milliways_bar | (no subject)

"Could we?" Rae replies, interested. "Sure!"

She's only ever seen horses in fields alongside the road, with her in the backseat of her parents' car.

Edited 2012-08-31 01:46 (UTC)

He scrambles down, setting one of the taller candelabras to wobbling slightly in his haste.

"There is a garrison in the castle, so all of the war horses are here now. Master doesn't like them, though."

"Why not, do you know?" Horses - what's not to like? She, of course, has only ever seen them from a distance, and has certainly never been expected to care for one.

She follows Balthazar eagerly through the castle, only pausing occasionally when they pass one of the narrow window-slits, so she can peer out of it to see what's outside.

"He won't say." At least, he won't say to the two young impressionable boys who are liable to repeat things they ought not at the wrong time.

Outside is the green English countryside, the wild wood visible just at the edge of the ridge. They are near the edge of civilization here - close enough that Merlin can reach the king in a short enough amount of time, but far enough that if one of his apprentices does something spectacularly stupid, they won't blow up the whole of England.

Sunshine thinks it's marvelous. Even the grass is a different shade of green from that at home.

"So what do you do when you're not in lessons learning magic?" Apart from, you know, showing strange Independencians from a different time and world around castle keeps?

"... Sleeping. Having meals. ... Um." Actually, yes, he decides after a moment of thinking about it. His life is that dull.

Rae laughs as they go down a flight of stone steps. "Which of those were you supposed to be doing when you found the bar, today, then?"

"Sleeping." It is high summer in England, and little boys still have to go to bed when the sun is still in the sky. "But the door didn't go into the castle."

"It showed up in my room today, too." How odd. "I am supposed to be doing my homework."

Castle keeps and sorcery books and war horses are much more interesting than prepositional phrases.

"Homework? Is that part of school?" Because it's nothing he's ever heard of before. But then he's trotting through the stable door, into the smell of hay and horses and... what comes from horses.

Balthazar is rifling through the apple barrel where the apples that have finally become too foul for human consumption are stored for the horses. It helps to have a bribe.

"Yeah," Rae replies, following him. She's learning quickly that castles are pungent places. "They teach you stuff at school, then you go home in the evenings and do exercises and solve problems using what the teachers showed you, and that shows you understood what they were talking about and learned the lesson."

Apparently.

"... Your tutor does not live with you?" He scoops up a mouldering apple and heads off down the breezeway, ignoring the bugling and thudding hooves of the warhorses. "Come on, my pony's down here."

"No, thank goodness," Rae replies with a slightly nervous grin. Horses are much bigger than she was expecting, up close. Though slightly intimidated, curiosity wins out. "You have your own? Spartan."

"No, Galloway." He replies, climbing over one of the stall doors. "Everyone has a horse. Well. Not everyone, but all of the noble families, and of course Merlin wouldn't have us riding double-bank. What if he had to do magic?"

One would get off the horse very darn quickly, that's what.

"Galloway?" Rae asks, confused, clambering over the stall door behind him. Stupid dress.

A stocky somewhat-shaggy pony is placidly licking apple juice off of the boy's fingers.

"Pony? It's not Spartan. Haven't heard of a Spartan pony."

Rae stays sitting on the stall door, staring.

She had never subscribed heavily to the idea adorable things being adorable could be an end unto itself. She hadn't gone through the EEEEEE PONIES!!!!!<3 phase at all.

She may be catching up, all at once, right now.

"It's so cute," she says, faintly.

Balthazar, in return, is catching up on some 'girls are weird' that he missed out on, moving away from his little sister when Merlin came.

"... If you say so." It's a pony. It's his pony, and it is a well-trained pony, but he's never said it's a cute pony.

That's right; he never said. He could have warned her it was going to be cute!

Rae drops down off the stall door, hesitant but wide-eyed. "What's it's name?" And can she pet it?

"Blackie." Someone let a little tiny Balthazar name the gelding pony, and... he was about as creative as expected. "He likes it when you rub this spot right here." He demonstrates, scrubbing at the cowlick between the pony's eyes.

To Rae, it is a very sound and good name. She nods solemnly, approaching the creature and hesitantly lifting her hand to rub the spot on the pony's forehead.

The pony knickers, pushing his head against Rae's hand as Balthazar scrambles back over the stall door in search of a brush.

"We could go riding - there's loads of light left, no one will mind."

....

This is slightly less than true. On all counts.

"Could we?" Rae's face is a picture of hopefulness, grinning at the pony's enthusiasm. "I've never ridden one before."

He almost asks why she hasn't been riding, but the outfit he found her in is remembered.

...

"Yeah, there's some standing stones in the next valley."

The girl is strange, Balthazar. But, though it won't be apparent until many, many years in your future, she is possibly worth the trouble.

"Let's go, then," she grins. Some of the best scenes in a few of her favorite novels take place in standing stone circles.