hello ghouls and goblins and inigo enjoyers. my sudden hiatus is now up and im balling on these hoes. the next and FOURTEENTH chapter of is it fate or blahblah will be up tomorrow. sian’s doing some character development, inigo’s crackin jokes and crackin skulls and the enemies to lovers arc continues.
Here’s my piece for today’s prompt, Dreams. My HoK Tatiana meeting her horse for the first time, set a few months into the Oblivion Crisis~ Brief language, but no other content warnings.
@tes-summer-fest @vilkas @reachfolk @cwahsont @lookathooves @friend-of-giants and as always I feel like im leaving someone out >_< feel free to poke me if I did.
Read on AO3, or continue here~
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Tatiana leaned against the fence of Black Waterside Stables’ riding ring. Dressed in gray breeches, thigh-high riding boots, and a pale green, sweat-stained blouse, she waited with her hair mussed and arms crossed. The horse business was a dirty one in the figurative and literal sense. Black Waterside was renowned for good blood, training, and quality of care. The horses she’d seen thus far had been fine creatures, all represented with shocking honesty. Being famous—or infamous, perhaps—had its perks, she supposed.
She glared up at the cloudless blue sky, brow and nose pinched as if the stable hadn’t been mucked in a week. As a girl growing up in a noble house, she had wanted many fine things—lace-trimmed velvet dresses and silken hair bows, a veritable army of stuffed animals and all the books a voracious young reader could devour, rich paintings of knights and flowers for her bedroom. She’d had them all at some point or another.
A dazzling white charger hadn’t been among those gifts. That had never been more than a figment of fanciful dreams, born of the few fairytales her father and governess had permitted her to waste her time reading.
It was understood that she’d have a pony and eventually horse of her own; the Vestalises had coaches and employed a few good drivers, but her father made a stern point never to rely on others for things you were capable of doing yourself. That kept you independent. Safer from the meddling of rivals and ill-wishers. Her parents had, however, had the final say in her choice of purchase, as they were the heads of a noble name and, at the time, excessively concerned with how their daughters’ appearances and behavior impacted their reputation. Which was a protracted means of saying they chose her dead-headed childhood pony and the prissy bay mare she’d ridden into adulthood. White horses were for heads of state and royalty, her mother said. And chargers, Divines above, those were only for warriors, knights, and battlemages, her father said.
Bullshit, Tatiana said. She was the Hero of Kvatch, now. All of Cyrodiil knew of her name and what she was capable of with the Umbra sword at her side. She was almost twenty-seven bleeding years old, had a bank note for five thousand septims, and she was going to buy what she damned well pleased. Her mare had been seized and auctioned off after her sister framed her and had her arrested, as had the rest of her personal effects. So she’d been using Prior Maborel’s horse in the last ten months. The gelding was as placid, sure-footed, and as well-trained as a playroom rocking horse, ideal for a family mount and pleasure riding in the country. He was not suited for battle or hard gallops. She’d nearly lamed him, running for Cloud Ruler Temple like she had, and seeing him lathered in sweat and panting so fiercely had nearly broken her. The poor creature deserved a quiet life of lush pastures and gentle morning sun. Not being spurred down the bloody winding roads she had to take.
She tucked sweaty threads of hair behind her ear, listening to soothing drone of bees cruising through the pastures’ clover, basking in the warmth of the early-summer sun at her back. Since breakfast, she’d put a half-dozen horses through their paces, mares and geldings of varying breed, color, height and disposition, but all sturdy, fit, and naturally suited for arduous riding. In better times, she’d been happy to take one. Problem was, these weren’t better times and none of them truly suited her needs. None of them suited her. She was not the wealthy thieving daughter of a wealthy thieving nobleman anymore. She was a daedra hunter, spy, and killer, the left hand who could go where Martin and the Blades couldn’t and do the things they couldn’t. Finding the perfect horse was, as she believed, like falling in love. There were no words to describe it. You felt when it was right. Some of these horses would suffice. But they were not right.
The steady thud-thud-thud of heavy hooves on packed earth caught her like a slap. Looking to the mouth of the long stable, the breath left her.
This was not the gallant gray from her childhood dreams; he looked like he could eat the horse of her dreams. But she knew before she knew his name. This was the one. Soaring to nearly eighteen hands, he was a powerful destrier with a cresty neck and a noble aquiline head. A crossbreed, she thought, built too heavy to be a racer or pleasure horse and too light to pull sledges and drays. His coat was midnight black, save for his legs and a jagged white patch on his belly, as if he’d waded through a river of white. Half his face was white, too, and his glacial blue eyes studied the world with the keenness of a general studying his enemies. His ears caught the distant voices of other stable hands and the stamps of horses not yet put to pasture, the barking of a dog, but he spooked at none of them. He moved with liquid grace despite his size and muscle, his long wavy tail flicking savagely at flies. Unfortunately, that would have to be trimmed. It’d be a sin to let it get caught up in all the mud and blood.
Tatiana pushed off the rail and strolled over, Umbra oddly light on her swordbelt. That was the final test. How poorly he’d react to it.
The destrier’s nostrils flared as he caught her scent. He planted his feet and pricked his ears toward her—acknowledgement, the issue of a challenge. He lifted his nose slightly as she so often did when facing the unknown. Or a potential enemy. The head groom, a sturdy sort in his own right, seemed hesitant to cue him onward, glancing around as if seeking reinforcements.
A nasty one, eh? In silence, Tatiana circled him once, twice, chewing the inside of her cheek as she went. She stopped a few paces from his head. Stripping off a glove, she dug a chunk of carrot from a pouch on her belt and held it in her flat palm, but came no closer.
The stallion snorted and shook his magnificent head, tossing the thick braid into which his mane had been bound. He watched her down his nose, eyed Umbra, then defiantly stretched toward her and gently, ever so gently, lipped the carrot off her hand. His muzzle was velvet, his breath as hot as a dragon’s. He took one step, two, and was toe to toe with her, whickering softly and nosing her hip for more.
It was out before she could stop it, her stony façade cracked and useless like a broken teapot. She giggled—actually giggled—and reached up to stroke his neck; his coat shined like silk in the noonday sun, was just as smooth under her fingers. He avoided touching Umbra’s pommel, but didn’t shy away or quiver like the others. Brave, or convinced he was just as dark as the magic he sensed in the blade. Maybe he considered it his equal, if horses could think that deeply. She liked to think they did. “He’s beautiful,” she murmured. The dip in his back was a hair taller than her. Much too tall for her, if her father had had any say. She passed her hand down it from both sides, then picked up each of his feet.
Which, by the dumbstruck blinking and bald shock on the groom’s face, was tantamount to closing an Oblivion Gate. He cleared his throat and adjusted his work gloves, scrambled for the composure he’d lost when she asked for something with more fire. When he found his tongue, the words were hoarse and came in spurts. “He’s been here six years and I’ve never seen him so placid, my lady. The last gentleman who tried him, well, he bit him, hard enough the man needed a healer. Word got around and no one’s come to try him since. We keep him fit, but no one wants to breed him with his temper, let alone buy him.”
Good, because I do. “So you’re a lady’s man,” she crooned to the horse. “What’s his name?”
“Gideon, miss.”
“Gideon,” she whispered, testing the sound of the name as she scratched behind his ears. That was the name of a general in an old epic she’d read in Marcano’s library, a ruthless tactician and courageous fighter. By now, her cheeks ached. How long had it been since she smiled like this? Weeks, months? At least since before her sister framed her and had her thrown in prison. She held out her hand for the reins. Arched her brow when the groom hesitated. “I’ve been in the saddle since I could walk. He’s big, but he can’t do anything any other horse can. The instant you become afraid, you lose all authority over them.”
“Miss, I don’t mean offense, but are you sure you wouldn’t prefer something-,”
“Smaller?” she snapped, face all fangs and venom. “Something more appropriate for a woman, perhaps?”
He flushed and wiped his hands on his vest. “I’ll get the gate,” he muttered, then passed her the reins and jogged to the ring.
Gideon stood still as a statue as she stepped onto the mounting block; even with its lift, she had to stretch to swing into the saddle. To call him broad-backed was an understatement. He was a mountain of muscle and radiated power and prestige. Tatiana didn’t care that she probably looked like a child on him. Clearly like the groom, they’d have fitted her to a cob or fleet, finely boned horse. Their opinions stopped mattering when they abandoned her to the Imperial Prison.
No one’s opinion mattered as she put him through his paces. All the while, he tested her, too, with obstinance that made her feel like a house heaved on the reins, with snorts and a buck, but all quieted with her firm, professional corrections. Then they ceased entirely. He became a different horse. He obeyed her fluidly, as if they were one and the same. His strides devoured the arena yet were smooth as glass. His gait and frame screamed Look At Me, pride darkened by a palpable sense of threat and dominance. He cleared a line of haybales like it was a pole on the ground. He spun and halted on cue, backed up easily, and swapped his canter leads with only a feather-light shift in her weight and hands. When she halted him at last, they both were panting and sweated. Tears burned her eyes as she bent low to stroke his neck. Tears not of sorrow but unbridled joy. “Good boy,” she whispered. “Good boy.”
With a final pat to his shoulder, she let his reins loose so he could stretch his neck and cooled him out at a lazy walk. There would be no roses or silk ribbons braided into his mane and tail. No ornamented tack like the gray that galloped through her faded fantasies. But that was perfect. Fairytales wouldn’t help her now, wouldn’t comfort her. She needed a weapon. A partner and friend with wrath and power to compliment her own. Perhaps most importantly of all, though, whatever Gideon had been seeking, he’d found in her. Sometimes, it was better when dreams didn’t come true.
“Luck’s with you,” she told the groom once they caught their breath. She swung out of the saddle and sank into her knees to absorb the impact. Divines bless me, he’s like jumping off a balcony. “I’ll take him. And save you the trouble of grooming him.” Gideon lipped benignly at the end of her braid, swishing his tail at an errant honeybee. It didn’t matter how much he cost; in her old line of work, if you had to ask something’s price, you couldn’t afford it, and she hadn’t butchered so many highwaymen to leave with a glorified palfrey. He was going to Cloud Ruler with her tomorrow. One way or another.
The man’s throat worked, eyebrows grasping at his hairline. Relief washed over him as that sank in, his slouch nipping a solid inch off his height. “Let me get his papers and draw up a bill.”
With that, he retreated into the shade of the stable, leaving Tatiana and Gideon by the ring, the sun on their backs and a cool afternoon breeze in their faces. Had it smelled so strongly of wildflowers before? Had the world seemed so lively and free? “We’re the same, you and I. Thrown away when we didn’t play along,” she murmured, pushing aside his forelock to stroke his brow. He whickered softly and nosed her stomach. “We’ll show them, won’t we?”
