Beginning of Chapter Note
Jonathan teaches Clarissa how to ride a horse.
Jonathan is eight. Clarissa is six.
Setting: late winter / early spring at the Morgenstern Manor.
I took some creative liberties with this.
End of Chapter Note
Guys please don't attack me for this. I've never ridden a horse before so this probably isn't very accurate but I did a lot of research so I could at least get the basics. And yes. Google told me that you should learn with a saddle first, but I needed a kinda realistic way for the fall to happen.
"What do I wear?" Clarissa asked. She was riffling through her closet while Jonathan was lying on her bed with his eyes closed.
Father had provided her with more than a sufficient amount of clothing, but problems would arise when she was unsure of what to wear. She was rarely left in these situations, but when they did happen, she found it really annoying and Jonathan wasn't offering her any helpful suggestions.
"Just wear something that looks like what I would wear." Clarissa's bed was starting to feel a little more comfortable than his. It was probably because his bed was starting to get permanent impressions from where he and Clarissa would sleep, and Clarissa would almost never use her own bed.
"But it isn't winter anymore and I don't wanna wear a coat," she moaned.
"Stop whining," he said harshly. "Take off your pyjamas and put on long pants and a sweater. Getting dressed isn't that hard."
Clarissa sighed. She already had a general idea of what she needed to wear, but there were a lot of options in her closet and Jonathan hadn't even opened his eyes yet. She figured that jeans wouldn't give her enough mobility, and it still wasn't warm enough for her to be in leggings for longer than an hour.
She finally decided on a pair of track pants, a looser sweater and a scarf. When Jonathan finally opened his eyes to look at what she was wearing, he shook his head in disapproval.
"You can't wear that," he said.
"Well you didn't want to help me," she said. "What's wrong with this?"
"You can't wear a scarf. It could get tangled in some of the equipment and I don't want to explain to father why I had to cut through some of your clothes."
She took off her scarf. "Better?" She asked.
"Good enough."
She smiled as she raced down to the stables. Father finally thought that she was big enough to ride her horse. For the past three years, she had looked on in envy when father first taught Jonathan the basics on how to ride, and then continued to watch when Jonathan learned the rest on his own through trial and error. When father was away, sometime Jonathan would let her sit behind him as he rode if she begged and annoyed him enough, but Jonathan always made her sit sideways because she wouldn't have been able to get her legs around the horse. Now she could finally ride her own horse, and face forwards too, instead of just taking care of her.
Jonathan had refused to let her name the horses when they get them, and in retrospect, she was glad. She had originally wanted to name them Brownie and Nay. Jonathan didn't appreciate her name suggestions and, instead, named his black horse Onyx, and her dark auburn horse Cinnamon.
She went to the tack room to grab a saddle, but Jonathan caught up to her just as she got back to her horse.
"We aren't using saddles today. Father says that you should learn without one, since you might not always have one. You can ride with a saddle tomorrow."
"What!" She exclaimed. "Why not? Can I please use one today?"
"If you keep whining then we can always wait until tomorrow. I'm in no rush to do this since father gave me two weeks to teach you." Jonathan waited for the disappointment on Clarissa's face to fade away. "Go put it back," he said.
Clarissa made a point of stomping her feet when she went back to the tack room.
"What do you think father would think if he could see you right now?" Jonathan yelled out to her.
"Father isn't here, and you aren't him so stop being so controlling!"
"Father left me to teach you how to ride, so that's what I'm doing. If you don't like it then you can go back to the Manor."
When Clarissa got back, she saw that Jonathan had already prepared his horse for her.
"I'd prefer if you learned on Onyx since yours wouldn't be used to anyone riding her without a saddle."
"Thanks Jonathan." That might've been the excuse that he'd tell her, but she knew that she was riding his horse because Onyx was already used to him and her horse was skittish enough around him when he had green eyes. She didn't want to imagine how she'd act if Jonathan was there with his black eyes.
"You'll want to wear this," he said, handing her a plain matte white helmet. "You can paint it later if you want to."
"Really? Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Jonathan couldn't help but smile at his sister's happiness.
"Ok. Try to get up."
Clarissa looked at him.
"Without my help," he added.
Clarissa sighed and pulled out the large stepping stool. It took her a minute to get Onyx to stop moving around. She grabbed a fistful of her mane to keep her balance.
"Don't hold her there. She'd probably try to get away from you if you pull too hard, and then you'll end up falling."
Clarissa huffed and repositioned her arms to try and wrap them around the horse's neck. She couldn't even get halfway around her neck, but since she was forced to bend over, it was easier for her to swing her leg over Onyx's back.
When she had fully mounded, the horse started to move forward so Clarissa instinctively squeezed her legs together to keep her balance.
"It's going to be hard, but you can't squeeze her sides, or she'll think you're telling her to go faster."
Clarissa nodded and loosened her grip on Onyx.
"Rest your hands on the sides of her neck. I'll go slow, so all you have to do is try not to fall off."
She did as Jonathan told her, but even though it sounded simple, it was surprisingly hard to keep from sliding, especially since her legs were a lot shorter than Jonathan's and didn't go too far down the horse's sides.
Once she figured out how to adjust her centre of gravity and move with Onyx's rocking, she could start to enjoy the slow pace.
"Ready to go a little faster?" Jonathan asked.
Within the hour Jonathan had gotten her to go from a walk to a trot. She had been starting to get a little more comfortable with her balance when she started to notice that the insides of her thighs were starting to hurt. She took the chance of taking one hand off her horse and trying to get under her leg and cushion some bouncing.
Glancing back, he saw that Clarissa was trying to protect her bruise.
"Keep your hands on her. You'll get used to the pain eventually."
Jonathan took his eyes off his sister since he was more focused on staying on the horse's left side as he led her around a bend, so he didn't see her ignore his warning and put her hand back under her thigh.
She squealed as she lost her balance and started sliding down the right side of the horse. She flailed around to grab something and ended up catching the end of Onyx's mane. Onyx stood on her rear hooves, rearing and throwing Clarissa from her back.
Clarissa slid off and landed on her wrist when she hit the ground. She choked back a sob on impact but whimpered as she rolled onto her back. She was used to pain from sparring, but that was a completely different kind of pain that she wasn't prepared for.
Jonathan turned, annoyed that Clarissa hadn't listened to him and had lost her balance because of it.
"You're fine," he said without sympathy. "Get up and I'll help you back onto Onyx."
Clarissa couldn't do much more than shake her head and clutch her wrist to her chest.
Seeing her pain, Jonathan rushed over and pulled out his stele, but she had dressed to withstand the cool air and left no skin exposed.
He didn't want to try and get her jacket zipper down because even if he did manage it, she was wearing a hoodie that didn't have any zippers. So instead, he used his knife to gently cut away at her outerwear. He was trying to cause the least amount of pain possible by pausing every time she so much as winced when he jostled her arm, but he quickly realized that it would take far too long to cut through it while trying to be gentle at the same time.
"This really going to hurt. Try not to squirm too much."
"Wha-?"
Jonathan cut her question off by lifting her arm so he could get his knife under her clothes and force the tip through to the outside.
Clarissa screamed and tried to kick at him as he dragged the knife down, cutting out a large hole in her clothes and exposing her abdomen. He had to press himself down against her so he could keep her still enough for him to draw a clean iratze. If she kept fighting him, then he'd be more likely to mess up the rune and be forced to do it all over again.
Clarissa finally started to calm down when the worst of the pain started to fade away.
"Let me see," he demanded. If her wrist was broken, then he'd need to set her wrist properly before letting Clarissa redraw the rune.
He watched her face as he pocked and prodded different ligaments and joint attachment sites. If the majority of the pain came from when he pressed on ligaments, then she probably tore a few ligaments when she landed. If her pain came from the bones, the he'd know that she broke it.
He sighed with relief when he concluded that it wasn't anything more than a bad sprain.
"Here," he said while handing her his stele. "Look's like it's just a sprain so you can draw an iratze and you should be fine."
Clarissa gripped the stele with her left hand and traced over the iratze that Jonathan had just drawn. She couldn't exactly feel anything being fixed, but she was more than aware of the escaping pain and was so relieved when she could move her hand without any pain.
"I know that you're bruising, but when you ride bareback like that, any little movement can throw you off balance. You're lucky that it was only a sprain. It could've easily been something worst."
She stood and brushed some of the dirt off her coat and pants. When she looked around for Onyx, Jonathan shook his head. "You're done for the day."
"What? No! I want to try it again."
"If you can't handle the bruising, then I think you need a break. You can try it again tomorrow, but with a saddle."
He cut her off again when it looked like she was ready to protest. "Go back to the manor and shower. We're done for the day and you're covered in dirt."
"Do you need any help with her?" Clarissa asked, referring to Onyx.
"No thanks. I'll be inside in about twenty minutes."
Jonathan had to spend a considerable amount of time calming Onyx down before he could lead her back to the stables. Onyx was young and when you combine that with whatever Clarissa did as she fell, well, it was no surprise that she was still so skittish.
He had to stand on the stool and reach to get the halter and bridle off Onyx's head, and then he had to manoeuvre the stool around her sides so he could wipe her down properly.
Father had initially taught him how to ride a horse with a saddle and he didn't progress to riding bareback for over a week. But this time, father had insisted that he teach Clarissa how to ride bareback first. She was still smaller than he had been when he learned, and her legs were still too short for her to keep her balance easily.
He couldn't think of any reason why father would want her to learn this way. It could just be his way of testing her, but father would only see the results, he would have no way of knowing if Jonathan had actually taught Clarissa the way that he wanted it done.