Chapter Text
Drusi made her way out to the Moorland paddocks, fetching Firewind from his pasture. Leading him back to the yard, she groomed him, tacked him up, and retrieved her helmet. She had been tasked with exercising him for the day -– apparently, his owner, Julie, couldn’t be arsed to work with her own horse. Not when she had her father’s money to spend at the mall, that was.
Firewind seemed to be in fine mettle. He was nearly prancing in place as Drusi led him out to the riding arena. She noticed another of the Bobcat girls -– Stephanie, she surmised -– already longeing a dark chestnut horse at one end of the arena. It was “Silverglade's Spirit of Danger”, or just “Danger”, as he was known around the yard. Everyone at Moorland Stables knew him as that one horse; he was extremely talented, but unfortunately also a complete shithead. Drusi hadn’t been allowed to work with him yet. He was notoriously difficult to ride, but he could perform well if given strict directions. The lass could only guess that that was the reason Thomas Moorland bothered keeping the stallion around -– he placed well in competitions, if only under particular circumstances.
Drusi intended to longe Firewind at the opposite end of the arena, well out of Stephanie and Danger’s way. She noticed that the other girl was having trouble. Danger was tossing his head, nearly yanking the line out of the other girl’s hands. Steph had her heels dug into the dirt, fighting with him and trying to get him back into a reasonably working frame.
Drusi decided it wasn’t her problem if the other horse was acting up. She let herself and Firewind into the arena, closing the gate behind them. She retrieved the extra longe line and clipped it to the outside ring of Firewind’s bit before sending him out at a trot on a twenty metre circle.
After a few minutes, Drusi paused and called Firewind back to her so she could change the clip on the bit and switch directions. As she did so, she realized the situation with Danger and Stephanie had escalated. The stallion was cantering sidelong towards their corner of the arena. His eyes were rolling, and he was nearly dragging poor Steph off her feet.
Drusi hesitated, leading Firewind towards the opposite rail and out of the way.
“Need any help over there?” She queried. Just barely, she heard Steph curse under her breath.
“Um, I don’t think you’re allow-” Stephanie started to answer, but the stallion cut her off with another hard tug on the line. Drusi looked on in a quiet sort of amusement; Steph was going to be feeling that one in her shoulders tomorrow. “You know what? Yeah. I’ll trade you. I’ll take Firewind, you deal with this. I don’t care anymore.”
Drusi left Firewind standing quietly in the opposing corner of the arena, and then sidled past Danger into the longeing circle with Steph. The exhausted, pink-clad blonde practically threw the longe line and whip at Drusi before storming away towards Julie’s much better behaved horse.
Once the line was securely in her grasp, Drusi snapped it to grab the stallion’s attention. Fortunately, Steph had set him up in a halter for longeing, which meant that she wouldn’t have to worry about changing the clip every time they switched directions.
Danger didn’t care for any kind of opposition; he laced his ears back and winged a cow-kick in Drusi’s direction.
“Hey! Knock that off!” Drusi snarled at him, flicking the whip after his hocks so that it popped audibly just behind him. The stallion started away from the sound, unaccustomed to being held accountable for his actions.
He was precisely the kind of horse that used to terrify Drusi as a little girl -– reactive, challenging of authority, and overall difficult. She knew better now, though. Years of lessons and training and stablework had given her a fairly solid backbone.
She feinted towards the stallion’s hindquarters, whip in hand, then backpedaled quickly without turning her back to him. Danger was caught off guard by this -– exactly as Drusi predicted he would be -– and he turned to face her, coming to a complete stop with his ears pricked forward.
The stallion snorted loudly, adrenaline quickening his breath.
Drusi waited. She wished she knew this horse’s tells. It would make this process go much more quickly, but she could improvise if need be.
Danger grew bored of standing and waiting for Drusi to move, so he pinned his ears and tried to take off at a canter again. The girl followed, holding firm to the line and stalking after him in an arc like a predator on the hunt. She kept her eyes on his flank, and she held her whip pointed towards his haunch as well. The tension on the longe line combined with the pressure she was putting on the stallion’s hindquarters with her stare and her whip and her posture forced Danger into a tighter circle. She chased him until his hind legs crossed and he was forced to stop, facing her again. She immediately stood upright, turning the whip away and releasing the “pressure” she’d been keeping on his hind end.
The stallion snorted again, but this time, he lowered his head and stretched his muzzle towards Drusi.
Good.
The lass loosened her hold on the line a little.
“Are you ready to pay attention yet, or do we have to keep playing your stupid little games?” Her eyes met his. She grinned, keeping her stance solid and sure. “I can do this all day, pal. Try me.” The stallion’s posture relaxed, just slightly, and the hard line of his mouth softened. Perhaps he’d seen something in her gaze, or heard something in the tone of her voice, but the horse seemed to realize that Drusi was not one he should waste his time arguing with.
Danger licked his lips, sighing.
“Nice job. Now, trot.” Drusi stepped back, using the angle of the whip to drive the horse out on the circle at a working trot. Danger obeyed, trotting along with a slight spring in his step.
She exercised him at a walk, trot, and canter in both directions for no more than ten minutes; if the horse was listening, she’d take what she could get and quit while she was ahead. She cooled Danger out at a walk before asking him to stop.
Drusi approached the black chestnut stallion. He was properly tired now, and his neck was darkened with sweat. She reached out to pat him on the shoulder -– his hide was sleek and almost glassy. It seemed as though some great unnatural heat roiled just beneath the surface of his skin. The lass moved her hand to the horse’s neck, to his back, and to his legs. The odd heat was everywhere, causing her to worry he might be ill.
Puzzled, she turned back towards the stallion’s face. He was watching her, his eyes a deep firey amber. He blinked slowly. Something about his expression was distressingly familiar, though Drusi could not place how.
“Hey,” Stephanie called from across the arena. “I don’t know how you got him to behave, but good going. I’m done longeing Firewind, is it okay if I ride him now?”
Drusi had forgotten that Stephanie and Firewind and Moorland had even existed.
“Yep, you are good to go. By the way, is Danger sick? He feels warm to me.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Steph replied, pulling down the stirrups on Firewind’s saddle before mounting up. “You can ask someone to check him over back at the yard if you’re worried.”
Drusi decided she would do just that. She led the stallion back to the yard, and thankfully, he did not put up any sort of a fuss. She passed her friend, Renata, just as she was about to return Danger to his stall. Ren was apparently on mucking duty that afternoon; the girl was just finishing up with shoveling fresh shavings into the last of the stripped boxes. The pale-haired girl appraised Drusi with a small amount of admiration as she led the stallion into his stall.
“They let you work with Danger? You’re brave.” Renata paused from her work, leaning on the handle of her shovel. If Drusi hadn’t known her better, she might have mistaken Ren’s tone as scoffing.
“Not exactly,” Drusi said, sliding the halter off over the stallion’s ears. “Steph was having trouble with him, so I offered to help. I made sure he listened to me.”
“I’ll say. Power to you. I don’t even like having to turn that one out, he tries to run me over every damn time.”
“He assumes he is in charge by default. You have to tell him otherwise.” Drusi looped the lead back around Danger’s neck, so he couldn’t move away from her in the stall. “Would you mind coming in here for a second? He feels off to me. He doesn’t seem lame, but his legs are hot, and that’s usually not a good sign.”
Ren’s brows knitted together in concern.
“That… doesn’t sound so great. I’ll come look him over. You have a good hold on him, right? I don’t want him trying to kick me, or anything.”
“He’s not going anywhere,” Drusi replied.
Renata let herself into Danger’s stall. The stallion shuffled a bit as she did so, but Drusi tightened her hold on the lead to remind him to stand still. Ren eyed the stallion warily, but reached down to feel his near-side foreleg for heat or swelling. When the pale-haired girl stood upright again, she opened her mouth as though to comment on something, but she stopped mid-breath and her expression blanched.
“What is the matter?” Drusi pressed. “Is something wrong?”
Ren seemed to fumble a bit, taking a moment to find her voice. She definently lived up to her reputation as one of the weirder girls in Moorland’s JEI summer program. Drusi was one of the few who had the patience to tolerate her quirks, and she had even stood up for the girl a few times when the Bobcats and their ilk had started gossiping about her.
“Sorry,” Renata said, finally. “He doesn’t seem warm or lame to me, but there is something definitely off about him. I’ll go get Jenna.” With that, she darted out of the stall, disappearing from view before Drusi could ask her what she meant.
As promised, Ren returned with Jenna moments later. Jenna was no vet, but she’d been working at the yard long enough to know the tells of equine illness or colic.
Danger’s legs were inspected, as well as his hooves, pulse rate, gut sounds, and temperature. Jenna found nothing unusual about him.
“This fellow seems perfectly all right to me,” Jenna told them. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, though. I’ll keep an eye on Danger tonight when I’m doing the last bit of chores around the yard.” She patted Drusi on the shoulder, thanking her again before departing.
Drusi pressed her hand to Danger’s shoulder again. The warmth was still there, as though some unbound energy was coiling within him. She left the stallion’s stall, where Renata was waiting for her.
“Am I losing my mind?” Drusi asked. “I saw his temperature reading for myself, and Jenna even showed me how to listen to his heartbeat and gut sounds with the stethoscope. Everything checked out as normal. But he still feels off to me if I lay hands on him at all.”
Renata had her arms crossed; her expression indicated she was very deeply lost in thought. Without looking Drusi in the eye, she responded.
“You aren’t losing your mind. Jenna may be right, though. Danger’s probably fine. However,” Ren paused, glancing up to look at her friend. “I think you should ask Thomas to assign him to you as your horse for the rest of the summer. I know that you and Whisper make a good team, but… I don’t know. Just ask. I think you would be good for him. I think he might be good for you, too.”
Drusi looked at her doubtfully, taken aback by Ren’s suggestion entirely. The pale-haired girl was usually cautious and more than a little bit timid. To tell Drusi to do something about her assigned horse -– in no uncertain terms, at that -– was uncharacteristically upfront for her.
“What makes you say that?”
Renata was quiet for several beats.
“I… I have a good feeling about it, I suppose. That’s all I can say.” She shrugged, her gray eyes distant.
Drusi sighed, sinking her shoulders a little. Quirky as she may be, Ren was still her friend, and there was little harm in trusting her on this.
“You are right, it probably won’t hurt to ask Thomas to make a slight change to the summer roster. Worst that can happen is that he says no, and even then, it’s only my pride that would be getting bruised.”
Ren nodded.
“Exactly. Well, I’ve got to go finish readying the boxes. I still have to make sure all the water buckets are topped off.” With that, Renata turned on her heel and disappeared into a stall at the far end of the yard.
Drusi turned back towards Danger’s stall. She leaned over the doorway, resting her elbows against the cracked and peeling paintwork on the frame. The stallion looked over at her, his eyes glinting from the shadows of the stall.
“What do you think about all of this, hm? Would you be willing to work with me as a team?”
Danger huffed in response, blowing dust particles from the fresh shavings all about the box.
“That’s what I thought. I guess we will just have to wait and see.” Drusi gave him one last look, rapping her fingers on the edge of his stall door twice in parting. “Have a good evening, fella.”
The lass made her way over to the main office at the Moorland yard, gathering her courage and bracing herself before opening the door. Thomas Moorland himself was seated at his desk, apparently sorting through a stack of old ribbons and show photographs. He looked up when he saw Drusi enter the room.
“Ah, hello there. Drusi, is it? Is something the matter?” Mr. Moorland’s eyes looked tiredly nostalgic–Drusi suddenly wondered if she’d been intruding upon his reminiscing over the photos.
“No, sir. Sorry, it’s just that I have a request.”
Thomas sat up a bit straighter, setting the photographs aside. Drusi couldn’t help but catch sight of one; it was a faded image of a smiling, dark-haired woman perched proudly on a white horse. There was a dusty blue ribbon pinned to the corner of the photo, identical to the one on the bridle of the horse in the picture.
“Right then. What can I help you with, Drusi?” If Thomas had noticed her glancing at the photographs, he was tactful enough not to call her on it.
Drusi’s mouth suddenly felt dry. She collected herself, mustering her courage.
“I want to ride Danger.”