Why did I choose YOU of all horses? (Solo)

[Alea Davenport]

30th Winter, 511

This was it. Today was the day Alea would bring her horse under control. She had only tried ride the Gilding once or twice, but it had always ended in disaster. But Alea planned to leave Avanthal in the Spring, so she had to be able to ride her horse by then.

The first step was to get him saddled. Getting him out of his stall want an ordeal in itself. He was loathe to leave his breakfast, and when Alea insisted, he decided her hair would be an acceptable substitute. "Eeeeek!" Shrieking seemed to confuse him long enough for her to get her hair under the hood of her cloak where it belonged. After a bit more pulling an shoving, she had the horse tied to one of the posts outside.

She hurried back inside to get her saddle and blanket as quickly as she could. She did not trust that horse alone. When she came back, she frowned. Her horse did not seem to have done anything suspicious; he was just placidly munching at the snow. Somehow this made Alea even more worried. However, waiting until she found evidence of horseplay or tomfoolery was unlikely to get anything done, so, she threw the blanket onto the horse.

A startled yowl erupted from the horse's back... and when Alea moved the blanket she noticed that her cat, Tom, had been napping there. She cursed quietly. It was almost impossible to see the cat, since both animals were almost exactly the same tawny shade. Alea would have thought the cat would be annoyed enough to jump down from the horse, but Tom seemed determined to make this difficult. Or maybe he just liked his warm perch.

Alea was not in the mood to put up with her cat's whims - she had to practice riding today! - so she unceremoniously shoved Tom off the horse. The cat fell with an annoyed and entirely un-cute meow. The horse snorted, stamped his hoof, and leaned into Alea. Since she was standing right next to him, this caused her to lose her balance, and she fell on her rump in the snow.

With more muttered curses, she stood up and continued saddling the horse. Tom had since run into the warmth of the stable, leaving Alea with only one difficult animal to contend with. She managed to get the saddled on and cinched up without much additional difficulty, largely because she remembered to stand at least a foot away from the horse at all times. When she was finished, she led the beast out to a clear area, not too far from the stables. Now, the real work would begin.

[Alea Davenport]

Before she could ride the horse, Alea had to get on its back. The way she figured, there were two options: one, find a stump or mound or something to stand on, or two, jump on his back from the ground. She'd managed the latter at least once before (though not with a very high success rate), and since she did not see anything suitable to stand on in the clearing, she decided to try things the hard way. Besides, she'd have to learn how to mount from the ground eventually anyway, might as well be today.

Half expecting some trickery from the Gilding, she placed her hands on both sides of the saddle and one foot in the stirrup and pushed herself up. In her wariness, she failed to use enough force, and ended up with only her upper torso in the saddle. The horse, contrary to expectation, had not even fidgeted. Reassured slightly, she slid down and tried again. She took a deep breath to gather her nerves and prepare herself: she could DO this! In the next moment, she vaulted beautifully onto the horses back... or at least, where the horse's back was a second ago. In the middle of her jump, the horse had somehow sidestepped towards her, causing her to fall face-first in the snow on the other side.

...

After she was finished spewing curses at the horse, she forced herself to relax. Getting frustrated and losing focus just meant the horse won. It didn't help that the horse was whickering softly. "This would be a lot easier if you cooperated, you know," she complained. The Gilding just looked at her and snorted. Alea had heard of people who were so good with animals they could control them just by looking into their eyes. Imagining that it was worth a shot, she stared into her horse's big brown eyes and willed it to behave.

After a moment the big dumb horse turned away and resumed his snow-munching. Alea shook her head, wondering what exactly she had expected to happen. She certainly hadn't received any great insight into horse behavior. Well THAT was a big waste of time. "Ok, let's try this one more time." She stepped into the stirrup and pushed herself up before she could talk herself out of this, or the horse could try any funny business. Luckily, it seemed the horse had had enough mischief for the moment, since it let her on without more than a few shuffling steps and a whinny.

Her heart was beating more quickly than usual. Part of that was adrenaline from the ordeal of mounting an uncooperative horse. The rest was nervous anticipation for whatever was about to happen next...

[Alea Davenport]

After several chimes of just getting used to being on the horse's back without him instantly trying to kick her off, Alea realized that she was going to have to get the horse moving at some point. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and gripped the reigns tightly...and pressed her heels into the Gilding's flanks.

Nothing happened. The Gilding shook out his mane and continued trying to munch at the snow, but he certainly did not take any steps forward. She remembered what little she'd been told the first time she'd tried to ride a horse, and realized that she probably wasn't kicking hard enough. So, with trepidation, she lifted her feet away from the sides of the horse and then drove her heels in as hard as they would go. The horse began placidly taking a few steps forward, but in her terror, Alea was pulling back on the reigns, so he stopped with a snort after a few steps.

Realizing that so far she hadn't died and the horse hadn't thrown her off, she tried to relax. Remembering the instructions from years ago, she tried to relax the hand holding the reins so she didn't give the horse mixed signals. When she'd regained her composure, she dug her heels into the horse's flanks once more, confident now that she was not strong enough to cause the horse any real harm.

After a few more steps, she felt comfortable enough to try turning, so she pulled the reigns to the right. The Gilding started to turn in that direction, but seemed to change his mind and turned the opposite way instead. "Why?!" Alea cried out in frustration. The horse just snickered. She was beginning to think he was tormenting her on purpose. She shrugged and decided to let the horse do what it wanted for now. She did not have any particular reason for wanting to go one way rather than the other; she was just glad the horse hadn't thrown her off yet.

With more confidence than was perhaps warranted, she dug in her heels once more, urging the Gilding into a trot. She pulled the reins again, to the left this time, since that seemed to be the direction he wanted to go. When this worked without further mishap, her confidence was boosted once again, and she kicked her heels again, gleefully.

This turned out to have been a mistake. The Gilding had clearly been lulling Alea into a false sense of security, for as soon as she urged him above a trot, he tool off at full gallop. She clung tightly to the horse with her legs, but this only seemed to spur him to go faster. She held onto the reins with a death-grip, pulling as hard as she could to get the thing to stop, but the petching horse just tossed his head and kept going. For a moment, she was tempted to just hold on for dear life and let the horse run himself out, but then her stubbornness kicked in, and she decided she had to regain control by force. She continued yanking on the reigns as hard as she could, but this only seemed to irritate the Gilding, who had finally had enough of his rider. In only a few moments, Alea felt the now-familiar sensation of flying through the air and landing in a huge pile of snow.

[Alea Davenport]

Rather than run off to freedom, the Gilding stuck around to boast, tossing his head and whinnying in triumph. Alea got to her feet in disgust, brushing the snow off her cloak and pants. She ran toward the horse, trying to catch him before he got away, but the beast just pranced away, snickering. He seemed to think this was some sort of game! Alea chased him for several chimes, until she was completely out of breath. Finally, she had to take a rest, so she plopped down in the middle of the snow, sulking.

To her complete surprise, the Gilding soon walked right up to her. His motive became clear, however, when he again tried to nibble her hair. "Hey!" She cried, grabbing his bridle before he could do anymore damage. "Stop that, you beast!" A brief flicker of memory came to her then, a recollection of someone telling her that animals had feelings too, and were therefore deserving of names. Well, she could think of only one name that reflected the feelings of this animal. "Beast. That's your name now," she told the horse, looking it directly in the eyes, as if that would somehow allow her to communicate with it. Beast snorted, sending a puff of warm air into Alea's face, causing her to flinch back.

"That's enough of that," she grumbled. She'd had about enough of this horse, so she readied herself to take him back to the stables. It occurred to her that just walking him back to the stables would be an admission of defeat, which was just unacceptable. She hesitated, not sure she wanted to deal with the troublesome horse anymore today, but she reminded herself that she needed the practice. She couldn't just let Beast win. With determination and focus, she put her foot into the stirrup and pulled herself up into the saddle. Either she was getting better at that, or the Gilding had finally grown tired of his own antics, because she managed it without much trouble.

Not wanting to risk further trouble, she kept Beast to a walk as she carefully steered him back toward the barn. She stayed alert for any further tricks from the horse, but all she noticed was some flicking of his ears. She dismounted when the reached the barn doors. When she opened them, her cat, Tom, sprinted out at high velocity and raced off into the distance. Shaking her head at the strange behavior of the cat, Alea led Beast to a grooming stall, where she proceeded to groom his luminescent coat.

As she ran the curry comb in soft circles around his fur, the Gilding closed his eyes in what seemed to be contentment. At least she was doing something right, since he seemed to be enjoying this enough to not interfere with her. She went so far as to pet him on the nose, and was surprised to find that he did not try to bite her. She was starting to think that maybe the Beast was not inherently hostile, but just liked to make trouble sometimes. That was something Alea could understand, since she often felt that way herself. After she finished brushing Beast's coat and combing his mane, she put him back in his stall. When she went around feeding and watering the horses later, she made sure he got an extra helping of hay.

It would probably still be a long time before horse and rider trusted each other completely, but Alea felt that today they'd gotten a little closer to that goal.

[Creeper]

Skills Animal Husbandry: 3 Bodybuilding: 1 Riding (Horse): 2 Running: 1 Intimidation: 1 Observation: 2   Lores Horses: Keep Your Hair Away From the Mouth Horses: Clear the Back Before Putting on Saddle Blanket Horses: Stand One Foot From Horse When Saddling Horses: Your Name is Beast Cats: Shoving Gets Results   Other Minor Bruising from Fall Minor Bruising from Being Thrown Such an entertaining thread! It had me laughing several times. I love Beast and Tom, and they make a fine duo at harassing Alea. Keep up the good work!