Chapter 63
The wind of Heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears._Arabian Proverb
In the days that followed, Marwolaeth refused to allow anyone in the corral with him, just as Avalina had expected, after listening to Mueric talk. He was on unfamiliar ground, surrounded by unfamiliar people, and neither party wanted anything to do with each other.
Avalina would call to him whenever she passed his pen, and he would swivel his ears up to listen, but other than that, there had been no response. She understood he was nervous and anxious, being in a strange place, but she was determined to make him comfortable. She took care of his feeding herself, hauling the buckets of feed and water out to him in the morning, along with some hay at night. He would watch her in interest as she did so, his ears coming forward, watching her every move, clearly not unfriendly, but he refused to approach her, and Mueric told her that until he did, she could not go into the pen.
"That's his territory now," he had told her. "And until he wants to share, you'd better keep your distance."
Avalina took to visiting Marwolaeth at night, when everyone else was sound asleep, and no one could spy on them. She never bothered with a light for fear of waking someone up, but she didn't need one. She knew this place by heart, whether she had a moon or not to guide her.
Leaning against the rails, she would talk to him, telling him about her day, about her family, or why she hadn't gone into the pen yet. Sometimes she would sing, very softly of course. The horse would raise his head and listen, watching her. Whenever she tried to walk around to the part of the corral he would be on, he would casually walk away to the other side of the pen.
"You ought to be used to this by now, Marwolaeth," she told him one night, leaning against the fence. "Its been nearly a week already."
The horse listened, his eyes glimmering softly in the light of the half-moon.
"You trusted me in the royal stable. Why won't you trust me now?"
The horse switched his tail, almost in an offended manner.
"Maybe you're not ready to start yet?" Avalina asked him.
The horse lowered his head slightly, as if ashamed.
"There's nothing to apologize for if you're nervous," Avalina said. "I was really nervous when Momma started teaching me to read. All those symbols on the paper looked so scary! I didn't know what they meant at first, and I was really worried about it, until Momma showed me just how easy it was. So now I can read all on my own, and what I thought was scary is actually really fun!"
The horse watched her in interest.
"So just because the idea of something new might be scary, doesn't mean that the new thing is scary by itself. You're just making it intimidating in your own head. That's what Momma says, anyway."
Avalina shifted her feet.
"So, won't you please come over?"
After a few moments, Avalina softly began to sing the song she had sang to him the first day they had met. The horse listened intently, but unable to hear her clearly, took a couple steps forward to hear. Avalina slowly lowered her voice more and more throughout the course of the song, repeating it several times, until gradually the horse had worked his way right up to the fence, just out of her arm's reach.
"Marwolaeth, I promise, I'm not going to hurt you," Avalina said softly, "I just want to help you. Please, please. . .let me help you. They say you can't ever be gentled again, but you know what I think? I think you could learn to be. But you have to want to first, boy. You can stay in depression for the rest of your life, but it won't change anything at all. If you move forward and at least aspire to be happy, you might surprise yourself. Won't you give yourself another chance? Can't you give *me* a chance?"
The silence stretched out between them when Avalina finished talking, both of them looking at one another, waiting.
Finally, the horse gave a soft snort, and cautiously took a step forward, and then another, until his his muzzle came up against Avalina's hand.
"Good boy, Marwolaeth!" Avalina cried softly, feeling her eyes sting with happiness. "It wasn't that hard, was it? Oh, good boy!"
*Spanish lullabies under moonlit skies
We found love there.*
As the nights went on, Avalina discovered that Marwolaeth liked to play, and she would race him round and round the pen, she on the outside, he on the inside. Sometimes she would change direction so fast her feet would throw up clouds of the earth, and the horse would snort happily and paw too, before leaping about after her. To someone watching them, it may have looked very much like the two of them were performing an odd sort of moonlit dance. A dance with no name and no rules, except maybe to see how much dust they could stir up.
*Dancing in the sand
Walking hand in hand
Both without a care.*
The horse's dark mood seemed to lift during these playing sessions, and it reflected during the days as Mueric began showing Avalina how to correctly halter and lead the animal. Mueric had to stand several yards outside the pen, as the horse refused to work if he was any closer.
"Walk to the sides of him, kid!" He called. "Never directly in front. If he was to spook or take a notion to paw at something he'd run you over!"
Avalina, gripping the lead rope tightly in her hands, walked around inside the pen, the horse walking steadily beside her, his ears pricked up and his head swinging slightly to match his hoofbeats.
Grinning in triumph, Avalina turned him about on command from Mueric, and then gently tapped his chest with the end of the rope and firmly ordered, "Back, back."
The horse stopped, and at Avalina's urging, obediently backed up several steps, watching her for more commands.
"Whoa."
Marwolaeth stopped, his ears pointed towards her.
"You're such a good boy!" Avalina praised as she came up to him and rubbed his neck and shoulders. "You're a good boy!"
The horse blew happily, nuzzling her hair and making her laugh.
*You're the only one who matters
And the only one for me
Now I'm lonelier than ever
Only your love can save me*
Mueric stood and watched, scratching his head. In the two weeks the horse had been here, he had shown far more improvement than the old man would have ever expected of him in twenty years. They worked with him a few hours every day at random intervals, but still. . .this was nothing short of a miracle. It didn't make any sense. That horse that was supposed to be untrainable and vicious beyond reason was letting that little girl work him like a real trainer. And love on him like he was an oversized house cat.
The horse had already known all of this, Mueric knew. That horse had done the same exact thing with his previous rider, and it had been the knight that had originally trained him. Mueric and the girl were just helping him to remember everything he may be a little rusty on, after not working for over two years.
"That's enough for today!" Mueric called to her. "Let him get some rest now."
Avalina obediently slid the halter off the horse's head and rubbed his muzzle.
"Thank you," she whispered softly.
The horse followed her up to the rails, and she petted him again and gave him a little kiss before sliding happily out of the corral.
"I'll see you later!" She called to him, as he whinnied and started galloping around the perimeter of the corral, stopping suddenly and mock leaping in her direction, before throwing his head and rocketing to the other side of the enclosure, where he stood, pawing.
'I'll play with you later, boy,' Avalina thought. 'I can't when the adults are around, they'd have a fit.'
As the third week rolled in, Mueric began showing her how to lunge Marwolaeth and groom him.
Grooming was an interesting challenge. Marwolaeth insisted on checking every single grooming tool out before allowing Avalina to touch him with them.
"Marwolaeth, its just a brush," Avalina told him, letting him sniff the object. "Now stop being silly."
The horse rolled his eyes at her, but eventually relaxed, even going so far as to cock a back leg.
Mueric watched in disbelief as the horse stood, every muscle at ease, his head lowered, his ears lax. . .the very picture of relaxation and contentment. He stood, ground tied, as Avalina ran her brush firmly down his sides and shoulders, standing on an overturned bucket so she could reach his back, saying things the old man couldn't hear from this distance.
Movement caught his eye and he looked over at the kitchen window, where he saw the mother, Gaenor, watching the duo in the corral.
For a moment the woman looked frightened, almost ready to rush out and stop them, and he readied himself to interfere if she tried. Any sudden noise or movement could cause the horse's good mood to instantly vanish, and with the girl right in there with him. . .
But Gaenor did not move. For a moment, he thought he saw pain and more than a little wistfulness in her face before she left the window, obviously not going to come out.
Teaching Avalina to groom the horse's tail went over far better than Mueric had expected, and he was so glad that nobody else was around to watch as he coached the girl from outside the corral.
"That's it, pull some out to the side," he called, balling a fist nervously behind his back. "An' brush it gentle. Like you were doin' yer own hair."
Avalina murmured something to the horse and pulled a handful out to the side, talking to him soothingly.
The horse eyed her warily over his shoulder, and Mueric resisted the urge to tell her to just quit. His heart thudded anxiously as the girl gently brushed out the tangles, brushing the horse's rump as well.
Mueric hadn't realized just how tense he had gotten until she was finished. His fist was clenched so tightly his nails were cutting into his palms.
Meanwhile, in the corral, Avalina slipped the horse a carrot chunk, pleased that her midnight practicing was paying off.
"Good boy, Marwolaeth," she told him, scratching his shoulder and trying not to give herself away by grinning too hard.
Tending to his feet was the absolute worst. Over the course of the days and nights, Avalina had accustomed the horse to having his legs and every other part of his body rubbed down and brushed over, but having his feet actually lifted from the ground and worked on was another matter entirely.
Mueric, his stomach turning unpleasantly, had warned Avalina to be extremely cautious. This was the most dangerous part of trying to groom a horse. Any horse. It put the groomer in a very dangerous position.
Avalina came happily up to the horse and brushed him for a while, before working down to one of his front feet.
Remembering what Mueric had told her, she pressed her fingers tightly into the thin vertebrae above the ankle bone and firmly commanded, "Up, Marwolaeth."
The horse, more surprised than anything else, turned around to sniff her back.
"Come on, boy," she panted, trying to hide how nervous she was. "Lift it up."
It took five minutes of backbreaking work on Avalina's part and a great deal of encouragement, before the horse grudgingly shifted his weight to his other legs and lifted his foot up for her.
"Good boy!" She gasped as the sweat ran into her eyes and dripped down her nose.
"Good boy!"
Grabbing the hoofpick Mueric had given her, she carefully began to pry away all the matted up straw and dried manure from inside the hoof.
The scraping against the bottom of his foot startled Marwolaeth, and he blew loudly, setting his hoof promptly back on the ground and eyeing Avalina warily.
Another five minutes later, she had his hoof up again and completely cleaned out, before she gently released and set it down.
Mueric, Avalina and Marwolaeth all blew in relief as Avalina leaned tiredly on the horse's shoulder.
"This had better get easier, Marwolaeth old boy," she told him quietly where Mueric couldn't hear, "Or someone else is going to have to do your feet."
Several night's worth of private practicing later, she was able to easily lift all four of the horse's hooves and clean them while the animal stood quietly, listening to her talk.
*You're the only one who matters
And the only one for me
Now I'm lonelier than ever
Only your love can save me*
Mueric couldn't understand how the horse could be improving so fast. It just didn't make sense, even with the hours of training he and Avalina did with him every day. It was like magic.
Avalina happily walked out of the pen after the session, grinning from ear to ear and trying not to look too triumphant.
She was so pleased with the work she and Marwolaeth had been able to accomplish together. Mueric seemed to know everything about horses, and he had told her how to do all the things she needed to know.
The next day, Mueric seemed to be rather drawn, and Avalina asked him what was wrong.
"Kid," he told her after a pause, "Today we're gonna be startin' on our biggest milestone yet."
Avalina knew before he even finished his sentence, and she barely withheld a gasp of excitement when he spoke.
"We're gonna start trainin' the horse to ride."
The song bits in this chapter are from Save Me by My Darkest Days. This song is used in my fanfic tribute video Faerydame made because it fits HK and Avalina so amazingly, but I thought some of the lyrics fitted Avalina and Mitternacht pretty good too. XD Review!