Chapter 448: I Feel Like A Diva!

Luca quickly removed the bandages and inspected the area.

“No infection. The cracks aren’t too deep. We caught it early.” He nodded. “Alright. Let’s get these horseshoes on you.”

He began cleaning the hoof, removing dirt and stones with careful gentleness.

Then…he pulled out a knife.

“W-WHAT IS THAT?!” Riley gasped in horror. “What are you doing?! Are you trying to chop my legs off?!”

The crowd was also terrified. But Luca shook his head calmly.

“This is just for trimming. After all, I need to balance your hooves and remove any damaged tissue. But don’t worry, it won’t hurt at all.”

Riley clenched her teeth as he brought the knife to her hoof, preparing for pain.

But there was none.

He scraped away parts of her hoof, and she felt…nothing. Just a slight tickling sensation.

“See?” Luca said. “I told you. It’s like trimming your fingernails.”

Everyone gasped with relief.

“Oh thank the gods…”

“I was so worried…”

“If it actually hurt, I don’t think I could go through with it.”

The trimming went fast after that. Luca scraped, smoothed, and leveled the sole, testing the balance from every angle.

Then he took up the finished shoe, one of the first ones they’d made all those hours ago, and set it against her hoof.

He checked the fit, turned it and nodded to himself.

“Perfect.” He set it on the pedestal, and picked up the dreaded nails and hammer.

Seeing her worst fear, Riley’s whole body went tight.

But then Luca looked up at her and there was something so completely calm and unhurried in his face that she made herself let go of her own tail.

“Deep breath.” He said as he set the first nail against the first hole.

The whole yard went silent. Someone at the back covered their eyes.

He lifted the hammer…

…and drove it home in one strike!

Behind him, the crowd shrieked! A great collective yelp of sympathetic pain, as if they’d all been hit instead. Several centaurs turned away entirely.

But Riley…Riley did not make a sound.

“…Riley?” Nella’s voice came out very small. “Riley, are you okay?”

Riley opened one eye. Then the other. Then looked down at her own hoof.

“…It doesn’t hurt.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t hurt! It doesn’t hurt!” Riley looked up at Luca with an expression of real wonder. “It felt like—like a good scratch. Like getting to an itch that’s been sitting there for a year!”

“Really?” Someone in the crowd. “Really really?”

“Not even a little bit? Not even a pinch?”

“No, I told you.” Riley said, laughing. “It felt nice!”

The yard went from terror to absolute delight in about four seconds.

“Do the rest.” Riley exclaimed. “All of them. Do them all!”

Luca did.

The second nail went in faster. Then the third, and the fourth, and by the fifth the crowd had stopped flinching and started watching, and by the seventh they were commenting.

He worked around the rim, setting each nail, driving it home, then twisting the tips over on the underside and filing them flat, then brushing away the dust and checking the fit with his thumb.

Then he moved to the next hoof. And the next. And the next.

Cleaning, trimming, nailing, finishing. He did all four of Riley’s in about twenty minutes.

“Alright.” He said, and stood up. “Move around a bit.”

Riley stood.

She took one step. Then another. Slow, careful, testing the weight. Then she started sprinting at full speed.

Claudia’s voice was tight. “Riley, slow down—”

“Don’t rush it!” Nella called. “Don’t show off! You always show off and then you fall over—”

“Just take it easy.” Sigrid said, already stepping forward to catch her.

But Riley just laughed.

“It doesn’t hurt! It doesn’t hurt at all!” She came back, her face glowing with pure bliss. “Before, running would hurt so much—I’d have to slow down. But now? It doesn’t hurt at all! It feels amazing! I can run faster than ever!”

Everyone stared in wonder.

“Really?”

“It made you faster?”

“That doesn’t make sense…”

But Riley just danced around, showing off her new horseshoes.

“It’s true! It feels like part of me was finally completed. I feel so much more confident!”

She looked at the others.

“Try it! You’ll see! It’s so much better!”

Nobody hesitated after that. A hundred and some centaurs surged forward at once, all talking over each other at the top of their lungs.

“Me! Do me next!”

“No, I was here first, I’ve been standing here the whole time—”

“You were sitting. Everyone saw you sitting.”

“Sitting in this exact spot! That counts!”

Within seconds, Luca was swarmed by a wall of eager centaurs, all jostling and stamping, their new enthusiasm drowning out every other sound in the clearing.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! One at a time!” He held up both hands, laughing despite himself. “Form a line—two lines, actually.”

He shot a glance over at Mavis, who was already dragging a second pedestal into place.

“Half of you over there. Mavis has been trained up, and I promise she’s every bit as good as I am.”

“Every bit as good?” Mavis snorted, flipping her hair with a haughty flick. “Please. I’m better!”

But the centaurs didn’t care who did the work. They just wanted their shoes.

In seconds, two lines snaked through the torchlit clearing, and Luca and Mavis set to work in earnest.

This time, Luca didn’t hold back. With Riley, he’d been slow, careful, teaching Mavis each step.

Now he moved like a man possessed.

Clean the hoof. Trim the excess. Shape the shoe. Set the nails.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

Bend the tips. Snip the sharp edges. Done!

A full set in under two minutes, before the centaur could even finish her nervous little prayer.

“Next!”

Mavis, though not quite as fast, was nevertheless impressive. Her power hammer sang as she shaped the metal, her measurements were precise, and her installation was careful and thorough.

For every five centaurs Luca finished, she completed one—but she completed them well.

And with every centaur who walked away with new hooves, the excitement in the village grew.

—

“Listen!” A centaur named Petra came strutting out of the line, stopped in the middle of the yard, and stamped one hoof.

Click-clack!

She froze. Then she stamped the other.

Click-clack!

Her face lit up.

“Listen!” She said again, to the whole yard. “Every time I walk, do you hear that? Click-clack. Click-clack.”

She took three steps in a circle and did a little sway of her hips at the end of it, absolutely delighted.

“Isn’t it nice? It’s like—it’s like a rhythm!”

“Petra—”

“No, wait. Wait.” She held up a hoof, and then she started moving—front left, front right, a drag, a double tap, hind left, hind right—and with the shoes ringing on packed earth, she produced a little beat.

Then another. Then she added a slight rocking motion at the shoulders and it turned into something like a dance.

“Oh, that’s lovely.” Somebody said.

“Do it again!”

“She can play music with her feet.”

Petra flicked her tail and did one final flourish—click-clack-clack—and took a bow to genuine applause.

—

Meanwhile, at the edge of the yard, a centaur named Tosia hadn’t moved from the moment her shoes went on. She was just standing there, looking down at herself.

“Look how much taller I am.”

Her friend glanced over skeptically. “It’s not even that much taller. Maybe a finger or two.”

“A finger or two is more than enough!”

The shorter centaur argued, her smile not dimming in the slightest.

“My whole life, I’ve been the shortest one among all of you. And now…now I finally feel like I can stand tall!”

She puffed out her chest with newfound confidence.

“This is amazing! I feel like I could give orders and people would actually listen!”

“Nobody’s ever going to listen to you.”

“Still taller though.”

—

Nearby, a group of mothers had gathered around a small pond, examining their reflections in the moonlight.

One of them turned her hooves this way and that, marveling at the reflection.

“I look…so much more elegant now.” She murmured.

Then her cheeks flushed slightly as she added,

“You know…I read in the ancient books about how human women used to wear beautiful footwear. They would go to grand balls, dancing in slippers made of silk and jewels.”

“And elves…elves wear shoes made from living roots, woven with flowers. They look so pretty.”

She paused, her voice growing more hesitant.

“Honestly…I always wanted to try something like that. To feel…prettier.”

Several other mothers went quiet at that.

Because it was true. Warriors though they were, they were women too, and women liked pretty things.

But a centaur’s body left them almost no room for any of it. You couldn’t wear shoes. You couldn’t wear a proper dress with a hem to swish.

“But now…I feel like I’m actually indulging in something.”

“I feel like a diva!” Another mother declared, twirling in place.

“Horseshoes for battle and for beauty!” a third laughed. “Who would have thought?”

Claudia, standing nearby, examined her own hooves thoughtfully.

“It would be nice if engravings could be added.” She mused. “The metal is beautiful, but some decorative patterns…that would make them even prettier.”

From across the clearing, Luca heard her comment and shouted back:

“That can definitely be done! Not today since I’m exhausted. But later, when there’s time, Mavis and I can add engravings. Custom designs for anyone who wants them!”

The mothers’ faces lit up with delight.

“Really?!”

“He would do that?”

“Custom engravings?!”

They looked at Luca with even more warmth than before. Any other man might have dismissed their desire for pretty things as frivolous and called engraving a waste of time and effort.

But Luca understood. He always understood.

The way they looked at him grew even more passionate.