Down Time

[Bree]

Micheal walked Piceous into the pasture area. Selecting the pasture for horses who don't get along with each other, The Hilton, she opened the gate. Pie danced on all four legs eager to be free. Micheal knew she should have put her out earlier, no horse reacts well to being cooped up in a stall 24-7.

Pie began jigging again and Micheal turned her in a tight circle. Every time Pie became impatient Micheal turned her.
"You'll learn eventually." She again turned the excited horse. "You're a Hanoverian not a Thoroughbred." She praised the horse when it walked calmly.

After closing the gate she took off Pie's blue halter. Piceous sniffed her hands one last time. "Go on!", she giggled. Piceous bobbed her head and took off.

Micheal watched her for a few moments the horse squirmed and bucked like the grass was fire. Then as if nothing happened stopped and started grazing. Shaking her head Micheal walked back to the barn and hooked Pie's halter outside of her stall.

Returning to the pasture she leaned up against the fence just watching her horse and studying its movements with care. It was a new pasture and she wanted to make sure Pie would be fine alone and to make sure she wouldn't get into any trouble.

[femalefred]

Ella had just finished working the school horses Hope had asked her to for the day. She was strolling back from letting Bell out in the Ritz pasture when she caught sight of Pie and Micheal. It must be a pain for the girl to have a mare, here of all places, that didn't get along with other horses and Ella began to follow her, calling out when she got into the barn.
"Hey, Micheal, isn't it?"
She didn't wait for a reply before jogging towards the younger, taller girl, grinning as she saw Duke look up from his hay in shock when she went past his stall without stopping.
"We've met before, haven't we? I'm Ella," she added, sticking out her hand and turning with a little laugh when she heard her gelding call, sticking his head out of his stall. "Be quiet. I'm working you later today."

[Bree]

Micheal jumped at the sound of another person. Her ponytail bobbed with this new direction. She had been so involved with watching Pie she hadn't even heard her approach. She stood up straight and let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding.
"Uh, yea.. yes I'm Micheal" She stammered caught off guard, she cleared her throat as quietly as she could. "You must be... Ella. I think we have met before." She said after composing herself, then shaking the hand that she offered.

She studied the shorter woman almost immediately she could sense the exuberance that she had. She reminded her, personality-wise of someone she had known, or maybe not? Then her shyness had the time to creep up on her she opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. Quickly she closed her mouth and chewed on her lower lip. "Come on! How could you possibly be doing this?" How come it was so much easier in the company of horses? She looked at the fence and the grass and tried not to think of the awkward silence between them.

[femalefred]

At the other girl's quiet awkwardness, Ella began to feel a little guilty. Just because she'd seen another person and was a little bored probably wasn't a good enough reason to thrust herself upon them, but she was here now and she was going to make the best of it.
"Yup, Ella. I'm guessing that's your girl," she added looking across the the big Hanoverian in the paddock. The dark horse seemed to be quite content on her own, her earlier friskiness died down and content to simply graze. She was an attractive mare - Ella had always had a soft spot for black horses - and the young woman wondered idly why it was she was kept in what was effectively an isolation field. As far as she was aware there hadn't been any problems in the stalls with horses not getting along, but then a stall was a very different situation to a pasture.
"She's a lovely looking mare. I think we must've met when the stables had just opened. I can't remember exactly though, but I'm sure I remember your face."

[Bree]

"Yes.. it's Piceous." She said glancing at the grazing animal. The beauty of a horse never ceased to amaze her no matter how many days went by that she saw them. Pie stopped grazing and looked up, studying the activity behind her side of the fence.
"She knows when she is being talked about." Micheal mock-whispered. Funny how talking about horses kept her shyness at bay, or maybe it was that she knew Ella better, know matter how short the better was. Pie let out a snort and shook her head and seeing nothing of interest went back to grazing. Micheal turned back to Ella.
"What are you doing here?" Replaying it in her mind it sounded incredibly wrong. "I mean... what do you do here?" she said quickly correcting herself. "You're such a ignorant broad." She needed a remote to mute her inside voice.

[femalefred]

"Piceous.. that's an interesting name," Ella commented, leaning on the fence and looking over at the mare, grinning as she looked briefly up at the pair of them by the gate. Horses could be very intuitive, but this time it was probably just that there was a stranger at the gate.
"I'm pretty sure they all can," she laughed lightly, her amusement increasing when Pie let out what seemed to be a dismissive snort and went back to grazing. "She's obviously not too impressed with what we've been saying!"
Micheal seemed to be relaxing a little, and as a result Ella's slight guilt began to disappate, and the slight tension in her shoulders relaxed as she answered the question, grinning at the apparent misspeaking the first time the younger girl asked. "Well, I keep my boy Duke here, and I'm one of the instructors. I teach jumping and xc. How bout yourself, just keeping Piceous here?"

[Bree]

Micheal smiled when she talked about Pie's name. If it was any other name she might have told her what it meant but since it was actually really simple when it came down to it it might ruin some, if any, of the essence of sophistication it had.

"If only we were talking about treats, then she'd be interested." She laughed feeling herself relax, maybe it was true about laughing being good for the body.

"I board here and also having Pie trained in jumping by Hope. I'm also hoping to learn more about each discipline as I advance my career in horses, if you can call it a career. And of course the therapeutic downtime of just being with horses" She said smiling and leaning back up against the fence.

[femalefred]

((Sorry, was visiting my grandad yesterday xP))

"Is it something to do with fish?" Ella asked, suddenly returning to the topic of the horse's name. Her mind tended to work on tangents even when it wasn't supposed to, and she'd been thinking about the name since she'd just heard it. "Her name, I mean. Sorry, I tend to do that," she added, smiling and flushing with mild embarrassment. "I bet she would.. Duke won't even consider looking at me from the pasture unless I've got a mint in my hand."

The older girl nodded, smiling as Micheal mentioned Hope training her mare. She herself was hoping to get Hope's help, or at least someone's help, with Duke's lack of concentration as regards the dressage section of an event. He had great potential as a jumper, but she really wanted to make sure the young gelding was eventing material, and at the moment he just lacked the focus.

"Horse time is always great. They're so much simpler than people a lot of the time, and so much more obvious when they're offended."

[Bree]

"Uh, no, nothing to do with fish.", Micheal said smiling and playing with the idea of telling anyone about the meaning of the name. "Although I've often thought Piceous and Pieces were quite similar.", Her mind danced around what Ella had said about horses. She rolled her bottom lip in thought. And with the look like she was going to say something profound she stumbled over her words, "I..I think that..that's why I love them so much." She thought a bit more and added. "They aren't fake, they don't lie, and they don't break their promises." Micheal stopped on the last one that just slipped out but recovering as graceful as she could she added "If they could make promises, that is.", She laughed it off but insides cringed. If only people were like that.

OOC: Sorry, I was gone all weekend remodeling my bathroom. D:

[femalefred]

((Dx I am so very, very sorry. I could have sworn I replied to this and I only just noticed that I didn't.. like a week late D: I'm so sorry!))

"Heh, that was the general idea. Plus poisson and all that," Ella replied, grinning again. It really was an interesting name, but that was the only thought in her head as regards its meaning. It would probably be something either more simple or infinitely more complicated, and the young woman wasn't going to try and think of a reason again quite yet.

"They make promises. Or at least I think they do," she said, shrugging a little. She'd always thought that horses could understand more than they let on, and as such she'd entered into agreements with Duke and other horses on numerous occasions. "I mean.. if you ask them to promise something and they agree, they won't break it," she explained, realising the mild insanity of her previous statement and trying to qualify.

[Bree]

Micheal grinned her eyes wandering down wards but came back and kept eye contact with Ella.
"I believe, very much so, that horses are much smarter than they want you to think. Sometimes I think Pie has me trained instead of the other way around." Her eyes danced with the silly prospect and she didn't feel that she had to be reserved around Ella.
"I think so. Although I've been trying to get Pie to promise not to dump me but so far no dice."
The air grew thin, the first sign of the coming darkness. She sucked in a deep breath taking in the smells of evening. What a beautiful place. She thought and couldn't help but steal a glance at Piceous grazing contentedly in the dimming lights.

OOC: A little short, my apologies.

[femalefred]

Ella nodded, laughing a little at the comment that the mare might have her rider trained rather than the other way around. She had to do so very many things to make sure Duke did what he was told and didn't spook at little things that she often felt same way.
"Hah, I don't think I've ever asked Duke not to do that.. he does throw me off less often now though," she added, with a slightly whimsical, musing expression on her face. In fact, it was her counting face, counting being something she wasn't particularly strong on. Giving up on trying to work out the actual number of times she'd been thrown by the gelding versus the number of times she'd been thrown since they'd moved here was probably a little too much for the moment.
"It's going to be a nice evening, I think. I might take Duke on one of the shorter trails later. He hasn't been worked today and it'll be nice enough for it, I think."

[Bree]

"A beautiful evening." Micheal said half paying attention and half of her was flying away into the night.
She brought her self back to reality smiling half-heartedly at Ella. Sometimes she wished she didn't zone out so often, another reason why actually holding a conversation with someone was difficult for herself; But not trying has a way of doing that.
"I'm sure Duke will enjoy the fresh air, this time is so perfect for riding." She had hoped it wasn't an invitation to go, she wasn't sure so she didn't take the chance of being wrong.
"I think I'll give Pie a good grooming, she needs it after this."
She looked up to see the horse rolling playfully on the grass. She shook her head and huffed smiling.

[femalefred]

It hadn't really been an invitation, more thinking aloud, and she found herself drifting off a little, thinking about which trail to take the gelding out on. She was pretty familiar with all of them, but it was far too late in the day to head out on the red trail and it would cool too much for swimming quite soon.
"He will. He'll enjoy the attention and the fact that we're not going to be working on dressage even more though," the young woman replied with a smile. She was enjoying getting the gelding to focus, but it was clear that the brief intense sessions were tiring for the both of them. Duke was not a natural at dressage, but he needed to improve if he was going to make an eventer.
"Hah, they always roll when they're clean. I swear they do it just to get more attention again."

[Bree]

"I agree, dressage was a pain for me but Piceous seemed to like it. I would have never taken it if it were up to me but I do see how it has helped my seat." Thinking about her multiple times she fell off because she wasn't paying attention made her shake her head. But she smiled at the thought of another person going through the same thing knowing that soon they would grow also. When she looked back at Piceous she was just getting up and shaking herself off.
"I knew there was a reason for the madness. I better go wash her before I put her into the stall." Micheal chuckled to herself as she grabbed the halter and lead and waved to Ella as she headed for Piceous and buckled her halter on as the horse stood still. She'd hoped she hadn't blew Ella off too fast but she needed to wash Pie before it got any darker.