Trudging up the steps from your work, you fumble tiredly for your keys.  
Oh, the joys of being a corporate drone.  
The door slides open and you’ve barely bent down to pick up your backpack when the rapid thud-thud of hooves on wood warn you of what is to come.  

Barely have you stood up when a wide, white-feathered wing wraps around your torso while her head nuzzles into your chest.  
Phew, no ‘welcome home tackle’ that time.  
Reaching up, you grin and run your fingers through the fuzz around her cheeks.  
Head twisting around to nudge her ears towards your hand, Suns makes a sort of gentle humming noise you’ve come to associate with immediate, pleasurable happiness.  
Like a purr, if a hundred-and-fifty-pound miniature horse could purr.  

Giving her her ears one last scratch, you turn for the kitchen.  

That was one of the other weird things about her, you’d discovered.  
Whoever owned her previously ~~ if Suns even had an owner previously - must have spoiled her horribly, because her diet was firmly set somewhere halfway between ‘full horse’ and ‘people food’.  
Utterly refusing anything but real food once she had discovered your own food in the house, she still took mouthfuls of hay with every meal - sometimes even sprinkling them over her own plate.  
Well, whatever.  
It kept her happy, and didn’t seem to be having any negative effects.  
Your thoughts are interrupted by light tapping on the back door.  

The tapping only increases in tempo.  

The front and rear entrances were the only doors you’d managed to train her not to open on her own.  
A hefty freak out the first time you’d caught her sticking her head onto the front lawn had done the trick.  
Twisting the knob, you hold the door aside and usher her out into the back yard.  

Thank God for living in the suburbs, where the back yards were bigger and a six-foot-tall fence around the edge wouldn’t raise any eyebrows.  
Retreating back into the kitchen, your mind begins to wander as you mix up dinner.  
Clearly there was absolutely nothing normal about Suns.  
I mean, miniature horses you knew about - and the mane, maybe that was some funky genetics work like those glow-in-the-dark rabbits.  
But the horn and wings?  
And then there was the matter of her intelligence.  
Suns was clearly on the level of the smartest dogs - maybe even a monkey or something.  
Definitely miles beyond any other horses.  
And yet, there wasn’t anything out there.  
No billionaires posting want ads - ‘Lost, one incredibly smart miniature horse with horn and wings. Has a sense of humor, likes pancakes and cuddles.’  
Nor any reports about government labs loosing track of their secret experiments - and that shit would have been leaked to the media in a second if one did.  
Besides, ‘lazy, soft miniature horse’ didn’t seem like something the government would spend billions on.  
Pausing by the window over the sink, you glance out into your back yard again.  
What you saw drew a chuckle from your lips.  
There she lay, on her back, legs in the air and wiggling wildly as she squirmed back and forth.  
Even as you stood watching, another squirm brought Suns back to face you… and she froze.  
The chuckle turns into a snort as the most aggrieved and embarrassed look grows on her space, as if you’d caught her doing something terribly undignified and humiliating.  
…okay, in fairness it was rather amusing on account of how funny it looked, but still.  
With another laugh, you turn from the window and shove dinner into the over.  
Yeah, you might not know exactly where Suns had come from, and there was a lot weird about her.  
But she was yours for now, and damn if you didn’t enjoy having her around.