Horse riding lessons
Octavia had waited on Vinyl hand and foot during the days that followed the little accident near the stables. While Vinyl hated doing nothing, Octavia's care and tenderness was something she could definitely get accustomed to. Vinyl couldn't do much of her share of work during her recovery, but Rainbow Dash and Twilight had been a great help for Applejack.
On wednesday afternoon, Vinyl was quite happy to finally go out of the house. She was very eager on helping Octavia to overcome her fear of the equine. On their way to the stables, she realized that Octavia hadn't really explained what caused her to be so scared of horses. If she wanted to help her in any ways, she had to know.
"Octavia, could you tell me why you're afraid of horses?" Vinyl asked slowly.
"Oh. I realize I haven't told you about that already." Octavia said in a low voice. "Well, it happened when I was a little girl." She started. "I was in the mansion's gardens, I was watching my older brother's dressage practice. Cornelio has always been fascinated by horse riding, he even had won few awards." She explained with a small proud smile before her expression fell. "But something must have scared his horse, during it's panic bucking Cornelio fell off his saddle. The horse almost trampled him to death in panic."
Octavia started to shake and breathing hard at the memory of her brother's accident. Vinyl hugged her and patted her head softly. It took a few minutes, but she managed to relax in her lover's embrace.
"What happened afterward?" Vinyl asked softly.
"I called for help, they brought my brother to hospital." Octavia continued with a low voice. "It took several months for him to recover, but he got out without any after-effect. He even started riding competition the year afterward."
"Your brother's a strong willed fellow, that's for sure." Vinyl said with a smile.
"Kinda." Octavia nodded. "He overcame his accident, something I couldn't do." She said, her head hanging low in defeat.
"That's why you and I are here, Love." Vinyl softy whispered, before pecking Octavia's forehead. "If you still want to of course. Nothing's forcing you."
"I want to try. My brother could do it, no reason I can't." Octavia said with determination.
"Atta girl." Vinyl said with pride as she broke her embrace.
They both entered the stables and noticed that all paddocks were open, but Applejack was in front of one of them, a look of concern on her face. They walked to the paddock, Octavia slightly in retreat. Applejack turned around when she heard the sound of footsteps.
"What's going on?" Vinyl asked.
Applejack looked toward the paddock. "It's Amadeus." She sighed. "Ever since the accident, he's kinda apathetic. Fluttershy thinks he's sorry for what happened and that he's blamin' himself. Sorta."
"What can we do about it?" Vinyl asked with concern. "You think that if he sees that I'm all right, he'll go out of his 'shock'?"
"Ah reckon it's worth the try." Applejack shrugged. "We can't leave him like that."
Vinyl entered the paddock and saw the palomino work horse sitting on his haunches, his head low. She was pained at how distraught the once proud stallion looked. She walk at his side and slowly patted his head. That made him look up, when he saw Vinyl, he stood up quicker than one would have thought.
"Hey there big guy." Vinyl said slowly. "Applejack told me you were kinda sad about what happened." Amadeus snorted what could have been considered an ashamed sigh. "No need to be sad. I'm all right." She hugged the horse's head. "Everything's fine. I'm not mad at you, you just got scared." She broke the hug and the stallion tried to nuzzle her. "Ain't you sweeter than any fruit on this farm." Vinyl chuckled. "Get going now, we can't have our best stallion remaining cooped in his paddock." The horse let out a loud happy whinny before trotting out of his paddock.
"Looks like ya still got yar touch with horses Vinyl." Applejack said, fairly impressed.
"What can you do?" Vinyl chuckled. "Can you do me a favor?"
"Off course. What can ah do ya for?"
"Can you bring me the foal in the smaller pen. I'm teaching Octavia the basics." Vinyl explained.
"Sure thing." Applejack answered with a nod.
Vinyl and Octavia were now inside the same smaller pen as last Sunday. Vinyl stood in the middle with a pinto work horse about one meter tall, Octavia was leaning on the fence, her eyes fixed on the small equine.
"Octavia, I present you Hermes." Vinyl said as she patted the foal's mane. "The latest addition to our 'herd'. He's going to be your partner."
Octavia exhaled slowly. "Okay. What do I do?" Octavia asked with determination, the fact the horse in front of her was a lot shorter than her helped a lot in boosting her confidence. "The same thing you wanted me to try with Amadeus?"
Vinyl shook her head." Naha. With a foal, it's trickier. You have to make the all process yourself." Vinyl explained, she noticed Octavia's determination was slightly leaving the cellist. "But don't you worry your pretty little head. In Sweet Apple Acres, we have the magicks!" Vinyl added pointing her forefinger at the sky at that last word.
"Which is?" Octavia asked with a crooked eyebrow at her girlfriend's antic.
"Behind you, on the other side of the fence, there's a basket."
Octavia turned around and noticed the aforementioned basket. She came closer and noticed it was full of delicious looking red apples. Octavia took one and faced her girlfriend and gave her a look that said 'Seriously?'.
"What did you expect Octavia?" Vinyl asked with a raise of eyebrow. "Carrots? We're not on Golden Harvest's carrot farm, you know."
"If you say so." Octavia shrugged. "What do I do with the apple?"
"Simple, you offer it to Hermes." Vinyl said before encouraging her to come closer. "Come on. Octavia. Don't be scared, I'm here nothing's gonna happen."
Octavia felt safer thanks to Vinyl's words, she closed the distance between her and the small horse, slowly but certainly. When she was a few feet away from the foal, she extended the apple toward him. Hermes tilted his head and eyed the cellist with curiosity before noticing the red fruit in her hand. He took an eager step in the direction of the apple. Vinyl followed him closely.
"Good. Now let him come to you." Vinyl softly said as the small horse sniffed the apple. "Open your hand wide now, so that he can take the apple."
Octavia complied to what Vinyl said. She tensed when she sensed the animal's breath on her hand. Vinyl grabbed her forearm, letting her know she was there. She relaxed immediately. Hermes took a small bite of the apple. Some of its juice flowed on her hand. The horse quickly ate all the fruit, and he was now sniffing Octavia's apple-ly hand.
"Octavia, pat him with your other hand." Vinyl said softly. "Slowly, no need to rush."
Octavia lifted a slightly shaking hand toward Hermes's head. She put her hand in the foal's mane, and she gently started to rub his mane. It was softer than she expected. Hermes let out a small content whinny, as he closed his eyes, enjoying the small rub. Octavia let out a soft whimper, Vinyl noticed her eyes were full of tears. Happy tears.
"It-It's that easy?" Octavia asked softly as she started to stroke Hermes's snout with her other hand.
Vinyl smiled. "Who said it was difficult, Octavia?" She asked softly. "Talk to him. Getting to know each other involves talking."
Octavia kneeled next to the foal, still rubbing. "He-Hello Hermes." She softly said with a shaking voice. "My name's Octavia."
The horse tried to nuzzle Octavia's face. As she tried to avoid the horse's head playfully, she started to giggle. They were happy giggles, the same kind a little girl would have had while playing with her new puppy. To Vinyl it was the most beautiful sound in the world. Octavia managed to stop the horse's nuzzle by rubbing firmly behind his ears, he neighed softly before breaking contact, having received enough affection for the moment.
Octavia stood there, crying from happiness. She turned to Vinyl and pulled her into a deep hug. She kept whispering the same words in between all the small pecks she was giving to Vinyl all over her face.
"Thank you!" A kiss. "Thank you!" An other. "Thank you!" And so on."Thank you!" And so on.
"No need to thank me Octavia." Vinyl managed to say between the kisses as her cheeks were becoming redder than her eyes. "It was all your doing, I just watched."
"No. It was all thanks to you!" Octavia said firmly. "Without you, I wouldn't have even dared to try that." She added before passionately kissing Vinyl.
For a small moment, they forget about where they were, loosing themselves in each other's kiss. But a small snout coming in contact with Vinyl's arm accompanied by a pleading whinny reminded her that they had a very young audience next to them.
"Easy there Hermes, she was mine first." Vinyl said not pulling her eyes away from Octavia, as the small horse kept bugging her.
"I don't remember having accept to belong to you. Not that I would mind though. But where does that leave you?" Octavia asked with a chuckle.
"I know that I belong to you." Vinyl lovingly answered. "The rest is just details for me."
Hermes let out what looked like a disapproving whinny. Apparently he didn't appreciated to be considered a detail. Or at least he thought he was he was considered like that. Octavia had kept staring dreamily at Vinyl, completely unfazed by the equine's whinnies, something that would have made her flinch only an hour ago.
"Why don't we stop our lessons for today?" Vinyl suggested. "We can start again tomorrow morning." Octavia simply nodded.
After having put Hermes and the others back in their paddocks. Vinyl joined Octavia outside the stables, and they both went back to their house. They noticed the house was empty with the exception of Granny taking a nap in her rocking chair. They silently made way toward their bedroom. Once they entered Vinyl used her magic to lock the door who started to glow in a light blue aura for a few seconds.
"What did you do?" Octavia asked softly.
"Soundproofing spell." Vinyl simply said as she pushed slowly Octavia back to the bed.
"Hmmm. Interesting." Octavia said as she let herself fell on top of the bed. "Why did you do that?"
"Because you've been very brave earlier." Vinyl said in her most sensual voice, as she placed herself above Octavia. "And for that, you deserve a reward."
"I thought the house's rules forbid that kind of reward." Octavia said in a tone that showed clearly she was more than willing to break the said rules.
"It doesn't matter if you don't get caught." Vinyl slowly said before leaning in.
The house was in complete silence. Outside Vinyl and Octavia's room, the only sounds one could hear were the small snores from the sleeping grandmother downstairs. Inside the musicians's room, that was the exact opposite of silence and it was certainly not music.
The next morning, Vinyl and Octavia had been joined to the stables by Fluttershy, Rarity and Applejack. Fluttershy had come to see how Octavia was doing while she was taking care of the other horses, and also to help to calm Octavia's horse if such endeavor was needed. Off course she didn't voice that part of her intentions. Vinyl learned that Rarity was far from being a neophyte in horse riding, so Applejack had decided to take her on a small ride.
Applejack had saddled Philibert, her large chestnut percheron, and Hex Mark, a white coated saddle horse with a black mane. Rarity beamed the sight of the shiny, spotless white coat of her mount, Hex Mark seemed satisfied with the attention from his new rider. That lasted until Rarity spotted Alizee. After that he really didn't appreciate being forgotten so quickly by the seamstress.
"Oh my star, look at her. She's so beautiful." Rarity said in amazement as she watched the black coated mare freely trotting in the pen. "From what breed is she?"
"I think she's a thoroughbred Saddle Arabian horse." Fluttershy said pensively. "But black coated Arabians are extremely rare. Since I first saw her, I've always wondered how did you manage to get one." She asked with curiosity.
"To be honest with ya, we didn't have the slightest idea about what kind of breed she was from." Applejack shrugged.
"We found her lost nearby the Everfree forest, couple of years ago." Vinyl explained. "She was only a foal at that time. We figured some caravan must have lost her."
Applejack nodded. "We searched for her owner but we didn't find anyone. She grew attached to Vinyl, so in the end we kept her."
"You were lucky then, a purebred like her costs a fortune." Flutthershy slowly said. "Probably more than the entire Orchard." She said more to herself than to anyone else.
Vinyl and Applejack gasped in shock at the animal lover's remark.
"Oh sorry, I didn't mean to trouble you. Don't be mad at me." Fluttershy quickly added, hiding behind her hair.
"It's ok, Sugarcube." Applejack slowly said, as she recovered from the news. "Just, don't ya spread the word around. Especially to Alizee. That mare can already be difficult withou...." Applejack was interrupted by a loud and sharp wisthle.
"Alizee, Come here girl." Vinyl shouted.
The black coated mare trotted toward her mistress with curiosity, and looked the equivalent of surprised when Vinyl grabbed her head in a soft hug.
"AWWW. My little Alizee's super special." Vinyl cooed. "You and I already knew, but now, AJ can't deny it anymore. Momma's so proud of you." She blabbered other nonsenses like this for about five minutes. Earning crooked eyebrows from everyone around, humans and equines alike, with the sole exception of Alizee, who didn't understand much what was going on but was just happy to have her owner being so affectionate with her.
Eventually, Applejack and Rarity had left to enjoy their horse ride. Fluttershy was busy playing with Hermes, the foal, while Vinyl was bringing a saddled Amadeus to the smaller pen. Octavia stood nearby Vinyl but at a safe distance from Amadeus. Her fear from the horses wasn't an instant panic level thanks to yesterday's work with Hermes, but she wasn't feeling totally secured next to the stallion that had injured her lover couple of days ago. A detail that didn't go unnoticed by Vinyl.
"Octavia, you have nothing to fear from Amadeus." Vinyl softly reassured her.
"I-I'm no-not scared a-at all." Octavia stammered, clearly showing she was lying.
"It's ok. I'm holding the reins right now. Nothing can happen." Vinyl softly said as she held her lover's hand with her free one. She noticed Octavia was trembling a little. "Would you want us to do it together?"
"Yes, please." Octavia slowly nodded after a minute of silence.
Vinyl brought Octavia's hand slowly to the stallion's snout. After making contact, Vinyl guided Octavia in slow pats on the horse's head. The fear felt by Octavia slowly changed into peace of mind as Amadeus lazily closed his eyes in contentment. Octavia brought her second hands and proceeded in a soft two-handed 'massage' on the happy stallion's head. She didn't even notice that Vinyl had pulled her hand off.
After that bonding moment with Amadeus, Octavia noticed Vinyl had levitated a stepladder to Amadeus's side. Vinyl presented the stepladder with a small bow, still holding the reins firmly.
"Ready for your first try at riding, Love?" Vinyl softly asked.
Octavia took a deep breath and slowly exhaled it. "Ready, Vinyl!" She said in a small yet calm voice.
Octavia climbed on the stepladder and put her right foot in the stirrup and her right hand grabbing the pommel of the saddle, while Vinyl maintained Amadeus still. In one swift move, Octavia succeeded in sitting up on the saddle as her left foot found the second stirrup. She shifted herself a bit to get comfortable and then she nodded to Vinyl.
"Excellent." Vinyl beamed at Octavia who smiled back. Her smile was genuine, even if a bit crisped. "Ok, now I'm gonna lead Amadeus around. Just hold yourself to the pommel and it'll be ok."
Vinyl walked around for a dozen of minutes, leading an obedient Amadeus. Octavia held firmly at the pommel with both her hands at first. At some point, the sensation of the small wind on her face and in her hair made her loosen her grip. It was quite relaxing. She didn't understand how having her face barely a meter higher than usual could have felt so different. It was like she was flying. Not very high, but flying none the less. She even let go of the pommel to try to grasp the wind absentmindedly.
"Enjoying the ride so far?" Vinyl asked with a small chuckle.
"A lot more than I thought." Octavia answered happily.
"Want to try it with the reins now?"
Octavia pondered for a moment. "Let's do this." Octavia said with determination.
Vinyl stopped Amadeus, before giving the reins to Octavia and fasten a rope to Amadeus's bridle.
"Why a rope?"
"Just to be safe." Vinyl explained. "You remember how to make him start walking?" Octavia nodded and Vinyl took place in the center of the pen, the rope firmly grasped in her hand. "When you're ready."
"Ok, Amadeus. Here we go." Octavia slowly said before slightly hitting the horse's side with her heels like Vinyl explained.
Her hits were so soft the stallion barely felt them, but it was enough for him to start walking. Octavia tensed up at first but slowly relaxed as she noticed Amadeus was walking at a slow pace.
"Ok, Octavia that's perfect." Vinyl said from the center of the pen. "Make him turn to the right, now. Just pull the right side of the reins a little."
Octavia did as instructed and Amadeus obliged and started to turned slightly to the right. Octavia kept going in circle for while. After some time, she grew confident and made Amadeus go a little faster. Vinyl was still in the pen's center, but had stopped guiding Octavia and was just holding the rope.
The walk became a slow trot who became a slow paced gallop. Octavia never felt so happy in her life, now she felt silly for being afraid of something so amazing. She enjoyed the speed, the wind on her face and in her hair. Everything felt just amazing. She heard a soft "yay" from outside the pen. She caught a small blurry glimpse of Fluttershy pink hair. She pulled softly the reins to make Amadeus slow down. Once the horse came to stop, she noticed the pen's fence door was open. She eyed the open landscape for a long time.
"Vinyl, do you think I.." She started softly.
"I think WE can go on our horse ride now, yes." interrupted her lover's voice. Much closer from what she would have thought.
Octavia turned her face toward the source of the voice and saw Vinyl riding a saddled Alizee, just a few feet from her. Vinyl was wearing dark grey stetson.
"How did you get ready so fast ?" Octavia asked in surprise.
"I put the rope away about fifteen minutes ago." Vinyl explained with a big smile. "I knew nothing would have happened."
She was a bit mad that Vinyl had let her go without any warning, but that was overcome fast as Octavia felt so happy that her lover had trusted her so much. She couldn't help but smile.
"So you think I'm ready?" Octavia asked softly.
Vinyl eyed Octavia scratching her chin." Hmm Something's missing... Of course!" Vinyl said before levitating her stetson from her's to Octavia's head. "Perfect. Ready to go?"
"Ready when you are Vinyl." Octavia said affectionately, tipping her new hat.
"Then let's go!" Vinyl said before making Alizee go forward. "YIP! YIP!"
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lol i said a blackand white coat with a black mane lol but igeuss strait white would work for rarity,s mount.
2229448
To tell you the truth I search the name on google and I found various images : on one he was a grey, on another he was white and on a third he was black and white
I rolled the dice to choose
your very welcome
so alizee is a sky bison, eh?
Just perfect....
25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5vy42zv7Q1r6qwrao1_500.gif
2230503
sadly no. (that would be awesome though)
Glad you liked it
2229968
HEHE
I just wanted Vinyl to have a little phrase to get Alizee moving and that made me think about Appa...
I couldn't think of any other phrase after that
2232809 Same. My other one should be fixed today, though.
2233866
)
Your feeling is quite correct
(I'll try to use it a bit less, thanks for correcting me
Yes. Finally able to read this one (computer works in safe-mode). It was great. Nice and sweet.
I have to ask: how much longer are they at the farm? It has to have been a good two weeks already.
2233926
funny you ask that now. I just finished the chronology of the story
they have 5 days left (counting the day they must leave)
If only there were something to make this story even more dramatic and exciting. Oh wait, there is!
EXPLOSIONS
2233969
(it might be cool though...)
)
I sense that you would be very happy if I'd end the story with a big battle like : Vinyl +Applejack vs 172 apples thieves lead by Flim and Flam....
Sorry to disappoint but that's not gonna happen
If you want action, I had the idea of making a sort of prequel relating the event of the war against chrysalis (With princess luna fighting a dragon and what not
2233966
Damn. I'm good.
2234015
Curse You
(
)
you and your psychic powers
SWEET
YIP-YIP!!!
absoluteanime.com/avatar_the_last_airbender/thumbs/_appa.jpg
*middle of reading, enjoying...*
*sees email update*
*uni days has updated*
*drops this shit like a hot brick*
will be back later!
2498517
aaaaand I'm back
2233969 Michael Bay? Is that you???
Avatar: The Last Airbender reference in the end?
You sure do like your references
2523638 I know, right! Although explosions are awesome...