Time For A Little Beauty (Cara, Rissa!)

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara stood silently as the vet and Jessica spoke. She turned her attention to Beauty who was leaning on her door, begging for the attention that had been taken away from her by the doctor. The girl ran her fingers up and down the mare's face, smiling as the bay horse's eyes drifted closed at the relaxing touch. Cara's hands then cupped around the mare's ears and she used her thumbs to work circles up and down the sides of the ears before she worked tiny circles down the back of the bay's ears with her index fingers.

She used this time to think over why she had become a student under the large animal vet. And the only answer she could come up with was her hunger for knowledge. She had read a lot about horse care and veterinary science, that actually working with a vet helped put that stored knowledge to use and there was really only so much a person could learn from books.

[.Rissa.]

Kirk listened with great thought as the girl spoke. She was definitley a good canidate. After the speech was over he simply nodded his head, "Great," he half grinned. His brown orbs turned to Cara then back to Jessica, "I'm guessing Cara showed you around the place?" he questioned, an eyebrow cocked in the young girl's direction. She practically did half the jobs for him.

OOC: yeah, sorry about this one!

[sepia]

That...sounded approving? Jess hoped so, anyway, and he certainly hadn't lambasted her for foolish dreams of becoming a vet when she didn't have the right attitude, or something, and he hadn't given her an instant no to her possibly becoming a vet student. She brightened, rather, feeling rather braver now that she'd gotten the initial scary bit over with, and she responded to Doctor Clarkson's next question more easily, helped by the fact that it was a much easier question to answer, and didn't require great amounts of soul-searching.

"Not really," she answered, truthfully. "We kind of came straight in to see Beauty, and didn't take a close look at the facilities." She wondered, as she finished speaking, whether they should have done - but maybe the vet would prefer to show her around himself. She'd noticed, as she'd been waiting for Cara, the brand new pen outside, that she was assuming was for stallions given the higher fencing. A little tour from the actual vet would be really interesting, though - if he had the time, anyway.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

At the vet's words, Cara instantly felt guilty for just showing Jessica the barn and she ducked her head as she shook it in shame. She knew that she possibly should have shown the younger girl around the surgical unit and the office. "Sorry." The soft word was no more than a whispered as it left her lips.

[.Rissa.]

Dr. Clarkson nodded his head, a bit in surprise as Jessica spoke up first this time. It didn't bother to him whether or not she had been shown, he wanted to ask just to make sure the poor girl wouldn't have to sit through the same thing twice. He could have worded the question differently perhaps and as he brown eyes glanced to Cara, the girl was hanging her head in shame. The soft word barely audible from her thin lips.

The man just waved it off, "For what? Saving me some dignity?" his voice none the less a joking manner. Perhaps some would consider Kirk to be an irresponsible vet, or not take him seriosly for his work. But truth be told, being a veterinarian was a very stressfull job, a very sad job, and a very good job that was necessary for animal health. You could choose to let yourself get depressed and spend your life worrying, or you could simply throw in a laugh and take each thing as it comes.

"Alrighty, well, welcome to the clinic. This is the barn," Dr. Clarkson stated obviousley, "It's equipped with six stalls, and we hope they are never filled," which was ironic compared to other situations. The man motioned them to come along with his hand. He walked by the chesnut gelding, "This is Benny, a patient belonging to Lestat," who was secretly dating his little sister aka 'owner of the academy'. Kirk didn't know how old the kid was, but he was assuming maybe 21 or 22. In truth, the man was more like 25, but who knew? "He came in for a leg injury," the vet added, not daring to say he thought the horse had something different until it was proven other wise. The last thing that the academy needed was a rumpr about some plague going around.

Quickly dismissing the young girls attention from the gelding, he referred them to his stallion. The animal nickered again as the humans approached, "This is Flame, he's the only horse I own." The man paused as he stroked the horse's gleaming red neck. His hand grabbed the leather halter and lead from the hook near-by, "Y'all can help me escort him to the new stallion pen outside. I need to get his approval of the place," he turned to the girls and said it in a lower voice through the corner of his mouth as though the animal could actually tell what he was saying. Flame was a stallion, but if no mare was around to bother him, he might as well be a gelding. He was also an older horse, and Kirk had him most of his life, and they knew each other.

[sepia]

Shooting Cara a look equally stricken and concerned - she hadn't meant to imply anything bad, she really hadn't! She'd just been stating the facts, and hadn't meant to say that Cara had done the wrong thing, or anything... she didn't even know what the right thing was around here, anyway! - Jess wondered how she could express all that without sounding like an idiot, and settled instead for offering her a tentative smile before she followed the vet off down the aisle, giving one last stroke to Beauty as she did so.

Listening intently to Doctor Clarkson's words - though she could've guessed this was the barn, just about - she peered in at Benny closely, trying to see for herself the problem with his leg... and failing. It was presumably, then, not something obvious - inflammation, she guessed, or something similar, rather than a surface wound. Distracted by her observations, she had to hurry a little to catch up with the vet, wondering why he seemed to be rushing them past the chestnut gelding, as she caught up with him outside the stall of his own horse.

"Your only horse?" she questioned, query forced out of her by surprise, a blush immediately flooding her cheeks as she realised that she'd actually spoken. "I... kind of would have thought that you'd have more horses," she hastened to explain herself. Part-owner of the Academy and all, she'd have expected him to be swimming in animals... but then, vetting probably kept him busy enough. She realised she didn't actually know how many horses - if any - his sister owned, either, and wondered if maybe they'd made a policy decision of not keeping tons of their own animals at a stable where they were supposed to be attempting to make money. She wasn't, actually, entirely sure how the whole set-up of them owning the Academy even worked... but she was hardly going to ask!

As she spoke, she held out her hand to the friendly stallion, offering him a stroke on the nose when it seemed he'd gotten used to her scent. Not entirely sure whether she was supposed to be offering to lead the stallion out - some kind of test, she wondered wildly - she didn't say anything further, watching Doctor Clarkson intently for a signal or clue, and not wanting to put her foot in it again.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara kissed Beauty on the nose and followed the vet and Jessica as the man began a tour of the vetting barn. She had to admit that she agreed that she hope the half dozen stalls in the barn would never be filled.

She looked over Benny's door at his leg and was pleased to see that he didn't seem to be favouring the injured leg as much as he had when he'd first be brought to the clinic. She quite liked the liver chestnut warmblood, as he had a spunky personality and never used his size to get his own way. She gave the large gelding a rub on the nose before walking on with the others.

She stood back as Jessica let the stallion know her scent. Her eyebrows lifted when the vet mentioned taking the stallion out to get his approval of a new stallion pen. "What if you don't get his approval though?" She asked, a hint a humor in her tone since she knew the placid stallion would quite openly let them know what he thought of the new pen.

She glanced at Beauty. "May I take Beauty out to her pasture?" Her eyes moved to the pasture she was talking about, and her eyes met those of the small, pretty Hanoverian filly who was standing at the fence looking in at the people she could see. She knew that there wouldn't be any problem between the filly and the mare as they had got to know each other when Mirrhi first arrived at the academy and before Cara had got Daisy to foster her.

[.Rissa.]

Kirk turned his head at the girl's question, "Yep," he said, "Flame would get jealous if he knew I was cheating on him." In all truth, Kirk was a veterinarian, not a horse trainer, or 'cowboy' (even though he was always dressed for the part). His life was devoted to lives of animals. Flame was enough to keep him sane, and not too much that he couldn't take care of or exerscize regulary. The man didn't have a girlfriend, but if he did, he assumed he would need to throw in time for her to, thus less time for everything else. That was why he only had one horse. But the stallion was a fine specimen of animal.

The vet stepped into the stall his presence causing the horse to back up so he had room to get in. Kirk slid the halter over Flame's shiny nose and did up the latch. The rope was already clipped so he just gathered it in hands and opened the door wide. The stallion's head came up behind him, but he quickly stopped when the man did to address Cara's question. Kirk rose his eyebrows, "Huh, never thought of that. Guess we'll be up the creek without a paddle," he half grinned. He nodded his head to her other request then turned to Jessica, "C'mon, I'll show the pen and then we'll go in the office and I'll show you the lab," he explained as he started walking with the horse out of the barn.

Right away, as if Flame had never saw it before, he halted in his tracks and lifted his head high at the new structure. The man frowned, "You watched 'em build it more than I did." He applied pressure on the lead and the red horse continued to follow like before, only more cautious. Reaching the gate, Kirk unlatched it, assuming Jessica would just step off to the side, and he led the horse in. Flame's big bright eyes blinked in anticipation as the halter was removed from his nose. A pat on the neck let him know he was free to go. Immediatly, the horse stuck his hand down and snorted at the earth, probably checking for other stallion odors. Dr. Clarkson stepped out of the pen and started latching the gate, "How many horses do you own?" he asked Jessica.

[sepia]

Keeping outside the stable door as Doctor Clarkson went in to retrive his stallion, Jess grinned, slightly, at the banter between him and Cara, reflecting that this was about the calmest she'd seen the other girl around a figure of authority - and a male one, at that! Perhaps not the most intuitive or perceptive of people when it came to other humans, even she'd noticed how tense Cara frequently was around men older than her... something she put down to the 'thing' she wasn't going to ask Cara about. If Cara wanted to tell her why she was the way she was, then that was her decision, but it wasn't in Jess' nature to pry.

Falling in behind Flame and the vet, she kept half her attention on Cara and Beauty as they proceeded out down the aisle, guessing that she was going to turn the mare out into the paddock with Mirrhi, the little foal looking rather like she wanted to be in on the activity. She admired the stallion as she did so, hastily skipping out the way when he came to an abrupt halt and ogled the new pen like it had just been delivered from Mars, continuing to keep out the way until she was safely ensconced by the fence to the side of the gate.

Carefully holding her out of the way position, and intently watching what Flame was doing as he got used to his new surroundings, it took Jess a moment to realise that she'd been asked a question. "Oh, just one," she replied, hastily, when her mouth had caught up with her ears. "And he's a pony, actually." Unconsciously, she relaxed and broke into a smile as she considered her beloved little Connemara. "His official name's Acorn Heart, but most people just call him Acorn. He's wonderful - and knows far more about riding than I do, so he's teaching me everything." She nodded, slightly embarrassed again at how, apparently, anyone bringing up Acorn meant that she burbled on about him, and covered up by looking more fully again at Flame.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara beamed, her face glowing, as the vet nodded to her request to bringing out the mare as well. Leaving the vet and Jessica with Flame, she made her way back to Beauty's stall. "Mon Belle." She whispered as she took the mare's halter and lead off the hook and entered the mare's stall. "Très bon." She whispered as the horse willingly lowered her head for the halter and stood while the girl slipped it over her nose and fastened it.

Leading the mare out of the stall, they trailed along at a good distance behind the stallion and other humans. Once outside she led the mare to her pasture, being careful not to let the filly get the idea that she was being invited out. Once inside the fence, she removed the mare's halter and rubbed her nose, letting her know she was free to walk off.

Exiting the pasture, she headed over to the stallion's new pen. She joined them in time to hear Jessica telling Dr Clarkson about her pony. The girl bit her lip, wondering if she should tell them about the departure of her two mounts.

OOC: I'm going to work it in that this thread happened after the meeting between Dafydd, Cara and Tony.