Kholo Mzi | 33 | Owner | Aaron,Heather, Tim

Kholo glanced over as the young man entered, watching how he handled his horse carefully. She nodded in recognition, her eyes still on the blood bay mare.

"Nah it's fine Aaron, I only got here a few minutes ago. Stay at a walk for now, just wait til Diva's nice and settled. Heather, Mystery looks fairly calm, feel free to canter while we wait. Enjoy your stirrups..." She chuckled softly, voicing the last sentence as a definite threat.

Glancing back to the other rider, she subconsciously slipped into her trainer's role. "Sit back a litt- that's it. Keep pressure on the bit, don't let her get away with misbehavior. Good...try a trot now. You know your horse best though, it's your final decision as to when you switch gaits."

Diva threw her head up as Kholo's phone buzzed, nervously prancing against the arena fence. "Sorry about that, I should probably check this." She slipped her phone out of her back pocket, shielding it with her hand.

Her eyes quickly ran through the message. "Shit, shit shit." Her voice was barely an audible whisper, her fingers automatically clenching around themselves. "This isn't happening." She broke into a frantic jog as she hopped underneath the fence - the second time that day she was passing through it in a scurry - , pausing only to throw a backwards glance at the two riders.

"Just - work your mares through their gaits, I'll be back soon, you guys get to know each other, impromptu schooling session."

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[Kholo Mzi (Privately)] I'll be right there.

Laurence + Em / Sam + Tim

His breathing was rapid now, as if each breath he took was an exertion in itself. He was damp with sweat, yet shivering greatly as if the temperature outside was below freezing, similar to the winter scene the night prior. The reality of the situation? It was already in the fifties, set to be a seventy-something degree day. Most riders were out in polo shirts, and Laurence was shivering through a jacket.

There was never a time Laurence despised Tim more than when he said the word 'ambulance' in a sentence involving him. If he could have even sat up in that lifeless state, he would have had half a mind to throw a few punches in the Brit's direction, but that wasn't possible when even a breath was barely managed. He was hardly conscious when the man had come back from wherever he'd gone, stuck in some hallucinatory dreamscape located between life and death. It made sense that there would be a middle ground, since death was only perpetual life, and life perpetual death through means of suffering, trauma, and unspoken pain. Laurence surely had enough of the latter in life, and all of it he was prepared to give up.

He stayed silent through it all, staring up at the ceiling with a glossed-over gaze that held no emotion, no life, nothing. He could have been dead right there and then. In fact, when the EMTs arrived, they discovered he was barely clinging to life.

"He must be bleeding internally," one remarked with the fearsome tone never desired in a doctor.

"Get the crash cart," said another. This one ushered Sam away from the scene.

"Ma'am, please get back and let us do our jobs," he said calmly, fighting her. He glanced to Tim, as if begging him to get the girl under control. The better half of what felt like hours was spent injecting the dying man with awful drugs, shocking him, then finally cutting him open with the silent prayer that stopping the bleeding would not be a lost cause, and that they had not already lost him. By this point, they had accumulated a large crowd of riders whom no one seemed to be able to get rid of, all taking in this grotesque scene with awe and bewilderment. When all was said and done, they'd revived him multiple times, the last time just barely. As they whisked him off to the hospital in the ambulance, one approached the smaller group, who appeared to be those who found him.

"...obviously there's still a massive risk, we're hoping he will make it to the hospital alright. From there the ICU will take him and do everything they can for him."

The entirety of the situation was rather bleak, the dialogue sterile and hopeless. And without so much as a goodbye, Laurence DiLorenzo was gone from White Oaks, leaving behind a grim, bleak feeling in the air and a question regarding whether he would ever step foot on the property again.

Thérèse + Tyler / Livvie + Zander

Thérèse beamed brightly at Livvie, her eyes dancing joyously. "Good to see you," she remarked with a charming smile. She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, and the movement rippled down the loose beach waves that her hair fell in. She glanced over at Zander, admiring the color of his eyes. She would have made a comment about them, but she couldn't find the right words, and before she knew it, the moment was gone. She frowned, feeling frustrated with the language barrier. Perhaps they wouldn't like her, she thought, if her personality was altered by a lack of knowledge.

"I am French," she explained as thoughtfully as she could. "My English is no good, you can help me."

Tyler smiled softly, he was gaining an appreciation for Salamander Springs, Utah, a place he'd come to despise his entire life. Yet, he was blessed to know English and to be able to interact with people here. He glanced at Liv, then at Zander, who intimidated him. Then he went back to Thérèse, who was enthusiastically agreeing to go riding with them.

"Not my horse, he is Jest, he is, how do you say, energy? My friend, although."

As she and the others dispersed, she found her way quickly and precisely to Jest's stall, though she still couldn't pronounce his name even slightly accurately. She brushed him, cleaned his hooves, wrapped his legs, then put the remaining tack on as he fidgeted with the equipment, pacing in his stall and generally being an annoyance. In hindsight, crossties may have been bright, but she hadn't thought of it in her enthusiasm for getting him tacked up and outside.

Now they were both prepared for riding and slightly matching. She had found herself to be the first outside, which was preferred given the gelding's antsy nature. He continued circling and backing around the mounting block, and she wondered where all of this behavior had come from. He was a lot of work, but she hoped dearly that with some time and guidance he would turn into something that she actually desired to sit on.

Cameron Fairfield | 19 | SJ | Lucifer/Stardust | Audrey, open

Cam slouched against Stardust, his bright blue eyes half-closed in the sun. Everything about him echoed pride - from the cocky slant of his chin to the way he flaunted his appearance whenever a female stable hand walked by. He was dressed casually: the usual sky blue t-shirt, pale jeans, and a pair of new ankle-length boots.

Glancing lazily at the newest woman in sight, he slowly straightened his tall frame and gathered the palomino's reins, walking idly toward her. "G'day Sheila." His Aussie drawl was almost unbearably strong after the months spent in his homeland. "I'm Cam, nice to meet ya." He raised his hand in a loose wave at Audrey, flashing a flirtatious wink. "Where're you off to?"

He smiled nonchalantly at the attractive young woman, raising one eyebrow playfully. Stardust shifted impatiently, one ear flicked backward and the other hanging loosely on the side. The palomino was clearly disinterested in Cam's unsubtle advances, by now used to her irregular rider.

Tanglewood said:

Cameron Fairfield | 19 | SJ | Lucifer/Stardust | Audrey, open

Cam slouched against Stardust, his bright blue eyes half-closed in the sun. Everything about him echoed pride - from the cocky slant of his chin to the way he flaunted his appearance whenever a female stable hand walked by. He was dressed casually: the usual sky blue t-shirt, pale jeans, and a pair of new ankle-length boots.

Glancing lazily at the newest woman in sight, he slowly straightened his tall frame and gathered the palomino's reins, walking idly toward her. "G'day Sheila." His Aussie drawl was almost unbearably strong after the months spent in his homeland. "I'm Cam, nice to meet ya." He raised his hand in a loose wave at Audrey, flashing a flirtatious wink. "Where're you off to?"

He smiled nonchalantly at the attractive young woman, raising one eyebrow playfully. Stardust shifted impatiently, one ear flicked backward and the other hanging loosely on the side. The palomino was clearly disinterested in Cam's unsubtle advances, by now used to her irregular rider.

Emily sat in the emergency room floor's waiting room as she had a hundred times before. It felt like she'd been here waiting for each one of her friends at one point or another, as they had for her when she was flown from hospital to hospital trying to get her life and legs saved. While she'd lost one, she'd kept the other--the more important one by no small measure.

Camden sat beside her, and though she'd apologized to him a hundred times for keeping him waiting here instead of going home, he seemed happy just to exist. He was silently scribbling away at one theorem or another while anyone else his age would have been playing videogames or whining. Emily glanced down at the levels of math he was doing and considered how lucky she was, yet what a great responsibility it was to raise that level of genius. She wondered often if she was doing right by him and by his biological parents, who seemed to be discussed less and less these days.

She had been keeping an eye on the door, pale and panicking on the inside since Tim's call, trying her hardest to remain strong for all of those who could not. She couldn't even imagine how Sam was doing in that moment if it truly was as bad as Tim said it was.

It was.

Not long after her nth time of checking her watch for the time, the doctors came whizzing around the corner of the back unit, barely visible through doors that sought to contain the drama to the inside. Emily rushed to her feet, dizzy from a lack of food over the last hours, and pressed her face against the door. She saw Laurence in a lifeless state, the doctors around him with trepidatious looks on their faces, yelling to one another about something or another. She shirt she imaged he once wore was gone, a seeping gash made across his abdomen where the doctors had sutured him, she presumed. He was also black, blue, and yellow all over as he was when she'd last witnessed him, panicking and traumatized in almost this exact location. A chill ran down her spine at the thought that he was nearly close enough to kiss death, and that that would be her last memory of him. It wouldn't be how she would remember him, but it would be her last encounter, and no one forgets their last encounter.

Now incredibly shaken and eerily still, knowing that she did not in any way want to be back there for fear of what she would learn, Emily went back and forth regarding whether to text Tim or not, but finally gave in to her own desire to have someone there to be strong with.

[Emily]: He just got here. I'm scared, Tim. I need you.

As an afterthought, she froze, then texted him once more.

[Emily]: You shouldn't bring Sam if you can help it.