//------------------------------// // 1 - Quarantine // Story: Dawn the Derby Horse // by Meadow_Dawn //------------------------------// Erin sighed as she sat in Math class. Her graduation was a foregone conclusion, having already gotten her G.E.D. so she could become a jockey as soon as she could. It had been her dream to find the perfect horse for the races, train them, and reach the top by the time she was twenty or twenty-five, in plenty of time to find a man who loved horses as much as her and could help keep the ranch and farmlands going. She grumbled quietly as her math questions were left as half finished. The teachers let her do what she wanted as long as she didn’t disrupt the others. After all, she already got her education, but dad insisted she still attend school because ‘It’s like life, where you have to balance a job and fun at the same time. Besides, you might make some friends!’ ‘Make friends my ass.’ Erin grumbled to herself, ‘Sure some of them are nice, but when it comes to hanging out, all any of ‘em want to do is stay in the city.’ She smirked as she thought about the mystery horse’s appearance, finding herself doodling with her pencils and coloring it in. She found herself hoping that no one would claim her. She was left in charge of making the ‘found horse’ notice to all the ranchers in a hundred mile radius. All the better for her. No way would she list it was an unfamiliar or dyed color, instead saying that a horse about 14.2 hands high had been found and a correct color and breed match would release the horse to its owner. The real one would know they had dyed it, recently too by how close to the root it was. A few calls came in, but it was clear the callers were making stuff up to try and take the green horse away, giving any color and breed they could, one sleazy man trying to suggest she couldn’t possibly know what horse was what and she ‘definitely’ had his horse. When she asked what color it was, he tried to list every color under the sun that a horse could be, and when she gave him nothing other than a “Nope, not the one I have. Hope you find your horses, that’s a lot of em to be missing.” he accused her of being blind! Looks like the horse was going to be hers, even by the police’s standards! She would have to see if the mare would let her ride or not and break her in slowly. Oh, and she’d have to come up with a name. They were fast, almost as fast as some of dad’s best horses if she saw that gallop right when they tried to run away. She’d have to test it on the practice track if things go well enough. The bell rang and Erin picked up her bag and nearly flew out of the room with her things, glad the day was up. She quickly went to the lot and got her old beater of a car started and left the school lot before the worst of the rush could clog up the streets. She drove home, trying hard to obey the speed limits… most of the time anyway, and ran through the home. “Hey guys, I’m home, I’m off to see the horses!” She said as she unceremoniously dropped her bag on a chest by the stairs and went to the back so she could get to the fields. “Oh Erin, I-!” Mom tried to say before she let out a sigh, going back to the kitchen. “I swear, that girl loves the horses more than her family!” “Horses have been in our blood since her great grandfather’s days, maybe older.” The dad said, keeping an eye on her as she started the ATV and zoomed off to the stables. “At least she’s passionate about something tangible. You ‘n I both know too many her age have their heads buried in one screen or another.” “Too true…” She sighed, going back to cooking. ---------- Dawn sighed as she stood in the stable in the coolness of spring. The pen she could access was abhorrently small, and of course she wasn’t allowed into the main pasture, yet this small little penned area barely enough to walk herself in circles. When they got to her, they manhandled her body into the trailer that still smelled of horse waste, at least they got the tranquilizer out before she began moving, and took her over into the quickly erected quarantine zone and pen. Now her days were spent calculating, lost in her own mind while unable to speak. She wouldn’t risk changing her form again to escape just yet, but that also meant a very awkward time when it came to relieving herself. She refused to let herself go in the stable like the other horses would and would take the walk outside to do so. The water was barely tolerable with a heavy iron taste to it, but the hay was decent, both for resting and for eating. At night, she tested her speech again, only to find her noises were incomprehensible, even to herself. Finally last night, when she was reasonably sure of the patterns of the other horses and the humans, she tried to shapeshift back to her natural form. To her surprise, she was the same size, horn nearly poking out above the wall into plain view. Her wings were significantly larger and wouldn’t be able to unfurl in the tiny space she was in, but covered up part of her cutie mark with the longest flight feathers. She felt tired and let out a frustrated sigh. She decided against testing further shapes like a human form for the moment, not even sure if she would have it as an option yet. In her best estimate until she found otherwise, she was stuck with two options, her normal form or the earth horse equivalent that she was stuck being disguised as and both of them at earth-horse height. Despite best efforst, she couldn’t revert back to her original smaller size. A quick sound of noise nearby her and she rushed to don the disguise once more. Erin turned the corner, having made a beeline to see Dawn. She smiled and said her hello before cleaning up the bedding. Dawn sighed internally in relief. Erin probably mistook the changeling fire that would declare the shapeshifting as reflections off the water as she got up. A small chuckle escaped her in the form of a knickering sound, making her wince and cut it off. The resulting reaction was entertaining. Erin had approached with mild worry, trying to calm an already calm horse. Rather than fighting it by being calm, she played the part and paced around before slowing down to a standing position as Erin brushed her coat of fur. After they finished and were turning to leave, Dawn playfully bumped their back with her muzzle. Erin laughed and looked over the horse, instinct gnawing at her about this horse as she left. There was definitely something special about her, and it wasn’t just her color. Dawn looked to the sky, judging it to be sometime mid-afternoon. If the last couple days were any indication, Erin would be around soon, probably attending school. She wasn’t sure how, but she suspected she left a strong impression on the girl. Unfortunately, the dad was suspicious and checked in on her occasionally. He left her alone, and she would act calm and fine, but there was only so much staring at her body that she could take. If he wasn’t the one providing for everything, she’d show him how bad it felt to be staring at inappropriate things! “Hey girl! I’m back!” She said cheerfully, practically prancing into view of the pen. Dawn turned to face Erin with some relief. At least this helped break up some of the monotony of the boring, lazy days that she was starting to become the norm. “Looks like you missed me too!” She said cheerfully at Dawn’s approach, brushing aside the remnants of the last meal of hay and put in a new helping, checking that there was enough water for her to drink, “Good news, your quarantine is over! Now that we can let you out, I wanna see what you can do!” ‘Great… so that definitely means getting a saddle on me and being treated like a free ride. I wonder how she’d feel if she turned into a horse and the roles were reversed.’ Dawn thought, making a mental note to try her human form when it was safe again to try. “Looks like no one was able to say who you belonged to, so here’s a little treat from me to you if you’ll stay still for me.” Erin said, bringing over a bag that hooked onto a pair of loops that seemed to have lightly sugared oats in it. ‘Well… she’s off to a good start. Not a fair trade, but I’ll take some variety in my meals since I have to fit in anyway.’ Dawn thought. “Going to have to come up with a name for you.” Erin grunted as she lifted the saddle equipment and carried it over to in front of Dawn, wanting them to see what she was doing. ‘Why did I have to be right?’ Dawn mentally sighed, inspecting the saddle and internally shrugging at her fate before going back to her meal. This seemed to satisfy Erin and she carefully put the equipment on Dawn’s back, straightening out straps before beginning to secure things loosely at first, intending to tie it down further after most of them were partly secured. Dawn stayed mostly still, shifting her weight from her left and right sides as needed. The girl knew what she was doing, and they were strapped in in just a couple minutes, though another couple were spent making sure the straps were secure but not too tight to be uncomfortable. “All right girl, you’ve finished your meal, let’s get your bridle on.” ‘Aww Tartarus no!’ Dawn thought and started to pull back, not wanting to deal with some metal bit in her mouth that had been in other horses’ mouths and had Celestia knows what creepy crawlies over it! She barely noticed the braying noise she made in protest. “Whoah, whoah! Easy girl, easy!” Erin said, setting the bridle down and stepping back to let her calm. Dawn backed away and snorted, looking toward the opposite corner. Erin watched this peculiar behavior and wondered if the poor mare had a bad experience with bridles before, since the saddle didn’t seem to be an issue. She decided they wouldn’t leave her property anyway, and could try just the harness instead, see what they might tolerate. After fiddling with the bridle to remove the possibly offending piece, she pulled out a metal brush and began gently getting their coat cared for, keeping the harness nearby. ‘Erin, I know what you’re doing.’ Dawn thought with an outward sigh, ‘Come on Dawn, you decided this was the ‘best’ course of action a few days ago, stop being stubborn and just let it happen for buck’s sake!’ Erin smiled as her attentions seemed to do the trick, and slowly she brought the harness to their muzzle. When Dawn didn’t move away after giving them a chance to touch it and smell it, she slowly slipped it over their muzzle. Erin smiled wider as she managed to get it on, slowly fastening the straps and resisting the urge to squeal in delight as everything clicked into place. “Come on girl, let’s get you some sunshine and a good run.” Erin said. ‘More like maintain my physical training regimen.’ Dawn thought, letting herself be ‘led’ to the gates as Erin took care of the makeshift fences. ‘At least it’s a comfortable level of cool outside. Mid-low humidity will make breathing not too hard. So far so good.’ Erin finished undoing a final gate and swung it partly open before she came back to Dawn, “All right, we’ll take it nice and easy.” Dawn snorted as Erin seated herself in the saddle, climbing with clear practice and noting the grin on her face. ‘All right… let’s take it easy for now. First time with a rider at least. Feels a lot like just a bit more than the added weight beyond EDF battle-packs and armor. We’ll warm up with this and then get to my runs.’ Erin squeezed her heels against Dawn’s sides and Dawn shook her head at the signal, a poor substitute for rolling her eyes. The pair went off at a slow trot, Erin getting a feel for Dawn’s gait and Dawn getting a feel for how this addition would affect her balance and center of gravity. Erin sat in the saddle, very pleased with what she was seeing and feeling. The full sized horses had always felt just a bit too big for her, even if they were beautiful in their own rights. Their relaxed freeform pace walked along the outside of the railing, telling her the mare was either a path horse or possibly was familiar with derbies already. It was even a generally faster pace than what she expected for a casual walk, despite being nearly two hands shorter than average horses! Erin watched the corner of their property come up and pulled a stopwatch out of her chest pocket. If she could manage it, she wanted to time how quickly they would run. Her property was big, and a full lap around the fencing was just shy of a mile. It was no proper race track, but it’d be a good test anyway. Dawn slowed as she reached the corner, ignoring Erin’s presence due to lack of further input. Once she slowed almost to a standstill, she smiled internally. This would be its own kind of challenge now that she had a better feel for the shifts. “You ready for- WHOAH!” Erin started to say before she was jerked backward in surprise as Dawn started sprinting along the outside. Erin accidentally hit the start button in the process before she managed to right herself and get into position, wondering what had gotten into the mare. Dawn ran along, letting all her pent up energy and near-cabin fever go into her run. She felt the wind in her face, keeping her mane out of her eyes. Having Erin on her back didn’t seem to mitigate her ability to train too much. She went past the other horses who stayed closer to the middle of the land and kept focusing on her task. ‘All right, not too out of shape. Not sure what changes there are to my speed because of my size change but- OH EW EW EW!’ she thought as she ran further, stepping in something with a bit more give and began convincing herself despite the internal panic, ‘It’s just mud, it’s just mud! It’s gotta be mud!’ Erin rode on, leaning in to the front of the green horse’s body like she was trained, grinning widely. The feeling of the wind rushing around her and her horse never got old, and the added sight of green and yellow hairs flowing in the wind toward her gave her every impression of riding on a sunny grassland plain. Erin barely had enough time when they took the turn near the one corner of the fence to glance at the stopwatch and blinked as she saw the time. 22 seconds. Quick math in her head confirmed the fastest horse could do a mile and a quarter in two minutes, so a fifth of that was 24 seconds. This horse was almost as fast as some of the faster horses out in the derby outside of a full on sprint! Even as Dawn ran on, focusing on pushing herself for the first lap before going into a maintenance trot afterward to cool off. Erin looked down at the stopwatch and ran over the numbers, stunned at what she was seeing. ’22 seconds on this side, 92 on the whole thing around…’ Erin blinked. ‘She would have had a good 28 seconds to finish the last quarter mile and still beat the record!’ Erin smiled and pulled back on the reigns gently to signal her wanting to go slower as she stared at the timer. Her new horse really did just hit a minute thirty on their first ride! She felt them slow down into a mild trot around the land, continuing to grin as the mane practically blew into her shirt while noting the mare’s nearly automatic cool down walk. This was definitely a racer’s horse. Dawn was mildly content. She had a feeling she didn’t do as well as she possibly could have, but her speed felt about right for the weight she faced. It wouldn’t do if she ended up going too fast and brought a lot of attention, or too slow if she was going to be involved in some kind of work. Wouldn’t surprise her if this place did some sort of walking rehab or therapy by riding horses or something to fill in the gaps in finance it takes to keep them. Perhaps she would just be used for something that mundane. Dawn finished another quarter of a mile with her cooldown trot before slowing to a casual gait while walking back toward the house. She almost laughed when she felt Erin pull the harness in that direction and try to straighten her out. Judging by their smile, Erin was pleased, and Dawn figured a happy girl would mean a happy pair of parents, though that’d be hard to say for sure. They trotted over to the gate, where things slowed to a stop and Erin dismounted and tied Dawn’s reigns to the fence as the dad approached. “Dad! She’s the one!” Erin said. ‘Wait, what the buck?’ Dawn blinked, startled, ‘The buck did I do this time!’ “Wait, what the hell are you talking about?” The dad asked, inadvertently echoing Dawn. “Her! I want her for my races in the Junior Derbies!” Erin said excitedly, showing him the stopwatch. “Look, Erin, I know she’s a unique color, but,” the dad started to say before blinking and looking at the stopwatch, “How far did she run?” “The entire outside of the pasture, without prompting, and she wasn’t even panting when we finished.” She said proudly. ‘… Dammit!’ Dawn thought, letting out a sigh of frustration as she tried to wipe her hooves clean. ‘I’m a bucking idiot!’ “Seriously?” he blinked, looking at her, “Then again, if someone spent all that money dying her coat, I guess they would have spent plenty making sure she can run… still, what’s up with the butt mark?” “Maybe it’s a clue for her name.” Erin offered. “Sunny meadows maybe?” Dawn sighed and shook her head. ‘Close, but… why am I fighting my hiding name? Why am I being an idiot and risking exposing myself!’ “I don’t think she liked that one.” Erin frowned, despite her father’s snort, “What? If she’s going to be my partner, I want her to like her name!” “Yeah, we’ll see when we take her out to the practice field.” The dad snorted again. “I don’t know how much I believe any of this… Still, if she’s fast, it’s your choice who you ride in the races. You got two months to get her into shape though.” “I know, dad.” Erin said, her voice as sarcastic as a teenage girl can get, though a smile showed it was playful banter. “Good. If you’re ready to get to work, I’ve got a call to the school to make.” He said, turning around, looking at the clock and snorting, “Make sure you clean up and are ready for dinner in two hours.” “Yes dad!” she called out before grinning at Dawn again, “So, let’s get you groomed while I think up a good name for you!” ‘Remember Dawn, let the girl have her fun, call you whatever.’ Dawn tried to tell herself as she watched them unhook her harness and get back on her back. She trotted lazily over to the building, thinking, ‘It’s not like this is going to be what you’re stuck with forever, just till the EDF gets you back home.’ The pair moved to the stables and Erin dismounted just outside and led dawn to a slightly more spacious pen, the walls covered in various instruments for a horse’s care. Erin loosely tied Dawn’s harness to the nearby stand with a small feeding trough, having already closed the gate behind her. She got a couple brushes and began to work on her coat, talking out loud. “Let’s see… what’s a good name for you?” Erin asked as she started at the shoulders, looking over at the odd added dye of dark green hill, a few grass shoots visible, and a very yellow sun sitting behind it. “Definitely a sunrise, and that hill has to mean something…” Dawn gave an involuntary contented sigh. After several days of not being able to scratch an itch, the rough tools were taking care of tangled knots in her short coat as well as scratching her just the right ways to be utterly comforting. “Yeah, it has to mean something.” Erin determined, “You didn’t like Sunny did you?” Dawn looked away, playing dumb. “Didn’t think so.” Erin hummed, moving the scratches further along the lime green coat of fur, “Think Meadows should be part of your name? Dawn twisted her head toward Erin, just as much from the familiar name as because they stopped the scratching. “Ohhh, so I’m getting close huh?” Erin grinned, brushing more quickly again, “Well, you got a sunrise here, how bout Meadow Dawn?” Dawn couldn’t help but lift her front hoof and stomp it down approvingly as the tool hit the sweet zone that had been bugging her for the last few minutes, and was further relieved to hear her right name. She wouldn’t have expected them to get so close so fast but wasn’t about to complain. “I think we have a winner!” She said happily, continuing to brush before reaching up to give a scratch behind the ears, “I look forward to working with you Meadow.” Dawn gave a long contented sigh as another itchy spot once ignored was now being taken care of. “That’s it, you’re such a good sweetheart.” Erin said happily as she explored her horse. “I wonder how old you are…” ‘Girl, I’m older than you by probably twice as much… makes me wish I could say five hundred and change just to mess with you.’ Dawn thought. ‘Erin though… I swear that name sounds familiar… HEY!’ “Sorry girl!” Erin apologized, quickly withdrawing her hand from under the mare and backed away while they fidgeted in place, “still… seems like you’ve had a foal before then, maybe six or seven years old? That’s older than most race horses though…” ‘So help me if there was something close enough to the right height, I would facedesk right now to whatever was nearby.’ Dawn thought plainly in annoyance. “Well,” Erin said, noticing Dawn calming and slowly approaching with her brushes again, “I think we’re gonna have some busy weeks together. Lotta training we need to get done.” ‘Better than staying bored in a pasture getting fat off hay.’ Dawn thought, ‘I want to say I know that name from a game, not that that should influence anything… but why do I now get the mental picture of her trying to act like a knight, wielding a mid-sized shield and a short lance?’ Erin spent the rest of her time brushing down Dawn’s coat, mildly surprised at the lack of tangles in their mane and coat. She managed to finish in plenty of time for dinner, taking Dawn back to her stable before taking care of the other horses before heading back on her ATV. ‘Well, that was nice to be spoiled like that. Didn’t expect the close up inspections, but this will pass the time until rescue at least.’ Dawn admitted.