#51 - No Saddle, No Bridle

He found himself close to the bi-colour, warming himself against her, his breath puffing out white as he watched Wenhiffar and the other mares drive the young stallion out of his box.  “We’re just going to put him in with his mama and the aunties,” Wenhiffar said over her shoulder as she pulled the big door wider.  “That’ll straighten him out quick enough.  If you can why don’t you clamber up on Yustiç there?”  The other mares drove the stallion out with swift and authoritative nips to his hindquarters, one wheeling to cow-kick him as he tried to break away from them back into the arena.  

He noticed that while the young male squealed and hollered and lipped and hunkered down as he ran, the mares didn’t let up on him.  Neither did they break skin.

The door slid shut, cutting off the fascinating lessoning.  Ahrimaz found himself still pressed up tight against the mare.  “Yustiç?” He said quietly and she turned her head, nosing him in the face hard enough to set him back. “I don’t have a saddle, I don’t have a bridle… just… bareback?”

She stopped, solid, except for her quivering lips that she slobbered at him.  Heylia jumped down and flopped between her front hooves. He stood, forehead against her shoulder.  She was larger than he’d first taken her for, her hooves clean of feathers but still big.  She radiated heat like a furnace through her thick winter coat.

He shuddered and jumped, flinging himself into his fear of the animals, suddenly in the middle of the war horse herd trying to kill him, his father laughing. He found himself astride, adjusting himself so he didn’t smash his delicate bits against her spine. No bridle to control her.  No curb bit, no heavy war saddle.  Yet his legs settled against her sides quite naturally and he shifted his weight forward.

As she began to walk forward, on the off lead, he tensed up, dizzy and terrified once more, clenching his hands under his armpits because he didn’t know what to do with them.  She stopped, just short of his coat in the sand, bobbing her head up and down until he relaxed a trifle.

He found he could bear a few steps forward before his gut panicked and he and perforce the horse, froze.  She was being very good.  Then after a half dozen stops and starts, including him leaning and finding himself requesting a turn in the corner, she shook her head and plunged forward into four or five spine jamming trotting steps before she stretched into a happy canter.

It was like sitting a cloud he thought, finding his hands loose on his thighs as she coursed the big circle, the dogs skipping happily around her heels. Heylia sat on the high carriage seat of a buggy tucking into the corner, tail wrapped around her feet.  He could just ask, and didn’t have to force her head down. Or rip at the soft corners of her mouth with a heavy curb bit to make her obey.  “If I’d done that to you,” he said to her ears which twitched back to hear him, “you’d have bucked me off right into the river from here.”

Without stirrups or bridle he found himself hair-trigger to her every motion, a stumble had him sitting back and she dropped to a walk.  Without thinking he signaled for a parade walk and she snorted and nearly bounced him straight up to the roof but when she settled it was into the high-stepping ‘fancy’.

“A little harsh on that change,” Wenhiffar said where she leaned against the doorpost.  Teel James loomed behind her, another horse, a dark bay, beside him, though this one had a light bridle and a riding pad upon it.

She walked in and retrieved his coat from the sand, brushing the dirt and dog hair from it, slinging it over her arm.  “She likes you.  The tack room is behind that door, to the right.  M’sieur James, if you would, since you requested, please begin by showing me your riding skills.”

“Yes, Ma’am!”