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Going on a trail ride had been Lorenz’s idea, and truly, he hadn’t been trying to show off. Or, well. At least, that hadn’t been his primary motivation.
The idea had struck Lorenz during that morning’s war room meeting—as grim a meeting as any Lorenz could remember. This winter’s frost was lasting longer than any other in living memory, and between the cold, and the arrival of Judith’s reinforcements at Garreg Mach, the army’s rations were stretched as thin as they could manage. Thinner, really. Hilda had snapped at one of the knights of Seiros, when he pressed on whether she’d tabulated the granary supplies properly, because surely it wasn’t so dire—and though Claude quelled the argument with a few well-placed words, the tension was palpable the whole rest of the meeting.
And Lorenz knew, from the furrow on Claude’s brow, exactly what the leader was planning to do after this: retreat to the library, run the same numbers a dozen times, squint at them as though he could somehow will them to change, and fall asleep slouched over a book.
And, no. Lorenz wouldn’t allow it. Hard work was an admirable thing, but ruminating endlessly did no one any good. It was worthy of the Alliance’s leader, let alone his paramour. Claude needed fresh air, some sunlight, and an hour’s break, at the very least.
So after the meeting, Lorenz dragged Claude straight to the paddock, placing a halter in his hand: “Pick your favorite horse. We are going on a ride.”
Claude opened his mouth to protest—then saw Lorenz’s face, and relented with a little laugh. “Fun little date idea, Lorenz. Let's do it.”
The first hint of an impending fiasco was when Claude strode straight to the far side of the field, where a chestnut Varley hotblood loomed alone: Pride, a horse whose name told you everything you needed to know. He pricked his ears at Claude’s approach, and swatted his tail behind him like a whip. Claude, in return, started whistling a little tune.
“We are only going for a little ride,” Lorenz called, “so I would advise against that one.”
“Why?” Claude asked, not slowing his pace at all, while Pride lowered his head with an ominous glare.
Lorenz opened his mouth, to enumerate all the obvious reasons why: hotbloods were a high-strung and flighty breed at the best of times, and this particular hotblood had been giving his trainer a devil of a time for the past few months. The horse was saddle broken, but only barely, and wouldn’t Claude rather relax for a bit, and ride a properly-trained steed?
But Lorenz closed his mouth just as quickly—Claude wasn’t listening, of course, and he was already putting the halter on. Or, trying to put the halter on—on his first try, he put it on the wrong way, noseband first, so that it was too tight to slip on, and Pride only tolerated Claude’s fumbling for a second before he tore his head away with a derisive snort, and sashayed away.
Claude stared at the halter in his hand, as though it were broken, and then glanced at Lorenz.
“Well?” Lorenz said, with a little smirk. “Go on. You’ll have to catch him first.”
The second attempt went better, and together they led their horses back to the stable. (Lorenz had chosen his own Belladonna, of course, a silver-dappled mare without compare). And Lorenz went to work at once, brushing Bella down and tacking her up with a practiced deftness.
He thought Claude was doing the same—but when he turned, he saw Claude staring quizzically at a pile of tack and supplies, holding up one of the girth straps as though it were some puzzle piece he didn’t know how to place. And at last Lorenz realized:
“You’ve never ridden a horse, have you.”
Claude grinned crookedly and reached a hand to the back of his neck. “Guilty as charged.”
Lorenz clucked his tongue, and not for the first time, he asked: “What were they teaching you in Riegan?”
“It never really... came up? I’ve always been more of a wyvern guy.”
Which was perhaps stranger than Claude realized. Riegan’s wooded foothills and frigid winters made poor shelter for those cold-blooded creatures, and with so many skilled horse cavalrymen in the region, there was hardly any need for wyvern riders there. Certainly Oswald Riegan hadn’t been one.
Shrugging, Claude filed it away in his mental catalog of “things Claude isn’t telling me about,” to be perused again at some later date. “In that case, you don’t want to ride Pride,” Lorenz announced, bundling up his horse’s reins and handing them to Claude. “Here. Take Belladonna for today. I’ll finish tacking up Pride.”
He strode toward Pride’s of the stalls, while Claude protested: “Aw, Lorenz, you’re really gonna take him away from me? We were just getting to know each other—”
Then Pride wrenched her head around and bit Lorenz on the arm, hard. Not hard enough to draw blood, but still. Lorenz clucked his tongue and pressed a hand on Pride’s chest, to make the gelding back up a few feet, a gentle reminder of who was in charge. (He’d be needing plenty of such reminders, Lorenz was sure.) Then Lorenz turned back to Claude: “That’s how he behaves before there’s anyone in the saddle. Heaven knows how he’ll act afterwards. Trust me on this one, Claude.”
So Claude relented, stepping back to watch as Lorenz groomed and saddled and bridled Pride, peppering him with questions the whole while (“How tight is too tight, on that buckle?” and “How do you get them to take the bit like that?” and so on), watching and listening with a raptness that told Lorenz he was memorizing every word. That intensity had rankled him, back during their schoolboy days—it had always felt like he was plotting something—but now?
Well, now Lorenz found he rather liked the attention.
And he liked it even better, once they were out on the trail. A few furlongs away from Garreg Mach, one could almost forget there was a war on, or that there was anyone else around at all. The forest here was thick, the trail narrow, and the snow light, lending a sense of quietude to the scenery, like something out of a child’s fairy-book. Pride fussed beneath him, now and again, but Lorenz could handle his antics easily enough.
And meanwhile, Claude was taking to riding with impressive alacrity. Presumably, wyvern-riding and horseback riding weren’t too terribly different. Lorenz only had to teach Claude how to post to the trot, so he wouldn’t bounce around everywhere when they picked up speed, and after that it was smooth riding. Before long, Claude was pushing Bella into the lead, shoulders squared with exaggerated confidence: “This horseback riding stuff doesn’t seem all that hard, Lorenz.”
Lorenz sniffed. “Well. You’ll find Bella’s an easier ride than most. I trained her personally, you know, so naturally she has the finest disposition and skillset of any horse in Gloucester.”
Claude patted Bella’s neck and leaned forward, stage-whispering in her ear: “What’s that, Bella? Is he taking credit for all your hard work?”
Lorenz laughed, but didn’t bother with a retort of his own—just ahead, he could see his intended destination. Earlier this year, some of the younger knights had set up a little rustic jumping course for themselves. Three thick stumps lay across the trail, at even intervals, perfect for a bit of a jumping practice—and a chance to show off.
Without preamble, Lorenz kicked Pride. Pride only took a half-beat to look affronted; a creature like him wanted to run and go more than he wanted to cause a fuss. So he leapt forward, with such propulsive force that even Lorenz struggled to keep balance. There was a horrible split-second when he was certain he was leaning too far back in the saddle to make the jump—
—but his instincts served him well. He got himself into two-point just in time for the leap, and Pride sailed beautifully over the log, then the next one, and the next one after that. At the end of the little “course”, Lorenz pulled off the side, pausing to look back, and not bothering to hide the smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
“Smooth moves, Lorenz,” Claude called. But apparently not wanting to be outdone, Claude had backed Bella up, giving her a nice little runway up to the first jump. He caught Lorenz’s eye, winked, and kicked Bella forward.
Bella cantered gamely, and Claude was laughing as they approached the jump. Bella quickened her pace—
—and then deftly jerked to the left, skirting around the log entirely, instead picking out a little path through the trees.
“Ah! Not that way!” Claude yelped, but Bella paid him no heed; she passed the next two jumps by as well, before halting primly next to Lorenz and Pride.
Claude was staring at the reins in his hands as though they were broken. “What’d I do wrong?”
“You weren’t sitting forward far enough to make the jump without falling,” Lorenz replied. “And Bella didn’t want to topple you, so. She took a detour instead.”
“Huh. Nice of her, then.” Claude gave her a her on the side. “I wonder what Bella and Kurosh would think of each other.”
“Kurosh?”
“Oh, uh.” Claude looked a bit sideswept, and Lorenz sensed another item for the “things Claude isn’t telling me” file. “Th-That’s the name of the wyvern I left back at home. He does the same kind of thing—saves me from my own blunders. I probably would’ve fallen out of the skies ten times over if it weren’t for him.”
“Well,” Lorenz said with a slow smile. “Sounds like they’d get along very well indeed. I’ll have to meet him someday.”
Then Lorenz led them off again, taking a turn that would start them on the trail back home. They couldn’t have been out for more than an hour, but already Claude looked more himself. He was sitting straighter, his eyes were glittering, and it warmed Lorenz to see it. How on earth he’d spent so much time at the academy bickering at Claude, when they could’ve been riding together, and working together, like this, Lorenz didn’t know. But he was glad he’d grown past it, glad to be here now—
—until they turned a bend and found themselves face-to-face with a pair of deer.
A pair of does, to be precise, slim harmless little creatures. But here was the trouble with horses: anything unfamiliar to them was utterly terrifying. Lorenz had seen horses spook at everything from unexpected puddles in the road, to rabbits hopping by, to leaves shaking in a sudden breeze. The longest part of a war horse’s training was desensitizing them to all that, training to be calm in the face of magefire and sword-clashes and more—
But Pride had been under the saddle for maybe a month. Hardly any time at all.
So of course Pride spooked at the deer, twisting and bolting away in one mad rush. And then Belladonna bolted too, because Pride had bolted—herd animals were like that. Except Belladonna bolted the completely opposite direction, because, well, horse logic. Goddess help them.
And the deer panicked, too. One of them nearly barreled into Lorenz in a frantic leap to get away, and he had to duck to dodge its hooves as it leapt overhead.
All the while, Lorenz could hear Claude shouting, “It’s just a deer, Bella! Just! A! Deer!”, as though that would dissuade her of much of anything. Lorenz had to get back there and help calm her down—
But he was having trouble enough with Pride, who was still barreling forward. The horse tripped and stumbled and only barely managed to avoid tumbling over entirely, and Lorenz had to cling to the mane to keep from falling. Lorenz tried tugging on the reins, but Pride only tossed his head. So he tugged on the reins again, leaned back, and tightened his knees, all to no avail. With sudden dread, he thought about how little training this horse had had—perhaps he hadn’t learned all the cues, yet? Perhaps this horse rather literally lacked any brakes—
Nothing to be done for it, then. Lorenz pulled the reins up, pressed his right hand against Pride’s neck, pulled hard—Pride pulled up at last, stopping in place. There was nothing for him to do but stop, with his head pulled back, though he did begin to rear. Lorenz eased the reins at once, of course, he didn’t want to hurt Pride—but Pride returned the favor by falling back onto his forehooves and bucking hard, once, twice, and sent Lorenz flying, hitting the ground hard, headfirst and belly-first.
The world went black for a moment—and though it came back almost at once, it came back blurry. Lorenz gasped for a moment—the fall had knocked all the wind out of him—and rolled himself over onto his side, wheezing at even at that bit of effort. He heard Pride trotting—moving away from him, which was a relief. The last thing Lorenz needed was to be trampled on top of everything else.
Then Lorenz heard another set of hoofbeats, coming fast towards him, and there was only one person that could be, wasn’t it? Dizzily he thought, he rather hoped Claude could sit a gallop, because it would be an awful mess if both of them got knocked off their steeds during this little trail ride—
Then he heard the thump of Claude either leaping or falling onto the ground beside him. “Gods, Lorenz,” he said, scrambling beside him, grabbing him by the shoulders and turning him over to face him. “You’re okay,” Claude breathed in relief. Then, when Lorenz only managed a blink and a stare, he balked: “You are okay, right?”
Lorenz’s vision was starting to clear. He lifted a hand to the back of his head—bruised, but no worse than some of the accidents he’d had during his training. “I’m quite alright. How is Belladonna?”
“Oh, Bella calmed down as soon as I stopped shouting,” Claude said, and paused thoughtfully. “Which seem a little obvious when I say it like that, huh.”
In a different mood, Lorenz might’ve rolled his eyes and snarked at that little revelation. But somehow, he couldn’t manage to be even a little bit cross, with Claude holding him so close. So instead he laughed, and sat himself upright. Then he noticed a momentary grimace on Claude’s face, as he shifted how he was kneeling, moving from the right foot to the left: “Are you alright, Claude?”
Claude glanced down at his ankle. “Sharp eyes, Lorenz,” he said, with a little laugh. “My ankle’s not happy with me, but it’ll be fine. I don’t think we ever went over, er, how to get off a horse? I don’t think it’s supposed to go like that, at least.”
Belladonna gave a huff, as if on cue, and Lorenz craned his neck to look at her—and he couldn’t help but laugh. Somehow, Claude had managed to wrench the saddle around, so that it was sagging off her side, and the headpiece had gotten yanked over one of her ears, so that the reins hung all lopsided on her face. Bella, however, bore the indignity with her usual stiff aplomb, head held high as though posing for a portrait. Truly, she was the most Gloucester of the Gloucesters, Lorenz thought.
Lorenz pushed himself onto his feet (he only felt dizzy for a moment), and held out a hand for Claude: “Come along, then. Let’s get away before those oh-so-monstrous deer come at us again.”