Disciplines Of War

Disclaimer: I deny any ownership of any adolescent transformed shadow warrior chelonians.

Part Two:

Leo worked his hands further up the lead rope until he could grasp the halter he then dug in his feet stopping quickly and pulling the horse's head towards him as he did so.

" Cut it out and behave yourself," Leo demanded of the horse.

 The horse gave him a startled look snorting quickly.

" Ninjinsky there you are" the voice of his owner was just on the other side of the horse " thanks for catching him for me."

Leo feverently hoped that he could keep the horse between him and her until he could get a chance to disappear into the woods. Luckily the night closing in fast provided him with sufficient shadows to keep him hidden he ought to be able to manage this without revealing himself the trick was to play it calm and act fast when the time came.

" It was no problem only I now know why I don't normally have any thing to do with horses" Leo replied.

" I thought for sure Ninja would be more then half way home by this time. Hey Ninja you okay boy?"

" Oh he's fine. He stomped me though" Leo grouched.

 " Sorry about that I appreciate you catching him. I don't know what his problem is he has seen rabbits before after all he was just being stupid. Usually he gets the stupidity out before his work out not after." Her voice was calm and sweet " ninja didn't hurt you did he?"

" I'll be all right I have survived worse. Here is his rope" Leo passed the rope under the shadows of the horse's neck to hopefully hide his three fingered hands, " I got to be going back home now."

" Do you want a ride? Ninja and I could give you a lift if you like it is the least I can do for you after you catching him for me."

" No thanks I prefer to walk" Leo demurred that is if I can walk he thought to himself because his foot was already quite painful and he was starting to limp quite badly.

" Are you sure?"

Leo smiled " I appreciate the offer but I'll be fine. I think I've had more then enough of horses for one night. I have to admit I'm not really an animal person," Leo admitted easily.

" Okay then. By the way I'm Jessica what is your name?"

" Leonardo but I usually go by Leo and I best be going now Jessica it was nice meeting you" Leo stated before turning to head into the woods.

Ninja suddenly backed up a step or two so his chest was close to Leo then turned his neck resting his head along one side of Leo then Ninja gave a bit of a shove with his head using the powerful neck muscles to push Leo out in front of him.

Leo knew even in the fading light there was no possible way that Jessica wouldn't see him now. Leo decided that he REALLY did hate horses especially black horses named Ninja who had no code of honor for a real ninja.
Leo glanced back towards Jessica with concern wondering how she would react to him. Jessica was slightly taller then him about five four in height and one hand with long slender fingers was raised up near her mouth, her large blue grey eyes were large with fright and she looked like she might be ready to scream at any moment.

" Jessica don't worry I'm not going to hurt you honest. Besides you scream and you might chase your friend there off again and I don't intend to chase after him twice tonight. I know I look different but I really don't mean you any harm. I'll be going now."

Jessica took a deep breath and started to stammer " Wh.. what are YOU?"

 " I'm a mutated pet shop turtle. My name is Leonardo. At one time I was no different then any pet shop turtle but I came into contact with this strange liquid, which had mutagenetic properties. It caused me to grow into something more human like in physical shape and intelligence. I didn't intend to reveal myself to you as I happen to know many humans would take my existence the wrong way." Leo purposely omitted the fact that he had three brothers for the moment, as he wasn't sure how safe Jessica was.

Ninja nickered and lipped at Leo's arm.

" Cut it out horse. You've all ready got me into enough trouble for one day" Leo scolded the animal.

Jessica gave a hesitant unsteady grin " He likes you."

" The feelings are not mutual I assure you" Leo grouched.

" Horses can be pretty good judges of character and you did help me out. I guess you can't be all that bad Leo it's just I wasn't expecting some one like well… You I guess. You are just so different."
Leo breathed a low sigh of relief it sounded like she was going to consider accepting him at least, which was far better then panicking or running off in fear to cause a panic among the citizens of rural Northampton.

Leo was also momentarily grateful that his brothers weren't around to see this they would NEVER let him live it down, especially Raph. Though Mike wouldn't be much better he'd probably want to blackmail Leo with the information somehow. After all he was suppose to be the responsible one of the group.

So far in the shadows of the trees he doubted that Jessica had seen his katanas so he felt to be on the safe side he best warn her before she spotted them and felt threatened by the fact he carried weapons on him.
 " Jessica there is something you better know I don't want you being taken by surprise.."

 " Like you're not a surprise Leo?" She interjected a bit sharply as if she wanted to accuse him for hiding his looks from her.

  " Well more of a surprise then that I suppose. You see a Master of that discipline trained me in martial arts; he found me and raised me. He decided that because I was different that I should learn to defend myself against those people who might try to hurt me in some way. I carry two swords on me and I only use them when I absolutely have to and when I do use them I do my best not to kill unless I have no other option left to me." Leo explained.

By now they had returned to the meadow and Jessica was leading Ninja towards where she had left his tack.

" So uh, what aspect of martial arts were you trained in Leo?" she asked curiously.

 " In Ninjitsu since I was about four years old."

She stopped what she was doing and stared hard at him in the fading light " funny I thought ninjitsu was something they made up for movies." Jessica scoffed.

" Well real ninja actually do exist but they don't exactly act in the way movies portray them to be. You watch ninja movies?" Leo queried.

" Not really. My younger pesky pain in the neck brothers do. They like all kinds of war movies and karate style movies any thing with explosions, or fighting of some type is a good movie to them.

You are limping pretty bad Leo are you sure you don't want a lift home even part of the way?"

 Leo considered it would save him hobbling back he just had to see to it his brothers didn't catch sight of him " I guess so just as long as your fool horse doesn't take offense to me being on his back. What were you doing with him out here?"

" It is a form of riding that goes back centuries it is known as dressage or sometimes the haute ecole meaning high schooled. A long time ago it was used by horseman in the Army as war maneuvers but today dressage is just an art form that is beautiful to watch."

" So what does dressage do?"

 " Well it is said that dressage can extend a horse's life span because it helps keep them supple and healthy. I don't know if it is true about adding years on but my instructor owned a twenty five year old Arab that could beat her grand daughter up from the pasture every day.

Dressage can benefit almost any thing you might want to do with your horse. Dressage is based on all natural movements. Everything that is done in dressage the horse can do naturally on his own."

" Don't horses do things that come natural anyways? I mean they run, they jump about the only thing they might not do naturally is pull a cart or something right?" Leo asked curious.

" People often expect horses to live or act in an unnatural fashion. A lot of horses under normal natural circumstances may not jump over a high obstacle on their own or take horse racing" Jessica was running her hands over Ninja's legs and checking him over quickly before tacking him up she wanted to make sure he had come to no harm.

" In horse racing it is quite natural for horses to run and over the years they have been bred for distance and so on but naturally the horse wouldn't run those sort of distances if left to their own devices nor would they be carrying a rider on their back who whips them. Also race horses are expected to do the work of a full grown mature horse before they are even officially a year old, which means the horse's bones aren't as strong as they could be once the animal, has matured. Most race horses don't seem to have a problem with that but some do develop problems with their legs or hooves." She explained, " Natural means just that the horse is not expected to do something he would NOT normally do of his own accord."

Leo watched as she began to tack the horse up " So what do you plan on doing with him?"

" Truthfully I'm hoping to enter Ninja in the next Olympics. We have been training for some time together and working towards it. We are both at the Grand Prix level which is the highest level of dressage."

 " Dressage is an Olympic Event I don't think I've ever heard of it" Leo muttered he usually liked to watch the various Olympic events that came on T.V.

" They don't give a lot of exposure to dressage in America. Over in Europe dressage is very popular so they would probably show more of it then over here. Once in awhile they show a clip of dressage or a little of the cross country course which is run during the three day event."

" Three day event?"

 " In the Olympics the three day event is a grueling match for horse and rider which consist of one day doing the rigors of dressage, one day of show ring jumping and one day of cross country jumping. It requires stamina and endurance as both the horse and rider can be fairly tired after the first two days and then to finish the cross country course in the time allowed is fairly hard and demanding."

Jessica swung up on the horse and instructed Leo on how to mount Ninja sidestepped soon as he felt Leo's extra weight settled onto his back.

" Try not to move around too much Leo you might throw him off balance. Just sit still and go with his movements," she informed him

" So his real name is Ninjinsky? It's no wonder you call him Ninja" Leo couldn't help teasing her a bit.

" Actually his full name is Ninjinsky's Shadow Warrior. His mother or dam was a Thourghbred named Ninjinsky and his father or Sire was a Friesian stallion. His breeder named him and it was my brother's who first started calling him Ninja."

Leo chuckled he kept his arms around Jessica's waist holding lightly but even so he could now detect the slight moves of her legs as they tightened or released the slight shifts of her weight and position. He realized this was how she must guide her horse yet he knew that it was hardly detectable from the ground.

He could feel the muscles of the horse under him as the animal responded to his owner's touch. Leo relaxed going with the fluid easy motion as he talked with Jessica.

He got Jessica to drop him off about a mile from the farm it was bad enough to come limping home the last thing he needed was for his brothers to see him being rescued by a girl.

Leo watched the horse and rider until they vanished into the gathering darkness of the night before turning and sneaking back to the farm. He snuck into the old farmhouse and listened carefully hearing none of the others around he breathed out with relief.

He made a poultice and bandaged his foot up after he had assured himself that nothing was broken it was just badly bruised and swollen. He then hobbled up the stairs to his bedroom for the rest of the night.

Leo found himself thinking about Jessica. Her drive and dedication to the sport she had chosen to participate in were clear enough and Leo admired that sort of drive after all he himself was very dedicated to the art of ninjitsu. So it made it easy to appreciate that sort of drive in someone else when he saw it.

He was also amazed to know that dressage had once been used in war though he couldn't see how the horse trained to do such steps would be of any use to a soldier.

It was obvious that the training Jessica and Ninja had done so far had taken years to learn. Leo smiled as he decided that somehow someway he was going to see Ninja and Jessica again before he left for while he wasn't much of a horse person he was interested in the sport of dressage.

TBC