#vintervittran writes

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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? @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.

Masterlist

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Training Challenge #7: “Racing is about more than riding.”

 What is your rider learning about racing, especially on a capall uisce? @thescorpioracesfestival

Racing, Freya has found out, is all about knowing your limits and pushing them the exact right amount. If you don’t push them, or do it too slowly, you might as well not even enter the races, because you’ll never be where you have to be on race day. But pushing them too much or too fast… well, that way you won’t live to see the winter.

Freya has seen it both too many times to count. She’s seen it previous years when she worked alongside grandpa down at the beach, and she’s seen it this year as she watched the training from above.

Some riders play it safe, as safe as racing on murderous beasts can ever be at least. They train as far from the sea as they can, never daring to come close to it. They drape their horses in charms and iron, in desperate attempts to distract them from the November magic. They hold the rains too tight, never daring to give the capaill uisce even a small bit of freedom, never daring to be fast. If they make it to race day, they’re not ready for it. Many die, many loses their horses to the sea, and the ones that survive usually don’t manage to cross the finish line.

Other riders are too daring. They throw themselves into the chaos at the beach, with newly caught, or newly bought capaill uisce and too little training. They try to be fast. They drive their horses too far. They push too hard, too fast. They end up drowned, or eaten, or dashed against the rocks.

Freya don’t want to make the same mistakes. She knows her and Corax limits, here at the cliffs and at the small rocky shore bellow their farm. For weeks now, well years if truth be told, she has tested them and stretched them and prepared as much as she could. But now, it is time to truly push them. Today they’ll train on the beach with the others. Freya is terrified they’re not ready.

Masterlist

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Training Challenge #4: Make a Friend

@thescorpioracesfestival, this is a collaboration with @the-man-who-loved-a-mare

Freya felt quite bad for leaving so much of the vet work to grandpa. October was usually quite a busy month for them, with all the damage the capaill uisce was doing, both the racehorses and the wild ones that came up from the sea. This year was no exception. What was an exception this year was Freya herself. Since she had written her name on the board in the butchers shop, the other riders had decided they didn’t want her to tend to their horses. As if she would deliberately hurt the horses just to sabotage for the other riders. Freya was more than a little offended by the fact that people could ever believe such a thing. The older islanders wasn’t too rude about it, they might be pigheaded and refused her near their capaill uisce, but at least they let grandpa tend to them. The tourist that were racing were far worse, and Freya was quite certain that they would have refused grandpas help as well if they had just been clever enough to realize Freya was his granddaughter. Luckily for their income, most of them didn’t make the connection between old Dr. Connor the vet, and the name Freya Thorne written on a blackboard.

So, Freya was left doing all the work grandpa didn’t have time. And today that meant visiting a part of Thisby she’d rarely been to. She’d accompanied grandpa to many of his customers, but not all of them, and never to the Willis farm. But there had been a lame sheep, and grandpa hadn’t had time to go, so here she was, pulling up to a small farm in their rusty old pickup truck and jumping down in the mud.

There were no sight of the boy who had contacted her, nor of any sheep, so Freya poked her head into the windswept barn in hopes they’d be inside, hiding from the October weather. They weren’t. The barn was empty of any living thing, and a part of her brain registered that it smelled rather more like it did in Corax stable, than it did in a sheep barn. But it wasn’t until she walked around the corner and saw a black uisce mare and a boy, holding a struggling sheep, that she connected the name Willis with the name she had seen on the butcher’s board, Jaxom Willis – Saoirse. This was another rider in the races.

Jaxom Willis had brown hair and a scar running across his face. He looked vaguely familiar, Freya had probably seen him in Skarmouth sometime, but she’d never spoken to him before.

When she got closer, he put the ewe down, which promptly tried to escape from the nearby capall uisce but was stopped by the rope tying it to a stake in the ground, and walked to meet her. The black mare followed him, looking like she’d very much have them both for dinner, but before she could do more than moan, Jaxom turned to her with a stern “no” and shooed her away. The offended look the mare gave him reminded Freya very much of Green, the barn cat, when Freya stopped her from hunting birds, and she had to hold back a chuckle.

Jaxom tuned back to her, shook her hand in greeting and started leading her back to the sheep as he talked,

“I’m Jaxom. That,” he nodded at the uisce mare, “is Saoirse. She’s lovely but, uh. Don’t touch her. Sorry we have to do this here, usually I’d have us in the barn to get out of the wind, but my ewe won’t go in there, even if Saoirse’s shut in the paddock. Smells too much like her I suppose. I have us on this side of the pasture since the fence blocks the majority of the wind, but neither one of them are too happy about it.”

Freya could see that. The ewe was almost frantic with fear of the predator looming on the other side of the fence, and the mare still looked deeply offended that she hadn’t been allowed to eat Freya. They stopped by the ewe and Jaxom continued speaking,

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. We usually work with Dr. Connor, but I know he’s too busy with the Races this year to deal with this.”

“Freya. Thorne. She’s a beauty” She smiled at Jaxom and gestured to the mare, who currently had her ear pinned back, glaring at both Freya and the sheep. It was evident in Jaxoms voice when he spoke of her that he loved the capall uisce, and besides, she was gorgeous with those blue eyes, “and this is fine, our sheep wouldn’t go into Corax stable either. Uhm, Corax is my capall. He’s the reason I’m not down at the beach helping. Apparently, no one wants another competitor near their horses.” She couldn’t help rolling her eyes as she said the last bit, as she was still quite annoyed by it.

Freya kneeled beside the frightened ewe stroking her neck and talking softly to calm her down. The ewe stopped trying to escape and her eyes weren’t quite as frantic as before, but she was still tense, and very aware of the capall, but Freya supposed there was no avoiding that.

Apparently, Jaxom didn’t train down at the beach when the other riders where there either, and so he hadn’t heard she was racing this year. He didn’t seem bothered by the fact that another rider was tending to his sheep’s though, and that, in combination with his obvious love for the uisce mare, made Freya decide that she liked him.

The ewe, as it turned out, had stepped on a small piece of a nail, that had embedded itself in her hoof. Luckily, it hadn’t gone deep in, enough for it to be painful for the sheep to step on, but not enough that it had caused any severe damage. Freya managed to get the nail out, and clean the wound. She put on a bandage to keep any dirt out and told Jaxom to keep an eye on it, but hopefully it should be healed up enough that the bandage shouldn’t be necessary in just a few days.

While she’d been examining and treating the ewes’ hoof, she and Jaxom had discussed the races and Jaxom had told her that he was competing to be able to keep Saoirse, since his family didn’t want him to have a capall. Freya had been overwhelmed by a feeling of sudden gratitude towards her grandparents, who not only had allowed her to tend to an injured uisce mare, but also to keep baby Corax and who had helped and supported her every step of the way in raising a capall uisce in their barn. She couldn’t imagine what she would do if they hadn’t let her keep Corax, if she had had to fight every step of the way not to lose him. She really hoped Jaxom and Saorise would make it through the races, and that his parents would be convinced.

When the sheep was done, Freya left the small farm with a smile on her face and the feeling that, maybe, she had gained a new friend.

Masterlist

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Welcome to Thisby!

Training Challenge #1

Introduce your rider. @thescorpioracesfestival

Freya Thorne loved Thisby. Where the tourists saw a cold, rocky island full of uninhabitable steep cliffs and scrubby vegetation, Freya saw the grandness of the landscape and the naked beauty of moors with heather abloom. Where her mother had seen muddy pastures and dirty, smelly herds of sheep, Freya saw the calm friendly animals she spent countless hours with as a child, curled up in the hay with their woolly bodies keeping her warm and their soft muzzles against her chin. Where her sister had seen a small place with nowhere to go, Freya saw the comfort of knowing her place in the world and the freedom of being herself.

Freya loved it all, the sea, the cliffs, the heather, the small houses, the little towns, the sheep…and the water horses. Horrible and deadly as they might be, she still loved them. She shouldn’t, she knew she shouldn’t, not when they were the reason she lost most of her family. Her father had been killed by the horses when she was 9. He had wandered down to the shore to collect oysters, and a capall uisce had emerged from the water to drag him into the sea. Freya still missed her father terribly, but she never hated the water horses, not like her mother did.

Even after her father’s death, they had stayed on Thisby. Her mother had moved back to her own parents’ farm with her daughters, Freya and Jenna. The next few years of Freya’s childhood had been a relatively happy one. She loved living on the farm and enjoyed accompanying her granddad when his work as a veterinarian took him all over their island. She was, overall, a happy child. Until, one October day shortly after Freya’s 17th birthday, she’d come home to the news that the boat her uncles had been out fishing with had been attacked by capaill uisce, killing both her uncles. After that, Freya’s mother hadn’t been able to stand the island, and before winter arrived she had packed all of her things and taken the 12 year old Jenna with her to the mainland. Freya had stayed behind. Not because her mother hadn’t begged her to join her, but because she couldn’t leave her grandparents all alone. And if truth be told, she couldn’t leave Thisby either. It was home.

It had been nearly 10 years now since Freya had decided to stay on Thisby. She missed her mother and sister terribly, just like she still missed father, but she’d never once regretted her decision. She’d only been to the mainland once in the 10 years, to celebrate Jenna’s 18th birthday, and although she enjoyed spending time with her mother and sister again, seeing her baby sister all grown up and changed into someone she didn’t really know had given her a lump in the throat and an intense longing to return home to Thisby.

No, Freya Thorne would never leave Thisby. The island was in her soul, in her blood. It was the island where she had been borne, and it was the island where she would die. And the dying part might not even be that far away, because this was the year when Freya Thorne would compete in the Scorpio Races.

Masterlist

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Training Challenge #6: Explore the Festival

How does your rider navigate the Festival? @thescorpioracesfestival

The traditional Scorpio dress was made of heavy wool and dyed a deep bloodred colour. The skirt was long and flowy, and the bodice was laced and heavily embroidered with seashells and pearls. A blue woven shawl and tiny bells around the ankles completed the look. The dress had once belonged to Freya’s grandma, and together they had altered it to make it fit Freya.

The Scorpio dance, danced at the festival to the beat of the Scorpio drums, was, just like so much about the races, seen mostly as entertainment by the tourists, and Freya supposed, by a lot of the islanders as well. But it was so much more than that. The dance was a celebration of Thisby and the Scorpio Sea and the mare goddess. It was an honoring of the sacrifices and losses that had been made and that would be made, and a prayer to the island and to the sea to keep sheltering and feeding them another year. It was as old as the races themselves.

But sure, it was also fun. Freya had participated in the dance since she was 18, wearing her grandmas dress from when she herself had been part of the dance. The dance was supposed to be performed by young, unmarried islanders to represent the future of Thisby. Having just turned 27 at the beginning of the month, Freya supposed she might not count as “young” much longer. But she was unmarried, and anyway, no one would stop her from dancing. The “young and unmarried” was more a suggestion than a rule, and Freya suspected it had more to do with the fact that older and married people didn’t have the time or energy to dance in the streets all night, than with any symbolism.

Tonight, as the festival buzzes with life around her and the beats of the Scorpio drums vibrate through her body, Freya dances. She dances as if this was the races, as if her life depended on it. She dances to chase away the doubts and fears she has about riding in the races. And slowly it works. The drums sound like Corax hoofbeats on the cliffs as they gallop together. The taste of salt in the wind is the same as when she stands in the sea with Corax by her side. The way her straw blonde hair whirls around her face is familiar, same as when it escapes her ponytail when she rides. Right there, on the streets of Skarmouth, her red skirt billowing around her, the sound of the bells around her ankles drowned out by the drums, Freya loses herself entirely to the island. She no longer worries about the races. They might kill her, or they might not, but either way, she is part of this island. It is in her blood. Just as the sea is in her blood. Just as Corax is.

When they call for all riders to head to the ceremonial stone, she follows without hesitation. She spots Jaxom in the crowd and nods at him, but don’t approach. This feeling inside of her, of being one with the island, is yet too fragile for her to risk losing it by speaking. Instead, she stands silent, as the woman in the bird costume spills a bowl of blood at the stone. She stands silent as rider after rider mount the stone and declares their intention to race. She stands silent until it is her time to step up onto the rock. Then, the feeling of certainty, of belonging grows stronger. This is where she is supposed to be. On this island. On this rock. Whatever may come, she is of Thisby. Freya looks out over the crowd and speaks.

“I will ride.” The slice of the knife and her blood dripping on the rock is nothing as she says the words that promise her to the sea, to kill or let live as it pleases. “Freya Thorne. Corax. By my blood.”

Masterlist

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Training Challenge #2: “She’s moody and she’s slippery and she’s in love with the sea.”

Describe your capall uisce. @thescorpioracesfestival

The door to the stable creeks open and a warm smell of hay and animal envelopes Freya as she enters. This is where she and grandpa store the straw and hay for the sheep during the winter, and where, up until six years ago most of the junk from the farm had ended up. The junk is gone now however, replaced by a large stall. There’s a soft clucking coming from the stall, and Corax jet-black head appears over the stall door. At the sight of the stallion, Freya’s face melts into a soft smile, and she clucks back to greet her best friend. As she gathers up Corax bridle and saddle, Freya remembers the day six and a half years ago when she first encountered the wild capall uisce that changed her life forever.

It had been a cold grey day in March, a few years after Freya’s mother had left the island. Freya had been down by the shore in search of a missing sheep when she had heard the keening. She knew better than to follow a strange call by the sea of course, even though they were far from November, the sea was never completely safe, and horses could still appear anytime. But the sound had carried such pain and despair that she just hadn’t been able leave without investigating. And that’s how she had found her. An uisce mare, grey as the rocky shore, entangled in a fishing net and with a deep nasty-looking cut on her hindleg.

Maybe it had been instinct from the years working as a vet side by side with her grandpa, or maybe it had been, as her grandma said later, her kind heart getting the better of her, but Freya had freed the mare and brought it back to the farm with her to tend to its injured leg. Her grandma had fretted and protested, but grandpa had just smiled a small private smile and helped Freya tend to the mare. Together they had built a paddock fit for a capall uisce, away from the fields the sheep grazed on, and Freya had started working on rebuilding parts of the old barn to a stable. She’d named the mare Kaja, after the grey birds that always perched on the roofs in Skarmouth, and it had soon become clear that she was pregnant. Late in April a colt had been born, black as the night and with startling silver-grey mane. Freya had been there when he was born, and for the following months she had spent almost all her time with Kaja and the colt, whom she had given the name Corax. She had never seen an uisce foal before, and even though she had known that he would grow up to be one of the most dangerous predators on the island, she couldn’t be afraid of him, and she couldn’t help but to love him. Kaja had left the following November, returning to the sea where she belonged, but Corax had stayed.

He'd stayed with her.

Freya is abruptly woken up from her memories by Corax suddenly snatching the beanie from her head.

“Hey! Give that back!”

The stallion makes a clucking noise that sounds a little like laughter and shakes the beanie like it’s a prey he’s caught. Freya reaches for it, but Corax jumps out of reach and shakes the beanie again. He seems very pleased with himself.

“Corax!” Freya can’t help but laugh at him. He’s still young, only six years old, and still very playful. Stealing-Freyas-hats is a game he’s played ever since he was a foal and never seems to tire of. But today, they don’t have time for an endless game of chase-the-beanie, so Freya gets a small plastic bag from her pocket and fishes out a dead mouse that she found caught in one of the mousetraps earlier in the morning. It’s nothing more than a small snack for a grown capall uisce, but Corax happily trades the beanie for it and then stand still while Freya tacks him up.

She’s fumbling with the buckles, nervous in a way she’s usually not about riding Corax. But today is special. Yesterday, she signed them up at Gratton’s. Today is their first training as official participants of the Scorpio Races. They’re ready, she knows that. Corax is fully grown now, and he loves to run, but still, the nerves are there. Corax seems to sense her unease, and gently nudges her with his head. Freya smiles at him, runs her fingers through his silver mane and take a deep steadying breath.

“Come on, boy. Let’s go for a run”

Masterlist

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Training Challenge #5: “By my blood.”

    @thescorpioracesfestival

Somedays, Freya doubted she had made the right choice when she signed up for the races. There was still time to back out. Even if it meant losing the entry fee, Grandpa would understand. Even though he never would say it directly to her, he might even be grateful if she backed out. He respected the races and the water horses, but he didn’t understand them. Not the way his wife, Freya’s grandma had. Not the way her father had.

Freya remembered going to the Scorpio Festival as a child with her father. It was one of her earliest memories. She had been five and mother had been at home with a newborn Jenna, not deeming the festival fit to bring a baby to. Freya had clutched fathers’ hand and stared wide eyed at all the people moving around her, more people than she had ever seen in her short life. It had been frightening and exciting and terrible and wonderful all at once.

They had eaten November cakes and danced to the Scorpio drums and searched for the Mare Goddess seashell. Father had drawn shapes with ashes on Freya’s face and explained all about the festival and the races and the horses to her. Freya’s mother had brought her daughters to church with her on Sundays, but her father was of an old Thisby family and still held many of the old believes. It was he who had taught her to love and respect the water horses.

For many years after his death, they hadn’t visited the festival. Freya’s mother had kept both of her daughters at home and refused to visit the festival her husband had once loved. But then she had left for the mainland, and Freya was free to do as she pleased. She’d visited the festival every year since then, often with her grandma, and she loved it. Every year, she had looked forward to the festival with a happy anticipation. But not this year. This year, Freya was terrified. Paying the entry fee and getting her name on the board at the butcher shop, that might be the official signing up for the races. But standing up on that rock, offering up her blood and her name and Corax name, that was what truly counted. That was a promise made not only for other people, but for the island and the sea. There was no backing out of that.

She wasn’t sure she could do this.

Masterlist

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Training Challenge #10: "On horseback, it's easy to be certain."

Write about the final days leading up to the races. @thescorpioracesfestival

Beach training is going better than Freya would have expected. It’s been almost two weeks since she and Corax first started training among the others and no disasters have yet to happen. The races are in just a few days and, if you didn’t count the possibility of both her and Corax dying, Freya feels quite good about their chances.

She and Corax has walked in the sea along their own rocky shore by the farm every morning, trying to get used to being close to the ever-stronger lure of the Scorpio Sea, and she feels like its working. Corax is attentive, maybe a little too interested in the sea for Freya’s comfort, but ultimately, he never fails to listen to her. And he’s never tried to either eat her or drag her out in the sea, which is always a win when you work with the capaill uisce.

Down at the beach it’s not as simple. The sea isn’t a problem, at least not a big one. And the noise and people don’t seem to bother Corax too much either. He’s curious and Freya always take a few minutes at the start of every training session to just walk around and let him look at everything to get used to it. The other capaill uisce, however, is a problem. Corax hates them. He gets nervous around them and if they come too close and he feels like they’re a threat he will try to attack. Their second day down at the beach he had attacked a bay stallion that had flattened its ears and snapped at Freya’s leg. Corax had responded by surging forward and trying to bite the other stallions face off. Only a very sharp thug at the reins and a snap with a red leather strap right by Corax face had stopped him from doing any real damage. Since then, they’ve stayed as far away from the others as they can get on the beach, opting for training closer to the sea where less riders dare to take their horses.

When Freya had complained about it to grandpa over dinner, he had told her not to worry over it, and that Corax was probably trying to protect Freya as well, which made him like him more.

“But it distracts him” Freya had protested, “he’ll not be as fast as can be, and we won’t win. I just want to honor dads memory by doing good.”

“Freya,” Grandpa had looked at her with a very serious expression on his usually smiling face, “I might not know much about training and racing, but I know this much: The races aren’t about winning. The sea doesn’t care about that. And neither did your father”

Grandpa might not be of old Thisby himself, but his wife had been, and so had his son-in-law, Freya’s father. It was grandpa that had told Freya that her father had competed in the races himself, as a young man, long before Freya had been born. Her mother had never mentioned it, and as long as she had been on the island, the stories of their father had been about what a good man he had been, about him working as a groom in the Malvern yard, and about how much he had loved his family. Freya had never heard a single word about him riding, let alone racing, a capall uisce. But when her mother had left, and Freya had decided to tend to the grey uisce mare with a foal in her belly, her grandfather had told her the stories of her father in the races. He had been a fifth and competed two years in a row on a brown uisce mare with mane as black as the sea in a storm. He never won, but he didn’t do too badly, even managing to get in third place the second time. He had come from a long line of racers, and grandpa had said that the Thorns had competed in the races ever since they first were held, every firstborn son racing at least once in their lives. Freya didn’t intend to break that tradition.

She thinks on that as she steers Corax away from the other capaill uisce and urges him into a gallop along the shoreline. His ears are pricked, and even though his attention is split between her and watching the other uisce on the beach, he seems to enjoy running and her heart is running with him, loving every second on his back. He is not as fast as Freya knows he can be, but she realizes that grandpa is right, it doesn’t matter. She might not win the races, but with Corax under her, her grandpa supporting her and her father’s memory in her heart, how can she ever truly lose?

Masterlist