A shoe that fits (Rylee)

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Andie skipped into Red Willow barn. The morning was bright - as it should be almost halfway through the day - and the girl was dressed in a white sleeveless top and short pink shorts. She was planning on doing a little groundwork with her gelding today as she had been riding him quite a bit lately and wanted to give him a day off riding, but didn't want to interrupt his training schedule. "Hello handsome." She cooed as she entered his stall. "Shall we go out and play?" Standing on her tip-toes, she slipped the noseband of his halter over his large nose and threw the strap over his neck which she managed to catch and buckled it before clipping the lead into place.

It wasn't until she led him out of the barn that she noticed that something was off in the way he was walking. Quickly tying him up, she ran her hands down his legs and asked him to pick up each of his feet. As he lifted his off-fore, she noticed that the shoe had come loose - it must have been that way when she put him to bed the night before - and was holding on with one nail, but it had twisted. "Mom would kill me!" She muttered as she held his leg between her own and used brute strength to pull the shoe off. "I'd better take you to see the farrier."

Untying the gelding, she started the walk over to the farriery, making sure to keep the pace slow so that nothing happened to her gelding's unshod foot during the walk. She knew that the grounds were kept to the utmost top standards, but she didn't want to chance him standing on a stone that had been kicked onto the path and him get a bruise from it.

"Excuse me?" She called as they arrived. "Is anyone here?" She hadn't meet the new farrier, so she didn't know who she was looking for.

[lorilie]

Rylee was bent over the leg of her Tiny mare, some nails hed in her mouth as she hammered on the shoe. Mercury stood, half asleep, bored out of her mind. The chesnut horse was used to the routine of shoeing. At eighteen, she'd had the procedure of shoeing every six weeks done by the clock for the last four or five years.

The farrier was intent on her job, when she heard someone calling out. The small woman hammered in the last nail, placed the leg down gently, and straightened, taking the iron nails from her mouth as she walked to the enterance of her "forge" as she liked to call her workplace. Mercury, who had been untied the whole time, followed her, pricking her ears at the gelding and girl in the doorway.

"Hey there!" Rylee greeted the girl, who was obviously a student. The twenty-two year old brushed off her hands as she came over, her small frame seeming out of place. "How can I help you and your boy today? I'm Rylee Gorman by the way, and my assisstant is Mercury." She nodded at the pony, who had made her way over to the bigger horse and was giving him a greeting by sniffing his huge nose boldly.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Andie grinned when a woman answered her call. "Pleasure to meet you Miss Gorman." She said brightly. She knew that a lot of farriers preferred to be called by their first name, but her mom had always taught her to greet adults by their surname until told otherwise. "I'm Andie and this big guy is Jack of all Trades, or Jack."

She held onto the rope as the gelding lifted his head away from the Icelandic pony who had come over to greet them. "Be nice." She told him as his ears flattened. She picked up his foreleg. "He managed to twist his shoe last night. I mustn't have checked them properly. I am so sorry!" Her cheeks heated up as she carefully placed the foot back on the ground. "Would you be able to give him a new set, please?" Whenever a horse threw one shoe, her mom had always said to get them all replaced, even if there seemed to be nothing wrong with the other three. She wasn't normally nervous around new people, she was just really embarrassed that she had let this happen.

[lorilie]

"Please, Miss Andie, none of this 'Miss Gorman' crap, call me Rylee. And a pleasure to meet you, Sir Jack." She rubbed the gelding's ears.

As Andie related what had happned to the shoe, and liffed it to show the damage, Rylee nodded, examining the hoof. "Well, this should be no problem at all. And no need to apoligize, Andie, it happens sometimes. We all make mistakes, and horses will be horses. Lemme just take him and tie him up over here."

Rylee took the horse and led him to the crossties. Meanwhile, Mercury walked over to Andie and stuck her perky little face right up against the girl, headbutting her ffor attention. A soft nicker seemed to beg the teenager for treats. Rylee noticed the horse's expression and told Andie; "Pay that little monster no mind, she seems to think the world was born to deign to her needs." a chuckle underlined the farrier's words.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Andie allowed the rope to slip through her fingers as Rylee took Jack's lead. She watched as the woman led him over and put him into a set of crossties, she glanced back at the Icelandic mare who seemed to be suffering from severe case of neglect - it had always amused the teen on how well animals could act when they wanted something. After giving the mare's mane an affectionate tussle, she walked over to where her large gelding was secured. "You'll be okay." She told the gelding as she tucked one arm under his chin and placed her hand on his nose.

She knew that Jack was well and truly secured, but she had always been taught to remain by her horse's side while a farrier was at work so that there wasn't any chance of anything going wrong. She looked at the stocky horse and wondered what her mom would think about him.

[lorilie]

Rylee took up the bad hoof again, and began to pry the shoe away. She was gentle and soft with her long, slim hands and fingers, removing each nail with extreme delicacy.

Soon, the twisted shoe was off. Rylee trimmed the gelding's hoof, shortening the toe slightly so the horse would be more comfortable, then straightened, going over to one of her shoes, altering it slightly to fit Jack's hoof better, then grabbed the nails, holding them in her mouth. She took her hammer and tapped the shoe into the hoof.

She motioned the girl over when she was done, and smiled at her. "Well, Miss Andie, do you approve?"

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

OOC: I mentioned in the first post that Andie removed the twisted shoe.

Andie watched as the woman worked, her hand running down the gelding's nose as his ears flickered back and forth.

"Well, Miss Andie, do you approve?"

Andie laughed at the woman's formality when she told the teen to be less formal. "It looks great!" She said brightly. "Can you please do the other three. If there was one thing my mom taught me it's that all shoes should wear evenly. Especially when training." The pain was still there when she spoke of her late mother, but it now was followed by a warm feeling so was no longer so sharp.