The Scorpio Races Festival

RULES / SUBMIT | 9th annual festival: Oct. 1 -- Nov. 1, 2023 | A fandom celebration of the Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

[thescorpioracesfestival]

TSR Discord Server

We have set up a discord for the festival- and fans!- right HERE. Feel free to join us to keep up with Festival news, and to talk about our favorite story year round!

Join the TSR Festival Discord Server!

Check out the TSR Festival community on Discord - hang out with 17 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

[thescorpioracesfestival]

This year’s Festival may be over, but we’ll be talking about The Scorpio Races year ‘round! Feel free to join us!

[thescorpioracesfestival]

An Update & Apology

A note from the mods- we really wanted to do the festival this year, and fully planned to, but unfortunately our lives have all been pretty chaotic lately and we're not going to be able to run it. We will try to keep you all updated about the future of the festival as we gain a better perspective on what things will look like going forward. This was not an easy call to make and we're really sorry to have disappointed anyone who was looking forward to it.

[thescorpioracesfestival]

Hello denizens of Thisby (and visitors)! Just a quick update. We are planning on hosting the Scorpio Races Festival this year, and we'll be posting a schedule and whatnot soon!

[pickleandthequeen]

Marimo leapt forward with an explosion of sand and surf, in his customary half rear, half leap. He hit the ground galloping, and Evvy pushed her hands forward to avoid catching him in the mouth.

Thank you to @thescorpioracesfestival for organizing such a fun and creative event!! I hope to participate again next year.

I am posting all my written drabbles related to the festival on my AO3 in the story “Becoming Thisby” 😁 I’m so happy to have been able to explore Thisby in a immersive sense this year!

[pickleandthequeen]

Training 11: it’s not much further. Only three furlongs, maybe. I don’t want to hope, but I can feel it pumping through me.

The beach was a throng of chaos, a sea of colors in both horse coats and jockey silks. Marimo pawed the beach, striking out with his right fore, neck arched as he kicked sand into the air. There were cappail on either side of them, screaming and keening for the sea, being pulled in circles while their riders cursed and shook bells in their mounts’ ears.

Evvy shushed her stallion and stroked his neck, tracing E’s and M’s on his crest. She whispered to him as a rosy gray mare hip checked him. Marimo squealed and skittered sideways, nearly into another stallion. The chestnut snapped at him, and Marimo pinned his black ears and swung a kick at him. Evvy swore and pulled him back.

“Easy, easy, hoooo, back.”

“Havin’ trouble?” Someone shouted, and she recognized the voice as Cameron, the so-called cowboy. She cursed again and steered her cappal away, hoping he wouldn’t follow. “What’s wrong, not findin’ the cappail uisce so tame without your bribes?!” His pronunciation was awful, even for a tourist.

“Mo, over here,” Evvy whispered, and asked him to trot towards the sea. “Heeeeeeasy.” She chanced a glance over her shoulder, and exhaled a sigh of relief that Cameron apparently didn’t trust his own stallion, so creatively named “Texas” near the water.

The water lapped at his fetlocks, and he dropped his head down, snorting at the waves. Evvy reached forward and ran her hand down his neck, poll to withers. She hummed a half forgotten lullaby and scratched his withers, before taking a chunk of his mane and twirling it between the fingers of her left hand. She paused to spit into her hand before returning to the twirling, then started tying knots - three, then seven, and again three. He took a deep breath that lifted his back several inches and exhaled seafoam.

It was nearly time.

“There’s an entire rack of lamb for you waiting with Rosalie, Mo. We just need to cross the finish line.”

“Riders! Line up!”

Water horses jostled and screamed, rearing and prancing and leaping as their riders jockeyed for position at the starting lines.

Evvy, focused on her horse, sung softly to him, and thumbed a treat from her pocket.

Pop pop, for standing still, for minding her suggestions, for not allowing the other cappail to goad him into a fight.

His long ears laid back against his head and he reached around to snatch the slice of raw bacon she offered. His ears immediately pricked and he shook himself mightily, sea damp mane slapping his neck and her face.

“Are you ready, now?” Evvy shifted in the saddle, checking its balance - too late now to fix even a loose girth, but it barely shifted. She gathered her reins, and waited. Most of the cappail on the beach reared and plunged, although some were still, tame and calm. Cameron’s stallion, also a plain bay, was one that stood quiet. Quiet, she thought, but not calm. His water horse was held by a heavy iron bit with long shanks, and she could see the blood bay stallion shaking.

“Riders, line up!”

Evvy closed her eyes, and asked Marimo to leg yield out of the water and closer to the rest of the horses.

He pranced on the sand, and tossed his head, but he stayed light in her hands.

And then the race began.

Marimo leapt forward with an explosion of sand and surf, in his customary half rear, half leap. He hit the ground galloping, and Evvy pushed her hands forward to avoid catching him in the mouth.

If the chaos before the race was bad, this was unfathomable. It wasn’t three seconds of running before two cappail had thrown their riders and made beelines for the ocean. The rose grey mare from earlier nearly knocked them over as she bounded across the beach for freedom. Evvy caught a glimpse of her white rimmed eye as the mare wheeled to avoid hitting them. She herself screamed and squeezed her calves against Mo’s sides, and he obliged.

She knew from watching the trainings that she wanted to keep Mo away from any huddles, any packs. She knew she could trust him ankle deep in the water, and that it wouldn’t slow him too much, but that the other horses would be fighting to get into the sea.

Evvy crouched low over his neck, keeping a steady hold on the reins, following his head. Marimo’s black ears were roving around, flat back, then flicking forward, sideways.

“Steady,” she called, and eased him off his speed, save it. Save him. He listened, and she thanked him, sneaking a hand up his crest and stroking him. He flicked an ear in acknowledgment.

There were a dozen or so horses ahead of them, running straight, more or less. That was fine. Marimo’s ears pricked and he started to speed himself, but she asked him to hold, and he did.

She popped lips, and his ears waggled.

Evvy checked over her shoulder. There were a few horses fighting behind them, more had shed their riders, but not all the newly liberated cappail were content to return to the sea. She swallowed as she caught a glimpse of two cappail uisce fighting over the body of a man.

But a blood bay cappal with a long shanked iron bit was gaining on them. The cappal’s eyes were wide and white rimmed, its nostrils wrinkled and mouth gaping against the bit.

Cameron and Texas.

Texas didn’t want to run straight, he zigzagged over the sands and roared around the metal in his mouth. Cameron jerked him hard in the mouth, back towards the chalk cliffs.

Evvy turned back to look ahead.

She checked Mo away from the surf.

Three furlongs? Maybe. She could feel Marimo beginning to either bore or tire, feel his skin begin to have a tackiness to it where her wrists touched him. He pulled towards the sea, and she could hear his blood humming through his veins.

She dropped the seaside rein and drew a letter, an E, then a M, on his crest.

His ears shifted, and he felt horselike again.

She pressed her calves to his sides and whispered, and Mo leaped forward, his legs beating the sandy surf, sending a spray of maddening sea water into their faces. He made a manic noise, tossing his head again in a snakish manner, but put on a burst of speed.

There was a whoop behind them, and she chanced another glance under her arm.

Texas careened over the sand, impossibly fast despite his inability to move in a straight line. Cameron whipped the horse’s flanks, sweat like seafoam lathering on the horse’s neck and chest. His eyes were sea wild and his teeth sharp.

“Mo, we gotta move!”

Texas did not look under control. He did not look tame. He did not look like a horse.

Marimo passed a horse, a chestnut mare. There were five ahead. The finish line drew closer. He was beginning to labor, and she whispered to him her gratitude. It was okay, he didn’t have to win, he didn’t have to give any more than he wanted. As long as they crossed the finish line in one piece.

His ears pinned, and he snapped at a steel gray who shrieked and tried to bite him, but Marimo stretched out his neck and charged. Evvy hissed and grabbed mane further up his neck.

Texas and Cameron flew up on their island side, the blood bay cappal’s fearsome jaw cranked open as he fought the bit. The cappal was driven half-mad between the November sea and the bit in his mouth. So close now, Evvy could see it was not only heavy and iron but also a slow, squared twist with a segunda port trapping the horse’s tongue. The cappal was far too close, she shouldn’t be able to see his cruel bitting choice so intimately. Texas snatched at Marimo but her stallion squealed and skittered sideways before his teeth could make contact. She was nearly unseated but saved herself, grabbing mane.

“You’re alright, thank you,” she gasped, sucking wind, and the two shot forward again, past Cameron and Texas. The blood bay had reached his limit and was running sideways, head in the air with his neck and back inverted. Threatening to rear and to flip. Evvy shuddered and whispered again to her horse. His breath was a roar but he charged forward, and overtook a chestnut, a palomino on the inside, his hooves sending up a spray of water, and she held only the buckle and a handful of mane to steady herself, letting her cappal run.

For a moment, all she could hear was the wind rushing over her ears, feel the burning of salty air in her eyes - or maybe it was tears. Then the world came screaming into focus. Marimo slowed to a trot, then a walk, and she leaned forward despite herself and hugged his neck. He was hot and sweaty and his skin tacky with November Magic, but he shook himself and turned his head to sniff at her pockets, his lips curling back over his teeth. She gently nudged his head away and sat up, but pulled a strip of raw meat from an inside pocket of her jacket.

Evvy scanned the cliffs for Rosalie, who waited with Marimo’s promised rack of lamb. She nudged him forward, away from the finish line as the other remaining pairs crossed.

********

TBC in the last little epilogue piece

@thescorpioracesfestival

[solidaritetwatson]

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! @thescorpioracesfestival

[I won a prize! Yay!! Last two posts coming up and then I'll have to go back to working on my real NaNo project full time, lol oops]

The morning of the races dawns bright and clear. The sun is already burning the mist off the ground as I tack up Benny, leaving her girth strap loose for the walk down to the beach.

The beach is a riot of color - the morning races are wrapping up, and soon the cleaners will be down there to rake the sand smooth again, and clear out the worst of the blood. For now, the tourists' attention is being called to the souvenir stalls, their brightly colored tents looking like a circus troop along the road leading down from town. The betting booth is busy, and our colors have been posted.

Gus meets me on the beach where we'd agreed, my colors in his hands. He gives me a grim smile, and, incapable of smiling, I give him a grim nod. I trade him for my saddle, settle the bright blue across Benny's back, and then refit the saddle, tightening it this time.

It's time for qualifying.

I see Jonah a few yards down the beach, getting final instructions from Epperson. Caedmon's colors are purple, with a white flag.

Three nights ago, I was down on this same beach, trying to talk him out of this.

It had been easy enough to set up the rendezvous - he'd approached me the next morning as I was getting ready to mount up. He'd had a puzzled, cautious look on his face.

"I was looking for you yesterday," I said cheerfully, already guessing what would come out of his mouth.

"Yes," he said slowly, "That's what I was told."

"Shouldn't have bothered," I said with a shrug, reaching back and tightening Benny's girth again and successfully catching her unawares, as shown by the extra two notches I'm able to move up the strap, and her annoyed huff. She has a terrible habit of blowing out her belly. "- when I had so little time to be waiting around, but anyways -"

"What is it you wanted to talk to me about?" Jonah interrupted me.

"I was getting there," I said, holding out my hand in a placating way - and realized that I might be putting on too strong of an act, for someone who's usually silent.

"Look," I said, taking a deep breath and letting the false bravado fall from my voice. "Do you think you could meet me tonight? To talk?"

He looked startled, then; and maybe a little afraid. Of what, I wondered? Of what? Surely not the thing I wanted him to be afraid of.

"Sure," he said, startled into acceptance, I think. "Sure, what time do you...?"

He seemed to run out of words to speak with.

"Would six be alright?" I asked. "Here. On the beach."

He looked even more alarmed.

"I'll bring beers," I offer, "I just don't want an audience, you know? There's no avoiding that at the pub."

"Sure," he'd said slowly, "Sure..."

I was honestly surprised when he actually showed up.

I'd started a small fire in the sand, on the wide part of the beach, up by the cliff, as far away from the tide as I could get. It would reach the cliff itself in just a few hours.

It was not the safest spot to meet - in the growing dark, in late October, it was probably the most dangerous place to meet, but I could be sure that we wouldn't be interrupted.

Neither of us had our horses in our hands, and so of course neither of us knew what to do with them. We stood on either side of the fire, gripping our beers and looking at anything but each other.

"I found out where you got your horse," I said finally, cutting right to the chase.

He looked up quickly.

"That's not the way it's done, you know," I said, as gently as possible. "He should have gone back to the sea."

"What do you care?" he shot back.

I turned several things around in my mouth before I chose what to say. I cared because it was a sacred thing, this race, and these horses, they were spiritual beings, and...

"I care," I said finally, "Because he misses her."

That's not what Jonah had expected me to say, and he was surprised into silence.

"He misses her," I repeated, quietly, slowly, "And so he will never mind you. You must know that."

He gave me a hard look.

"This isn't a challenge," I said with a sigh. "This isn't an odd for you to beat." I stepped around the fire then, and he, startling, took a step back from me - but not enough steps that I couldn't reach him, and I placed my hand over his heart. I felt his pulse pick up under my touch. I tapped my index finger once against his chest for emphasis as I said, "Through you veins flows the blood of your ancestors. People who bled and died and fought and survived on this beach. They handed down to us the best way of survival, because they'd already tested it out for themselves, and for awhile, those were the only rules we lived by. Generational knowledge. It's still there, no matter how they've tried to wash it out. The salt is in your blood. Sea calls to sea. And there are some things the sea has already told us, that it doesn't feel it should repeat, and yet it's repeating them to you."

I pulled my hand back, and stared into his eyes, and tried to decide if he was listening to me or not. If he was hearing this.

"That horse is trying to warn you," I told him, "Trying to remind you that he doesn't belong here anymore. His time is past due. He belongs in the sea. He's supposed to be taking her spirit home."

I saw him do a slight double take then. "Didn't your grandmother ever tell you?" I asked, unintentionally sounding a little harsh in my frustration, "That they are not just our killers, but the guardians of our dead? She died in the sea. The beach is close enough, and the Races make it closer. A creature of the sea being the cause of death leaves no room for doubt - it's the capaill who are -"

"Stop," he said roughly, shaking his head, "Just stop. I don't believe this stuff, ok? Who even does, anymore? This is folk stuff. A dead religion."

"It's not dead," I said quietly. "I still believe it. And so should you, if you want to live."

"You do hear yourself, right?" he said, with an incredulous shake of his head. "Because this is exactly the same kind of stuff Keon was telling you, to try to get YOU off the beach -"

"No," I interrupted him quietly, "It's not the same at all. Because Keon is concerned with prestige, and I'm just concerned with the capaill."

He looked at me then. Really looked at me. And I think he could see in my eyes that I really believed what I was telling him. Because he shook his head in wonder and muttered, almost to himself, "No shit."

Having nothing else to say, I started to pull apart my fire so I could kick sand over it, and head back home to my dinner.

"You think you'll make it through qualifying this year?" he asked me - and there wasn't enough of a tone to the question for me to tell if he was trying to get in a bite, or if it was just something to say.

I shrugged, and finished off my beer, then finished off the fire.

We stood looking at each other in the half dark.

"Teach me your religion," he said quietly - so quietly I could barely hear him above the sea.

But I heard him.

---

Qualifying is not a race. It's a set stretch of sand that you have to make it down in a certain amount of time, alone, and without touching the sea, to prove that you can. To prove that you're fast enough to make the race interested, and that you can manage your horse for at least that long.

Watching the contestant ahead of us, I reach back and tighten Benny's girth. She bares her teeth at me in annoyance, but I flick salt at her with a look that says, "get over it."

Last year, Benny lost it halfway down the stretch, shaking her head and rearing and and foaming at the mouth.

In a rare show of mercy, my sister later told me that it'd been because a capall was just offshore. She said she'd seen it toss its head.

Since my sister is a rare lier, I should be inclined to believe her - but a cautious part of me wonders if just this once, she was just being nice. A rare trait for her to exhibit, but it's possible.

Today, there are no offshore capall, and Benny minds her manners, and we fly through in plenty of time.

We make qualifying.

---

We'd acquired more beers at the pub, and then I'd led Jonah through a door I knew how to jimmy the lock on, into the ancient church. We sat in a pew near the back, slouched to stare up at the elaborately painted ceiling. It was quiet. So quiet. Finally, Jonah bumped his knee against my own, and I began.

---

Everyone that entered in qualifying makes it, including Jonah. I catch his eye briefly across the sand. He gives me a nod. I don't return it.

---

Jonah wanted to meet the next night as well - though I felt I had little enough to tell him, after two hours and dredging up every bit of lore I knew, and then waxing into feelings and gut intuitions.

"You haven't even gotten into theology," he'd said with a cat like grin.

"I'm not much good with that," I'd replied.

Still, he had me out in the dark again - this time at the docks, this time sitting cross legged and looking down dangerously into the black water, newspaper twists of fish and chips in our hands.

"Don't you just feel so alive, this time of year?" he said boyishly.

"That's exactly what I was trying to tell you," I said dryly, "All last night. Weren't you listening?"

He looked at me intently then, and I couldn't stop noticing the perfect curl in his long, dark eyelashes.

"You are not so old," he said quietly, "As you like to appear."

I winced. "I feel old," I said, truthfully.

"No," he said, even more quietly than before - and I'm sure he was watching my mouth. "You are young yet."

But then he went back to eating his chips.

We went back to the stables after that - his stables, his horse's stables, Farrow's stables, however you want to call them. We talked of everything and nothing. He even got me to laugh once, and my mother says my laughter is rarer than rainbows on a clear day.

They're not THAT rare. She's an exaggerator, that one. But still...

We wondered down the row of Thoroughbreds, rubbing their soft noses with one finger (me), and batting our eyelashes against theirs to see if they would startle (him). They were all sleepy and blinking curiously at us - but the capaill were wide awake.

We stopped in front of Caedmon's stall, and he stared back at us, unnaturally still, and so alert it seemed to hurt. He curled back his lip to call, and on instinct, Jonah and I both shushed him by singing over the top of him. I smiled ruefully, then, and Jonah gave a nervous laugh. He looked at me carefully then.

"What do you see, when you look at him?" he asked.

I took a step closer, and looked into Caedmon's watery, square pupil, observed the stiff arch of his withers, the slight trembling of his legs.

"He is waiting," I said simply, after several long moments.

"Waiting for what?" Jonah asked cautiously.

Without looking at him, I answered, "I've already told you."

He huffs impatiently then - he wants to believe what I believe, about the capaill uisce; I saw it in his eyes in the church; but he can't. Not yet, anyway. He scuffed his boot through the sawdust on the ground, head bent, then looked back up at me - I could see the challenge of his stance out of the corner of my eye.

"What do you see, when you look at me?" he asked.

I turn my head, just slightly, to put him in view. I look at him a long time, but I know, the whole time, that I will have nothing to say.

"That is not so easy," I said at last.

There was a flash of disappointment, then impatience, as he looked quickly away and shook his head at the dark.

Then he looked back at me and said, roughly, "Do you know what I see when I look at you?"

"Maybe I'd rather not know," I said softly.

He held my gaze for a moment longer, and then he seemed to deflate.

---

Soon, we are lined up for the race. I do not look at the stands, or the sea, or the other racers, or even the finish line - the bright flags just visible around the slight curve of the coast.

My eyes, and all of my sense, are all for Benny.

She is shuttering with anxiety and eagerness. I do not think of all it has taken to get here, I do not think of what might happen in the next handful of moments. There is only now. This breath. That twitch of her ears, the steady pulse of her blood and her magic where my wrist just touches her skin, a bit of foamed sweat blowing off of her neck in the wind... I breathe her in. Time is in slow motion. Gradually, I let the other senses in, the rest of the world - or at least the part of it that's down on this beach. I touch the iron cross that hangs around my neck to my lips, and whisper two sets of prayers.

We are told to get ready. I am already ready.

The bell goes off.

---

On the third night, I am desperate to convince him not to ride.

On that first night, I'd told him I cared about the capaill. Now, I find myself caring about slightly more.

I'd found him at the pub and he's motioned to the other side of the booth for me to sit down - like it's been empty, waiting, for me. I was disconcerted by this. I felt slightly unbalanced. He watched me carefully, saying nothing - and I also said nothing - and then he ordered me a drink.

While we sat drinking, passing the odd comment about the weather, or who had the best odds in the race the next day, like - despite his earlier comments - we were two old men, I could feel the eyes on us. Curious eyes.

There were more than enough riders who were friendly with each other, so that was not the oddity here.

The oddity was me. Someone being friendly, with me.

Finally, Jonah, having evidently noticed this as well, said, "Let's get out of here, yeah?"

"Yes," I said in relief - and we left.

We walked along the road, then - back the way I would go home, though I would normally use a bicycle. As it was, I wheeled it beside me, and we took a leisurely pace.

"You're not intending to walk me all the way home, are you?" I asked with false lightness.

"I might," he said carelessly.

"It's a long way," I cautioned; and he looked at me fiercely then, and I didn't know the meaning of it, and had to look away.

"You want to tell me again not to race," he said at last.

"I want to beg you," I clarified.

"So why don't you?" he challenged.

I looked at him appraisingly for a moment, although I already knew what I would find. Stubbornness. And a fire lit by grief that was more dangerous than any capaill.

"I don't know what to beg you with, that I haven't already used," I said simply.

"Think harder," he chided, trying to be blasé. He was failing. He wanted something from me, and I wasn't giving it, but I would give it to him, if I only knew what it was.

"I have," I told him. "And all I can think, is that the cousin you loved so much would want you alive."

He turned his face away. "You didn't know her," he said, his voice thick. "You wouldn't know what she would want."

"It's an easy guess," I said.

There is more silence.

"Don't race," I say quietly, the wind threatening to tear my voice away. "Please."

There was something in my voice - probably that rawness I could feel in my throat, maybe something that has to do with the buzzing that had suddenly filled my ears, that made him look at me then, searching. I don't know if he found what he was looking for, but he sighed and looked away again, looking sad.

We'd stopped in the road.

"What's done is done," he said, half to himself.

"No, it isn't," I argued fervently. "Nothing is certain. Nothing is set in stone."

"Nothing is certain," he repeated, turning back to me with a false half smile. "Which means it's not certain that I die tomorrow."

"Is that what you want?" I asked gently.

He shook his head slowly, like he was trying to clear the cobwebs, or like he was losing hope of making me understand. He didn't say anything, and didn't say anything, and finally, I started walking again.

This time, he didn't follow.

---

My lungs are screaming with the salt air being forced down them, and there is nothing but the terror of Benny's heart under my wrists, and the leather and iron between my fingers, and the pulse of the sea singing to us both. Singing to everyone here.

I'm watching for an opening to get us out of the press of bodies - we're in the middle crush, not the first group and not the last, and I can see Bridgers and OMally start to peel ahead, out front. Benny snaps at someone, and I thrum iron along her withers and pull her up briefly, to avoid a retaliation. She's annoyed, but I drag her ear back towards me, and whisper calm.

Then, when she's ready, and when Gilbert and Galliger's horses have gotten embroiled in a fight, clearing a path to our left - I tell her to move.

---

Just before the race, as we were getting around to line up, Jonah found me, despite my refusal earlier. He caught my elbow - leaning far out over his left side, holding Caedmon as far away as possible from Benny.

"Wish me luck," he'd said in a ragged whisper - like he'd already swallowed a bucket full of sea water. Like he was coming up to me for a breath of desperate air. Like this was his last demand of me.

Like this was his last rite.

I looked at him in sad silence for a moment, then licked my thumb, stuck it in my pouch of salt, and pressed it against his forehead. He was still holding onto my elbow, and he was looking at me in surprise.

"That's all I have," I said quietly; and then, not knowing why I was doing it, I pressed my thumb, in turn, to his lips.

I didn't even have time to digest the look he gave me, before his horse pulled him away, and they were directing me into position, and I had to breathe him out. All of them out. And only Benny in.

---

We are making our break, out of the main pack and towards the smaller pack ahead of us, when I see the massive surge of black that is Caedmon out of the corner of my eye, to our right. Jonah is, as usual, struggling to hold him out of the sea, and in the one look under my arm I spare him, I can see that there is already blood around Caedmon's mouth. His teeth are snapping open and closed over the bit. His eyes are a wildfire.

I don't have time to spare a look at Jonah at all. Truett has broken out of the pack on the other side of me - he's been holding back until now, I know, from watching him train, and he will be down the beach faster than Benny will be able to catch, unless he tangles with another capall on ahead of us - but for now all I am concerned with is how close he is, and that feline turn of his horse's head - and then there is a soft cry. Like a small surprise, more than anything of the nature of distress, and my head whips around to my other side in time to see a horse - I'm not even sure which one - on the other side of Caedmon unseat their rider - and then Caedmon and it are fighting over the body - and out of the corner of my eye I see Truett get ahold of his horse's bloodlust and get back into the race, and push ahead - but all I can focus on is Jonah dodging the flailing of the other horse, and trying to get ahold of Caedmon's head - but it's a lost cause. He needs to get free. He realizes this, I watch him realize it, but there's no where for him to go, as the pack I'd just escaped starts to close around us again, as they all try to steer clear of the fight, as Benny snaps at yet another passing rider and I'm going to be someone else's lunch if I don't push her onwards but -

My body reacts without my mind, and I am pushing Benny closer to the fight, reaching out one arm at the last moment, hooking it around Jonah under his arms, and pulling him free as he kicks off his stirrups and I kick at Caedmon with my iron spur, and Jonah is throwing salt at both the horses and they leave him for the one they've already caught, still tearing the spoils between them as they plunge into the foam, becoming more sea creature than horse before our very eyes, and everyone else has managed to steer around us, by some great miracle that I think I need to thank a god for, and Benny, by yet another miracle, runs along with only my one hand to guide her, and Jonah bumping along at her side while my muscles burn, and slowing down to a canter and then a brief rough trot, and then a walk, and then stands still, even with the surf licking at her ankles. Her ears are swiveled back to me - curious, confused, but she stands, and I hold Jonah, and she holds us both.

Jonah and I are both breathing raggedly, our hearts kicking too much blood too fast through our bodies, and it takes my arm nearly giving out for me to remember to let him go. He stumbles in the surf for a moment before finding his feet. He turns to look at me, wide eyed, and I stare back, and I feel like my vision is going fuzzy, but there are people shouting, and Benny is turning her head, so I turn my head as well, to see people rushing towards us with bright red med bags, and they, too, seem to be in slow motion.

[solidaritetwatson]

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? @thescorpioracesfestival

Every day, my arrival at the beach is met with a few frosty looks and a host of cold shoulders, but no one else is vocal about my training anywhere else. So I ignore them as much as they ignore me, and Benny and I work alone - just as we always have.

Not that I don't pay attention to their little dramas, of course. Like Flynn, who's managing to race with one arm, after she suffered a nasty attack in the last race. So much for keeping blood out of the race for the tourists. There was plenty of it last year.

And Gore, who can't keep his grey in a straight line, no matter how much magic he weighs her down with.

And Truett, who's got the fastest horse on this beach, and is the one to beat.

There's also another small drama that catches my eye - there's a newer rider, who just started last year, I think. He's got a mass of black curls on his head - when they're not damped down by his helmet - and his horse matches his hair. Well, the color part, not the curly part, obviously. Anyway, what's caught my eye is that his trainer, Percy Epperson, has been yelling at him non stop for the week and half we've been out here. Percy is always loud and demanding, but he seems to have really lost his patience with "Coslett" - his last name, I'm assuming, but that's what's being yelled against the wind. It's about everything - his seat, his stance, his grip, his posture, his attitude, his attention, his use of magic charms, his choice of magic charms... I'm telling you, everything.

What's strange is that, if "Coslett" raced last year, as it seems he has, from comments I've overheard, and if my memory serves me correctly - though I was a little preoccupied last year, trying to survive my own first training period - I don't remember this much yelling. Eventually, I solve the mystery by eavesdropping on Sylvie and Taz one day as they cool their capaill down near Benny and I.

McKane was his trainer last year.

Well, last year was McKane's last year. He retired.

He also had a completely different training style than Epperson has.

I wonder what made "Coslett" - I now know his first name is Jonah - choose his new trainer as he did. Surely he knew they would not be anything alike - had he not done his research, or did he want something new? Had he not been satisfied with his training last year?

Or did he even have a choice?

I shudder in the wind as it blows across the sea at us, pushing Benny closer to the cliff, though she pushes valiantly against it as she gallops down the stretch of sand. Next will come a big breaker, I know, and I prepare myself to get splashed - and to potentially have Benny spook. She handles it like a champ though, snorting and shaking her head a bit, but carrying on without missing a step.

"Good girl," I breathe into her ear.

Jonah Coslett, who is running his capall not far ahead of me, doesn't fair so well.

That black stallion he's got under him is a beast of a horse. Taller than any other capaill here, other than Tye's bay stallion (who won two races in a row before missing out last year), he has a vicious look in his eye and looks like a monster to hold. He's fast, but he fights for the sea, and has managed to get a call out far more times than any other rider on this beach has allowed from their capaill. Not that Jonah isn't putting up a valiant effort - but it's clear, at least to me, that too much of his energy is being used up with being frustrated with his trainer, leaving him with not enough to manage a horse that could probably stand to be on land anther year or so before racing. In my mind, at least, I see a horse that needs to even out a few more levels before I'd want to be holding it back from anyone's else's lifeblood - I wish I could remember how they faired last year. I wish I was friendly enough with someone else here to ask, besides Rosa, who's got her hands full with her own new recruit, fresh this year, and on a fresh horse. She looks more and more tired every day. This doesn't seem to be the time to quiz her on something I should be remembering for myself. If this giant, this Goliath, was out in the races last year... wouldn't I have remembered it?

I search Jonah's name on my phone as I lie in bed that night. He's not coming up in the news articles from last years race - at first all I can find is the winners announcements, and even who came in second and third, and then I finally find a full breakdown of the race.

The TV coverage is never that great, because the camera crews aren't allowed down on the beach, and drones spook the horses too much. Plus, the chaos is so intense, that it's hard to keep track of what's going on, even with the high speed, high definition cameras they've got nowadays. So the race breakdown is my best option to find out what happened to every rider on the beach that day.

Though, in the end, I probably could have seen what happened with Jonah in the TV footage. He was on a different horse - a roan mare, named Circe, and she had her throat ripped out by Finnegan's bay horse, who he, in turn, ended up losing to the sea.

I go and watch the footage on YouTube. After the race is over, the camera pans back to check on the downed riders, and rolls back the footage to just after the other horses have stormed past, leaving Finnegan and Jonah in the surf. The footage shows Jonah throwing himself at Finnegan, as Finnegan's horse is trying to drag Circe into the sea with him. Finnegan had still been fighting to regain control - a lost cause at that point, and Jonah had known it. Somehow, they both manage to scramble away from the flailing hooves and the suck of the current, and stumble up onto the beach. The coverage goes back to the winner, and I'm about to shut it off, when suddenly it flashes back to the bloodied beach. The commentator is saying that after standing there and shivering in shock for a few moments, Finnegan has started to lose it at Jonah. Jonah can be seen flinching backwards, arms wrapped around his body as he shivers in his water and blood soaked jersey, while Finnegan - probably still in shock, honestly, leans toward him, face red with anger, yelling something the cameras can't pick up.

I remember this now. I was in my own haze of shock and disappointment from failing qualifying that morning, but I do remember being glad they made it out, and then being caught up in the excitement over the winner like everyone else - especially since that win had seemed to come out of left field. A lot of people lost their bets that day.

Finnegan probably apologized later - the race has finished now, and trainers and med teams can be seen running down onto the beach, calming Finnegan down and leading him away, making sure that the blood Jonah is covered in isn't his own. Probably some of it is, but the cameras don't stick around to check. They go back to the winners circle, with a few more slow motion glamor shots of the triumphant rider and capall, before closing off. Finnegan is a decent guy - but he does have a temper. Honestly, most of the jockeys do. And shock will make you do all sorts of things - things that, once you've recovered your senses, will make no sense. Like yelling at a jockey who saved your life, probably, after your horse killed his.

Anyway, I haven't noticed any animosity between Finnegan and Jonah this year, though I haven't been looking for it, and Jonah has had enough animosity with his trainer to keep him busy enough. Mostly, what this whole drama has me wondering over, is how many years his current capall has been out of the sea for.

And who trained him.

It's none of my business, and I shouldn't care, but after watching Jonah go through another brutal training session the next morning, I can't help my curiosity. It's like, after I've had some lunch at the tavern, my feet just pick me up and start me walking towards the stables that I know Epperson works at.

Some of the trainers work at multiple stables, working for their clients rather than the barn manager, but Epperson has a more traditional contract. He works for Yanick Farrows, and Farrows owns the old Gunthrie stables, renamed Farrows Horsepark - though as it's made up of only two buildings running parallel to each other, and a handful of surrounding pastures, I'd hardly call it a "Horsepark." But I'm sure it looks good on an advert selling yearlings.

There's a track just beyond the buildings, and after walking through the main gate like I belong there, and giving polite but firm nods to any stable hands I've passed, that's where my feet take me - unbothered by anyone. Epperson, sure enough, is out there - he's got a whistle hanging from his mouth and a stopwatch in his hand, and after his morning diet of capaill uisce, he's moved onto Thoroughbreds. I stand at a small distance and watch him for a moment - but he's not what I've come here to see. I wander back towards the buildings, and am making my way towards the larger stalls at the end of the farther building, where I know the capaill will be, when someone finally notices that I don't belong.

"Hey! Mister," calls a stableboy, trotting up to me, "What's your business?" And then, blushing, as he realizes he's sounded a bit rude, "Can I help you, sir?"

I'm much too young to be called sir or mister, either one, in my mind, and I just give him a small smile (to show him I don't hold anything against him), and a smaller shake of the head (to show he can't help me), and say, "I'm just waiting for Jonah."

"Oh -" the boy looks a little confused. "Is he expecting you?"

"Yes - 'friad I showed up a little bit early. He'll be down in a moment, I'm sure."

"Oh," said the boy again, awkwardly; and then, after another moment, runs off again.

I hope it's not to get Jonah. Oh well. I'll make this fast.

Now that one of them has spoken to me, I can be pretty safely assured none of the rest of them will bother me, so, continuing to look like I'm just killing time, I wander closer to the capaill stalls. There are three of them here - two of them are entered this year, and the third one must either be too fresh, or too slow. There are bars over their stall openings, so they can't stick their heads out like the other horses, and the wooden part of the doors is reinforced with steel.

Goliath - I don't know his real name - is watching me with a large, watery eye. The bay beside him can't decided if she's watching me, or the cat wandering down the path looking for a sunny spot to nap in, and the third horse is too far back in her stall for me to see her color.

Maybe it's not that she's fresh or slow. Maybe it's just that she's sullen.

I walk close enough to read the plaque on Goliath's stall door: "Caedmon Callis," it says - but it lacks a catch year.

It's not super common to have a more in-depth plaque unless you've won a race and thus are slightly famous - but it was worth a shot. Next up is the records.

The records are not hard to access. They rarely are - it's not as if they hold any secrets. What they're recording, is which horse is in which stall and needs what food and what supplements, and has this special condition and doesn't like his head touched or tries to break out of your hands at the pasture gate. They were born such and such year and they're on such and such medications and have had all their vet visits... and a bunch of other boring details that you need when you run a stable. All it takes is disappearing into the bathroom for long enough for the stable hands to forget that they were tracking my movements and to get distracted with other things, and then I can duck out, and into the office right next door.

No one is in the office, as I could tell before I attempted this, by the window in the wall, allowing the stable manager to keep an eye on his domain while he works - and which also allows the stable boys to see that I'm in here - a problem I quickly solve by lowering the shade. Thankfully the movement doesn't seem to catch any of their eyes.

The records are, as I guessed they would be, in easy reach, right there at the corner of the desk, and in fact are already flipped open, so someone could scroll in Ophelia's most recent dental check up results. As the horses are sorted in the three ring binder by name, Caedmon is quite easy to find.

Instead of Caedmon's birth date, of course, is his catch date.

To my surprise, he was caught three years ago. He's been out of the water nearly as long as Benny has - and though she's no saint, she's not trying to drown me every day.

What's even more surprising is that Jonah is not Caedmon's first rider. A woman named JennyBeth was. I remember that name - the headlines roll back through my brain. I remember her name, because it's not an islander name, and because she died last year.

In the very first morning race.

I can't risk staying much longer - especially if that stable boy really did go to find Jonah - so I snap a picture of the page with my phone and let the book fall back open to where it was before. There's a door in the back of the room which leads outside - handy for smoke breaks - and sure enough, there is a little gravel patch just outside, with a smoking receptacle. And no one, thankfully, to see me leave that way. I make my way back around the building, and am soon whistling my way back down the lane, jacket hooked over my shoulder in the warmth of the afternoon sun.

Back out on the road, I stop my act, and pull up the page again on my phone, frowning at the details. There's no way a morning racer was being trained by Epperson, and sure enough, the first trainer listed is JennyBeth herself. Farrows must have bought the stallion after her death - though who would want to buy a horse that's already murdered someone, I don't know, and besides, that's not how it's supposed to work. He should have been led into the sea at her funeral. But I think I've already mentioned how no one follows the old ways anymore.

I'm shaking my head in disgust as I google JennyBeth's name. Just as I suspected, she was a foreigner - someone from the mainland, though her mother was supposedly from here, and she'd come to the island, her friends said, in "pursuit of her roots," after her mom died from cancer. Tragic, really, the whole thing. I can sympathize with her motives, of course, but if she'd been on the island a little longer, maybe she would have known better than to try to race that particular horse. Probably she should have thrown him back to the sea.

I wonder if anyone tried to tell her this.

Of course she wouldn't have had an island funeral anyway, then, but I wonder who benefited from the sale of the horse. How Epperson, who's hot tempered but usually has a pretty good head on his shoulders, was convinced to train this horse, How he decided to put Jonah, who already nearly died last year, up on it.

There's something here I'm missing. I scroll through more news articles. A cousin is mentioned, finally. A cousin who, clouded with grief, probably shouldn't have raced that day, but did anyway, and nearly got himself killed as well.

My heart sinks. I go back to Caedmon's page, and that's when I realize what I'd missed before.

Farrows is not Caedmon's owner.

Jonah is.

[vintervittrannerd]

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

[pickleandthequeen]

Training 9: obstacles

Any enemies on the beach?

Training continues—how does it go for your rider? Have they made any enemies on the beach?

“She’s going to get someone killed. It’s bad enough they’ve let the women start racing, but now a bleeding heart mainlander is treating a capall uisce like a puppy as if giving it scraps of meat will tame it.”

Rosalie peered over a copy of The Post at the speaker. She didn’t know the man - it wasn’t Thomas Gratton or Eaton or anyone she recognized immediately. He was obviously of Thisby by his accent. His companion however was decidedly not from Thisby. The tourist wore denim pants and a button down, collared linen shirt and a wide brimmed cowboy hat. He looked a little ridiculous, like something pulled out of a political cartoon. Right down to the tall leather boots with spiked rowels.

“The way I see it, Patrick, these water horses need a real strong hand, and there’s not a thing we know better than that back home in Texas, we’ve got real strong hands.”

“It takes more than a strong hand to handle a cappal, Cameron. There’s magic and skill and -“

“I don’t adhere much to magic,” Cameron, the Texan, drawled.

@thescorpioracesfestival

[vintervittrannerd]

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

[vintervittrannerd]

Training Challenge #8: Home & Family

@thescorpioracesfestival

It has started to rain when Freya walks back towards the farm with Corax after another day of beach training. The clouds are dark and promise a heavier rainfall during the night, and Freya is relieved they made it back before the worst of the rain arrives. She isn’t a fan of getting stuck out in a rainstorm with so many capaill uisce out on the beach.

There’s light in the windows of the house, so Grandpa must already be home. When they come closer Freya can see him moving around in the kitchen, no doubt preparing the dinner. Freya get a warm feeling when she sees him, mixed with the usual worry of losing him. He is all the family she has left now, after grandma died a few years ago. Him and Corax.

After her mother and sister left for the mainland, it had felt like a sign when Freya found Kaja at the beach and Corax was born. Like somehow, she had lost family, but also gained new one. Kaja had also left, but Corax remained a part of Freya’s family, as essential as grandpa.

When she’s brought him inside his stall, put away all the tack and put his dinner, a large bucket of raw meat, down on the stall floor to him, Freya lingers in the stall for a bit. She treads her fingers through Corax silver mane and rests her cheek against his soft black shoulder and hums softly to him as he eats. He is family, and sometimes she loves him so much it frightens her. Most of her family is gone, but Corax remains, as does grandpa, and she doesn’t want to lose either of them.

She gives herself a few more moments to lean on Corax and breath in his smell before heading out of the stall and out into the rain again. She doesn’t want to worry grandpa by staying out too long.

Before she heads inside though, Freya decides to check up on the sheep to make sure they’re secure in the barn before the rainstorm comes in at full force. She’s greeted by soft bleating when she enters, and although she had intended to just do a quick count of them and then head inside, she can’t resist sitting down in the straw among the sheep for a few minutes, the way she use to as a child. Two of the sheep, Moon and Jen, immediately approaches and demands pets by softly nudging Freya with their muzzles. They don’t keep many sheep, only eleven ewes and, in spring and summer, their lambs. Freya knows them all by name, was there when most of them were born, and no matter how much she loves Corax, there is something about interacting with animals that she can let her guard down completely around that is hard to beat. The sheep gives her a feeling of safety, of familiarity, of calm that is hard to find anywhere else. They remind her of being a child and playing out in the barn with Jenna, after their father had died and they moved to their grandparents’ farm. Jen was named in honor of Jenna, born the spring after she and their mother had left Thisby, and with wool the same warm brown colour as Jenna’s hair. Freya’s own hair, with its frizzy yellow curls, bare more resemblance to the straw she’s sitting on than to any of the sheep surrounding her. Evidently, the sheep thinks so too, because a sudden thug brings Freya straight back to reality as Gretel, one of the youngest ewes, tries to eat the ponytail sticking out from under her beanie.  

“That is not for eating.” She flicks Gretel gently on her muzzle and the ewe stops chewing on Freya’s ponytail to give her an offended look. “I’m sorry, but its not.”

With a last few scratches behind the sheep’s ears, Freya gets up and starts to brush off the straw from her pants, just as a loud “meow” announces the arrival of their black barn cat, Green. Freya smiles and meows back at the cat and Green comes closer and starts to stroke against her legs.

“Hello pretty girl, have you caught any mice today?” Green meows as a response and continue to circle around Freya’s legs, making the walk out of the barn more difficult than necessary.

One look at the sky outside, and Freya decides to bring the cat inside the house with her. If there’s really a storm coming tonight, she doesn’t want Green to be out in it. She scoops up the now purring cat and, shielding her as much as possible from the ever-increasing rain, hurries to the house.

Inside she is greeted by their large grey sheepdog, Ash, the smell of freshly baked bread and grandpas voice calling from the kitchen to tell her to wash up before dinner. With a smile, Freya does as she’s told. She wants to spend as much time with grandpa before the races as she can, so tonight, she has decided to let herself forget all her worries about the upcoming races and just have a nice evening. Tomorrow, she can worry about something going wrong during the races. Tonight, she’ll have dinner with her grandpa and fall asleep to the sound of him reading to himself in the living room. Tonight, she’ll feel perfectly safe.

Masterlist

[solidaritetwatson]

Training Challenge #9: Obstacles

Training continues—how does it go for your rider? Have they made any enemies on the beach? @thescorpioracesfestival

[note: I've been skipping around to the challenges I'm most interested in writing, because I started late so I won't have time for them all anyway.]

The second week of beach training is almost nothing like the first. The first is filled with the chaos of the uncertain riders - now, they've all been weeded out, and there's a certain air of determination. The small time riders take up the widest strip of the beach - the pros are willing to risk the narrower bit in order to distance themselves from the horses more likely to get out of hand.

I have to go with them, if I'm to be seen as anything at all.

Last year, a few of them were more curious about me. Kinder. Considered the chance that I could turn into one of them, with enough grooming, the right trainer - if I showed enough talent, I could get sponsors. Hey, they all started somewhere - yeah, that somewhere was mostly in the elite stables of the island, working their way up from stall muckers, maybe, for a few, or otherwise getting jobs as grooms or trainers' lackeys, depending on who they're related to... but they all started somewhere, didn't they? So why not this farmer's son? He's got heart, we can all see it... these are the kinds of the things I'd overhear them saying at bars, or when they thought the wind would carry their voices away from me, or on a few occasions just right in front of my face.

Then Benny took a chunk out of one of their legs, and I failed qualifying, and they don't really seem to believe in a Cinderella story for me anymore. Only a handful of them did to begin with, anyway. Most of them have always shook their heads at me - but I don't mind. I've never been the sort of person who needs anyone's approval.

The worst part, really, is that O'Mally is still really civil to me, even after the accident with his leg. It makes me feel guilty and wretched, every time he gives me a small smile, full of what's supposed to be a shared irony, and an even smaller nod. His leg is fine now - though the scar will stay, of course - and as long as Benny keeps off him and his horse (whom she absolutely loathes, for some reason)... well really, as long as I can keep my shit together and keep my own horse in my own hands... I guess we'll continue to be alright.

She didn't even bite him during race training - we all train all year long, obviously, and we were on Flannery's track, him and Sal Galliger were headed off the main track, and I was coming off the cooling track, and they'd just stopped to exchange notes and a few polite words with me, and she went all feral - right in the middle of July.

The little shit.

Anyway - they're all cautious of me this morning. If I get any smiles of greeting, they're all stiff.

Except for O'Mally. Of course.

And then there's the trainers, who all ignore me, except for Rosa, and she's not exactly the glowing warm and lovey type. So she gives me a curt nod, and then goes back to her work. Sal goes so far as to shake his head at me, before leaning down to say something to his trainer, and Beverly Mills gives me the finger before starting her horse down the beach at a gallop.

I feel so welcomed. So loved.

But I don't mind. I give tight lipped nods back to O'Mally and Rosa, and then I get to work.

Beach training is just as much about getting a good look at the other racers as it is testing your capall uisce next to the late October sea. I already warmed Benny up on the cliffs just above us, so she's mostly minding me as I set our pace down the narrow strip of sand, running with Bridget Gilbert and Chuck Bridgers just ahead of us, and Beverly making her way back.

Benny wants to race, pulling towards Gilbert and Bridgers' capaill, but they started soon enough ahead of us that there's no point in trying to make anything of it. Benny shakes her head, chewing on the bit as she disagrees with me. At least no one can call her lazy.

As I take her back down again, her right hooves sometimes splashing in a bit of surf, I catch one of the trainers watching us. He's got a hawkish nose and a round belly - he's been at this just a bit longer than Rosa has, and I've never seen him smile. Even when one of his riders won four years ago - he stood on that podium with his British comedy straight face, holding the trophy like it was any other Tuesday.

Which is why I've never taken any notice of him frowning at me before, and would have barely noticed it today if he didn't walk up to us once we were done cooling off, a couple hours later. Well, he sort of walked up to us. He kept his distance, arms crossed tightly over his chest, clearly waiting for a chance to speak.

I'd fetched a towel from my pack and was wiping the worst of the foamy sweat off of Benny, but paused when I realized he wasn't going to move on.

"Mr. Keon?" I asked, uncertain that I was even getting the name right. I have a bad habit of making up nicknames for people, and then only remembering those. I used to be worse about it when I was a kid, but since he's been around since I was a kid... well, I only ever refer to him in my head as Mr. Krank.

"Boy," he said, pulling in his breath as if these words cost him some effort (or maybe all words do), "I don't know what you're hoping for out here, but someone needs to give you a reality check."

Oh dear, I think to myself with a sigh, here we go.

"If you want to run, you've got that right, of course, but you'll only have a chance in the morning races. You're not a child anymore, and this isn't a child's game anyway. This is no place for dreamers. Dreaming, on this beach, will get you killed. The sponsors watch that beach just as closely as this one - some of these boys started out there."

One - exactly one, in the time I've been alive - and never mind that there aren't just "boys" on this beach...

"So there's really no point in you're being over here. I may be the only one here saying it to you now, but you've got to know it's a consistent feeling among us. It's-"

I'm getting restless - my lunch is calling my name - so I finally interrupt him. Who knows how long he could go on for anyway?

"What are you so afraid of?"

"...a - what?"

"What. Are you. So afraid of?" I ask again, staring him down.

I don't give him the pleasure of giving him options to choose from. I just silently stare him down until he blusters,

"It's not fear making me ask you to view these things realistically. It's in interest of everyone's safety, and-"

"If it's safety you're worried about, then that means you ARE afraid of something."

He glares at me, losing his patience. Finally. I was there a long time ago. Now we're matched.

"Alright, boy, I'll stop being polite." I scoff, but he continues. "I'm afraid that you're going to hurt someone here that doesn't deserve it, that-"

"Let me stop you right there," I say, holding up a hand. "Everyone on this beach knows the danger. Everyone here DESERVES it. Everyone here is meddling with something we could be leaving alone. Everyone here has lost control of a capaill uisce at some point, because these are monsters at the end of a leash. You do get that, don't you? Surely you haven't forgotten, after all these years on this beach. Everyone here is a person on the back of a people-eating horse. Everyone here is one tiny mistake away from their blood being spilled on the sand. So you can leave off with your little sermon. No one here is better than anyone else, just because they've got an Adidas jersey on their back. If I make you uncomfortable - that's your own problem, not mine."

"You have no trainer!" he bursts out, thoroughly red in the face now.

I shrug; then grin and ask, "You volunteering?"

"You - you -" he says, pointing a finger at me, and I'm sure the tirade he was about to release would have been wonderful, a piece of oration to behold - if Rosa hadn't put a hand on his shoulder.

"Rosa, I know you have a soft spot for this boy, but he doesn't belong here! He's an endangerment to everyone!"

"He's not." Rosa says. She looks at me, and nods, and I start to pack up my stuff and make to leave.

"Rosa - he has to be made to understand! He has no chance out here! It's a risk not worth taking!"

"Oh? And which horse was it that killed Bec last year?" she asks cooly.

I didn't think it was possible for him to go redder, but he has.

Because of course, it was one of Rosa's riders' horses that killed Bec.

"It's as Aled said. Death is as natural as life. Maybe even more natural. And he and his capall are no more of a risk than anyone else on this beach. So if he's hurting your aesthetic, buy him a jersey so he can blend in. But you try to make yourself king of this beach, and you're gonna have some damn competition."

And suddenly, he realizes that in trying to speak for all of them, he's put himself above them all. A dangerous place to try to be. So he just shakes his head - and since the best of the fight is over, I turn my back on them and start back up the beach towards the path up the cliffs.

Behind me I hear him go, "Now, Rosa, you know that's not what I'm trying to do..."

"I don't know what you're trying to do," Rosa says icily, "But whatever it is, I'm not a fan, Keon."

I smirk to myself.

And I think I owe Rosa a drink.

[solidaritetwatson]

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

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

Racing, if you do it right, can be a religion.

Up on that rock, calling out my name and Benydiau's, spilling my blood - that, for me, is like lighting the first advent candle, or getting your face marked with ash on Ash Wednesday. I love those things too - I love all ceremony, all symbolism - but long before the priests came to this island, my people had a way of reaching God.

The found Her on the back of a horse.

When I ride Benny down the beach, I'm thinking about a lot of practical things. I'm thinking of keeping her head straight, which keeps her feet straight. I'm couscous of the way her body feels beneath me, how loose or tense she feels. I'm watching her ears and reading the messages they're sending me. I'm skimming iron over her withers to get her to pay attention when she loses focus, I'm tying knots in her mane when her ears are only swiveling to the sea, I whisper my own song in her ears so she remembers why she's here, I trace circles across her skin when she needs calming. It's a constant act of motion, a balancing act. It involves my whole brain and my whole body.

And also my whole soul.

While my body and my mind do the hard work of staying alive, my soul is quietly singing in worship. In awe and wonder. It's in the gritted teeth happiness that comes from existing in the chaos between life and death that I can see the face of the Divine. It's in the knowing you're alive because at any moment you could die.

We are dust. To dust we will return.

Or on Thisby - we are salt of the sea. The sea drinks our blood. The sea knows her own. To the sea we will return.

To the sea we all, man and capaill alike, return. Some of us are just more alive when we do so.

I'm not condoning everything my people ever did to celebrate this connection. They used to spill something a little worse than sheeps blood on the rock before we call out our names. I don't think any of us should ever be condoning everything done in the name of God - the people aren't what makes a thing holy, or right. That would negate the purpose of a higher power anyway.

What I am saying is that I'm not in these races for the purse, or for the fame, or for any of those tangible, commercialized things. I ride the races because I find God when I'm on the back of my capaill, magic fizzing through my veins and salt filling my lungs and sand pockmarking my face.

And in this world, in this day and age - God is hard enough to find.

[solidaritetwatson]

Training Challenge #6: Explore the Festival

How does your rider navigate the Festival? What do they do before and after the Riders Parade? @thescorpioracesfestival

I used to love the festival - back before I had any blood in this game, back before anyone knew my name. Or had any reason to spit on it, that is.

Still, there is a kind of addictive magic to it, once you're in it. The Mare Goddess haunts the night, the drums get under your skin and into your bloodstream, until you can believe magic is real, if you didn't already. Everything smells like smoke and sugar. And blood, later. Or if you stand too close to The Mare Goddess.

Kids are scrambling for her dropped sand and rocks, looking for the shell, and the tourists debate among themselves if that's real blood, and I stand back from the crowd and let the surge of all it tip me forward, as if towards a ledge.

The ledge is the rock, and my blood dripped down upon it.

Last year, no one thought I'd be able to come up with the money for the fee, and this year, everyone thought the same - because how could the son of a farmer who does nothing but odd jobs for people all year have come up with enough again? On top of feeding a capall? But he has, and the bills are spread out on the counter at the butchers where everyone craning their heads around can see them.

I tip forward on my toes as the forward motion of the magic rushes through my body.

This night, and the races. That's when I can almost imagine how it used to be, back when there were dozens of farmers boys like me climbing that rock and calling out their names. Back when this night was as religious as church on Sunday. As monumental as Easter or Christmas.

OK, well, to be fair, those have been commercialized too, but you get my point, right? About how big of a deal this is. What it used to be. The way it wakes up something old and buried in people's hearts. Something they turn off for the rest of the year, something they forget as soon as the night is over.

My sister finds me just before the parade starts marching the riders up the hill. She's wearing a mask with horns and she's got flowers draped around her neck. She smells like cheap beer.

"Come on," she says, grabbing my hand roughly, "You can't hide in the shadows all night."

Because my sister doesn't approve of what I'm doing either, and she thinks that if I'm going to be mocked, it should be to my face. Because once upon a time I used to spend the night in a mask, eating November cakes and drinking beer and being a pain to her and her friends, and now that I've moved on to something else even more obnoxious to her, she's decided that she misses the old version.

In our path suddenly stands the Mare Goddess. My sister gives a high laugh and says "Quick, get a picture with her!" trying to shove me forward and pulling out her phone. I stand stonily still, watching the dead horse head with the glass eye.

We still never know who's under there, and the horse head is forever old and carefully preserved. My mother mutters about an old cult still operating on the island and keeping up the tradition, but if such a thing exists, it's managed to stay hidden from me. And I am very thorough.

Someone distracts Miriam - one of her friends - and they turn around and grab a selfie with The Mare Goddess together, but the Goddess hasn't moved. She's still looking at me.

"If you're here to grant me a wish," I say quietly, so quietly that I'm not sure she can even hear me, "Then what I want is to get through qualifying."

It's a lie. I want to win. But there is such a thing as to wish for too much. At least that's what I think, until she lowers her head until her dead cheek is next to mine and says in a low, gravely, women's voice, "Wish with your mouth what you wish with your heart, or don't bother wishing at all."

I blink as she walks away, the smell of blood filling my nose and stinging my eyes - though I should be used enough to it by now.

"Come ON," Miriam says, grabbing my hand again and clearly not having noticed my little conversation with the Goddess, "You really are such a BORE." And she's pulling me into the crowd and dancing to the drums and I watch her, and the kids in rubber horse heads dancing around her, and the jangling of bells is hurting my head and finally, finally, they are getting in line to march up the hill.

I quietly get in line with everyone else, and everyone else ignores the fact that I am here. I am invisible. I don't mind.

I'm not in this for them.

[thescorpioracesfestival]

The Scorpio Races Festival 2023: Giveaway Prizes

Congratulations to our winners! All prizes were designed by the lovely @denimwingsface!

Our 1st place giveaway winner, @vintervittrannerd, has won a notebook!

Our 2nd and 3rd place giveaway winners, @solidaritetwatson and @lucimiir, have each won a button and a sticker! (Please let us know when you message us which horse you would prefer for each item.)

Rules:

The winners have one week to claim their prizes after being notified. Please message us here at @thescorpioracesfestival

Prizes will be shipped directly from Redbubble to our prize winners, so you must be comfortable sharing your shipping address.

If you are under 18, you must have your parent’s permission to provide your shipping address.

Open internationally.

[solidaritetwatson]

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

The sea has started spitting out horses, so the pros polish up their boots and iron out their best riding clothes and head down to beach to make a show of it.

I don't hate them. I know if may sound like I do, but I don't. I just think they're a bit annoying. And that most of them have sticks up their butts. That's all.

Wether I like them or not, I have to train with them. So I get up before the sun, check to see if Benny will eat anything - as expected, she won't, she can smell the scorpio sea and she's high strung and eager. She'll be ready to eat after a good run - and hopefully her hunger won't lead her to eat something she shouldn't. But that's on me.

I frown, watching her crane her neck to catch the scent of the sea through the barn door. Her sharp, curved ears are straining for sound - waiting for the calls of her kind. She starts to keen for them, but I sing low over the top of her, drowning her out and annoying her, her ears flickering to me and away again, to me and away again, until she gives up with a snort of impatience. She almost sounds like a normal horse, then. Those moments will get fewer and farther between, the close we get to November.

I go back to house. I change out my muddy rubber boots for muddy leather boots, grab the lunch my mother so kindly packed for me - as if I were still a boy to be cared for and not a young man who's throwing away his life - shove a hat onto my head, and head back out the door.

The first year, I wore freshly washed corduroys, a freshly ironed button down, a smart black jacket, buffed my worn boots till they shown, and combed back my hair with water before placing a brand new cap over the top of it.

I still looked dowdy besides the professionals, with their contracts and their sponsored sportswear, and by the end of the day my jacket was torn, my pants scuffed with sand, my boots stiff with sea water, and my new cap long gone. So ever since then, I haven't bothered. Better not to take anything you're too afraid to get bloody down to the beach.

I don't live near Skarmouth, but there's no beach round the hard side of Thisby, where I live (there's a reason it's called "the hard side"), and during racing season, I'm not allowed to train anywhere else. So Benny gets her warm up making the trip down the west side of the island, making everyone that passes us on the road give us a nervously wide berth. There's a reason, after all, for the training rule: she's tossing her head like mad and keeps tracking to the right, even though the sea is yards beyond us, across a few fields and then down a sharp cliff, and her eyes keep rolling in her head and she keeps trying to get around the bit.

Now that it's training season, it's not wise to keep trekking her back and forth. I rent a stall down at Gunther's stables for her - he's a monger and lets out fifths - a dying practice, but a few people are desperate enough every year to keep it alive. They mostly race in the shorter morning races, for smaller purses. The main race costs a pretty hefty fee to enter now, to try to keep the riffraff out. Less inexperience means less blood on the beach which means better tourist money. Those with a more gruesome interest can still go to the morning races, where there is still plenty of bloody chaos to keep things interesting. Not that blood can be fully avoided in the main race - these are still capaill uisce, after all. No one has ever, or will ever be able to tame them completely.

As I fight to hold Benny, circling her several times on the cliff overlooking the beach before I dare dismount and lead her down, drawing a small crowd of gawkers as I do so - I think ruefully to myself that no one would ever guess she's been on land four years. She looks nearly sea fresh right now, getting into half rears before I can bring her down again. I've got her ear cupped in one hand, keeping it trained on my voice as I sing low magic to her, and work the reigns with the other. I wish I had a third hand to draw circles on her neck, and maybe a forth to tie knots of threes and sevens in her mane. But eventually, she does mind me, looking at me warily with one watery eye. I can feel her magic burning my skin - I pull my sleeve back over my wrist, flick the sweat from my brow, and carefully climb down, never taking my eyes from hers. Even knowing, as she does, that I'm watching her and ready for anything, she still tries me, as she often does, and tries to bolt when I've got one foot still in the stirrup. But I've got her head in my hands and I jerk her down hard, then turn her in still more circles once I'm on the ground.

"Don't know what you're playing at," I hear someone mutter - but I don't turn my head to see who it was. For one, that's all the window Benny would need right now to snake out and take a bite out of me, and for another, it doesn't matter. No one on this island believes I should be in the main race. The small ones, sure. Those are for people like me, racing on a worn and passed down family racing saddle, wearing the same clothes I'd wear any given Sunday, and with no polished manners for the interviewers with the cameras.

Not that I've ever made it that far - but they don't want me to. The pride of the residents of Thisby is no longer in taking part in the races, but in keeping them a clean show for outsiders to ooh and ahh at, buy a million souvenirs for, and then go home and tell their friends what a great time they had, and that they should go and they should book this hotel and this touring company and these excursions...

That world is still a week away from me though, so I push it out of my mind. Benny needs me to be present, and so do the people around me. I'm finally able to get close enough to huff a breath into her nose, and then another, filling her world with my scent. She blinks slowly at me. I give her a look that means business, and I swear that if she could, she would roll her eyes at me.

"OK now?" I ask her softly.

She huffs back at me in seeming reluctance. I shake my head at her, but I think she's about as steady as she's going to get today, and I lead her down the path to the beach.

The beach, as usual, is chaos. No amount of sponsors and contracts can ever change the fact that these first few days are the most uncertain and dangerous of them all, outside of race day. Maybe even more so. This is when the bowler hats are finding riders to take fifths, down here with their assortment of untrained capaill uisce, washed up maybe a year ago, sometimes even less. You'd have to be crazy to race a horse fresh out of the sea that season. Crazy, or desperate. And there are always plenty of both. Plus, there are always a few pros with newer horses. New as in, they've been worked on land and out of season for a few years now, and are making their first appearance on the beach, their riders testing them out to see if this one or that one has what it takes to win. Which one they like the feel of the best, which one seems least likely to eat them but also fast enough to make it down the beach before someone else's horse eats them.

If you think I'm being dramatic with all this talk of eating... well, you've never met a capaill uisce, have you?

I get here nearly at the same time as everyone else, and there's already blood on the beach.

I take a deep breath, which is a mistake. My lungs are filled with brine and dead fish and the sharp tang of fresh blood. Benny's nostrils are flared wide, drinking it all in eagerly. I trace circles down her neck, and she shivers under my touch. Her whole body is trembling, actually - this is her time. Her world. The sea calls her name, and I snap a ribbon across her nose when she looks likely to sing back.

"Oi! Aled!" someone calls, and I squint into the low morning sun to see Rosa, her hair already torn out of its ponytail by the wind. She's one of the trainers for the pros, and she's one of the few people on this beach who will pay me any mind. She's in her fifties, hails from Mexico, got caught up in the magic of this place thirty years ago, and hasn't looked back since. She's a master with the horses - she won a few races of her own before she turned to training full time - and she doesn't have a stick up her butt. Maybe it's because she knows what it's like to be an outsider.

I give her a nod, duck out of the wind behind an outcropping in the rocks, draw a circle in the sand and spit in it, and dare to let go of my death grip on Benny - though I never let her out of the corner of my eye, and she's still drawing on all my senses.

Rosa comes to stand beside me, hands in her pockets as she turns to look out at the beach with me. I have my hands clasped behind my back, my fist full of salt. We stand in silence like that for awhile, just watching; and then she starts giving me tidbits. They're just comments, really, about who she thinks is going to stick with what horse and what condition each of the known horses are in, a few rumors passed around the riders about who's feeling what feelings about the races this year. Little blunt observations, sparsely tucked in with long spaces of silently watching the beach, maybe a clucked tongue here and there, a small shake of the head at someone's misstep. I fight a smile. Nothing rattles Rosa. It's hard to imagine that anything ever has, and yet, surely she must have been at least a little uncertain, her first time on this beach, her first time handling a capaill, her first race. She probably still never showed it, though.

Finally, she turns her sharp eyes on me. I crack a half smile. "I don't trade my secrets, Rosa."

She cracks a half smile back at me. "You don't need to. They'll be right there for the taking, as soon as I watch you ride down that stretch of sand," and she nods towards the beach were everyone else is playing out their fate.

I nod, beginning to steal myself for the inevitable. I can't stand here forever. She reaches out and gives my shoulder a small squeeze, then walks away without a word, her shiny brown puffer vest disappearing into the crowd.

I turn fully back to Benny. She's standing right where she's supposed to, but she's looking at me like her next meal.

"Told you you should have eaten breakfast this morning," I mutter, catching up her lead and scrubbing out my circle. She's sliding sideways, as soon as it breaks - watching the sea, watching me. I spit in my hand and push her back with it, reminding her who's in charge before I mount up.

"Come on," I say, "Might as well get this over with."

[pickleandthequeen]

By My Blood

“I will ride. Evvy Zimmer, Marimo. By my blood.” She repeated the phrase over and over again. October was flying by, and the call of the water was growing by the day. Sometimes, a hand left too long on the stallion’s neck was hard to pull away. And yet, his eye was soft and without the harsh seafoam white. He still looked like a horse.

He looked like a horse on the beach, even when the October sea lapped at his fetlocks. Evvy closed her eyes, feeling the stallion’s legs moving out in purposeful, even steps under her as they walked along the hard packed sea damp sand. Marimo exhaled a huge, wet snort, but kept up his pace steady. She opened her eyes and slowly gathered her reins. She had braided his mane with a green ribbon to match his saddle cloth and, hopefully, remind him of the land. She checked her landmark on the far side of the chalk cliffs and realized they had drifted deeper into the ocean than fetlock deep, waves coming half way up his cannon bones. Evvy took a deep breath, and opened her rein towards the beach. The stallion followed the suggestion and she popped her lips before offering a hunk of meat on a stick. He took it politely enough and she allowed him the time to chew and swallow before stowing her stick and readjusting her reins, and asking him to move off her legs. Marimo leapt up into a trot, ears pricked forward as he splashed through the shallow water.

The only other rider on the beach was down the other end, schooling their cappal uisce in circles in the surf as well. She couldn’t see who it was at this distance, but the dark horse was obviously bigger than Marimo, even at this distance.

Someone was on foot though, and Evvy thought she recognized the approaching shape in the dusky morning fog.

“You’re not planning on having a bag of meat on the beach are you?” It was Rosalie Duncan. Evvy circled her cappal around the reporter and lifted two fingers from the reins in greeting.

“I’ve been weaning him from rewards for each signal, each correct choice, for a while, but I don’t know that I can ask him to do the races without any form of reward on me.” She nodded out towards the end of the beach. “I don’t mean to be rude, Roz, but I need to finish warming him up before I go for a breeze.” Evvy paused, thinking. “Would you hold the bucket for me?” She eased Marimo to a halt and unbuckled the bucket from her hip. Marimo turned his head on his long neck and nosed it. “Manners,” the cappal made a face but followed the cue and turned his face back to midline. Evvy leaned down and handed the bucket to Rosalie. “Grab a chunk of beef heart and when I give the signal, toss it to him, will you?”

Evvy smiled, and Rosalie took the bucket, brown eyes bugging out of her head. Although he kept his face forward, Marimo’s inside ear was trained on the reporter.

“Wh- what’s the signal?”

Evvy popped her lips and the horse slowly turned his head. Rosalie gulped and tossed a large piece of bloody meat at the horse. It landed in the sand by his hooves, and Evvy let the reins out to allow him to pick it up.

“I’m going to trot him down and back, will you do the same when we get back? Then again at the gallop? You can say no! I know he’s a bit intense.”

“Are you kidding? No one else will let me near their cappail.” Some of the fear had eased from Rosalie’s expression. “Is this your plan for race day?”

Evvy shrugged.

“We’ll see. I might not be allowed to, and he might not take kindly to this idea. I think I can keep a few pieces in a smaller container under my cloak if needed.”

She opened her rein and steered Marimo away from the reporter and found the packed sand by the water. The water was part of her plan. Marimo seemed, at many times, more food motivated than ocean-called, and she wanted to use that.

Evvy urged Marimo back up into a trot, and he leapt into it almost joyfully, reaching forward into the bridle, and chewing the reins from her hands as he played with the bit.

“Thank you, boy, good boy,” she whispered, and posted along with him, hands following his mouth. Wind off the sea caught her hair and stray pieces of his mane; it was invigorating. They trotted up the beach and then turned and headed back. She felt Marimo consider protesting but she dropped her seaside rein to trace a letter E, a letter M, on his neck, before picking it back up. He shook his head once then obliged.

His trot felt floaty and even, strong. They rode past Rosalie and then slowed to a walk before turning around to her.

Pop pop!

Rosalie had the meat waiting this time, on the stick. Marimo’s long ears pricked and he reached curiously towards it.

“Manners,” Rosalie said slowly, but the uisce stallion listened, and paused, coming no closer and waiting instead for the meat to come to him.

“That’s promising, that he knows it from not just me,” Evvy breathed, and stroked his neck. He chewed and his ears waggled to and fro, listening to the ocean and the beach and the island.

“I’d like to try it at a gallop, if you don’t mind.”

Rosalie nodded and stepped back.

“There are few others coming down.”

“This is my last one.”

She gathered her reins and checked her girth before standing in the stirrups, crouching down over his neck.

“Ready, Mo?” She let her hands creep up his neck, and then, with an exhale, she squeezed her calves against his sides. The stallion grunted and jumped forwards, his front legs lifting as he launched over the beach. Fingers found mane, and she let him go. Breathe, breathe, she told herself, and don’t fall off. The October sea sprayed them with cold water as he thundered over the sand, and Evvy reached further up his neck, letting him have his head. A gentle touch of her seaside leg and he stepped away from the surf. She popped her lips but urged him to continue and he, to her relief and pride, obliged. The chalk cliffs reared up over them as they approached, and he started to slow himself before she asked. That was fine. She stood in the stirrups and asked him to come back to a trot, to a walk, and then she popped her lips again. He looked quizzically at her over his shoulder, turning his head to look at her.

“When we get back down there, Mo.”

He blinked at her with his large, dark eye, and there was an unmistakable hunger in his gaze, but listened, and they trotted slower this time back to Rosalie.

“Empty it on the sand, Roz,” Evvy called over the wind and the waves. “Just let him have everything in there.”

By my blood, she repeated to herself.

@thescorpioracesfestival