She’s tall, leggy, and awkward in every sense of the word. Susan Ostrid was once just another quiet, spacey girl, an ostrich, instincts she can’t control, and eggs she can’t stop laying. Now she wanders the desert with her long legs, black-and-white plumage, and bangs so long they hide her big brown eyes, looking more like a misplaced dream than a monster, she is an ostrich girl, an ostrichtaur.

Susan isn’t fiery or dominant. She’s shy, flustered, and endlessly airheaded, her thoughts trail off as easily as her feathers ruffle. She buries her head in the sand when overwhelmed, even if it leaves her forehead sore. She stomps when nervous, fluffs her feathers when embarrassed, and blurts out strange ostrich noises that make her words shake. Her giant bust, swollen from pheromones, only adds to her bashful presence, straining against a simple feathered bra she can barely keep in place.

Her biology betrays her at every turn: she eats plants, seeds, and the occasional bug with birdlike pickiness. She lays eggs far larger than any ostrich’s, sometimes nesting on them instinctively, other times flustering at the mere thought of being seen. If they’re fertilized, she’ll guard them fiercely, even refusing to leave until they hatch. Around a mate, she grows strangely clingy, pacing in circles, fluffing, and chirring softly as if begging without realizing it.

Susan doesn’t command. She doesn’t dominate. She stammers, stomps, buries her face, and hides behind her hair while her instincts do all the talking. She’s a taur who doesn’t know what to do with herself, only that she doesn’t really want to be alone.