Hennessey the Godlike Hedgehorse
One day, little Timmy was playing with matches in his backyard when he caught a flash of vibrant blue out of the corner of his eye. Setting the matches down and stumbling away from the blaze, Timmy set after the fleeting glow like a thirsty pony.
It was hard to follow, because it moved so fast -- he would see a quick burst of color in the distance and race to meet it, only to find that it had disappeared, and just as he was about to give up and walk back to the remains of his house, he would catch another sudden spark of blue just past his sightline.
If Timmy's field of vision was a city, the shimmering blue was hovering around the suburbs, window shopping while Timmy gave chase. Or, more likely, the opposite was true, and little Timmy was the rube audience to the neoteric foxtrot of the orb. In the blossoming wisdom of his six years, Timmy was beginning to feel that he was out-matched by the glowing blue.
After nearly an hour of sundog-and-mouse, Timmy had chased his way into a clearing a good way from home. He found the blue glow arcing back and forth above his little head, as though it were waiting for him. Its trajectory was buzzingly fast, but each time it neared the center of the curve, it would momentarily slow its pace. When it lagged, Timmy squinted up at it, able briefly to discern a faint shape within the quivering rays of light. He could see what appeared to be a spikey, spiney mammalian back, and Timmy was just about to set off running when the glow stopped glowing and descended to the grass, solid and corporeal.
There was a moment of silence, during which time Timmy felt himself grounded in the thickish ink gaze of the thing. The bodies regarded each other, the no-longer-lucent creature looking unimpressed by his observations. Timmy, on the other hand, was extremely impressed, having never seen such an animal -- one with a squat and heavily spoked brown body, small and protective in posture. The face was equine -- large, smooth and stoic.
The thing spoke first. "I am a hedgehorse," it said with an air of finality, as though this revelation were the beginning, middle, and end of any story worth telling.
