Centaurworld Presents: Mysterious Woman and the Quest for the Fixit Shard, or, Holes part 4 /12

"This page contains spoilers (and won't make sense unless you've seen) the finale of Centaurworld.""Centaurworld Presents: Mysterious Woman and the Quest for the Fixit Shard, or, Holes part 4 1/2" is a theoretical fanfiction to Megan Nicole Dong's Centaurworld, conceptualized by reddituser idiotballofwonder.

Plot Summary
The story begins roughly a year or so after the finale. The centaurworld shamans have discovered the location of the Fixit Shard, an artifact that has been lost for centuries that Mysterious Woman traveled to find in her youth. As there is an apparent 'tiff' between shamans Johnny Teatime and the Whaletaur, Mysterious Woman volunteers herself to retrieve the shard. With Grahmm the Beartaur’s help she finds the Fixit Shard deep within an abandoned holetaur mine. However upon touching the shard Mysterious Woman finds herself suddenly in a completely different looking cave and wearing a different outfit. Exiting the mine to find Grahmm, she instead finds her childhood friend Gwendale, alive and in her youth, as well as the still-alive elktaur waiting for her -and passes out.

In her subconscious, Mysterious Woman sees a version of herself identical to how she was just dressed. Both of them realize what has happened: the Fixit Shard has body-swapped Mysterious Woman with a version of herself from an alternate universe. Her counterpart from this reality, who goes by her birth name, Zuut, is trapped in the canon timeline in her body. The next day Becka, Briamael and Mysterious Woman stage a taurnado in order to evacuate the guardtaurs at the Rift. They leap through to the humanworld....where they are immediately captured by human riftworkers who take them to the new king of the realm - a king not at all related to Zuut’s father or family. The Key now directly powers only the human’s side of the Rift under his watch. While in this so-called golden age the new king intends to use the magic of the Key as a weapon of war. Becka and Mysterious Woman fight off his police and escape but Briamael is left behind when they’re both pulled back through to centaurworld. Minos is horrified when he hears his son is lost on the other side. He demands to know why Zuut would do such a thing, which is when Mysterious Woman reveals to everyone that she’s not really their Zuut. Zuut’s entourage unanimously abandon Mysterious Woman for stranding Zuut in an alternate reality, and leave to save Briamael from the humanworld. Mysterious Woman breaks down, having been rejected by the reality and friends she wishes she had. The real Zuut, meanwhile, binges through Brahmm’s fridge in a fit of trauma and passes out. In their fugue state, both women nod off an meet their alt self - Zuut wanting to kill Mysterious Woman for endangering her son. Mysterious Woman assures her that she will risk everything to save Briamael and Zuut's world while Zuut gathers her half of the Fixit Shard she’d earlier thrown into the centaur-sea. Zuut swims to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve the shard when she meets there the sobbing Whaletaur shaman. Whaletaur tells Zuut (thinking, of course, that she’s Mysterious Woman) her plight; how years ago she had swallowed Johnny Teatime’s parents, the original shamans of Cat Valley, because they were depressed. Having recently found out about his parent’s fate, Johnny Teatime declared her a 'menace' and ended their friendship, and also secondarily declared war on the merfolk of centaurworld. Knowing the still alive Teatimes' from her reality, Zuut has the Whaletaur take her to Cat Valley. Johnny tries to murder them with his powers but Zuut placates Johnny and speaks to his inner kittentaur when she sings to him his parent’s favorite lullaby. She assures him that his parents never left because they didn’t love him, but only because they hated themselves, and that the Whaletaur is not to blame. Whaletaur and Johnny reconcile and the 'war' is ended before the Cattaurs and adopted-by-the-cattaur-minotaurs can use chemical warfare on the sea. Zuut heads back to Grahmm’s cave with her half of the shard.

Mysterious Woman storms through the Rift to help find Briamael. Seeing the totalitarianism of the humanworld shocks Zuut’s friends while Minos is horrified at the state of the Key, deducing that it’s magic is not only dangerous but unstable and that the centaurs need to intervene before the humans destroy themselves. While hiding in what’s left of the nearby forest, the group come across a commune of yuppie anarchists who want to live with nature and without magic. They explain that they were keeping Briamael safe in their camp because they think he is their 'deity', but he’d escaped that morning after he grew sick of their adoration and cult-behavior. Minos and Becka save Briamael just in time from a human officer while Mysterious Woman uses the tricks she’s learned from Briamael to fool the rest of the officer's squadron. The centaurians leave with the promise to return and try to end this crisis, or at least smuggle the yuppie commune to centaurworld before the inevitable arms-race destroys humanity. Mysterious Woman bids her alt family farewell and falls asleep that night with them watching. Zuut and Mysterious Woman meet and briefly catch the other up on what’s happened in their worlds before they connect their shard pieces and return to their timelines and bodies; Zuut in her timeline held by her son and Minos, so happy to see them alive and ready at last to face the humanworld she escaped from; Mysterious Woman wakes up in the canon world being watched over by Grahmm.

Mysterious Woman rides Becky Apples to the Shaman Training Ground and returns to the shamans the Fixit Shard. After which her body transforms for the first time in years to match centaurworld and she find she’s able to shoot tiny versions of herself from her feet.

Reinvigorated by her experience, Mysterious Woman asks to be called by her birth name, Zuut, from then on, though her centaurworld friends comment under the breath how 'odd' a human name that is.

Canon Characters
Mysterious Woman - The main character. The inhabitants of centaurworld do in fact call her just “Woman” as she’s refused to be called by her birth name for years. Mysterious Woman is full of self-loathing that she doesn’t concede as a problem. Having ‘moved on’, she’s actually doubled down on her philosophy of keeping her emotions locked up; refusing to acknowledge that she even had a husband and keeping everyone but Becky Apples, whom she talks to like a pet, at bay. Mysterious Woman feels the atrocities in both worlds have all been caused by her inability to act. Despite not being particularly happy as a princess, she's idealized her memories of humanworld before the war, but not of her past self. MW thinks she was foolish, spoiled, and shallow in her past: recognizing she was not the best ally she could have been to her centaur friends. She feels the rest of centaurworld, especially the shamans, resent her when they really do not, a side effect of her projecting her own self-hatred onto them. She hates her counterpart when she first meets her, saying she reminds her too much of a person she "hated being". She initially thinks the alternate reality is a ‘fixed’ version of her life. Mysterious Woman realizes through Zuut’s life that not every outcome in the canon timeline is linked to her, nor should she feel personally responsible for everyone else. Zuut did make the decisions she wished she had, but those have resulted in their own consequences. While in Zuut’s timeline she reconnects with the friends and family that are still alive there, though she’s still uncomfortable around her husband’s counterpart. Her stand-offish, pessimistic, and slobbish behavior helps her bond with Briamael, her alternate counterpart’s son. Mysterious Woman doesn't want to face it but she has a lot of unresolved pain over not physically changing to fit centaurworld and not becoming a shaman; both things Horse and Rider were able to do in such a shorter time than her. Mysterious Woman has heavy bags under her eyes and pronounced cheekbones, and they are still there even when she's in her alt's body. Beartaur - Mysterious Woman's roommate. His name in this story is Grahmm. He rarely ever leaves his cave. We learn from the story that he and Mysterious Woman met years after she was stranded in Centaurworld and she’s been his insight into how humanworld works (while also misinforming on information when he makes her mad), as Grahmm apparently tried and failed to make Mysterious Woman part of his collection. Throughout the story, Grahmm never learns exactly what’s happening with Mysterious Woman/Zuut and he’s disturbed by Zuut’s (in Mysterious Woman’s body) comparatively chipper, cool-mom attitude. Just as quickly though, once Zuut discovers the fate of the Nowhere King and brings home her husband’s antlers, he’s horrified to see what he thinks is his friend regress into her old obsessions. Becky Apples - Revealed to have been a tiny foal when she was Gary’s horse. She is tolerant and loyal enough to her riders but never accepts any of them as ‘hers’. Mysterious Woman nonetheless treats Becky as her horse and even confides in her, thinking that Becky can’t talk back -  she can . Becky has been able to speak for awhile now thanks to the magic of centaurworld, but she chooses not to; a fact she reveals to Zuut when Becky confronts her on who she really is. Becky has a very harsh, authoritarian voice. She doesn’t think too much of the Mysterious Woman, though not for the reasons Mysterious Woman hates in herself, and she loathes the Grahmm because she thinks he’s lazy and can’t sculpt horses to save his life. When Zuut departs from her world and gives her words of love from her timeline’s Gary, however, Becky breaks character and seems genuinely touched - Gary being the only other person she cares about.

Johnny Teatime - We learn in this story that Johnny is the new ruler of Cat Valley and defacto shaman, as his parents before him asked the Whaletaur Shaman to swallow them when he was still a baby. The fact that they did this without thinking of him, and that Whaletaur is unable to regurgitate souls after a few years means they're truly gone, leads Johnny to abdicate his title as shaman at the start of the story. When Zuut tells him anecdotes about how much they did love him, it’s the first time he has an honest “ugly cry”.

The Whaletaur Shaman - Whaletaur is revealed in this story to have been swallowing up depressed centaurs for years; the crowd that’s freed from her stomach in “Ride the Whaletaur Shaman” had yet to be fully digested. This was sadly not the case for Janna and Jackson Teatime, who’s sadness she consumed and ate away years ago. Whaletaur has been trying to turn her life and her unknowingly harmful methods around for the sake of her friends, which is why she’s so saddened to be hated by Johnny once he discovers the fate of his parents. As in the show she's the most emotionally vulnerable and 'chill' shaman to speak to besides Waterbaby and is always eager to please.

Big Tree and Little Tree - Appear very briefly while Zuut is on her “magic joyride” in Mysterious Woman’s body, and at the end of the story where Mysterious Woman entrusts with them the Fixit Shard. They are revealed to be the oldest of the centaurworld shamans. They are the only canon characters (besides Becky Apples) to recognize what is happening with MW and Zuut, though they’re more annoyed by it than bothered. In both realities, Mysterious Woman/Zuut harbor a great deal of respect for the Tree Shamans; they are the only shamans Mysterious Woman talks to.

Alternate Versions of the Canon Characters
The timeline that Zuut lives in is set in an earlier time period than what is currently seen in the show; around 50 to 80 years before the events of Centaurworld, taking place roughly around the time Mysterious Woman discovered the elk in the dungeon. Mysterious Woman gets body swapped with Zuut because they are both holding their piece of the shard and are both at that point in time 39 years old (Mysterious Woman has been unable to age past 39 since she split apart the Rift, while Zuut has just turned 39 in her time). Zuut, the human - Mysterious Woman’s alternate universe counterpart, who still goes by her birth name. With her life not being nearly as horrific as Mysterious Woman’s, Zuut is optimistic and friendly but also manic depressive. Zuut is determined at all costs to fit into centaurworld’s artstyle and regain her magic, hoping to use it to improve the lives of her family. Her desire to achieve that has slowly eaten away at her relationships; she doesn’t really know her son like she used to and is unable to see Minos’ unhappiness. Like Mysterious Woman she has imposter syndrome and blames herself for things both in and out of control which, in turn, makes her strive even harder to be magical. It also means she has forsaken some of the support and power she does have; though she doesn’t possess physical magic like MW has, she’s mastered various illusions to compensate. Technically Zuut is a fugitive in centaurworld and believes she is wanted by humanworld as well. Though her criminal status makes her unpopular with the holetaurs and Judge Jacket, she’s otherwise respected and treated as an authority befitting any shaman in centaurworld. Part of her desire to fit in and become magical has to do with her feeling of betrayal by her homeworld; she’s intent never to see the humanworld again. Ironically, like her canon counterpart, she has a need to lock that part of her life away at all costs rather than face it and free herself and her family from their trauma. Though emotionally neglectful of them, Zuut loves Minos and Briamael very much; she refuses to believe Becky’s story about the Nowhere King until she finds her partner’s counterpart’s remains. When she learns Mysterious Woman is endangering Briamael her one goal is to get back to her own body and save him. Zuut is meant to shed light on Mysterious Woman’s personality prior to splitting up the Rift. Whereas in the show we never see/learn much about the princess as a character, here we learn things about her: like how she lovingly describes things in nonsensical food anecdotes, writes fan fiction, and unironically calls herself a ‘girlboss’. Minos the Elktaur - Briamael’s father and the alternate counterpart to the elktaur. Having begun a working/romantic relationship with the princess because he actually had the courage to ask her out in this timeline, Minos is loyal to Zuut to a fault. He never bothers Zuut or disapproves of her judgment and is dependent on her for any purpose in his life. He’s adopted her worldview on humanity following her escape and hates the humans he so wanted to be in the past, though, when Mysterious Woman questions him, implies he still has body dysmorphia. He is both overly protective of his son and totally spineless in disciplining him, which makes Briamael respect him even less. Minos is clearly upset by Zuut’s obsessions coming between their relationship as they haven’t married in this timeline because Zuut’s constantly putting off their “re-reproposing”, engagement, or wedding for work. He calls her “Smookums” and is hurt to see her (really Mysterious Woman in Zuut’s body) so frightened of him. Even though he's not his worst self(s) in this timeline, Minos shows snippets of aggression and brutality that mirror the General and The Nowhere King; he acts as a sort of captain-of-the-guard to Zuut and he kills a human officer in a fit of rage when his son was being attacked. Becka - Becky Apples' counterpart in Zuut’s timeline. She is younger and more adapted to centaurworld, even fitting in with it's artstyle. Though she’s technically still a beast of burden, she acts and behaves no different than the other workers and servants of Zuut. She and Briamael get along and are each other’s closest thing to ‘friend’, the both of them acting like edgy teenagers and texting with birdtaur eggs. Becka is still close to Gary, though, given that she learned to talk much earlier in her life, they have more of a father-daughter relationship than a rider-steed one. Becka was a foal when she and Gary first helped Zuut escape to centaurworld and personally killed the guards that were pursuing them. Goodwitch the Beartaur - Grahmm’s mother. In Zuut’s timeline/period she is Zuut’s loving landlady who allows Zuut and her posse to live in her cave with her cubs. She's a domestic, loving mother and hostess. Her whereabouts in the canon timeline are unknown.

Grahmm the Beartaur - In Zuut's time he is only a cub and he is used to getting bullied/picked on by his older sister, Teddydosia. Gwendale the antelopetaur - Zuut's friend from childhood whom Mysterious Woman is happy to reconnect with after years of wishing she'd be a better friend to her. She is Rathaas' half sister and not-so-subtly an ancestor of Glendale, even having a portal in the back of her mouth like her descendant has on her tummy. Gary the Extraordinary - Zuut’s personal chef, doctor, and custodian from the humanworld and Becka’s “humandad” (i.e. rider). Gary is friendly, obedient and joyful in his many jobs and isn’t one to complain. Zuut considers him one of her finest allies as it was he and his identical brothers who were able to infiltrate her castle in order to sneak her out.

Gerard the Guard - One of Zuut’s personal assistants from the humanworld that willingly stranded himself in centaurworld to save her. In the canon timeline he’s the guardsman whom the Nowhere King fused with a cow to make the first minotaur. Ironically in Zuut’s timeline, he has now married a cowtaur and is expecting their first hybrid child.

New Characters
Briamael the Reverse-Elkhumantaur - Zuut and Minos’s 11-year-old son. He doesn't exist in the canon timeline given the fate of his father there. Briamael is a hybrid and thus a ‘reverse’ centaur, with the front half of his body being an elk with human ears and the rest of his body being a human up to the neck. His looks have resulted in him getting bullied in centaurworld and is home schooled for his protection. In the humanworld, by contrast, the yuppie revolutionaries think he’s their made-up deity and treat him like a savior, which bothers Briamael. Although initially just a brat, Briamael is the first person to believe Mysterious Woman’s story that she’s not really his mother but is in his mother’s body, which he thinks is “cool”. Briamael has a tendency to call violent or disturbing subjects neat. He’s self-aware to a fault and knows he’s privileged and sheltered from the rest of centaurworld and his human-heritage, a fact he’s not at all happy about and is why he lashes out. Briamael is smart for his age and gifted at wall art and illusions, all of which were taught to him by his mother. At the start of the story, Briamael thinks his mother doesn’t love him anymore. He says she changed after her hair became all ‘wibbly wobbly’-like and she started to seriously pursue magic, unaware that her interest in magic started before he was born. He calls Mysterious Woman “AltMom” and is annoyed that she won’t tell him about the more disturbing aspects of her world. Though sad to see her go, he’s overcome with emotion when his real mom awakens and hugs him so close. Briamael enjoys hard rock (as does Mysterious Woman) along with Becka and they sometimes ditch their home life to go to trashtaur concerts. Janna and Jackson Teatime - Johnny Teatime’s parents, the original shamans and rulers of Cat Valley. Unlike their son they are very talkative and have ineffective ‘showy’ magic. They're a very close, vapid couple who only know how to talk with others by belittling them. Evidently, despite how they presenting themselves as glamorous and shallow, they're actually very depressed as they eventually throw themselves in the Whaletaur in the canon timeline. Janna and Jackson consider themselves friends of Zuut, even though she doesn’t like them and endures their weekly visits; Mysterious Woman calls them exactly how she sees them when they stop by her cave to give ‘condolences’. Janna and Jackson want to become parents but haven’t had any luck so far within this timeline. Mysterious Woman knows they’ll eventually give birth to Johnny while it’s this fact that helps Zuut mend the fences between Whaletaur and Johnny, as she knows from their constant chatter about having children that they must love him.

Rathaas - Rathaas is a jackalopetaur (a rare kind of centaur as most crossbred centaurs are usually one or the other of their parent’s species, not a mix) and Gwendale’s brother. Rathaas likes to antagonize Zuut whenever he can, similar to how Ched is to Horse, and takes credit for Minos' accomplishments.

Yancy and Lynn - Two young human guardswomen who rebelled against their kingdom and helped Zuut flee humanworld and are now stranded fugitives in centaurworld. They don't seem very bothered by this and are usually out clubbing when they aren't on duty. They, Gerard, and Gary all appear more 'centaurworld'-like than Zuut.

Extra

 * This story began as just an AU concept before the author had the idea to cross it over with the main canon and make it a sequel to the series proper. It's also why the shard is called the 'Fixit' shard; as to allude to the idea of "Fixit" AUs.
 * Horse, Waterbaby, and the Herd do not appear in this story.
 * If this story were to have a sequel it would be about the fate of the Herd in the alt reality, who would no doubt cross-paths with the now adult Briamael - Zuut isn't cursed like Mysterious Woman is and so dies before what would be the events of the show.
 * Briamael's name is a portmanteau of the voice actors behind Mysterious Woman (Lea Salonga) and the Nowhere King (Brian Stokes Mitchell and Brian D'Arcy James), and with an M in place for N. [Bria-M-ael]
 * Goodwitch is named after Granny Goodwitch, the arch nemesis of Sugar Bear.
 * Zuut (and by extension, younger Mysterious Woman) 's florid descriptions are based off of Fifty Shades of Gre y's ridiculously unsexy euphemisms.