Morning Bliss (open)

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara stood in the middle of her mare's stall. Phoenix stood beside the girl with her head hanging low as she reveled in the massage that she was being treated to. "How about a ride?" The girl whispered as she took the bitless bridle off the hook on the wall outside of the door. As the mare lowered her head, Cara slipped the bridle over the mare's nose and over her ears before doing up the throat-latch.

She gently opened the stall door and led out the mare, happy that her unshod hooves didn't make much of a noise on the concrete, as metal shoes would. She didn't want to arose any more of the other horses than she had to as the horse and handler walked down to the door that led through to the indoor arena.

Leading the mare through the next door and into the well raked arena, they crossed the untouched sand until they were in the middle. Before anything else, she went through the process of asking Phoenix to flex to both sides. she then grasped a handful of mane and vaulted onto the mare's bareback. Taking up the reins, she squeezed the golden mare forward as they headed out to the track.

The pair walked around the outside track of the empty arena, the only prints on the ground were those of the little horse who was striding around. the girl rubbed her mount's neck as Phoenix tucked her head in a little. The girl shortened the reins ever so slightly and squeezed with her legs. "Good girl." She breathed as the mare bounced forward into her delicate trot, the girl sat to the gait easily as they made their way around the arena.

As they were by themselves, Cara decided that this morning would be the perfect opportunity to work the mare through some of her favourite dressage moves. As they trotted around the arena, three strides out from K, the young rider applied pressure with her inside leg and released the pressure as the mare turned down the diagonal.

[forte]

Yann watched as the bay flank rose and fell with a familiarity that he would not, and could not, admit. Claude looked at him irritably out of one dark eye, tossing his head and stamping his back foot impatiently. He was bored and under worked, Yann had to admit that. He hadn't really wanted Claude in the first place, but now that the Warmblood was his, it was his responsibility. No matter how pissed off he was about it, he couldn't just leave the horse without any riding and attention. He hadn't wanted Claude when they'd first tried to get him to ride him, and he sure didn't want him now... But, all the same, he had to admit that it was a silly, stupid bias. It wasn't Claude's fault that his sire happened to be the same as the horse that Yann had ridden internationally, nor was it his fault that he was here now. Yann felt ashamed of himself for ever feeling like he did, though he couldn't help it.

"Alright, big man," he said softly, stroking the dark mane, the slight brownish tint on the shoulder. Claude exhaled softly, his breath a warm phantom on morning air. It was surprisingly nice so early in the morning.... Which was part of the reason that Yann had gotten up exceptionally early to ride this morning. The last time he'd tried to ride, the arena had been too crowded to really do much training... "We'll get that spring out of your step, and then we'll see, won't we?" He ran the curry comb in tight swirls along the soft pelt, gleaming like a rook's wing. The striped face was still turned towards him, intelligent, ears perked happily at the prospect of getting out of the stall. Yann groomed quickly, picking out each immaculately shod hoof. To himself, he recited the words of the old superstition "three white feet, be on the sly..."

Yann was quick in all things, and soon enough the big bay gelding was bridled, saddled, and looking out intrepidly, a bit of a dance in his step. Claude was really an excellent horse, but even the best of horses would be bored and jumpy after such a long time of rest. Plus, at eleven he had a good deal of spring left in him. It was not old for a dressage horse, a good deal younger than some of the best. It was weird how some peaked at seven, a few earlier, others much, much, later. Not at all like racing or other sports. That was one of the things that Yann loved about dressage. He whistled to himself as they walked briskly to the arena, Claude hopping along beside him gaily with a light, prancing gait that Yann was ignoring for the moment. He knew that Claude would be better on the ground once he'd settled down.

Yann's eyebrows rose in surprise as he spotted the other young rider, but he was secretly pleased to see a student taking initiative. "Gate!" he called out as he swung it open, admiring the smooth bareback on the little mare. He recognized the pair from his disastrous earlier ride, a girl with a good head on her shoulders. Plainly also very determined, if she was up this early. He grinned to himself and stopped whistling only to pick up a hum as he led Claude to the center of the arena. The gelding's head was lowered excitedly now, ready to work as they swished into place in the middle of the arena and Yann swung up easily. He grinned to himself at how still the horse stood, quite the opposite of Kat as he sat there and got the feel of him, gently bending his head to one side and then the other. Perfect, supple, responsive. A nice change of pace for him.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara was working on the other rein when she heard the call that the gate was opening. As she was on the other side of the arena to the gate it meant that she didn't have to change the mare's stride as the man and his horse entered the arena.

To keep out of the way of the man and his warmblood, she asked Phoenix to work on a twenty meter circle before changing it to a figure of eight, just using half the arena. She rubbed the mare's soft neck as the mare stretched out. She squeezed the reins gently but with her legs at the same time and grinned as the mare performed a beautiful piaff before they moved off on the track again.

The girl kept her eye on the other horse in the arena, knowing that the larger horse had a much longer stride than her tiny mare so she made sure that she kept half an arena between the two of them so that there was no chance of the mare getting in the gelding's way.

At H, she sat deep and squeezed the mare forward. Nodding the mare instantly bounced forward into a rocking canter. She knew that there was another rider in the arena, but right now nothing existed other than her and the horse. A few strides from F, she asked the mare to prepare to turn and they moved down the diagonal again. The girl rubbing the mare's neck as she executed an almost perfect flying change as they hit X. She knew that flying changes could be a hassle at the best of times, especially when the mare couldn't be bothered doing them.

Back on the track again, on the other rein, Cara asked the mare to return to a trot and as they worked down the long side of the arena, she had the golden horse doing a flying change every other stride.

The mare's ears were pricked, one facing her rider as she waited for the next instruction. Her eyes shone with happiness and her mouth soft on the bit. Happy to be doing what she was asked. So far, today was a good day.

[forte]

Yann watched the horse and rider with a look of frank interest on his face, a little half-grin, wry and maybe a bit weary. How he wished that his enthusiasm was still like that, boundless and without need to begin or end. Claude arched his neck happily as they moved off at a walk, with good impulsion. Yann appreciated the crest of the neck, the slight lift of both hind and fore, the way the hoof prints fell perfectly out behind him, larger than those of the little Haflinger, deeper, clearer because of each titanium shoe cutting through the gravel. Claude begged with slight movements to be loosed, but he never demanded, he was willing to do whatever was asked for him, and for now it was be patient, walk, wait. Bend. And then, around the corner, with nothing but a thought to the affirmative, a collected trot, deep and wonderful. Just a tad bit off, at first, but Yann barely had to correct.

It was like riding a cloud, really. Any little tic or imperfection that Claude had was lost on Yann, for it was so easily corrected with just a touch. Too much of that and the gelding wouldn't respond, probably, but it was really imperceptible. Just a slight relaxation of the hand and - BAM! - extension, slightly harder to sit, but more joyful, with a stronger beat. Yann was really smiling now, feeling happier than he had in who knows how long. He had to admit that he liked this better than he could ever say... They moved into the corner, shouldering in across the short side, appreciating how each leg crossed, and then on the long side a canter, at first extended, quick in pace, legs thrown out, hooves throwing up gravel. Seeing Phoenix ahead, also at a canter, doing some fairly impressive flying changes, Yann tacked him out across the diagonal, collecting to change across the center and then moving on the inside track.

"Good boy, Ab..." Yann started out, but he cut short abruptly, looking down at the sleek bay neck beneath him. Rather rudely, he slammed on the breaks and they fell back into a walk. He didn't even spare a thought to the fact that Claude's downward transitions were less than perfect... This one was. Yann's face had grown ghostly pale, like he'd just seen a ghost, actually. Which, in fact, he had. "Claude... Claude..." he corrected himself, but suddenly he felt rather ill. Claude sensed that something was amiss in that way that horses do, rather taken aback by the sudden change of pace and attitude from his rider. Yann's hands were trembling, imperceptibly from a far-off perspective, but Claude could feel the tremors in the reins. He fell into an extremely slow pace, puffing with confusion, not knowing what he should be doing.

The flash of a black neck... the feeling of flying, and then the sudden stumble, the fence looming ahead. Blackness, the roughness of a braided mane, the snapping noise as the bones broken in that dark, stockinged leg and, simultaneously, the red blooms of blood, broken nose... Blackness. He's gone he's gone he's gone. Yann closed his eyes and tried to rid his mind of the nightmares, half-real, half-imagined, but that dark, skeletal figure of death sat on his shoulder and chilled his blood. Nothing was real. Nothing lasted. He didn't know how to go one. Would it always be like this? Would he always remember right as he began to think that he would be alright, that he could move on? The reins slid through his hands, his face a gaunt, almost horrified mask. They hung as loose as his heartstrings, snapped each one, and Claude tried helplessly to take up the slack that he never could.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Just before they got to A, Cara sat back giving the mare the cue she needed to stop doing the flying changes. She rubbed the mare's neck as they continued around the arena at a nicely paced trot.

The girl was concentrating so hard that she didn't notice that the other rider in the arena had zoned out, and it was only when the mare threw her head up and skittered backward when they got closer to the pair, that Cara realized that something was amiss.

Her eyebrows lifted as she looked at the man's back, she could now sense the newly charged air that had make her mare dance backward. Her being so used to being able to blend into the background and her own lack of emotions, had also made her very aware of the emotions of others. She could walk into a room and instantly know if there had been an argument - and even who the argument had been between.

"Sir?" The small teen's voice was as small as her stature, the question slightly shaky. "Ar-are you alright?" She could feel that her shoulders were tense and the fact that Phoenix moved back several steps, her ears flattening, her hindquarter muscles preparing for flight, told the girl just how tense she had become. She tried to relax, but actually starting up a conversation with an elder male make her want to throw up. It went against everything she had been taught, every fibre in her body screamed at her to get out of there before she got in trouble.

[forte]

Claude tossed his head nervously, not used to the slack in the reins, not being able to feel his rider's hands. Unsure of what to do, he fell to a prancing halt, ears flicked back and the rims of his eyes just showing as a rattling, anxious snort shook his nostrils. The muscles in his neck and lower back tensed, a movement that Yann felt somewhere in the back of him mind. When Phoenix pulled up sharply in front of them he danced off to the side nervously, without a hand to stay him, his mane marking the slight throw of his head and his confusion at the fact that his rider had basically stopped riding and was just sitting there like a manikin, automatically shifting with each movements, the paper mask of a frown covering up some deeper shame and melancholy than his face could ever show. But it was plain in the air, and plainly enough both Phoenix and Cara could sense it. It wasn't hard. You could cut the tension with a knife.

It was Cara's voice that snapped Yann out of it and he remembered where he was. Though his eyes were open, he hadn't really been seeing, and now that he was the distracted frown turned into a sad little smile that creased his brow. The shadows shifting across his face with the rising sun hid his eyes, almost, but they were just visible, and they didn't at all match the fake smile, the apologetic tilt of the head. "I'm fine..." he said, but with too much hesitation, too much of a mechanical air to it like he'd said it so many times that it had become automatic. Unconscious of the motion itself, he reached up with one hand and fingered the knot in his nose, the place where it had broken all those years ago. He looked at the little mare then and saw how her demeanor had changed to one of caution and a bit of fear. He could see the tension in the line's of Cara's face, her shoulders, the fear. "Sorry. Sorry. It's alright, I didn't mean to disturb you."

"Sorry, Claude," he said, taking up the slack in the reins as the gelding let out another rattling snort. As the feel came back into the reins the gelding settled down, but he was a bit thrown off now, and Yann could feel the difference in the way he held himself, the way he stood and breathed and the way each muscle moved. This horse was no Abstractism, he knew that, it had just been a passing phantom across his mind, some latent muscle memory that had felt nearly the same and had made him think, blissfully, that his horse had still been alive and he'd still had a home. Yann looked back at Cara apologetically, realizing that he'd probably ruined her ride now... And those two had been flying. It had been beautiful, really. Not perfect, of course - nothing ever was - but just close enough that one didn't notice that they weren't. But Yann didn't know what to say except sorry, and he'd already said it too much.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara frowned at the man's reply. She didn't have the ability to lie, and knew an automatic answer when it came out of other people's mouths - only because she had so many herself. She rubbed her mount's neck as Phoenix dragged a hoof through the sandy floor of the arena. Rather than calling the man's lie however, the girl simply bowed her head as the man moved his horse off.

Teen and mare just stood there for a moment as the rider pulled herself together again while the air around them seemed to settle down, the sparks now fading away like particles of dust in the sun. Shaking her head to pull her own thoughts together, Cara squeezed the mare forward once more and they began walking around the arena. The young rider was unsure whether she should try and once more find the pizazz that her and the mare had only moments before or whether it was time to cool-down and return the mare to the barn for a groom and then take her outside.

If they had been alone, Cara had wanted to work on some of the mare tricks - getting her to rear up on command, things that adults frowned upon horses actually being taught to do on cue. Instead, she checked to see if the mare was still supple and flexing well before she once more asked for a trot and using one half of the arena, rode the mare through a short, yet fairly complicated dressage test. However, if she had known the other rider in the arena was the new dressage coach, she would have skipped the test and just gone back to working on individual movements.

[forte]

Yann didn't nudge Claude into doing anything, and the well-trained horse stood as still as a stone just where they had stopped prancing, one ear flicked back warily, waiting until he was asked to do something. Yann's mind was still reeling out in horror - the images that had flashed before the inside of his eyelids were all too real, they played on repeat through the darker reaches of his labyrinthine mind. He searched automatically for something, anything to do. Like Shackleton and his men, stranded for months on Elephant Island in the middle of nowhere, he fell to the basic defense of busying himself, of not letting himself think. Because once you started thinking, you could never stop, and sank deeper and deeper until at last you froze on a miserable Antarctic island without so much as a reed to assure you that life did, indeed, go on. So he sat and watched.

Yann had always been a good watcher - he was fascinated by tiny nuances like the way a horse's mane fell just so, the angle that the rider held themselves. His mind raced at about a billion miles a minute, jumping from fact to fact like the ricochet of a bullet, the echo of the release. Claude became a marble statue beneath him, only the steady breathing and barely perceptible movements of the restless muscles just beneath the skin to assure his rider that he was still there, still alive, still waiting. Yann nudged him into a brisk trot, still watching Cara and Phoenix as they worked around circles, trying to get that distance, that stride just perfect. But his attention was only half with Claude, and although they managed to look wonderful each time he knew that it wasn't perfect. Nothing was ever perfect. There was only near-perfection, which was that feeling of flying, of being unable to come to Earth.... and that was what you were looking for.

Once Cara had finished her mock-test, he halted Claude again in the dead center of the arena, front hooves at the invisible X that his muscle memory pinpointed to this day. Yann was never shy about offering advice, even if it freaked some people out, and so it was that he spoke up again. "You look good, you know," he called out across the arena, quite jovially now, "You don't think too much, and that makes it feel better, doesn't it? The French are good at that. That horse is a good match for you, and you for her, that much is plain. But, if you'll humor an old fool, I'd try it again... with your eyes closed, this time. You trust what you see and not what you feel far too much, and because of that you're misjudging your sizes, your circles, your corners, and how long or short her strides are. It's throwing your timing off. Time is everything in dressage."

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Once they finished their little routine, which Cara knew was far from competition standard, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the mare's neck - forgetting that they weren't alone - and gave the golden horse a huge hug. Sure, she'd cut a few corners, her circles weren't completely circular and she'd missed a couple of flying changes, but she had been happy to do as asked and that was what her rider wanted.

At the sound of the man's voice, she sat upright. Her posture picture-perfect once more. Being unable to work out whether his first words were to be responded to or not, she just bowed her head in acknowledgment to his words. "Thank you, Sir." She finally said. She wasn't sure what else to say. She had accomplished what she had come into the arena, asking the mare for a perfect routine might put her back into the sullen mood that the young rider had only recently been able to pull her out of. However, her training made it nigh on impossible to decline an order. Sure, the man had worded it nicely, but no matter how you tried to word it, he had given her an instruction. And to be quite honest, she didn't have the energy to try and explain why she was in here, or the fact that her mind wasn't exactly on what she was doing was throwing out her timing. She had so many things running through her head, that riding Phoenix was her chance to try and sort everything out.

Placing her hand on the mare's neck, she closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath to help center the both of them. "Let's dance." She whispered to the mare as she squeezed her forward and repeated the mock-test again. Allowing herself to really sink into the mare's stride and letting the mare find the right striding.

[forte]

Yann couldn't help but smile at the girl's jubilation, although the ghosts still haunted his eyes. The scene that played a tattoo on the insides of his eyelids had faded somewhat, although he was now keyed to it, unable to ignore its steady throb through the back of his mind. Beneath him Claude's chest rose and fell, ready, but also perfectly willing to just stand, which was one of the best things of all about the horse. Yann really couldn't help but like him, love how responsive he was to every movement, every turn of the head, but at the same time he couldn't help but compare. He maintained that the only reason he'd even been any good at all was the horse, that perfect other half, that did not contradict so much as complete him. Kat contradicted him in every way, but Claude fit almost perfectly, like a glove, save the few patches that Yann couldn't help but notice, the few places where they would never quite be molded. Finding that near perfection had ruined any chance he ever had at settling for less.

"Good, good," he said after a long while, having watched Phoenix and Cara riding out the test again, "that time you overthought it though. You were concentrating so hard on finding just the right pitch that you couldn't quite hit it. It doesn't matter, it was very good for both of you, and there's no need to force it. It'll come, I promise, as long as you keep riding. But, just remember that practice doesn't make perfect... Only perfect practice makes perfect. I love your little mare, though, and I've no doubt that you'll both go far." He noticed, however, the slight reserve on her face, which he shrugged off and decided to leave alone. It was, after all, a bit weird just to barge in on someone like that, particularly after you'd probably just scared them half to death. He asked Claude for a turn on the forehand, so that they faced the opposite edge of the ring, and then into another slow, collected trot, leaving the young rider alone at long last.

Yann frowned slightly as he sat the trot, deeply through the suspension of each hoof fall, that slight, ethereal moment of weightlessness in between. It seemed almost as if the horse fell to earth only as an afterthought, the very nature of which had so long captivated humanity and enchanted them with the hooved beast, which had fueled within them an insane desire to harness that power. The stride shortened and shortened, and as it did the weightlessness increased until almost all forward motion was halted outright. Claude moved only a few inches or two the whole time, but it was difficult even for him, to keep this kind of motion and impulsion at a stop. So soon enough they strode out and darted around in the extended trot, themselves keeping to one half of the ring rather awkwardly. Yann had to admit that he was far too used to regular proportions himself.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara respectfully bowed her head at the man's words. "Thank you Sir." She said, for both the compliment and the words of advice that some would look at as being an insult. There was an old saying that said 'Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.' She worked on the practicing until she can't get it wrong.

When the man turned his horse away, she allowed her shoulders to drop a little as she felt all of the energy drain out of her. She suddenly wished she were on the ground, preferably on the floor of her mare's stall. Squeezing her legs against the mare's sides, she asked her to walk forward and they headed over to the gate.

Walking back to the barn, the girl took a handful of mane, swung her leg over the mare's back and slid to the ground. Closing her fist on the mane, she only just stopped her knees from buckling as her vision began to swim. Shaking her head, she righted herself and led the mare into the barn. She then gave the faithful horse a well-deserved massage and returned her to her stall.