(Sepia) Herbal Magick

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Once they were at the White Oak barn, Cara left Jessica to walk down to Acorn's stall while the fifteen year old slipped into the tack room and over to her tack-trunk that sat neatly between her two lockers. Opening the trunk, she shifted a few things around until she was holding four small bottles. One was a purple coloured plastic bottle that contained the lavender oil, two were small brown bottles with glass droppers and the third was the spray atomizer. Rising to her feet, she left the tack room and headed down to where Acorn was stalled. "He looks a little down, doesn't he?" She commented as she looked in at the Connemara gelding. "Here." She opened her hand to offer the bottles to the girl. "The remedies in the brown bottles, add four drops of each into his water."

She waited a bit for the girl to put the Bach liquid into the gelding's water. "The spray bottle is a mixture of; grapefruit seed extract, lavender, majoram, vetiver, and orange. You can spray it into the corners of his stall and it will help fill him with inner peace and sanctity." She grinned, her cat-coloured eye sparkled. "Okay, maybe not the inner peace and sanctity, but it will allow him to relax a little when things are busy."

She gave an impish grin. "When you so, you're going to massage the lavender oil into his coat using T-Touch. Think about making tiny circles with your fingertips, following the lie of his coat." She had watched the girl and the gelding in the arena and knew that the bond between then was thicker than an iron rod, and this meant that she was going to get Jessica to do everything herself. "Don't be afraid of doing it wrong. If Acorn doesn't like it, he will move away. If he does that, step up and try again. You'll know when you've got it right as you will be able to fee the muscles relax under your fingers."

[sepia]

Continuing on down to Acorn while Cara went off to grab some supplies, Jess slipped open the door to his stall upon arriving, letting herself inside. The gelding, who'd been mindlessly chewing away at some hay, twitched his head up at the sound of the door and Jess' "Hello boy," but didn't react any further. Jess bit her lip; previously, he'd always come nuzzling up to her, and this was a key example of why she was rather worried. She didn't have long to brood, though, as Cara was soon appearing, laden with bottles.

"Yes, he does," she agreed, mournfully, to the other girl's opening statement, then found herself with two of the bottles in her hands, following instructions to drip a few drops into Acorn's water. "These are the Walnut and Rescue remedies, right?" she confirmed, ever the student, as she carefully - ever so carefully - dropped the liquids into the water. Acorn, presumably slightly bemused by this unusual behaviour, flickered his ears forwards, nostrils widening as he tried to figure out what on earth his human was doing.

Handing the little bottles back to Cara, absorbing the long list of ingredients in the spray with widening eyes. She didn't even know what half of those things were! But, she made a mental note, she was going to find out as soon as she could. "Right," she said, "Spray into the corners of the stall." About to ask whether she should do that now, Cara then dropped the next hopeful solution to Acorn's melancholy onto her lap, and Jessica's instinctive 'But-I-don't-know-how-what-if-I-do-it-wrong?!' reaction flared up.

She just nodded, though, at Cara's instructions, a slight frown creasing her brow in concentration. Well, she had said she wanted to learn T-Touch... she just hadn't expected it to be today. "So... where do I start with the T-Touch? The neck, and work backwards, or...?" That, she felt, was a fairly important thing to get sorted, and as she accepted the lavender bottle from Cara - appropriately purple, she noted absently - she waited for a moment before opening it, wondering as she did so whether she was supposed to douse her hand in the stuff.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara smiled warmly. "Like I did in the pasture, offer him the bottle. If he turns away, he doesn't want it and we'll go to plan B. Remember to keep a good hold on the bottle though, if he wants the bottle, he will try and take it." She drew in a small breath. "If he gives the positive answer, pour a small amount onto the centre of your hand and pass the bottle back to me. Rub your hands together to coat the palms. Where do you start? That's up to you. You know Acorn better than anyone else, where is his favourite place to be scratched." An image of phoenix came to her mind. "When I'm massaging Bunny... Phoenix, I start at the top of her neck and work down to her shoulder. You'll find that once you get started, he will move to where you need to be." She gave a small laugh. "Animals are great at letting you know what they want, as long as you know how to listen. If he loves having his ears rubbed, you can even start there."

[sepia]

Nodding, Jess flipped the top of the bottle, extending it towards Acorn. For a moment, he didn't react, and her breath caught in her throat, but then he took a step nearer her, stretching out his neck to first nose curiously, then lip gently at the bottle. Hastily bringing the bottle back in towards her body to prevent her from never seeing it again, she decided that definitely counted as a positive answer, and poured a small amount of the pungent liquid onto the palm of her left hand, handed the bottle back to Cara, then rubbed her hands together, glad to see that Acorn was looking distinctly interested in what she was doing.

Taking a breath to centre herself, and stepping towards Acorn, pulling her hands away with a slight giggle from Acorn's questing teeth, Jess kept Cara's instructions in mind, and went with her instincts, starting at Acorn's withers. Usually, that was Acorn's favourite place to be scratched, so that seemed like a reasonable place to start.

Small circles, small circles, she thought, and began to use the tips of her fingers to preform the movements, at first tentatively, but when Acorn didn't seem to object, with a little more confidence and pressure. Though at first clearly a little bemused by this new behaviour, Acorn settled into it quickly, as Jess figured out how to massage with lavender oil coated fingers without her fingers slipping on Acorn's well groomed coat.

Rather to her surprise, after a minute or so, she felt something give, slightly, beneath her fingers, and realised after a moment that she was presumably having some good affect, if Acorn was starting to relax a little. "I think he quite likes this," she said a moment after that, as Acorn shifted his weight and rested one hind-hoof.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara rested her arms on the stall door as she took back the bottle and watched Jessica at work. Her eyes caught the gelding relaxing before the girl's delighted exclamation filled the stall. "Yes, and before you know it he'll go to sleep." She said with a laugh, thinking of all the times that her overly stressed mare would fall asleep during a massage. "Just, as when you're picking out his hooves, don't let him lean against you. I'd hate for my advice to create him learning bad habits." she watched silently for a little longer. "The reason he has relaxed so quickly is because he already puts all his trust into you, so there was no need for trust building. Which is what would have happened, should I be the one doing that."

[sepia]

A smile widening on her face as she felt was Cara was describing, muscles relaxing beneath even her inexperienced fingers, and incredibly pleased at the thought that Acorn actually trusted her, trusted her enough to let her do something like this, Jess got slightly too confident, and pressed a little hard. Acorn instantly expressed his distaste for the added pressure with a snort, shifting away from her and turning his head slightly to shoot her an offended look. "Sorry," she breathed, taking a moment before starting again, this time being much more careful about how much pressure she was using through her fingertips.

"Should I do this every time I come to see him?" she asked, after a short while of concentrated little circles, moving off his withers along the line of his spine. She frowned thoughtfully. "That could be a little tricky... Do I have to do his whole body, when I do this T-touch, or if I'm a bit short for time can I just do, like, his neck?" He might've been quite a small pony, but there was still a lot of him to massage, especially this technique, which involved very small circles and therefore took quite a long time.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

"Remember to breath into your circles, that way you will find that you won't be able to do that again." She offered gently as the other girl apologized to her pony as the gelding gave her a dirty look.

"Should I do this every time I come to see him?"

Cara gave a small frown in thought. "I would suggest that you do this at least once a day for the next week, just while everything has a chance to take effect. If you are short on time, his neck, withers and head will do the job perfectly. I normally would just say face and neck, but he obviously adores having his withers worked on."

[sepia]

"Breath, right, that sounds sensible," Jessica acknowledged with a somewhat rueful little smile. She seemed to be doing it okay now, though, if Acorn's reactions were the gauge she was using; he'd returned to his relaxed posture, keeping one ear gently flicked forward, presumably keeping tabs on Cara, and the other pointing backwards, though the muscles in both were soft and relaxed as he began to let his head droop. Jess decided she'd probably have to do this after she rode, or she'd end up with an utterly asleep horse.

"He has quite sensitive withers," Jess said, wondering if that was why he liked having them massaged quite so much. "When we bought him, we had problems finding a saddle that he would tolerate, until we found the GP that I use now, which was actually second-hand, but fits him really well." Ah, the quirks of horses... "Can you do this even for really sensitive, thin-skinned horses, just a bit gentler?" Some of the twitchier animals she'd seen she couldn't imagine particularly liking having little circles massaged over their skin. She'd be worried it would make them think of flies, or something.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara shook her head. "You would be surprised with how quickly they can perk up again after a massage." She said. "I quite often massage Phoenix before I ride her, especially if it is in a group lesson, just to get her into the correct frame of mind."

She nodded as Jessica explained that Acorn had sensitive withers. "It's funny that no matter how hard or soft skinned horses are, I have not yet found one that hasn't liked T-Touch, and it's done the same way for each horse." She pressed her lips together. "Okay, that's a lie. Sometimes the circles are clockwise, sometimes anti-clockwise, depending on why I'm doing the work. A really tensed up horse, will appreciate anti-clockwise circles where a horse that just needs calming down or needs to relax a little, do better with the clockwise circles. Phoenix can't handle being around stallions and freaks out. I use anti-clockwise circles on her ears to help her lower her energies again."