I own nothing.
Diary of Mago Barcid the fourth
Entry number 2
I'm back, and boy, am I glad to be off of that horse. What happened today was another day of uneventful riding, the only interesting part was when we accidentally wander out of a forest right into the middle of a soybean farm, the farmer gave us a weird look but other than that we emerged unscathed. A while later I once again asked Xanthippus what was the purpose of this quest.
His response was as brief as always "Stealing something the Romans stole from you guys a long time ago."
I had no idea what he was talking about so I let it go, not wanting to seem out of the loop.
"Xanthippus," I asked, "why are you guiding me, what's your purpose for helping a Carthaginian"?
Xanthippus looked away resting his hands on his saddle's horn, "Adventure, I wanted to see the world, so instead of getting a job at camp halfblood I erased my existence there. The only person who would now would be Dionysus, and he doesn't actually care enough to do anything about it."
We then entered a forest; we decided that going through forests would help prevent even more awkward encounters than cause. After all a couple of farmers doesn't compare rush hour traffic going down a highway.
However by than I was starting notice the absence of a saddle, every bump my horse came across felt magnified by a factor of ten.
Thankfully we noticed a clearing with a town in the distance coming up and we decided to take a break and find a place to eat lunch.
Dismounting a horse without a saddle is a cinch; it's standing after riding a horse without a saddle that's hard. As soon as my feet hit solid ground my legs gave out from under me causing me to do the splits and Xanthippus to laugh.
"That's what you get."
"Shut up." I said while he slid off of his saddle.
We tied our horses up just on the outskirts of the forest concealed enough by the trees to prevent any suspicious gazes but near the meadows so that the horses could graze.
Eventually after navigating through the town of Stockport we found a barbecue restaurant that let us in. I don't know why, after all we must have both smelled like horses, maybe they thought It would help bring in customers if they had a pair of eighteen year olds who smelled like horses reminding people of the cattle drives.
Wait a minute, no it wouldn't, because we were the only ones there and I'm sure no one was around at that time.
Anyway, I was glad Xanthippus had money because I was flat broke.
Not having a job can do that to you.
I was debating writing this next part because it could just be me imagining things, but hung right above the entrance to the bathrooms was a copy, or I at least assumed it was a copy, of Napoleon Crossing the Alps. However one time I let my eyes linger on Napoleon's hat and I am positive his hat was changing. Flickering back and forth from Napoleon's tricorne hat into a Carthaginian war helmet.
I blinked and rubbed my eyes, clearly my saddles ride affected me more than I thought.
Anyway when I looked back it was still just the tricorne hat.
We paid for our meal and then returned to our horses untied them and mounted for another tiresome journey westward.
Shapash certainly wasn't making it easy for us even if it was closing in on winter the sun still felt as hot as it would on the dog days of summer.
The horse flies didn't help either.
Eventually we reached a another forest, this helped lessen Shapah's wrath but the flies were still a problem, along with the new edition of mosquito's.
"We should stop here for the night, their was a stream we just passed we could that we could use for drinking water and I don't want wander around here without some light. On top of that my Horse looks like he… she… it's done all it can for a day.
Xanthippus looked over at my small white Arabian and nodded, "Agreed, I'll go see what I can find for dinner, in the meantime clear out an area and get a fire started." he said dismounting leading his horse to tree and tied his guide rope around it.
"Hand me you're canteen," he asked unhooking his canteen off of his saddle.
"Sure." I said unclipping mine from where it was attached to my belt and tossing it to me.
After he was out of view I followed suit, dismounting and tying my horse to the nearest sturdy looking tree.
After clearing a reasonable sized fire pit I went in the search of dry wood to burn. Finding dry wood in the middle of a forest in November is fun you should try it.
That last bit there was sarcasm, by the time I had gotten a fire started Xanthippus had already filled both of our canteens caught a fish using his dory to spear it scaled and cut the fish into strips.
In order to actually cook the fish we both had to draw our swords, mine a Mithril falcata, rarer then both celestial bronze and imperial gold able to hurt mortals and Immortals and his was a celestial bronze Xiphos, holding them parallel next to each other above the fire to thoroughly cook the fish.
After we started eating Xanthippus threw a slice of fish into the fire, I assumed for the gods I followed suit.
"We should get some sleep." Xanthippus said standing up.
"Do you think a guard should be posted"? I asked
Xanthippus looked around brushing his brown hair out of his eyes "A guard probably isn't required, so far we haven't run into any nasty surprises and if something were to approach us I'm sure the horses would notice and start to make noise."
"Right," I said grabbing a stick to scatter the fire.
"Just don't go too far." I responded settling down leaning against a tree.
With the last of the fire going away I find It hard to write and it couldn't have came at a better time, I need to get some rest for tomorrow's ride.
Hopefully the ride will be smoother than today's, that or I hope I at least get used to the feeling of riding bareback.
Some of these chapters are going to real short, but it is a diary so that is to be expected.