Sunlight Through the Stalls (Solo)

[Laria]

Timestamp: 40th Day of Summer, 511AV
Location: Amethyst Clan - Stables of the Sunstorm Pavilion
Purpose: Summer Job Thread – Feeding & Teaching
Status: Closed

Once again Laria found herself in the stables in the early evening. The weanlings would need to have their final feed. If she was late with it, all hell would break loose! It had happened before, not on her watch, but it had most certainly happened. The weanlings had grown impatient and restless, and one eventually succeeded in busting the latch on his stall. The racket the others made then was unbelievable.

She loved the stables at this particular time. The sun was usually on its way to setting, casting a faint golden glow over the land, before painting the sky with a myriad of colour. The more mature horses usually settled down around now; the ones that had been bought inside anyway. It was just a peaceful and relaxing time to be around the creatures.

Laria moved toward the back of the stables, finding a large bucket and a scoop. She filled the bucket with as much feed as she could carry before dragging it over to the first lot of stalls. At this point, the weanlings would only get one large scoop of feed in the evenings, so thankfully she wouldn’t have to refill the bucket as much as usual.

She worked methodically, scooping up a load of feed, unlatching a stable door and then emptying the scoop into the stable’s food bucket. The weanlings never tried to escape while she was feeding them; they were far more concerned with the scoop in her hand than the open door.

Slowly, she made her way down one side of the stables, occasionally lugging the huge bucket back up to the end for refilling. As she neared her finishing point, the end of the second side, her arms were really starting to burn. The muscles in her upper arms were tired and strained from hauling the feed bucket around, and Laria made a mental not to fill it up so much the next time.

[Laria]

As she was returning the bucket to its storage place, a little voice behind her almost caused Laria to leap out of her skin. Turning to see who it was, her eyes fell on the young boy who had helped her out a few days previous. Laria smiled at him.
“Hi Cody, what are you up to? Did you want to give me a hand again?”

The boy nodded to which Laria responded.
“Well, the feeding is all done, and there’s not much else I can do at the moment.” She paused for a second before an idea struck her.
“Hey, how about you have a go at cleaning hooves?”
The last time he had helped her, Laria had only shown him what to do for fear he might get hurt. Now though the horses would have mellowed. The evening often made them drowsy and more pleasant.

Laria led the excited boy down the stable and outside, heading for the other stable her father kept. The weanlings and other horses were always kept separated for convenience. As they walked, Laria asked Cody about his day, and he responded with enthusiasm.

Entering the stable, Laria headed immediately for one of the older horses. She chose a mare who she knew was docile most of the time. The pinto mare was a favourite of hers, she never played up. She sent Cody to find a hoof pick, to make sure he knew the correct tool to use, while she sorted out tying the mare up outside her stall.

[Laria]

“Now Cody, do you remember how I told you to stand?”
The boy nodded, standing to the side of the mare.
“Good. We don’t want you to get kicked now, do we? I’ll hold the hoof for you because it will be heavy and you mustn’t drop them. If you drop a horse’s hoof it can hit the ground very hard and it might chip.”

Laria moved to stand behind Cody before running her hand down the mare’s foreleg. She lifted the hoof and held it next to Cody at a level he would be able to reach properly.
“Remember not to touch the frog okay?”
Cody pointed at the triangular part in the middle of the hoof and Laria nodded.
“Yep that bit. Now what you need to do is scrape towards the bottom of the hoof. And don’t press too hard, you don’t want to hurt her.”

Laria watched closely as Cody started to pick the hooves. He seemed nervous about hurting the mare as he was barely scraping at all. Laria smiled.
“You can press a bit harder than that Cody its fine. Just don’t dig into the hoof is all I meant.”

Cody paused, and then resumed the work with a little more gusto. Laria nodded to herself. The boy was carefully making sure he got each part of the hoof; it seemed the mare would have extremely clean feet. They did all four hooves in the same manner. Laria would hold it up and Cody would dutifully pick the mud and stones from them.

When that was done, Laria grabbed two small brushes and a small pot. It was a mixture of beeswax and natural plant oil, perfect for hoof care. She handed a brush to Cody.
“Now, we paint this onto the outside of the hooves. It keeps them nice and healthy.”
Together they painted all four hooves, careful to cover even the backs. With a satisfied smile, she returned all the tools they had used to their box and then led the mare back into her stall.

“You did a good job Cody. You’re very good with horses you know! One day you’ll be a great horseman.” Cody beamed at her before they headed out of the stables together, and walked back to the Pavilions.

[Lariat]

Laria

Experience:

Horsemanship: 3 xp
Teaching: 3 xp
Bodybuilding: 1 xp


Lores:

Feeding the eager foals
Teaching Cody how to clean the horses on his own
GIving pointers on best way to go about cleaning the horses hooves

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