The Scorpio Races Festival 2023: Introduction & Challenges
From the sea, to the sea.
GETTING STARTED
Make sure you’re following @thescorpioracesfestival
If you’re participating in the Character Challenges, sign up by reblogging the Rider Post.
Refer to the Character Challenge Posts for prompts and schedule.
Include the challenge number and title in your posts.
Tag each post with the official tags (#TSRF2023 and #thescorpioracesfestival) and mention @thescorpioracesfestival.
New this year! Consider posting your entries to our AO3 collection!
You can plan ahead or catch up later, but try to post during the specified week (and not before) so we can all enjoy things together!
Complete Rules
Character Challenges
Week One: Sign Ups & Beach Training | Oct 1 - 11
Reading Challenge: Prologue - Chapter 27
Training Challenge #1: Welcome to Thisby!
Introduce your rider. Are they from Thisby, the mainland, or farther abroad? Why are they racing?
Training Challenge #2: “She’s moody and she’s slippery and she’s in love with the sea.”
Describe your capall uisce. What challenges does your rider face with this one?
Training Challenge #3: “Based on my experience on the beach the day before, I form a new plan.”
How did your rider’s first day of training go?
Week Two: The Festival | Oct. 12 - 18
Reading Challenge: Chapter 28-44
Training Challenge #4: Make a Friend
Are they an islander, a tourist, or another rider? How do you meet?
Training Challenge #5: “By my blood.”
What challenges does your rider face going into the Festival?
Training Challenge #6: Explore the Festival
How does your rider navigate the Festival? What do they do before and after the Riders Parade?
Week Three: Cliff Training | Oct. 19 - 25
Reading Challenge: Chapters 45-56
Training Challenge #7: “Racing is about more than riding.”
What is your rider learning about racing, especially on a capall uisce?
Training Challenge #8: Home & Family
What motivates your rider to compete in the races? Who do they have behind them cheering them on?
Training Challenge #9: Obstacles
Training continues—how does it go for your rider? Have they made any enemies on the beach?
Week 4: The Races | Oct. 26 - Nov. 1
Reading Challenge: Chapters 57-66
Training Challenge #10: "On horseback, it's easy to be certain."
Write about the final days leading up to the races. Does your rider feel ready? Is their capall going to listen to them?
Training Challenge #11: "It's not much farther. Only three furlongs, maybe. I don't want to hope, but I can feel it pumping through me."
Create a post about the races!
Training Challenge #12: After the Races
What does your rider do once the races are over?
Creative Challenges
Challenges can be done in any order at any time throughout the Festival! And don’t let this limit you; if there’s something you want to create and share for the Festival, please do!
Creative Challenge #1: Wayfaring
Sketch, describe, or otherwise create a map of Thisby.
Creative Challenge #2: Cosplay
Describe, create, photograph, or draw an outfit you would wear while touring, working, or riding about Thisby.
Creative Challenge #3: Mainland Radio
Create a soundtrack for the Races, Festival, or Thisby in general.
Creative Challenge #4: Your Capall
Create a capall! Use one of the provided templates, or draw or edit your own.
Creative Challenge #5: November Cakes
Thisby is full of wonderful food—November cakes, cinnamon twists, apple cakes and chainsaw, and tea! Make something Thisby-inspired and share.
Creative Challenge #6: Moodboards
Make a moodboard inspired by the book or your character.
Creative Challenge #7: Charms
What items do you use to protect yourself during race season?
Creative Challenge #8: The Festival
Make a mask, souvenir, or other item that you could get at the Festival!
Evvy came to Thisby as a tourist, but returned soon after to stay, the call of the island awakening a longing in her. She had never felt so alive.
After watching Puck and Sean’s fateful race, she knew she had to make an attempt. Puck established that women could race, and a few others have tried with varied success.
Evvy met and rode a few horses for the experience, and found them to be as addicting as her beloved land horses, but wondered if the magics and charms and superstitions were as necessary as the islanders believe, she wondered if the water horses can be tamed with less aversive methods, and decided to try. The worst that happens, she supposed, is she chucks the horse back into the ocean, or she dies.
Originally an American, she came to the island as an escape during a period of feeling lost, with the hope of finding some new energy and a direction. Although she did not expect to find it being on Thisby, after leaving the island it continued to call to her and she came back. She started a small physical therapy clinic out of the medical practice on the island and began to rent a room in Skarmouth.
Training Challenge 1: introduce your rider - Welcome to Thisby!
@thescorpioracesfestival
Branwen McCurley has always known that, one day, she would drown.
Stormy green-grey eyes had looked out to the cold, haunted sea of the Galway coastline and had dreamed of manes mixing with the foam capped waves. The sound of equine screams sang to her from the water, whispering of monsters that her own island tried its best to forget lurked in the deep. The water horses were there, but they would not come up on Galway’s shores. Not now.
Thisby island was known for its capaill usice, and for the blood soaked beaches it celebrated in November. As soon as she was old enough, Bran took her savings from working at her uncle’s pub and boarded a one-way boat to the island, eyes fixed on the water. She arrived in September. By the end of October she had a blue-roan capaill of her own. The water horse had come to her as if she’d been waiting for Bran to arrive, trudging up onto the shore on a far corner early in the morning and putting up no fight at all when Bran had slipped a rope over her and led her further ashore to her tiny, modest barn on the cliffs.
They had an understanding. Never once did Bran think of her capaill as a horse. She couldn’t see her as anything other than what she was, and in those sea-silver eyes there was the same understanding that Bran had brought with her: one day, Bran would drown, and it’d be the capaill that brought her to it. So the girl had named her Rán, for the goddess of the dead at sea, and that was that.
Six years later, the lass and the capaill emerge from their cliff side isolation to join the Scorpio Races. Will this first race be the one where Rán pulls her into the Scorpio sea for good? The way Bran sees it, this can only end one of two ways: either they win, or she dies.
Introduce your rider. Are they from Thisby, the mainland, or farther abroad? Why are they racing?
My name is Adam Kelly. I’ve lived here on the island my whole life. I’m freshly 18, finally able to race without my mother hanging over my shoulder telling me not to. I’m racing for freedom. I’ve lived too long in an unhappy home. I’m racing for the prize, hoping to win the money and set out on my own. Otherwise, I’ve worked at a small repair shop here on the island for a year now.. and it’s not enough pay to set out on my own. I need that extra push of money to start moving. I found my Capall, Raithneach on the beach one night. I found her in a moment of weakness, combing the beach for signs of a Capall. She walked from the water and something in me was drawn to her.. I’ve never felt a connection with another animal quite like her. My hands are strong from the repairs I’ve done for years at the shop and I was able to hold her and avoid being bitten until she calmed and allowed me to lead her. I’m entering the race with Raithneach on my side, hoping our connection will take us far.
Training Challenge #2: “She’s moody and she’s slippery and she’s in love with the sea.”
Describe your capall uisce. What challenges does your rider face with this one?
Raithneach is a young Capall, a light gray-blue with the softest white eyes. She’s strong and fast. She can be aggressive with the other Capall, reaching over to bite and snarl at them when they get too close. I know she won’t bite me.. I can feel it. She’s mine and I’m hers. We’re in this together. My only worry is her aggressive streak.. Fearing her teeth sinking into other Capall during training.
(sorry i’m a day late!!) @thescorpioracesfestival
Training Challenge #3: “Based on my experience on the beach the day before, I form a new plan.”
How did your rider’s first day of training go?
My first day on the beach. I’m overwhelmed and taken by the sight of the other capall on the beach. My hands start to tremble as I lead Raithneach to the emptiest part of the beach. She nips at the other capall as we pass them and I try to steer her lead away from them. She huffs at me but doesn’t try to fight back. We get to an empty place and I climb on her back and take the reigns in my hands. I give her a soft tap to get her going. We start at a soft trot and I can feel my heart in my throat. As we pick up speed I feel the wind in my hair and feel the sea breeze. I’ve never felt more free. She races fast, kicking up sand behind her hooves. Her head is pointed straight ahead, lowered slightly. I feel the world slow down around us as she rounds to take the corner, leaving the beach momentarily to go to the hills. I steer her back to the sand. We race along the water's edge for what feels like just a few moments. The sun started to set over the horizon and I steer her home.
“Based on my experience on the beach the day before, I form a new plan.”
How did your rider’s first day of training go? @thescorpioracesfestival
Freya had spent her fair share of time down at the beach during training season. The capaill uisce were driven mad by the autumn sea, and there were too many of them packed at the beach, so injuries that required a vet were bound to happen. The first days of training was always a mess. It was screaming horses and screaming humans and broken bones and blood on the sand and very very little actual helpful training.
Freya wasn’t interested in risking both her and Corax life in the chaos called training that was happening on the beach these first days. Later, after the parade when things are more orderly, she’d take Corax down to train amongst the others. But for now, they’d stick to the cliffs and the occasional early mornings on the beach.
It’s still early, the sun barley risen over the horizon as they make their way down to the beach. It’s not the Skarmouth beach, where everyone would be today, but the beach below their farm. The beach where Freya found Kaja all those years ago. It feels like an eternity ago, and like it was yesterday, all at once.
The beach isn’t fit for riding, it’s too rocky and uneven, but riding is not what they’re here for. Instead, Freya leads Corax along the shoreline, just barley letting the waves touch his hooves. With one hand she’s firmly holding the lead rope, while the other ties knots in Corax mane, and she whispers low and constant in his ears. The knots are to ground herself, to guard from the magic in Corax veins and the lure of the capaill uisce. The whispers are to ground Corax, to remind him that she is there and to distract him from the call of the sea. She leads him back and forward on the beach, each turn taking them a little further into the ocean. It’s a dangerous game, but one they’ve played many times before. Freya has all of her attention on Corax, making sure he still pays attention to her and not the sea, but in doing so she can’t watch the sea for signs of any wild capaill uisce. Luckily, the sea is shallow here, only slowly getting deeper, so the sea horses must rise from the sea a distance away if they want to attack. They’d still reach Freya quickly, but at least she would have a warning.
Corax is calm and focused today, so Freya slowly takes them further out until Corax has water up to the middle of his cannons. Then they stop, and Freya feeds Corax a few pieces of raw meat as they stand still, letting the sea suck and tug at their legs. The sea is luring them, wanting to drag them out into its depth, but it’s still far from November, and they’ve done this every year since Corax was just a colt. They can resist the sea. Freya just hopes that will still be true on the day of the races.
“She’s moody and she’s slippery and she’s in love with the sea.”
Sooner or later, he would have to tell his parents what he’d just done in Skarmouth, but for the moment Jaxom let his feet carry him towards the comfort of their small barn, the very same place where he’d first met Her.
It was a cold February night, and rain sluiced down in sheets, chilling the bare hands of the man who spent the last few hours helping a ewe struggling to lamb. He’d taken over lambing duty for his father two year prior, and this was not the first time he’d spent a night out amongst the sheep and straw. The ewe had managed to deliver two healthy lambs, although the process had taken longer than Jaxom felt comfortable with, and now he rushed to get them back outside with the flock. Perhaps, on another island, the single stall barn would have been suitable for the new mother to overnight, but on Thisby Jaxom’s concern about what the storm may dredge up from the depths was not unfounded.
As soon as the lambs had dried, stood, and nursed, the man ushered them out of the old stone barn to rejoin the flock in the corral outside, despite the downpour. As the sheep merged into one wet blur, Jaxom forged his way through the rain to the gate, swinging it open and watching as his flock rushed out and melted into the darkness. It was safer for them to have room to run, over the confinement of the corral. In the morning, he would locate them, and with any luck both new lambs would have made it. It was harsh, yes, but to survive out here you had to be. Exhaling slowly as the last white silhouette disappeared into the darkness, Jaxom turned back to the single stall barn to go clean up the bloody straw and afterbirth before anything lurking in the storm caught scent of it. An inhuman chuckle to his left alerted him he was too late, his body immobile as instinct took hold.
A quick assessment of his surroundings alerted him the sheep were out of sight, but it wouldn’t be much for the creature drawn by the scent of blood to follow them. On the other hand, if he made a sound now, it could be him on the menu. The young man didn’t give himself time to be afraid, he merely acted. Slinking down low to the ground, adrenaline pumping through his veins with every beat of his heart, he crept along the fence line, eyes scanning the area around him for the predator that he knew was out there. A grumbling groan from somewhere nearby cause him to freeze again, the sound of the rain drowned out by the sound of his thundering heart. As he got closer to the single stall barn the scent of the capall washed over him, salt, fish, and something that sent his heart into a frenzy. She was inside. Without thinking, Jaxom rushed forwards, slamming the dutch door and making sure both the top and bottom were fully latched. Inside, the beast began to keen and wail, the thrashing animal causing the entire building to shudder. She was caught.
Now, seven months later, in the very same stone barn and corral, she greeted him with a whicker as she galloped to the edge of the reinforced corral, tossing her head and rocking back on her hind legs for a moment before all four feet returned to the earth, pale eyes sharp upon the man as he entered her domain.
“Saoirse…” Jaxom breathed, reaching for the mare, running his hands down her muscular neck and pressing his cheek against hers and inhaling her warm, salty, fishy scent. Anyone who knew anything about the capricious capaill told him he was crazy, and he knew they were right. He trusted her with his own life far too much, but she’d given him no reason to doubt. Iron had no place in their relationship, and he liked to believe she loved him as dearly as he loved her.
“I’ve entered us in the Race beloved.” His voice was low as his hands worked rows of knots in threes and sevens into her thin mane. “It’s the only way I can convince them to let you stay here.” He explained, watching her as she stared at him with those intelligent eyes. He knew her well enough now to know as her attention turned, the magic of autumn ocean pulling her away from him. His heart clenched as his lithe black capall floated towards the furthest wall, her blue eyes fixed upon the horizon where he knew the ocean to be. She gave a low, mournful sound, turning to stare back at him intently.
Reaching into the pocket of his worn jacket, Jaxom pulled out a thin strip of raw mutton, tossing it to the mare. She snapped it out of the air, breathlessly fast. He smiled, moving to stand with a hand on her shoulder, following her gaze out over the horizon. “If we win…” he trailed off, not finishing the thought. “Don’t fret too much darling. The autumn will be over before you know it, and the sea won’t call so badly then.” Never turning his back on her, Jaxom retreated from her paddock, gazing at her fondly one last time before turning in the direction of his house, and the dismay he would face from his parents once they found out what he’d done.
