Autumn
L'automne est un deuxième printemps où chaque feuille est une fleur.
—Albert Camus
Ready for her riding lesson, Regina was waiting for Daniel.
Meanwhile, she checked on her clothing: boots, a pair of practical trousers, mittens and a jacket of blue fabric. She had braided her hair as she often did – it was her favourite hairdo, for it didn't take much time and it kept her face free.
She drew a breath, her eyes wandering. Finally autumn had come, and the trees at the edge of the meadow paraded multicoloured leaves, from gold to copper. The weather was changing as well: fresher days had replaced the blinding hot of summer.
Regina closed her eyes and lifted her face, relishing the warmth of sunbeams against the skin of her cheeks.
This was the life, she thought, not the never-ending receptions her Mother loved so much. Not the fake sugary smiles to exchange with hordes of rich strangers.
The sound of some footsteps shook her from those thoughts, inducing her to open her eyes and turn.
Daniel was coming closer with long strides, leading a dark and shiny coated horse. Rocinante, for his part, meekly followed the stable boy, chewing his curb bit as a sign of approval.
Regina's lips bent in a smile. Putting aside any decorum, she ran towards the stable boy. She threw her arms around his neck and planted a kiss on his fresh cheek, and then she retreated, smiling.
Daniel smiled back. "I see you survived your needlework lesson," he commented.
"Roughly," she replied, flexing her fingers. "My hands are all aching."
He tilted his head slightly. "Do you feel up to riding?"
Regina reached out to receive the reins. "Of course I do."
Daniel smiled imperceptibly. "Very well."
Holding the reins in her left hand, Regina used the right one to turn the stirrup towards her. She was going to lift her foot but she stopped at the last minute.
She turned to look at the stable boy. "Daniel?"
"Yes?" he asked questioningly.
"Can you teach me how to ride bareback?"
Daniel looked surprised by such a request.
Teaching her to ride as a savage surely didn't fall within the instructions her Mother had given to the stable boy, Regina thought.
"Of course," the young man said anyway. "Can I ask you why?"
Regina shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose I feel like changing."
Daniel nodded. "I understand," he stated, and Regina knew he did. After all, nobody knew better than him how restless she felt at the monotony of her easy life.
"Will you teach me then?" Regina pressed.
"It's going to take some time, but I'll do it," he answered.
She stared at him, reaching to stroke the horse's neck. "It's going to take some time?" she echoed, feeling somewhat offended despite herself. "Am I not a good student?"
"I haven't said that," Daniel replied. "We'll have to work a little, but surely not for lack of talent. You're a natural."
Regina looked at him. He wasn't the type to flatter her without reasons… "Do you really think that?" she asked.
Daniel frowned a little. "I do."
She came back stroking her horse, hiding a smile this time. "In any case…" she began, trying to mask how pleased she was by Daniel's words. "What'll we have to work on?"
"Well…" The stable boy stretched out his hand to stroke the horse. "You'll have to practise riding without stirrups, and to improve your sitting trot."
Regina grimaced. Her rising trot – which required lifting from and sitting back on the saddle at the rhythm of the horse's gait – was better.
Still, certainly she didn't intend to give up, so she nodded to Daniel. "Alright."
"Do you want to start right now?" he asked.
"When otherwise?" she retorted. She put her left foot into the stirrup and hoisted herself on the saddle with a flowing movement, throwing her right leg over the horse's back. She arranged the reins and smiled at Daniel, who was standing by the horse. He gave Rocinante a slap on the neck then backed off.
Regina studied his slightly ruffled hair, his cheekbones, his deep-blue eyes… There had been a time, she recalled, when that face wasn't so dear to her heart, when Daniel was nothing but a reliable and competent stable boy. In a short time though, he had grown to be a precious confidant and then so much more than that.
Regina wasn't sure of how it had happened, why everything had changed so much… She only knew Daniel's mere presence was now enough to make her happy.
"Take your feet off the stirrups then," Daniel said, unaware of her thoughts.
Regina obeyed, removing her feet from the stirrups. "What now?" she asked, barely fondling the reins. "How I spur him?"
Using heel kicks seemed pretty impossible right now.
"Do it with your knees, Regina. Tighten your knees."
She did as Daniel had told her to and the horse stepped forward submissively. Regina found herself smiling. She looked ahead and her eyes found the shape of golden treetops.
Maybe, she thought, change had come into her life like autumn…
A new season had taken over the suffocating lethargy of a summer made up of rules and etiquette… A less monotonous and more unpredictable season, a season with rain as much as sun… A brisker season that – finally – made her feel alive.
"Daniel?" she called as the horse moved further on steadily. "Don't you think autumn colours are beautiful?"
She saw Daniel grinning out of the corner of her eyes. "You have something against summer?"
"Summer is green," Regina replied, turning back her head towards him. "Just flowers are coloured." And surely she had never been a flower. "Autumn is yellow, and it's red, and it's brown, and it's orange," she finished, and then gave a little shrug of her shoulders. "Autumn wins."
Yes, she felt more like a leaf.
A green and ordinary leaf… but then Daniel had come in to the picture, and she had changed and found out she had many more shades.
Daniel laughed. "If I had known that learning to ride bareback was going to put you in such a good mood," he said, stepping forward for not being left behind, "I'd have tried it on you myself."
Regina pull the reins to stop the horse. "You know what puts me in a good mood?" she asked, looking at Daniel as he approached. "The fact I'm changing."
With a fleeting smile, she deftly dismounted from the horse.
Rocinante didn't move away, but bowed his neck to nibble the green grass as Regina flung herself into Daniel's arms. He seemed surprised and amused at once, but he held her as he always did. Tightly and with fondness.
Feeling his lips brushing her hair, Regina pressed her face into his shoulder and inhaled deeply. Was that the scent of happiness… or maybe of change?
She smiled against the fabric of Daniel's clothes. Usually her Mother disapproved of changes but she… She loved them.