Chapter Text
“Well, this is it,” the cab driver said. It sounded like he was trying to convince both of us, as he leaned forward to look at the old wooden gate over.
“Yeah,” I said. Nailed to the top of the square structure was a plank with words, TORINO RANCH, burnt into it. It couldn’t be anyplace else.
The grass infested drive beyond wound into the dense spruce forest, though, blocking whatever equestrian facility existed on the property.
“So are you getting out or coming back with me?” the driver asked sarcastically.
“Oh, sorry!” I said. Hugging my backpack to my chest and grabbing the bag my boots were in, I opened the door and got out. The cab drove off almost immediately, leaving me feeling very isolated. There wasn’t even another driveway visible in either direction. I’d never been this far from an urban center and it was unnerving.
There was only one thing to do, so I unlatched the creaky gate and made my way over the bars of the cattle guard. Mr. Torino must not be taking any chance on anything getting out. Or in. It was nothing like I’d expected to find a retired equestrian, trainer, breeder and U.A. teacher living.
The trees pressed right into the barbed wire fence on either side of the road, making a claustrophobic effect even in the open air. The cloudless sky looked very far away.
I walked on, up a slight slope, thankful for the bit of exercise after an early morning that began by rushing onto the bus and was followed by an hour on the train and another by taxi. Even so, it was far less peaceful than a jog at campus was. Anything could be hiding in the dark forest undergrowth.
Something snorted to my right and I looked to see four dark, solid shapes moving among the trees. I gasped, then sprinted up the drive and around the next curve,
Something else barreled through the overgrown grass and into the ditch and I stumbled backwards with a shout. A moment later, an angry and familiar chattering came from a tree overhead. It had only been a squirrel. And up ahead, well within sight, was a clearing with a visible corral.
I made my way into the clearing, where the road branched. One path continued straight and turned behind a row of spruce trees. A yellow house was just visible behind them.
The right branch passed a corral, a rusty horse trailer and a burn pile, then curved past a quonset, a hay shed and an old car before rejoining the main path. There were no horses, no arena and almost nothing that looked like the stables and riding centers around U.A. Maybe I had come to the wrong Torino Ranch, after all.
“Hey, who’s out there? Come and help me!”
I spun around, looking for the source of the voice.
“The barn, you idiot!” It came from the quonset. Afraid that I’d wandered into some strangers home, I hurried over to explain and peered into the dark interior. In the center of the dirt floor, a man with silver hair and beard was sprawled on his stomach.
“Are you alright?” I ran over and helped him up. At full height, he was just up to my chin. “Should I call someone? What -”
“Good luck with that, there’s barely coverage here. Just help me over to that trunk,” he said in a gravelly voice, pointing with a surprisingly steady finger. “Then go get me my cane.”
“Okay! Yes, sir!” I helped him hobble to a tack trunk near the door. When I returned for the man’s cane, I could see that the front half of the building housed a tractor and a scattered collection of horse and farm equipment. There were cabinets, shelves and saddle trees on the arched walls, but the only things properly put away were the tack sets. Further back were eight stalls in two rows. At least I seemed to be in the right place.
“Hey, what’s taking so long?”
“I’m sorry!” I said, running back to the man. He took the cane and leaned forward, eyeing me.
“So you like to announce your arrival by hollerin’, do ya?”
“No, sir, it was an accident, there was a squirrel - um, I’m Izuku Midoriya - “
“I know who you are,” he said, glaring at me.
“Um, are you Mr. Torino?” I asked, trying not to fidget or step back. He nodded.
“Um, thank you for offering to sponsor me for the upcoming season -”
“Uh huh. Let’s get you settled, then,” he said nonchalantly, sitting up.
-----
The house was small and looked like it could use some maintenance. There was an old truck in the carport, from under which a brown dog emerged and ran up with his tail wagging. It launched its front paws up to my shoulders, nearly pushing me over.
“Down, Skip. Just shove ‘m off,” said Mr. Torino.
Bracing my legs, I gently pushed the dog back to all fours. He cocked his head, making his one lopsided ear flop upside down while the other remained pricked. I wasn’t great with dog breeds, but he looked like some kind of mutt, entirely unlike the purebreds some teachers kept at U.A. He stayed outside as we went in.
The front room contained a kitchen, dining and living area with a picture window overlooking a treed valley and distant mountains. There was an office, which Mr. Torino told me included a phone and computer I could use, a bathroom and two bedrooms.
“You eaten?” Mr. Torino asked as he showed me my room.
“I had lunch on the train.”
“Alright. Settle in then get down to the barn.”
“Will I need my riding clothes?”
“What for?”
“Um, I . . . don’t you need to see me ride?”
“I saw that last week at U.A. I have other plans now.” Mr. Torino stomped off down the hall, then out the door with a bang.
Had I angered him somehow? I’d need to watch what I said from then on.
The old bed creaked from the slight weight of my backpack. I took a moment to check my phone. There was partial wifi, but no new messages. It was the middle of the day on a Friday, so Mom and Mr. Yagi must be busy. As for my classmates, they were likely just getting to know their sponsors, too. I left the device in the room and headed out.
Skip leaped in circles around me as we walked out to meet Mr. Torino beside the barn, looking over a selection of old fence boards leaning on the corrugated metal. Not wanting to startle him again, I said, “Excuse me,” as we walked up.
“Excuse you fer what? Alright, you know what a corral and hay shed are for, I hope. The lean-to behind is for grain.” Mr. Torino hobbled back along the barn, over a path worn down by years of use. Barbed wire fencing began on our left, carving out a triangular patch of pasture and vanishing into the trees.
“Neighbour runs cattle out there. Ignore it.” We reached the end of the barn and some wood fencing which enclosed the wide space behind it. Electric fencing separated it into two portions, a large one that ran deep into the trees and a narrower section in which two horses grazed. I grinned.
The horses saw us and ambled over, heads and tails swinging, to lean across the fence. I reached forward to let the roan sniff my hand.
“Ichigo,” Mr. Torino said. “The bay is Saint.”
Maybe one of them was meant to be mine, but I didn’t push my luck and ask.
Ichigo leaned in closer and snorted warm air at my face.
“Blow back and he’ll remember your scent forever,” said Mr. Torino.
“Really?” I asked. I’d seen horses do just that many times but never knew its purpose. Mr. Torino nodded, so I tried. Ichigo lowered his eyelids, inhaled, then reached forward to snuffle my hair.
“It only looks like grass, you dummy,” Mr. Torino said, as I pushed the horse off. Saint came over to take his place, putting his nose up to my face and exhaling slowly. I responded in the same way then waited as Saint stood there, his nose nearly pressed to mine.
“Contemplative horse, that one,” Mr. Torino said. “Hurry up, into the barn.”
I followed him inside, blinking in the sudden change in brightness. Skip ran past us into a stall, and I could hear him digging in the straw.
“So,” Mr. Torino said. “Here’s the deal. You clean up my barn, show me you’re willing to work. Then, I give you a horse and you be on your way.”
“Really?” That couldn’t be all. I’d heard that most sponsors leased students a horse for a season, to see if they made a good team. If they did, the owner offered the horse to the rider, usually for a price that came out of the season’s winnings. It sounded like Mr. Torino was just giving me a free horse. “I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand.”
“What’s so hard? You need a horse, I need a clean barn. Unless you’d rather just buy some random nag.”
“No, I, uh, thank you very much, sir!”
“Course if ya don’t do him justice, I’ll want him back.”
“Yes, of course!”
“Good. The stalls need mucking and the front needs organizing. Come ‘cross anything broken and it goes in the burn pile. I’m goin’ into town to find some dinner.”
“Yes, sir!”
-----
A horse whinnied sharply. It had been a couple of hours and the sun was starting to sink behind the barn, casting long shadows all the way to where I was dropping cracked buckets and rotting wood in the burn pile. The stalls had all been mucked and I’d sorted as much as I could in the barn. There was no sign of Mr. Torino’s return, but it couldn’t hurt to take a break and visit the horses.
“Hey Ichigo. Hey, Saint. What’s wrong?” I asked as I walked along the right side of the barn. The trees closed in there, but I was already feeling more comfortable near them. I stepped out behind the barn and saw, to my surprise, four horses standing behind the electric fence, all in a row, watching me.
The chestnut mare furthest from me whinnied again, but I ignored her. I couldn’t stop staring at the gelding pacing the fence closer to me. His dapple grey coat and athletic frame looked so much like Ground Zero’s that I thought, for a second, that they were the same horse. But after a moment, it became clear that this horse was fatter, or maybe he just looked that way because of the thick winter coat in contrast to Zero’s sleek one. He had a star and snip instead of a stripe, too. Even so, the two could be brothers.
The gelding snorted at me and continued to pace, the shoes on his hooves flashing. All of the horses had long, shaggy coats and thick, tangled manes as if they’d lived wild. The indication of domesticity was surprising, but the three with him had trimmed, well tended hooves, too.
Four horses in a pasture that, based on the line of the fence, ran along the road. “You’re the ones who scared me!” I said, laughing. The mare and a flea-bitten grey companion snorted at the sound. I walked around to meet them by the other fence. Ichigo and Saint joined them as best they could around the wire. The mare, however, arched her neck and pinned her ears, scaring everybody away before she greeted me. Only when she was done did she allow the others to push through and nicker and stretch out to sniff every part of me. They didn’t lose interest until we heard the truck coming up the drive, motor sputtering. Then all six animals raised their heads. The mare whinnied again.
“Hush, Sakura!” Mr. Torino yelled. Skip emerged from the stall and stretched. I said goodbye to the horses and walked out to meet their owner.
Mr. Torino had parked just in front of the barn and was looking around the inside. “It’s a start,” he said. “Now I need ya to go get some hay and put it out in three stalls. Hurry up!”
“Yes, sir!”
After I did, I brought Ichigo, Saint and a second bay into the barn, threw hay into Sakura and the grey’s and finally had some of the frozen dinner Mr. Torino had brought from town. When we were done, I lunged Ichigo and Saint in the yard while Mr. Torino worked on training the bay. It reminded me of volunteering as a stable hand, before I’d had a hope of getting to U.A.
When I turned the horses out, the rest of them had vanished into the trees. While Ichigo and Saint were happy in their small pasture, the bay whinnied and took off into the dark forest. It was pitch black by the time I got back to the house. The nights on campus never got that dark.
Mr. Torino was already in his room, door closed, but I had a few more things to do before turning in.
I stepped into the small office, made smaller by the amount of clutter in it. The wooden chair creaked as I sat down and looked around for a phone. It was laying in a cradle near the computer and monitor, neither of which looked as old as the rest of the room. If not for that, I would have felt like I’d stepped back in time.
I lifted the phone, fumbled with the cord for a moment, then called Mom.
“Hello, Inko Midoriya.”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Izuku!” She said joyfully. “I was getting worried when you didn’t call but I kept telling myself, just wait a few more minutes. Have you been busy?”
“Yeah. There’s no service out here and I’d been outside pretty much since I got here.”
“No service? Where on earth are you?”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Torino is nice!” I said. Even if he was a little gruff.
“And who else if out there?”
“Just him,” I described the bizarre little ranch and horses as Mom continuously said, “Uh huh,” intently.
I stood up and stretched, bringing the phone with me as far as I could to explore the room as I talked. The window over the computer overlooked the valley, and I could see tiny lights from homes deep in the trees. At least Torino Ranch wasn’t totally isolated.
I ignored Mr. Torino’s paperwork but looked over bookcases, mostly filled with stuff about horse-whispering, genetics, different breeds and studbooks. It wasn’t unlike my own. There were ribbons, too, all over the walls and furniture, and framed photographs. One, dated by it’s grainy colour saturation, showed a young man riding a shiny brown gelding into a water obstacle. The plaque on the lower frame read, “Sorahiko Torino and Jetstream”. I should have looked into my sponsor before I’d come, but I’d been busy and distracted, so stuff like this was new to me.
A photo on the desk was clearly regarded with special affection, based on the cleared space around it and the fact that it was totally clear of dust. But what caught my eye was the young chestnut mare in the center, One For All.
“Izuku? Are you okay?” Mom asked.
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” I’d forgotten that I was on the phone.
“You must be tired. Sleep well, I love you, and I’ll see you on Sunday!”
“Alright, I love you too, Mom. Bye.”
I dialed Mr. Yagi’s number while still looking at the photo. He was in it, younger and straighter and healthier looking but with the same wide smile and messy blond hair. Next to him was a younger Mr. Torino, still silver haired, but much taller, sturdier and less wrinkled. On One’s other side stood a woman, not much shorter than Mr. Yagi, impressively, with black hair and a beaming grin of her own.
“Hello?” Mr. Yagi said.
“Hi, Mr. Yagi. I -”
“Young Midoriya! How are you? How are you finding the ranch?”
“It’s not quite what I expected,” I admitted.
“No, of course not. Torino likes his retirement and keeping things unassuming, that’s for sure.”
“Um, are you two friends?”
“Well, sure. He was my teacher, you know. Then he helped me get a start in the professional world. I kept my herd up there a while, too. Speaking of, how’s the colt?”
“Huh?” I was having a hard time picturing One, All Might and Mr. Yagi’s other horses in the little stable.
“Oh, shoot, did I spoil it? Or was I wrong?”
“Well, I, um, haven’t seen any colts yet, just geldings and one mare. And I don’t know which one will be mine, yet. I think I’m supposed to finish cleaning the barn first.”
“What? What’s he doing to you up there?”
I explained, glad to be talking to my mentor.
“Still no cell coverage, huh? Couldn’t he at least get wifi in the barn?” Mr. Yagi said when I was done. It sounded like he was talking to himself.
“Mr. Yagi,” I said.
“Just Yagi is fine between you and me, kid,” he said.
“Yagi, sir.” I just couldn’t refer to my hero so informally.
“Oh, brother.”
“There’s a photo here, of you, One and Mr. Torino and a woman. I was just curious, who is she?”
“Dark hair, right? Tall, beauty mark on her chin.”
“I can’t tell about the beauty mark, but yeah.”
“Nana Shimura,” he said. “My other mentor. Sort of a personal trainer. She was the one who scouted me before U.A. and introduced me to Torino. A great equestrian on her own - went to the Olympics and everything. You’ve never heard of her?”
I recognized the name, from a couple of record lists. “I have. I just don’t know much about her. Wait - oh, um…”
“She’s dead,” Mr. Yagi said for me.
“I read about that,” I said. Even though she’d been killed in a riding accident before I was born, I’d seen old articles about it. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, it was a long time ago. I’m just glad I get to pass her legacy on to you. Float is the daughter of her stallion, by the way,” he said, referring to his black Andalusian mare.
We talked a few minutes more, then I went to bed, too tired for anything else. Just as I was turning in, I felt a sudden surge of loneliness. The feeling wasn’t new but it felt different that time. For once in a long time, I actually missed someone, other than my father. Actually I missed several people. I looked out at the stars outside my window and wondered how Uraraka, Iida and Todoroki were doing.
-----
There were 59 unread messages when I checked my phone in the morning. I stared at the little number for a moment. Then I began to read.
Most of the messages came from Uraraka, unsurprisingly. Iida and Todoroki had been on the group chat, too and all three were concerned that I hadn’t responded yet. I explained the wifi situation as tears welled up while I realized that they’d missed me as much as I did them. I’d never felt that before.
Uraraka already had a horse and contract worked out. It was a stunning bay blanket Appaloosa gelding, named Antigravity.
Both Iida and Uraraka had sent pictures and descriptions of other horses, the stables they were at and their new sponsors. All that Todoroki had said of his sponsor’s place, a farm a couple of hours north of U.A. was “It’s nice.” and “The horses are friendly”. Then he and Iida had talked about how Flame and Gen, left behind for the weekend, were doing. I congratulated Uraraka on her horse and went to the other messages.
The three names I saw first were Kaminari, Ashido and Koda. I didn’t even know any of them that well and the realization that three near strangers actually went to the effort to text me sent me into full out tears.
Something hard banged on the door and Mr. Torino said, “Quit that racket and get up. We have work to do!” I’d have to read those messages while I got ready. Mr. Torino saw me run from my bedroom to the bathroom, phone in hand and grumbled, “Kids these days.”
Koda, who was the one person in the class more interested then I was in horse behaviour and whispering, wanted to see how I was and what the horses at Torino Ranch were like. Kaminari sent a selfie next to a palomino with a lightning-bolt shaped stripe and the caption, “like my new ride” Ashido, when I finally reached her original message, said, “ya, team! I though a GC would be good,” followed by a thumbs up emoji.
“Ya so excited!” Uraraka replied. They’d texted back and forth for a while, mostly in emojis, and shared photos from their sponsors. At the end of the chain of texts a note said, “Seen by Ashido, Shinso and 1 other.”
I didn’t understand what it all meant until I checked my email. There was a new one from Aizawa with the subject line, “Training Teams”. I scrolled through it while Uraraka texted a new collection of pictures. I found my name under “Team D” when Todoroki replied, “How are you taking so many pictures?”
“On my phone :P” Uraraka responded.
Under my name the list included Mina Ashido, Hitoshi Shinso and Ochako Uraraka. I’d been so caught up on simply not failing the qualifiers that I’d forgotten all about how my placement would affect my team for the summer. These were the people I’d be training with and, in a few cases, competing alongside instead of against during the summer. I’d only exchanged about five words with Shinso but I knew I’d get along with Uraraka, and Ashido seemed friendly and easygoing. Working with all of them should be fun.
“Aren’t you busy?” Todoroki asked. I opened the group chat.
“Not to much to not take pictures What have you been up to”
“Riding.”
“Sene pictures!!!”
“Maybe.”
“Hey midoriya” Uraraka texted.
“Hi”
“You need to send pictures to I want to see your horse” She added a couple of horse emojis.
“When I find out, I’ll show you.”
“What they didn’t tell you first thing”
Mr. Torino suddenly yelled, “You plan on missing breakfast?”
“Sorry, sir, I’ll be right out!” I said. Then I texted, “GTG, sorry” and hurried out of the room.
-----
Ichigo, Saint, the bay and the dapple grey were fed in the barn, which made me wonder if one of them was meant to be my horse. All except for the bay were shod and all of them were friendly and used to being groomed and petted, so it would make sense. Ichigo and Saint looked more fit and Ichigo already had his summer coat, just like a show horse. I didn’t want to assume, but maybe.
Mr. Torino worked with the bay in the corral while I organized the barn. All the horse stuff - tack, blankets, medicine, brushes and so on - went to the side where the saddle trees were fastened to the walls. The rest of it I piled or leaned against the walls beside the tractor. It was long, hot work with Skip getting underfoot, Sakura whinnying from the pasture and the other horses watching intently.
As I worked, a man came in, introduced himself as Saint’s owner and the one who ran cattle on the ranch, and rode the horse out to check on them. Shortly after, a woman appeared, introduced herself as Ichigo’s owner and rode off into the trees at the end of the lane. I looked at the grey, who was resting his chin on the stall door and dozing. It was him or the bay. It had to be.
After I took a break for lunch, Mr. Torino said, “How much is left?”
“Huh? The barn? Not much?” There hadn’t been a lot left after I’d removed all that was broken and I’d found lots of places to put the rest.
“Eh, what was that?”
“Only a little bit, sir!”
“Think you can finish this evening?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good. We’ll spend the afternoon riding, then. That grey needs to remember what a saddle feels like. Go get him ready.”
“Okay,” I said. “Um, excuse me for asking, is -”
“If it works outs, he’s your horse. Now quit dawdling and git.”
I beamed all the way to the stable and teared up a little. There was my horse, watching as I entered the barn and grabbed a grooming kit. He turned his head to watch while I curried his dusty winter coat as much as I could, and lifted his hooves without protest. He lost his balance trying to watch me pick one of his forehoofs and tipped sideways before recovering so I had to push his head away every time he tried again. But I was able to finish. He was a bit skeptical of the girth, exhaling unhappily as I tightened it and it took some time before he remembered how to open his teeth for the bit. He didn’t fight it once it was in, though, just turned in circles trying to sniff the saddle.
“You have been ridden before, right?” I said as I adjusted the stirrups. Mr. Torino would be crazy to expect me to compete on a green horse, wouldn’t he? At least the grey had accepted the tack. “I wonder what your name is, anyway.” I took the reins and led him out of the barn.
Mr. Torino watched silently as I mounted, which made the grey flick his ears back and swish his tail. “You’re okay, it’s just me,” I said. He turned his dark head to look at me, probably surprised to see me above him.
“Warm up and give me a trot when you’re ready,” Mr. Torino said.
“Yes, sir.”
The grey was reluctant to respond to most cues and I had to combine as many as possible to remind him what they all meant. “Good boy,” I whispered when he did things like turn in a circle or stop on command. After a few laps of the yard, he was beginning to catch on so I pushed into his sides and clicked until he sped up.
At first, he took off and then settled into a rolling trot that I could follow as easily as if I’d been riding him for years.
“How’s he feel?”
“Good. Familiar, somehow.”
“That so?”
I eventually worked the horse up to a canter that I recognized the same way. But I hadn’t ever met this horse before, had I?
“Still familiar?”
“Yes.”
“Any idea why?”
I thought about the horse’s similarity to Zero. I hadn’t ridden that horse in years, since Kacchan’s mother stopped coming to the stables and making him share his horse. Maybe I remembered more than I thought. “My friend’s horse looks just like him. Maybe they’re related?”
“Could be. Anything else?”
I ran through every other horse I’d ever ridden, before and after U.A. “One For All,” I realized. The gelding’s smooth, forward pace was a match for hers.
“What was that?”
He feels like One For All,” I said.
“Well, that’s her son yer on.”
“What?” I squeaked. The grey came to a dead halt, flinging me forward. I shoved my hand into his thick mane and pushed myself back to the seat. “Really?”
“Did I ask you to stop?”
“Oh,” I urged the horse back into a canter. He rolled an ear my way, annoyed.
“Toshinori brought her out to foal and asked me to keep him after he was weaned. Never fully explained what happened. Not like he’s a mutt - his sire is Start From Nothing.”
“That makes him Zero’s brother!” I said. “Oh, sorry, excuse me.”
Mr. Torino raised an eyebrow but continued. “Must’ve been in some mood when he registered him as All For Nothing. I’ve been calling him Deku, though.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. Deku nickered at the sound of his name.
Mr. Torino shrugged and changed the topic. “Toshinori gave him to me just before he stopped riding. I’ve no use for him. A horse of his lineage shouldn’t be getting lazy in a pasture.”
I stared, not believing that Mr. Torino would just give me a horse like that.
“Shut yer mouth ‘for a fly goes in. Come on.”
I slowed Deku to a walk and followed Mr. Torino down the same path Ichigo’s rider had taken. It was just wide enough for an ATV, but well packed and the grass at the edges had been trimmed. As we walked, the sun and shadows making shapes on Deku’s coat, I patted him slowly. Everything felt surreal.
We emerged into a wide, carefully maintained clearing with the sun beaming down on green grass and small, crude cross country obstacles. Most of them looked like they’d been built out of trees, as if they’d just fallen right there. They formed a mini course, weaving around clumps of foliage or curving into the woods. Ichigo and his rider were just leaving, the rider waving on her way out.
“Well, go ahead,” Mr. Torino said.
I rode Deku in wide circles until he reached a canter, then I aimed him towards the jump closest to the trailhead. He burst into a wild gallop and I had to pull hard on the left rein, digging my right leg into his side to turn him away and calm him down. A jump at that speed would be disastrous. My hopes fell. I wouldn’t be able to ride him through the summer this way.
Mr. Torino watched silently as we repeated the performance. On the third try, I rode Deku up at a walk and made him stop just before the jump. “Just stay calm, and we’ll get over it.”
His muscles twitched and he pinned his ears in annoyance until I tugged the reins and said, “Behave.” I could feel how badly every muscle in his body wanted to jump, the same way Flame felt. The difference was that Todoroki’s horse was disciplined. Deku had to get to that level, and fast.
“I understand,” I said. “I want to jump it, too. I waited a long time to have the chance, just like you.” I whispered to the horse, not looking at Mr. Torino. “We just need to do it right. Okay?”
Deku pawed the ground. I rode him all around the course, taking in every jump, working out some of the energy in his system. When we turned back to our jump, I took breaths to calm my whole body and sat the trot as long as I could, using my weight along with the reins to hold him back. He didn’t like it, but he got to the jump calmly. Then I let him go.
He exploded. We soared over the jump too high, hit the wrong lead on the landing, and I was launched almost over his head. I jammed my heels down and grabbed two fistfuls of mane. But I still said, “Good job.” as we calmed down.
Mr. Torino nodded from the sides.
We spent the rest of the afternoon working, getting Deku to be patient on the approach and keep his pace on the landing instead of speeding up. It took a long time, working on one little thing before the next, but by the end we could do a full pattern at a trot. With a bit more work, hopefully at U.A. with Mr. Yagi’s help, I was sure we could canter a course by the time the season began.
I put my horse away as the sun set, letting him go spend one more night with his herd. Sakura sniffed him all over like a concerned mother before they all wove away into the trees.
I finished my work in the barn while Mr. Torino heated up another dinner. Mom wouldn’t be happy with how I’d been fed, but I couldn’t care less.
Usually, sponsors received some sort of promotion through their riders - logos on saddle blankets or helmets. Mr. Torino didn’t want that but U.A. required it so he dug out an old fly sheet with his name on it. “From back when I actually was part of the equestrian world,” he said without emotion.
We loaded it, and a set of tack, into the separated front of the horse trailer. We put a haynet in the back, then went inside to fill out the sponsorship forms from U.A. and the lease for All For Nothing. I cried a little as I read his pedigree. Sire: Start From Nothing. Dam: One For All. Breed: Thoroughbred. And so on. It was all real.
I’d forgotten to take pictures for Uraraka. When I checked my phone, Todoroki had sent a few photos from his weekend, with the caption, “Are these good?”
“Ya it looks so pretty there you are T” Uraraka texted
“It looks just like U.A.”
“Nuu its greener And its not in the mountains
Hey M got horse pics?”
“I’ll take some tomorrow” I said.
“So you has a horse now” Uraraka said.
“Yeah. Deku. He’s a 15.3 hh dapple grey Thoroughbred.”
“Awesome I can’t wait to see him!”
“Have you jumped on him yet?” Iida joined the conversation.
“Yeah. He liked to bolt at jumps though. I think he loves it as much as Flame.”
“You’ll be able to fix that,” Todoroki said.
“Yes, it’s amazing how well you’re able to solve any problems a horse has.”
“Thanks guys,” I said. It didn’t feel like I really did much, but I had gotten Flame to stop jumping paddock fences and helped Todoroki and Iida develop better relationships with their horses. Although the last two had been problems with the riders.
“You guys will make a great team We all have horses now Its excited” said Uraraka. “Think deku and gravy will get along”
“I hope so!”
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I woke up early to very few messages announcing that my friends were leaving for U.A. “See you all later!” I texted.
Deku followed me into the barn quietly and lipped my hair while I wrapped his legs and roughly braided his tail. “You want to say goodbye, buddy?” I asked when I led him out of the stall and back to the pasture. Only Sakura whinnied when she saw him. The other horses were busy with their breakfast. I let the two nuzzle each other for a second.
“We need to go,” I said, eventually. Deku followed around the barn to the lanes, where Mr. Torino had the trailer ready. Then he stopped and pricked his ears.
“Has he travelled before?” I asked.
“He’s been in the trailer once or twice,” said Mr. Torino.
Was he crazy? We were just going to take him on a four hour drive right then?
“Well, load ‘im up.”
“Yes, sir.”
Deku took his time, feeling out the rubber footing, but once he spotted the hay net he was completely distracted and easy to tether. I checked his water, then stepped out and closed the trailer’s back door. I loaded my things into the truck cab while Mr. Torino double checked the barn. Skip watched from the barn door, his tail down.
“You did a good job there,” Mr. Torino said as he got into the driver’s seat. “Barn’s never been cleaner.”
“Thank you, sir.” I said.
We headed off, me, my horse and the man who would make sure we stayed together, for the next few months at least. Deku and I were headed home.