Prompt: Centaur AU. Bonus points if your centaurs aren't quite what people expect…
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Emily had never been a very good politician, not even when she was a filly and it was all her mother wanted her to be. When she was supposed to be quiet, she was always loud; when she was supposed to be gentle, she wanted to be rough.
No, she wasn't very good at politics, especially not when she was young enough to be more interesting in running and playing instead. But she was always a very good centaur. Black as the midnight sky with none of the stars, her coat was gleaming and glossy and her hooves were hard. She had looks to flaunt and power to spare. She wasn't small and she didn't want to be, because no stallion would ever tell her what to do or when.
And maybe that's why she was so bad at politics: really, Emily just didn't like to be controlled. No Prentiss was born to be broken.
And her life was filled with men who thought that just because they were big and strong, they could do what they wanted. Alpha males with alpha mentalities, even if they thought they were kind. Emily didn't trust easily, and could she be blamed?
There were her parents, who scolded her for being so large and unmarelike, always too loud, too brash, too much. There were her schoolfriends, who'd teased her for much the same. Teachers who were exhausted by her need to run, to gallop with the wind in her hair and whipping at her clothes until her hindquarters were slick with sweat and she'd thrown a shoe and had to limp home. There was John, and Matthew, and everything that went wrong when she trusted a man to help her.
There was Ian Doyle with his shaggy coat and salted colouring. Blue eyes that were piercing and more dangerous than his sharp hooves. Emily ran by his side because she had to, but she didn't like it. Lauren did, a little. After all, Lauren was a mare with nothing to lose and everything to gain, someone entirely at home in a stallion's word. She stood as tall as Emily did, just as tall as any of the men around her, but she was happy being under them.
And Doyle liked to be in control.
There was Clyde. He was smaller than her and knew it. She loved him, in the way she loved the few people she let close, but she didn't trust him. That wasn't anything against him. She didn't trust anyone.
There was Aaron Hotchner, who was impressive in every sense of the word. Just as black as she but twice as graceful, he made her feel awkward and ungainly in comparison even though they were the same size. Oddly, she trusted him.
Derek Morgan was bigger yet, but lean. His horse half was just as muscled as his human half, with nothing left to spare. Physically impressive, he walked like he knew it and that hid how keen his mind was. It pissed her off, but she never told him that because a small part of her respected him.
JJ was small, gold and white with a tail that flicked nervously even when her face was impassive. Delicate hooves that made no noise and thin, long legs to die for. Emily was immediately protective of this small, quiet mare, even though JJ didn't need protecting. And, if JJ was a hint that size wasn't everything—something Emily needed to learn—then there was Spencer Reid.
"What on earth are you?" she'd barked with shock the first time she'd walked into the BAU and almost crashed into him. He'd given her a look that was ten times the sass something of his size should manage and tilted that strange, square face up to stare at her, arms crossed over his ridiculous sweater-vest that was too short to hide how his shirt hung loose.
"I'm Spencer Reid," he said defensively. "Dr. Spencer Reid. Who are you?"
Later, she'd realise this was deliberate. Spencer hadn't spent so long as a stag in a horse's world without learning how to stick up for himself.
And she'd learned not to be weirded out by him. He wasn't really small, despite only coming up to just below her shoulders—not including his antlers that were small and barely grown in. Two tines, and he always ducked his head and almost hit her with them when he got shy about them. Barely visible on his narrow rump was the suggestive shadow of fawn spots on his russet coat, his hooves even smaller than JJ's and absolutely noiseless without shoes to give away his position. And, best of all—she'd laughed at it at first but found herself captivated by later—a tufty tail that flicked excitedly whenever he was too happy to contain his emotions.
She realised very quickly that, when it came to Spencer Reid, size wasn't everything.
He was smarter than her, and that was a given.
He was faster than her, and that pissed her off even more than Morgan's forced masculinity did. The first time she realised this, he saved her life. She'd fallen, hard, her foreleg folded under her and her gun out of reach. The unsub's gun, however, was absolutely not only in reach, but aimed at her head.
And there was nothing she could do but stare him in the eyes as he went to take her life; she'd never shied away from anything in life, and she didn't plan to start now that she was dying.
But he got there first. A clatter of delicate hooves that suddenly didn't seem so delicate anymore and he was—of course, the little shit—between her and the gun, long, bandy legs splayed to keep him low with the bulk of her behind him as the unsub went to shoot. If it had been Morgan or Hotch, they'd have died. Too loud and big and slow; they'd never have reared in time to knock the gun away. Spencer went low and quick, antlers catching the guy right where human torso smoothly slipped into horse, lashing up and knocking the gun from his hand and leaving a slash of red in its wake.
Later, she sat with him watching the flurry of a crime scene, an orange blanket folded around each of their shoulders and nothing to say between them.
Finally, she found her voice, "Thanks," she muttered. "Not bad for a deer with tiny antlers."
He just grinned up at her, shrugging. "Size isn't everything, Em."
And this time, she believed him.