This fanfic is based on the phenomenal beast fable by George Orwell, and is one of two I have planned out, but they don't share any continuity to eachother, so don't get confused.

First up, an admittance to the readers: I know it looks like I've been pumping out one fanfiction after another, and not continuing them beyond the first chapter or so. I'm honestly very sorry about that. Some of you may not understand this, but I can only involve myself with certain fandoms if I'm in the particular mood for elaborating on that fandom. And right now, I'm onto the Animal Farm fandom, so I am writing this fic.

So, I unfortunately must inform that updates for any of my fanfics will be sporadic, few and far between. I apologize to any hard fic-lovers who are dismayed by the long hiatus. But, nobody's perfect.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get down to business; this Animal Farm fanfic is more of a remake, not to say that it's better than the original, which is a really good book, all of you out there should read it if you haven't. It's my own version of Orwell's classic tale, but, since it will have nothing to do with historical events, it will have a more elaborate plot, more fleshed-out characters with bigger individual roles, and different wording and description of events, as well as events that weren't shown in the original book, and a significant number of the characters will be fan-made by me. I will also be incorporating several elements from both of the film adaptations of the book, but the main story will follow that of the book itself.

Despite the above mentioned on/off updating schedule, you can expect quicker updates for this fic, since I've already read the book and am basing most of the chapters around the book's.

As I'm sure I don't need to tell you, I own no rights to Animal Farm or its adaptations.

It was a cool, early spring night in the wide-open countryside of England, and on a small stretch of land outside Willingdon county known as the Manor Farm, all of the animals who had labored throughout the day lay awake in their stalls.

The owner of the farm, Mr. Jones, who had long ago turned to drink in spite of his own self-inflicted problems, had returned later than usual from the Red Lion, the local farmers' favorite watering hole. Mr. Jones had already locked the henhouses, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes. The drunken man then stumbled back towards the farmhouse, the ring of light from his lantern dancing wildly, and, after a last glass of beer from the scullery, shambled up the stairs to his room where Mrs. Jones, the farmer's witch of a wife, lay already alseep and snoring.

Once all the lights in the farmhouse were out, there was a low stirring and fluttering about all the farm buildings. Old Major, the prize middle-white boar of Manor Farm, had called all the other animals for a meeting in the big barn that night. Word had gone around that day that Old Major had had a strange dream the previous night that he desired to share amongst the other animals, and, being as the boar was regarded as the wisest and most respected animal on the farm due to his years, the others were willing to lose an hour of sleep so as to hear what he had to say.

Old Major(though among the humans he was known as Willingdon Beauty) was twelve years old and was dull grayish-white in terms of coloration, and his strong, ivory-white tusks, which had never been cut, curved smoothly upwards from his jaw. Major presented a wise and benevolent, yet strong and honorable appearance, and even the much taller horses and cows looked up to him. Old Major lay in a bed of straw on a sort of raised platform, lit by a small oil lantern that hung from a beam. Before long the other animals began to file into the barn and make themselves comfortable after their different fashions. The first to arrive were the three dogs, Jessie the border collie, Bluebell the greyhound, and Pincher the rottweiler. Jessie was mainly white and black with some brown around her eyes and legs(keeping the appearance of her live-action film counterpart), and Bluebell was sandy brown with white underneath.

After the dogs came the pigs, of which there were about twenty, not counting the few young piglets, who settled themselves down immediately in front of the platform. Among the pigs were Snowball, a handsome-looking boar of creamy-white, and Napoleon, a large, fierce-looking Berkshire boar, who was just as determined as Snowball to get a good spot, though far less polite about it. Lastly there was Trop, a young white boar with large brown blotches along his back, and by his side was Snuffler, an Essex piglet. These two took their seats beside Snowball, partly because young Snuffler was quite frightened by Napoleon.

The ducks and chickens perched themselves sporadically throughout the barn, the pigeons fluttered up to the rafters, and then the sheep, marshaled by two old but wise rams named Clove and his brother, Hogarth, arrived and settled themselves in the middle of the spacious room behind the pigs. After the sheep came the three cows and single bull, Oxford, who brought themselves down at the right end of the room and began chewing their cud. The ring that donned Oxford's nose, as well as his huge size and curved horns, gave him an intimidating appearance, but really he was a kind beast who only showed anger when it was impossible for him to feel anything else. Oxford settled down beside his beloved, a small, kind-hearted heifer named Annabelle.

The two cart horses, Boxer and Clover, came in together, walking very slowly and setting down their vast hairy hooves with great care, lest there should be some small animal concealed in the straw. Clover was a pale brown, stout, motherly mare approaching middle age, and she had quite never gotten her figure back after her fourth foal. Her mane was raven black, and she had a darker brown stripe down her back. Boxer was an enormous beast, towering over the other animals, and his strength, which surpassed even Oxford's, was greater than that of any two ordinary horses put together. He was dark brown, and a white stripe down his nose gave him a somewhat stupid appearance, and in fact he was not of first-rate intelligence, but he more than made up for this with his steadiness of character and tremendous powers of work, for which he was universally respected. After the horses came Muriel, the white nanny goat, and Benjamin the old Donkey. Benjamin was the oldest animal on the farm, and the worst tempered. He seldom spoke, and when he did, it was usually to make some cynical remark- for instance, he would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies at bay, but that he would sooner have no tail and no flies. Alone among the animals on the farm he never laughed, and if asked why, he would say that he saw nothing to laugh at. Nevertheless, without openly admitting it, he was devoted to Boxer. The juggernaut of a horse was truly the closest and only thing Benjamin had to a friend; the two of them would spend their Sundays together in the small paddock beyond the orchard, grazing side by side, but never speaking.

The two horses had just lain down adjacent to the cows, when a brood of ducklings, who had lost their mother, stumbled into the barn, cheeping feebly and wandering from side to side in search of some place where they would not be trodden on. Clover, seeing the young ones in distress, made a sort of wall around them with her great foreleg, and the ducklings nestled down inside it and soon fell asleep, cutely quacking their snores.

At this moment, one of the side doors of the barn creaked open, and in trod an animal that was certainly not of the domestic type. This was a young red deer stag known as Bolt, so named for his impressive speed. His many-pointed antlers branched out over his long neck, and his reddish-brown coat was not well-groomed, though this was to be expected of a wild creature. Bolt resided in the woods at the edge of Manor Farm, and had met and subsequently befriended Boxer, Clover and Oxford one day in fall while he had been pilfering some ripe apples from the orchard, and he had been later acquainted with the other animals. Bolt was, unfortunately, unable to spend much time with his domestic friends, as he could not be seen by Jones or his farmhands since it would surely land his head on Jones's wall. Several of the other animals had their eyes on Bolt as he settled down beside Boxer and Benjamin, for the red deer had very rarely been inside the barn during his visits. A minute later, a silent, ghostly white figure flew into the barn from a high window, and several pigeons hurriedly flew to other parts of the barn as it landed on one of the rafters, its coal-black eyes hardly paying attention to the spooked birds. This was Joseph, the old barn owl who frequented Manor Farm, and it was no mystery why his entrance had startled the pigeons; it was a known fact that owls ate their kind.

But Joseph was not hungry, and at any rate he only hunted in the woods, and mostly just for rodents.

At the last moment, Mollie, the foolish, pretty white mare who drew Mr. Jones's trap, came mincing daintily in, chewing a lump of sugar. She took a place near the front and began flirting her golden blonde mane, hoping to draw attention to the pink ribbons that adorned it. Last of all came the cat, who looked round, as usual, for the warmest place, and finally squeezed herself in between Boxer and Clover; there she purred contently throughout Major's speech, only half-listening to what he was saying.

All the animals were now present except Moses, the tame raven, who slept on a perch behind the back door. Joseph was rather content with this, as he and the raven did not at all get along, nor did they like eachother. When Major saw that the others had all made themselves comfortable and were waiting attentively, he cleared his throat and began:

"Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last night. But I will come to the dream later. I have something else to say first." Old Major's voice was low and hoarse, but he spoke loud enough for all the creatures in the barn to hear. "I do not think, comrades, that I shall be with you for many months longer, and before I die, I feel it my duty to pass on to you such wisdom as I have acquired throughout my years. I have had a long life, I have had much time for thought as I lay alone in my stall, and I think I may say that I understand the nature of life on this earth as well as any animal now living. It is about this that I wish to speak to you.

"Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end, we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. Our children are born to cold and hunger." When Major said this, a mother ewe looked down at her black lamb that lay nuzzled to her side. What would happen to her dear child in the future? "Look at them while you can. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

"But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades! A thousand times no! The soil of England is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater number of animals that now inhabit it. This single farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep- and all of them living in comfort and a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagining. Why then, do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labor is stolen from us by human beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word- Man. Man is the only real enemy that we have. Remove man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever.

"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plow, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent us from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself. Our labor tills the soil, our dung fertilizes it, and yet there is not one of us that owns more than his bare skin. You cows that I see before me, how many gallons of milk have you given during this last year? And what has happened to that milk which should have been breeding up healthy and sturdy calves that you, Oxford, should have sired? Every drop of it has gone down the throats of our enemies. And you, hens, how many eggs have you laid in this past year, and how many of those eggs have ever hatched into chicks? The rest have all gone to market to bring in money for Jones and his men. And you, Clover, where are those four foals you bore, who should have been the support and pleasure of your old age? Each was sold at year old- you will never see one of them again. In return for your four confinements and all your labor in the fields, what have you ever had except your bare rations and a stall?

"And even the miserable lives we lead are not allowed to reach their natural span. For myself I do not grumble, for I am one of the lucky ones. I am twelve years old and have fathered over four hundred children. Such is the natural life of a pig. But no animal escapes the cruel knife in the end. You young porkers who are sitting in front of me, every one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year. To that horror we all must come- cows, pigs, hens, sheep, everyone." The animals, especially the pigs, whined in horror at the notion meeting their end at the blade of the knacker. "Even the horses and the dogs have no better fate. You, Boxer, the very day that those great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will sell you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down for the foxhounds. As for the dogs, when you three grow old and toothless, Jones will tie bricks round your necks and drown you in nearest pond. Not even you, Bolt, as a wild animal, are safe, for if Jones or any one of his men were to walk in suddenly and see you in the barn, they would shoot you dead and mount you on the farmhouse wall without a second thought.

"Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings? Only get rid of Man, and the produce of our labor would be our own. Almost overnight we could become rich and free. What then must we do? Why, work night and day, body and soul, for the overthrow of the human race! That is my message to you, comrades: REBELLION! I do not know when that Rebellion will come, it might be in week, or in a hundred years, but I know, as surely as I see this straw beneath my feet, that sooner or later justice will be done. Fix your eyes on that, comrades, throughout the short remainder of your lives! And above all, pass on this message of mine to those who come after you, so that future generations shall carry on the struggle until it is victorious.

"And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter. No argument must lead you astray. Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. Man serves the interest of no creature except himself. And among us animals let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship in the struggle. All men are enemies. All animals are comrades."

At this moment there was a tremendous uproar. While Major had been speaking, four large rats had crept out of their holes and were sitting on their hindquarters, listening intently to him. Joseph and the dogs had suddenly caught sight of them, and it was by only by a swift dash to their holes that the rats saved their lives. Major raised his trotter for silence.

"Comrades," he said, "here is a point that must be settled. The wild creatures, such as rats and rabbits- are they our friends or our enemies? I do not need to tell you that not one but two are among us right now." Major said, referring to Bolt and Joseph. "Let us put it to a vote. I propose this question to the meeting: Are rats comrades?"

The vote was taken at once, and it was agreed by an overwhelming majority that rats were comrades. There were only five dissentients, the three dogs, the cat, and Joseph, and the latter two were afterwards discovered to have voted on both sides. Major continued:

"I have little more to say. I merely repeat, remember always your duty of emnity towards Man and all his ways. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. And remember also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him. Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices. No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. All the habits of Man are evil. And, above all, no animal must tyrannize over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are EQUAL!" A brief uproar of excitement followed this announcement, and when it died down, Old Major began again.

"And now, comrades, I will tell you about my dream of last night. I cannot describe such a dream to you. It was a dream of the earth as it will be when Man has vanished. But it reminded me of something that I had long forgotten. Many years ago, when I was but a nursing piglet, my mother and the other sows used to sing an old song of which they only knew the tune and the first verse. I had known that tune in my infancy, but it had long since passed out of my mind. Last night, however, it came back to me in my dream, sung by golden angelic voices. And what is more, the words of the song also came back- words, I am certain, which were sung by the animals of long ago and have been lost to memory for generations. I will sing you that song now, comrades, and I hope you to join in. I am old and my voice is hoarse, but when I have taught you the tune, you can sing it better for yourselves. It is called Beasts of England."

Old Major cleared his throat and began to sing. As he had said, his voice was hoarse, but he sang well enough, and it was a stirring tune, right along the lines of Clementine. The words ran:

Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of the golden future time.

Soon or late the day is coming,
Tyrant Man shall be o'erthrown,
And the fruitful fields of England
Shall be trod by beasts alone.

As Old Major sang in his gruff voice, the other animals began to join him, clucking, barking, and mooing the words of the song with rising enthusiasm.

Rings shall vanish from our noses,
And the harness from our back,
Bit and spur shall rust forever,
Cruel whips no more shall crack.

Riches more than mind can picture,
Wheat and barley, oats and hay,
Clover, beans and mangel-wurzels
Shall be ours upon that day.

Bright will shine the fields of England,
Purer shall its waters be,
Sweeter yet shall blow its breezes
On the day that sets us free.

For that day we all must labor,
Though we die before it break;
Cows and horses, geese and turkeys,
All must toil for freedom's sake.

Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken forth and spread my tidings
Of the golden future time.

Hearken forth and spread my tidings
Of the golden future time.

The singing of this song threw the animals into wildest excitement, and then the whole farm burst into Beasts of England in tremendous unison. The cows and Oxford lowed it, the dogs howled it, the sheep bleated it, the horses whinnied it, Joseph hooted it, even Bolt joined the chorus with his own moaning, honking call. The animals were so delighted and uplifted with the song that they sang it right through five whole times, and Old Major shed tears of happiness from his old eyes. The animals sang Beasts of England heartily onward, and might have continued singing it all night if they had not been interrupted.

Unfortunately, the uproar awoke Mr. Jones, who sprang out of bed, making sure that there was a fox in the yard. He seized the gun which always stood in a corner of his bedroom, and let fly a charge of #6 shot into the darkness. The pellets buried themselves in the wall of the barn and the meeting broke up hurriedly. Everyone fled to his own sleeping place, with Bolt, most terrified of all, rocketing back to the trees on his long legs. The birds jumped onto their perches, the animals settled down in the straw, and the whole farm was asleep in a moment.

From his platform, Old Major glared in contempt out the barn window. Jones may rule over us now, he thought. But one day, Man will pay the price of their treatment of the animals. One day the Rebellion will come. One day...

And so ends chapter 1. As you can see, most of Old Major's speech is derived from the book, still, I like this guy's opinion of human beings lol.

The characters of Bolt, Joseph, Trop, Snuffler, Oxford, Annabelle, Clove, and Hogarth belong to me. Everyone else is owned by George Orwell.

Like I said above, updates for any other of my fics will be largly sporadic. And I do not own this timeless tale.