Chapter Fifteen: Horsy

Today made me feel a lot better. First of all, Lili was at work today. When I talked to her, she said she was ill on Friday. When I told her what had happened on Thursday night and Friday, she flipped. She couldn't believe that someone wanted to kill me. (Yes, everyone figured that someone wants me dead or captured. I mean, on Thursday night Leo and I were attacked, on Friday...well, you know. And not to mention, when those barbaric men where in the house, they said, "Well, she's not here, that wench must have left." Or something like that. It couldn't have been Laura they were talking about, I don't think. I just know they were after me. But, why, then did they… you know, to the kids?)
I also told her that I had the gift. She said she has always been in awe of people who had the gift. She always wished she could have it too. She asked me to do some magic and I told her all I could do was light a candle but that didn't seem to matter to her, she only wanted to see magic.
It was about noon when George and Anastasia came to the Dove. He seemed oddly happy.
He sat Anastasia down in a chair and said something to her. Probably, I'll be back, then came to me.
"Hey Gwen, you feelin' better?" He asked. He wasn't as happy as before, but he was still happy.
"Yeah. I fell better today. I guess I just needed to get out of the house." I paused, then felt a jolt of eagerness. "Guess what."
"What?" He seemed to get happier now that I was happier.
"I learned something yesterday." I said in a taunting voice. I was going to tell him, but decided I should show him instead. I asked Solom if I could get five minutes off and he nodded to say that it was okay.
I headed toward the stairs and to George's room. George asked, " What's going on?"
"Just open this room and I'll show you. Trust me." He did as I asked. I went in side and found a candle.
I picked it up and thought to my self that I wanted to light the candle. I have to say to my self 'I want to light this candle. I can light this candle' and I can do it. That's what I did and the candle flared to life. George was amazed.
" I thought I sensed something different about you today. You know, with my sight and all. But I didn't know you had the gift. When did you acquire the gift?" He asked.
"I don't know. I was helping out your mom yesterday and I healed Marek somehow." I was going to say more but he interrupted me.
"You healed Marek?" He thought it was funny. Then he started to speak more to himself then to me, "That fellow must have been playin' with his knives too much."
"Is he part of the rouge?" I asked.
"Is he part of the rouge?" He mimicked, "He's only one of the best knifeman. Him and Ericle are the Knife masters, but sometimes he gets full of himself and thinks he is the best and tries stuff that he can't do. Careless stuff." (Thought I had heard his name somewhere before.) He laughed then looked back to me apparently remembering something. "Alas, the reason I came was to see if you were up to learning how to ride today. Leo told me to ask you."
"I have no problem with that. When? Right after work?" He nodded.
"Are we going to go to your field?" I asked.
"No. Anastasia is coming with us." I frowned inside. I wasn't going to say anything because he didn't seem so upset.
"So, where are we going?"
He found a random apple on his desk and took a bit out of it. "Don't know, really." He said trying to chew a mouth full of apple. I couldn't help but notice a little juice from the apple dribbling down his chin. He continued to chew while he spoke. "Leo will. Now come on, Anastasia is down there all by herself and we're hungry." He locked his room and started to take a bite out of his apple before he descended the stairs, but I interrupted the process by snatching the apple and taking a big bite out of it. When my mouth was jam packed with apple, I smiled and ran down the stairs. He chased after me but finally gave up. For the rest of the day, when I would walk past him, I would take a bite out of the apple to rub it in his face that I had stolen something from the Great Rouge King. He scowled at me every time.

After and hour I ran out of apple, and so the game ended. But I didn't throw away the apple core. Oh, no. I graciously set it next to his elbow when he wasn't looking. When he found it, he looked to me and balled his fist and shook it at me, viciously. I just smiled an innocently evil smile.

The day was fairly the same after that. The only thing that seemed odd was Anastasia and George were enjoying themselves, a lot. George hardly ever talked to anyone else besides Anastasia. They must have found something in common.

And did I say that Anastasia just bought a new necklace. It is very pretty. It's fairly plain though. I thought she was more into jewelry she could show off. It's just a deep black stone with a hole driven through it on a silver chain. It's more something I would wear. Whatever.

As George had said, Leo came to meet us at the Dove just before two. He walked in as he always did, but as he walked to me, he gained a playfully evil smile.

"What's that look for?" I asked suspiciously.

"I was just thinking of what you are going to look like when you fall off of a horse."

"No, I wont." I said defensively. "You said I would ride Zenith. You said she wouldn't let me fall." He started to laugh, but I didn't see what was funny. Neither did George or Anastasia.

When he was done laughing, he looked at me and smiled again, "Did I say Zenith? I meant Peter. You are going to ride Peter." And now George was laughing too.

"No better way to brake a woman into horse riddin' then letting her ride Peter." George said. He looked over to me. "This is going to be fun." He rubbed his hands together menially. " Oh, sweet revenge."

"Can we get going then?" Anastasia was getting impatient. She has been here for two hours. I probably would be too. "I have to meet Edgar at five." George frowned for a moment, then smiled again.

"Yeah, Anastasia is right. We should get going." And with that, we left. When we got outside, George mounted his horse and offered his hand to Anastasia, who was going to sidesaddle with him. She mounted with such grace. I don't think I will ever be able to mount in to a sidesaddle position as well as she did.

I stood there for a moment as I recalled in my mind how she did it. I wanted to remember how to do it right for the next time I would have to do it. I wanted to be graceful too.Unfortunately, the next time was very close.

Zenith came up beside me with Leo mounted on her. "Come on. You won't have to walk." I guess he read my mind on the whole graceful thing because the next thing he said was, "Hey, its okay if you don't do it perfectly. She's just girly. You don't have to be as graceful as her. I'll forgive you." I smiled and clumsily mounted, and would have fallen off if Leo hadn't caught me.

Once I was up on the saddle and we started moving he said, "You know, she probably didn't have much of a childhood because she was practicing that all day." He was talking about her mounting. " She probably has never made mud pies. Why, I bet she has never danced in the rain either."

"I love to dance in the rain." It's only the truth.

"Yea, me too." He seemed sad. Then he cheered up. "Hey. What does it matter if you can side saddle or not. You'll be ridin' right next to the rest of the boy soon."

"And how do you know? I could be a total cluts at riding a horse." I had a playful stubbornness in my voice.

"As George told me when we were lads, 'You got spunk, kid.' When I asked him why he was callin' me 'Kid' he said he had heard someone in a bar tell him that and he thought it sounded clever." I laughed at that.

The place we were going to wasn't very far away. It was a little cottage with a large field and horse stalls in it. When we knocked on the cottage door, a man, maybe in his fifties, answered. When he saw Leo he said, "Ah, yes, Atreyu, that's you name, is it not?"

"Yes, Mr. Dugal, it's me. Is Peter ready?" The man didn't answer. Instead he started looking Anastasia over.

"You told me you were going to bring a young lady, but I didn't expect such a lovely woman."
"Actually, Mr. Dugal, this is Gweniver. She's the one who will be ridding Peter." The mans attention turned to me. He looked me over.

"Humph," The man didn't seem to pleased about how I looked. He walked out of the door way and started to the horse stales. "Well, come this way." We all followed.

We all walked the way he was going. I said under my breath hoping the man would hear me, "Well, your not exactly a looker either." But he didn't hear me. Zut! Uh, that's French. It means damn.

We got to the arena (I guess you could call it that.) that was just a plain meadow with short grass and no flowers. On the right side were the horse stales that contained maybe ten or fifteen full-grown horses and a few babies. I got bored while the others were talking to Mr. Dugal, so I slipped away for a few minutes to look at the horses.

I had seen a few before something caught my attention at the very end of the stales. I looked behind me to see if anyone had noticed I was gone, but they all seemed busy talking about something, so I jogged down to the end. When I looked in the stale, I saw a very sickly but beautiful horse that had a black coat with a white mane and tail. And on his forehead rested a white four-pointed star that was longer on the bottom so that it almost reached his nose.

I tried to coax him to come to me, and I think he was about to come to me, but Leo came up from behind me saying, "Ready to meet Peter?" He said it like he was the villain in a movie and he thought he was going to win. I think he change the words around and was (playfully) trying to say 'ready to meet your doom?'.

He tossed my tunic and britches at me. "Not really, but do I have a choice?" I figured George wouldn't let me ride Peter if he was that bad of a horse, Right? I didn't think I would get hurt much.

That was my first mistake. You see, Peter is a wild spirit. A very wild spirit. I don't think that horse has ever been properly broken. I must have fallen off about five times, and he was resisting before I even had a change to saddle him. This horse plainly didn't like women riding him or being around him much at all. I had tried to saddle him three times before I made George do it for me. And Peter was calm for him. (Damn woman hater horse.)

It was the end of the day and I walking Peter to his stale, while George and Leo took advantage of the hay while Mr. Dugal wasn't looking. I was about to get him into his little cage thingy that would keep him from trying to kill women, when he freaked out. He started to rear up on his hind legs. (and stupid me, I was in front of him trying to get that damn stubborn woman hater horse in.) I was holding the reins to try to keep him down, but when that clearly wasn't going to happen, I let go.

The horse kept jumping until he had me cornered against the stall and I couldn't get past him. Then I heard Anastasia's voice trying to coo to Peter. He started to calm down and she stood next to him singing a song. (One thing that isn't perfect about her, thank the gods.) I was astonished. When I got my nerves and stood up, I walked out of the cage first and Anastasia followed. When she had the cage closed I said, "That demon is a frikin woman hater! How did you do that?"

She smiled "I just have a way with horses. I don't really know." I didn't know what to say. Then out of nowhere I hugged her. I think she was a little surprised but she just saved my life and...and hey, where was George and Leo in all this?

My question was answered. Leo came up to me saying, "You okay? What happened?"

"That damn woman hater horse tried to kill me." I was back to being mad at that damn horse. (I will never call that damn horse by its right name. It will be called by either: damn woman hater horse or demon horse, or simply damn horse.)

"So are you okay?" I nodded. Then he began to smile.

"What is so funny?"

"That's what you get for eating my food." I was about to protest when George came up randomly behind us.

"She like to do that," and just walked away muttering, " Damn apple thief."

I turned my gaze back to Leo, "Hey, you put that plate under my nose." I crossed my arms in defiance.

"I was trying to wake you up."

"You don't just put food under my nose and not expect me to want to eat it." I laid down because my bum was hurting too much to sit on it, and Leo followed, still his happy self. We weren't really fighting. It was just a juvenile argument and it meant nothing at all.

Anastasia came to us. Thank God...err, gods, she was blocking the sun. " Well, I must be going. You did a good job today, but I would suggest that you find a better horse to ride on. We wouldn't want you to get hurt, now would we?" She said good-bye and walked away, leaving the damn cursed sun in my eyes. George followed after her asking if she needed him to walk with her but she said she didn't need him, so he returned to us and sat on the opposite side of Leo.
"I think he likes you?" George looked at me with the smallest hint of a smile.
"Who?" I was sure he wasn't talking about that demon horse, Peter. But sure enough he did say Peter and I went bizerk.
"Likes me? Likes me! HA! I don't think that horse likes any woman, save for Anastasia, and you...you!" The second word 'you' was put out in disgust and a sort of demonic way as I scowled at him. "And you," I looked at Leo and pointed my index finger accusingly. "Both of you. You plotted against me. And what for? Because I ate your food? Your all nuts! I could have died and you guys weren't there to save me. Anastasia had to. Where the hell were you. I used to trust my life with you, George. I don't think I can do that anymore, now can I?"

The only thing he said was, "I am not a nut. I am not something to be eaten." George said quite seriously.

I stood up and turned to look at the two sitting men. "You knew that horse hated women. You knew I would be thrown off." I looked at George felling kind of hurt. "Why would you put me on that horse if you knew it would try to hurt me?" He shook his head like he was shaking off a jitter that had crept up his spin. And a moment later, Leo did the same.
"I'm sorry Gwen. I shouldn't have put you on that horse. I don't know what came over me. I guess I just thought it would be funny. I didn't think you would get such a fright from him." George tried to apologize.
Leo attempted too. "Yea, I'm sorry too. I knew he would give you a little bit of a dump here and there, but believe me, I never thought he was so out of control. I didn't mean for you to get hurt like you did." I didn't know what he meant, but I didn't care. I was mad. (Funny thing to be mad about, huh. Just to let you know, when I got back to the house, I started my period. I always get moody before my period, so cut me a little slack.)
Like I said, I was still mad. "Well, you know what? I was frightened and I am extremely sore and I could have gotten hurt or even died." I started to walk off to Gods-Know-Where, then turned around. "And I'll think twice before I go anywhere with you two next time." And stomped off.
Since I was headed in the direction of the horses, (and I didn't want to look like a fool and let them know I didn't know where I was going) I decided I would try to get the black and white horses attention.
It was a little easier to get the horse to me this time. I guess he recognized me. When I figured he wasn't a mean horse, I slowly unlocked his cage and slipped myself in (keeping the gate open just incase he turned out to not be as friendly as I thought he was).
"Hi there, boy." I know, your thinking ' What a freak. She's talking to that sick horse and she doesn't have wild magic.' Leave me alone.
I started to pet his neck. It was the only place I could stroke without feeling his bones. I remembered something my mother had told me about horses. ' Always blow in there nose softly so that they know your sent. They will never forget you after.' Why not? Even if I never saw him again, I did it because I think he needed a friend. It looked like he was being neglected.
I wrapped my arm round his neck and he pushed me away and started to lick, yes lick my arm. I pulled my arm away to find my arm was bleeding. Not bad, but sort of deep. I must have got it when that damn horse freaked out. Maybe when I fell into a ball (before Anastasia came to save me).
"Thank you. I didn't know that was there. Thanks." I patted him on the neck.
"I wouldn't want to befriend that horse, right there." The voice startled both me and the horse. It was Mr. Dugal
"Why?" I asked.
"That horse, there, is an unlucky horse."
"Why do you say that?"
"'Cuz that horse there has magic in him. Ain't right for a horse of that colors. I bet he was the reason his mother, my best bitch horse, died givin' birth to him. My sales ain't been the same since he's been here?" He looked on to that horse with disgust in his eyes. "But I ain't gunna tell that to the person who's gunna buy him tomarra'. I'll finally be rid of him. And it ain't matter if he's good luck or bad luck where he's goin'."
I was scared to ask, but I had to. "Wh...where is he going?"
"Why, he's gunna be food for the kings dogs. They always love a little different food here and there." He gave a little chuckle. An evil little chuckle.
I was amazed that this man had no problem with killing this animal for no reason at all. "How could you do this?" I asked.
"It easy when this beast cost you almost everything. And when I was given a chance to get some of the money that that beast cost me, well, it's just not a chance that I could give up." And before I could say anything, anything at all, he just walked away. I think he might have seen George and Leo's horses eating his hay and oats with out pay.
I looked back to the 'cursed' horse. "He's the one whose been treating you like crap? I'll fix that. You'll see. I'll be back. I won't let him make food out of you, I promise."

I heard George call my name. "Gwen, let's get out of here. We're not welcome anymore."

I wasn't mad anymore. "Coming." I called and gave the horse a last minute hug, and walked away.

When I reached George, I could tell he was upset by the pace he was walking. "What happened?" I asked when we were out of the arena.

"Nothing. Just that old coot doesn't seem to understand that horses get hungry." He smiled at me. It was only a half smile, but I didn't want to upset him more, so I kept quiet.

"Yea," Leo said, happier then George. (He must have thought it was funny.) "He wasn't very happy that our horses ate a whole serving of oats." He snickered. There was a long silence. (and for some reason we didn't ride the horses)

Leo decided to break the silence. "So, Gwen, I guess you not mad anymore."

"No, I guess not." I said whole-heartedly.

"Good." Another pause. "So what were you doing over by those horses?"

"I was, uh, just lookin'."

"Just lookin',eh? Find anything you like?"

"I guess you could say that." I didn't really feel like talking because I was thinking of the black and white horse. I guess Leo felt that vibe.

"Well, I got to get going. I have things to do and people to...well, I'm hungry. I'll catch up with you all later." I was the only one to say bye.

I looked over to George. "Um, George."

"What?" He wasn't really listening, it was just like I was a fly on his back and he was dealing with me.

"Umm..." I was going to try to find out what was wrong, but he wouldn't have heard that. (Selective hearing at times. Yeah.) "Am I going to wear this tunic to town or..." I waited a moment for an answer.

Finally, I got a, "What were you saying?" I motioned at my cloths. "Oh, yes, Uh here." He tossed me my dress and, again I found a tree to change behind.

He was like that the whole way home.

Okay, I know I said I wasn't going to say the name of my friend who was writing stories but she said she wont give my secret away so her name is Leader Of George Cult and one of her stories is about Numair and a " Witness Protection agency". Cut her a little slack on that one. She has a selective memory and for the longest time ( about a year or more) she for got that Numair was a commoner. So yeah. And even though he is the greatest mage in Tortall, give her the benefit of the doubt because she's the author and if it was as simple as killing the person who is attacking him then there would be no story so...yea. And there is another about Thom and Alanna. Yes its another convent story but it has a little bit of a twist. and come on...my story is just another Dropped into Tortall story. so give her a chance, k. There pretty good ...and short. Yeah.