Goodbyes and Hellos ((HARLEY))

[Casey Leigh Hult]

It had been an emotionally draining week. Two days ago, she had sent the lovely palomino Standardbred back to Florida, where her trainer would take care of her. And while it was great knowing that she was safe and taken care of, it was still sad to say goodbye to the horse she'd worked so hard with. Pearl had finally settled down in the round pen and under saddle, and she had been coming along nicely. But, of course, her trainer was more than capable of caring for the wonderful horse. That's what she had kept telling herself, hoping it would help.

The gelding beneath her jerked her hands forward as he pulled at the reins, obviously wanting to pick up the pace. She sat deeper in the saddle to steady herself, ignoring the Arabian's demands. Zanzibar was high strung and always ready to go, but she didn't let that get to her. Her warm brown eyes focused on the path ahead. It hadn't been very long since her last trail ride, but it had been with Pearl before. The grey gelding hadn't been on a trail ride in a while, and it was clear by his excitement. The magnificent horse was barely walking, though really she'd classify his gait as a prance. She grinned, knowing his tail was probably held high as though they were in some sort of parade.

Still, the happiness didn't stay for long as her thoughts wandered away once more. Just yesterday, an angry message had been left on her phone.. Remembering it sent a shiver down her spine, and she felt the color slowly drain from her face. How her father had found her phone number was beyond her. She sighed, shaking her head, trying to push away the thought. She felt Zanzibar's body tense beneath her, his ears flicking back. But she didn't bother to turn and look for the source of his concern, at the moment not interested in any surrounding life.

[Marcello Savoy]

Exploring was something Cello was rather quite good at. Well, for the most part anyway when he managed not to get in trouble with some person that he’d managed to annoy too much. Like his owner, Max was rather curious as well though the horse was a bit of a coward when it came to new things as well. The two made an interesting pair in any case and after exploring the harder trails, the brunette was eager to go see the other ones. The newly opened Blue Ridge Trails deemed to be particularly inviting as he’d heard and after classes, he was geared up and ready to go.

The boy slipped on his horse riding clothes quite quickly in his excitement to go explore another trail before nearly jogging out of his dorm and running into a girl. Having no time to flirt or chat, Cello had simply given her an apology and wink before going straight to the barn. As usual as the gelding’s whinny came to answer his owner’s large shadow, Cello was immediately put into a rather good mood. The boy went up to the stall offering some peppermints he’d picked up left over from the holiday cheer.

To Cello's unsurprised expression, Max immediately practically inhaled it before nosing for another. “No Max, I am all out. Lo siento.” He chuckled as the gelding gave off an indignant snort and turned away from the door. The boy acted quickly, grabbing the horse’s halter and slipping it on before leading him out. Just as yesterday, the horse was properly groomed so he didn’t have to do much other than the basics before he could tack Max up. Finally, the horse stood gleaming and at the ready. The tabiano was a bit high strung, prancing around in the cross ties as Cello pulled on his bridle.

Finally, the boy mounted up and they were off. Cello resorted to warming him up as they went, though Max fidgeted and danced all the way. The brunette sighed “You have ants in your pants!” he was a bit frustrated, though finally let the gelding go at a canter down the trail. He wasn’t even sure which one he’d taken, though Max seemed to like this one better than the other ones. Cello was quite unprepared for the complete stop the warmblood came to as they approached another horse however and nearly flew onto the horse’s neck. “Mierda!” he cursed slightly before going on to calm his currently very excited animal. “Chico fácil, calm down…” Finally, Cello turned towards the thing that had caught his horse’s attention and was surprised to see a girl on her own horse. He pulled on a quick recovery before shooting her a lazy grin. “Hola senorita…” Cello chuckled and looked down at his horse. “Ai Max, getting distracted by a pretty girl… Chico malo!” he chided teasingly, before looking back up at her.

[Casey Leigh Hult]

The too spirited for his own good Arabian tossed his head, immediately yanking it down to push against the bit that was holding him away from the incoming horse. His nostrils flared in anticipation of another, but Casey simply pushed him forward. She wasn't all that interested in making friends, even if the poor grey was. She was sure he would survive even if he didn't get his way. Zanzibar was a highly social, though very dominant, gelding that didn't have any trouble making friends. Most of the time, Casey was sure he had more friends than she did.

Wait, make that she was positive. She had one friend. Just one. That wasn't even enough to put the letter "s" at the end of the word friend. Sometimes, it was a lonely existence. But the horses she owned kept her company, and Nina was also a great companion. In the movies, those girls who were swept off their feet by the hot, popular guy usually only had one friend. They made it look so easy. But Casey had discovered long ago that sometimes one friend wasn't enough. Not to say her best friend wasn't great, but there were days she wished someone else was in her life.

A voice caught her off guard, and her head snapped in the boy's direction, trying to see who made the distracting sounds. He was a pretty good looking guy, which was always a plus. But in her miserable state, she really didn't care about good looking guys. Well, okay, maybe she cared just a little bit. Every girl liked a bit of eye candy. But he struck her as very confident and outgoing, something she definitely was not. She cracked a small grin as he called her pretty, but it quickly disappeared. What was that he was speaking? Spanish? She had taken Spanish class for a few years, so she was pleased to see the knowledge of the language hadn't completely escaped her.

Zanzibar snorted, his ears flicking in the direction of the horse the boy rode. He danced sideways, arching his neck as any self respecting Arab commonly did. Casey's fingers danced up the reins, shortening them to gain a bit more control and quickly brought the gelding into frame to get more contact with the bit. The Arabian struggled against her request for a moment, but dropped his head a bit and rounded out. Casey patted his neck, then realized she had been ignoring the random boy who had shown up to give her attention to the horse. "That's a nice horse," she said softly, mentally slapping herself. A cute boy was flirting and all she could do was talk about his horse? She bit her lip nervously, light brown eyes dropping to the ground.

[Marcello Savoy]

Back in Spain, Cello had been quite the hit. Popular for his amusing pranks and innocent troublemaking, he’d soon become far known as the school class clown. Of course, while he wasn’t as happily popular with the teachers, they’d still liked the boy’s mischief in secret when his little jokes didn’t foil their plans too much. Coming to America, he’d had to give this all up, though it was all worth it. Technically he’d given it all up when he’d given that punch to the punk that deserved it. Fights hadn’t been too common, and though there were there, Cello’s had been a bit too serious to have been looked at as a normal scuffle.

The kid had been knocked out completely. Still, Cello had put on a brave face, still attempting to act like himself before cowardly rushing over to a riding academy in a whole different country. If to make things worse, his father had agreed to the idea completely. BRRA was however quite interesting. He wasn’t Mr. Popular quite yet, though Cello had been planning to find himself a few friends if not the least one. Boy, girl, two year old- it honestly did not matter so long as he wasn’t along. The boy hated being alone.

Blue eyes examined the girl on her quite proud steed from head to toe. Cello felt his little grin widen a bit. She was certainly a pretty thing, with those bright dark eyes and small little smile. The boy figured she was rather quiet, simply from the way she acted. Cello was happy however as she cracked a small grin. He raised an eyebrow as it disappeared as quickly as it had come afterwards. It hadn’t occurred to him how different he sounded till a few moments later. Cello was quite slow thinking with these things, though it didn’t bother him much to figure out when people figured out he was speaking Spanish.

Max shifted slightly under the boy as the girl’s horse arched his neck in that pretty way Arabian horses did and Cello raised both his brows. Certainly, her horse had as much pride and confidence as his own mount. The gelding snorted in greeting before whipping his tail around before attempting some sort of prance before Cello tugged him to stay quiet for a moment. It was rather amusing to the Spaniard on how much the girl’s horse differentiated from its owner.

Cello showed off his cute little dimple as the girl responded with a compliment to his horse. His assumption had been confirmed! Surely, he would have fun with her. Of course, the boy never meant much harm. He liked to mess with people to the point he was annoying or to the point they seemed cool to him. Cello batted his eyelashes and rested his head on his hand before giving her his signature smile and looking down at Max. “Do you hear that chico? You’re nice!” Max seemed to understand a bit of this as he arched his neck in that proud little way of his. “What about its rider?” Cello asked the brunette jokingly before looking over her mount with his own blue orbs. “He’s a handsome fellow as well.” So maybe he wasn’t going to be that mean as to leave her to respond to his teasing only… Cello chuckled slightly at the thought of that, but figured the poor girl would become too flustered.

[Casey Leigh Hult]

Casey could feel the boy's eyes studying her, and she shifted a bit in the saddle awkwardly. She wasn't used to being the center of attention. Around the Blue Ridge campus, most of the girls were pretty enough to have walked off the pages of whatever magazine the normal girls loved to read. Her desk was scattered with horse magazines, not those cute little stylish ones. Who was she kidding, she didn't even understand those kinds of magazines. Heck, it was rare enough that she even had any makeup on. Most days, she chose to go natural and not wear anything beyond moisturizer. Not because she was confident, but because she just didn't feel like wasting her time with makeup application.

Her fingers slowly tightened around the reins as she felt Zanzibar's muscles tense a bit beneath her, knowing he was excited to meet a new horse. He was definitely the extrovert, while she was probably labelled as an introvert. It wasn't her fault. People were scary, and none of them could be trusted. Not even the people that one should be able to trust unconditionally could be trusted. She bit down on her lip at the thought, trying to chase it away with the slight twinge of pain she brought to her lip.

The grey Arab tossed his head, annoyed with his rider for not letting him get closer to the other horse no doubt. "Calm down," she instructed in her soft voice, hoping to sound harsh enough to catch the gelding's attention without catching the boy's. Something about him made her nervous. Perhaps it was the fact that part of her brain found him attractive, or more likely, that he was a male. Males were especially not to be trusted. At any moment, they could and would hurt you.

His use of Spanish caught her attention again, a tiny smile crossing her full, pink lips. She'd always loved the language, and she had been the top of her Spanish class. It gave her a secret bit of pleasure to know that she'd be able to understand him even if he didn't think she could. Though most people did often mistake her for Hispanic. But who knew, maybe they were right. Her father had been adopted, so she had no idea what she was.

His next question caused her cheeks to flush a deep pink. Was he searching for a compliment from her? She bit down on her bottom lip once more, her fingers fidgeting with the braided leather reins she held. Her light brown eyes fell to the ground, hoping to avoid eye contact with the boy who had flustered her so much. Slowly, she let her eyes raise to meet him as he began to speak again. A bit of a proud, relieved smile crossed her face as he complimented the gelding. She rubbed her right hand along his neck, smiling once more. "Thank you," she replied, her voice a bit shaky from the nerves he had brought out in her. "Are you, uh, new? To Blue Ridge, I mean," she asked, her voice soft and breathy.