision Marcus watched more mares squeeze into the stall despite how crowded it was becoming. Twelve total on his farm, he'd known each one's name, personality, quirks and preferences for years, but now they were all reduced to a blur of heat and movement as one after another took turns at positions Luna had established.

His third orgasm arrived without warning; fourth came even faster. By the fifth Marcus felt himself losing consciousness entirely, vision darkening at edges until only sensation remained, and when sixth made his back arch against the hay bale he was no longer sure if he was awake or dreaming this nightmare scenario into existence through some fevered hallucination.

*This is how I'm going to die.*

His last thought before blacking out.