Trystan Bergamn 19 || Heather ; Livvie

It was hard not to smile around Olivia. The blonde's bubbly personality made just about anyone perk up and laugh. This trait (though new to Tryst) was what concerned her about Heather's ability to ignore it. As Tryst and Olivia had exchanged words the third girl had quietly pulled out her phone and dipped into a world of her own, only half listening to the others.

"Its in Massachusetts, part of New England I think?"

Her reply to oOlivia's question was half hearted as she had turned her gaze to Heather. The girl seemed relaxed but entirely wrapped up in a thought process that seemed entirely too private to inquire upon. Tryst cast a glance to Olivia, hoping that the girl would pick up on what she was about to try and do.

"How about a race back, hmm? A friendly one of course but a race none the less!"

At this she sat up in the saddle and called Krigare's attention back from his daydream that more than likely consisted of ribbons and sweet oat. She gathered her reins and redirected the gelding to face the way they had come. It was a good ways back to the barn now and judging by the way the sun was rising over the trees it was probably time to head back anyhow.

"I will let the two of you get a head start if you want it to be fair."

Tryst giggled, trying to goade some competitive nature out of her new found friends. She hoped it would brighten Heather's mood and Tryst made a mental note to talk to the girl later.

(Short and sweet <3)

i’m obsessed with him he’s so cute lol.

Willa | Su-Jin

Willa hadn’t said anything to his comment about how red her face was, choosing peace on their first day here. She had been given very clear instructions not to come in guns blazing, and if those instructions had come from anyone other than their father, she would have chosen complete and total rebellion. But, like her brothers, she felt his slow and subtle decline, and she was grieving it in her own way.

“Oh, good, you have no clue where we’re going? Perfect. Just fantastic. Awesome. That’s great.” She didn’t particularly mind that he’d touched her arm, she was just curious as to why in the world he had. He was certainly an odd fellow, and he smelled distinctly pleasant. Something like a grandmother’s home would, she imagined. Some domestic blend of baked goods, candles, and love of house cats, whatever that smelled like. She glanced over at him, watching him think about something. A comfortable silence fell over them, one she was genuinely surprised to be in the presence of. Typically interactions with new people were filled with the tense kind of silence, the what-do-i-say-next kind. This was oddly casual, filled with two people who had nothing to say and couldn’t care less what the other thought about it.

The next thing Su-Jun said made Willa laugh. Nothing massive, but the slightest smile crept onto her lips despite her attempts to conceal it. She didn’t like showing emotions to strangers, especially positive ones like happiness and amusement. They gave the other person too much control, too much insight into her thoughts. She liked to have the upper-hand. “Heh, no. That’d be Nash. Not the guy you just met, the one who’s about to convince you his name’s Ron. He’s a way better person than most everyone. Definitely better than me. A real do-gooder, box-checker, model citizen type. Our folks try to be objective but we all know he’s the golden child.”

Though she didn’t feel particularly obligated--or at least convinced herself she didn’t--Willa filled the comfortable silence with a few words of her own. “What about you, sunshine-and-rainbows? Do you have any siblings?”

Rena | Alex, Max

Alex’s sharp tone had hardly hindered her forward, anger-driven momentum, to the point where she hadn’t even noticed who was speaking to her or how unnatural it was for him to be in the room she knew to be Max’s.

“A lot of things, actually,” she retorted back in impressive time. “Namely world peace and a warmer welcome next time I knock on this door.” She crossed her arms, staring him square in the face. She was a force to be reckoned with and she knew it. “Now, because I care about you I’m going to shut this door and knock again, and we’re gonna pretend that didn’t happen. Then, I’m going to give you about three minutes to put on your listening face because you don’t do words because I need to apologize to you.” She shut the door, then knocked again, and when he opened it, her expression softened gently for a flicker of a moment, as if she’d just realized that it was unexpected for him to open Max’s door. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I’ll answer that one.” Max raised his hand in a comical fashion, watching the scene before him unfold. “Your new boyfriend and your old boyfriend are roomies,” he seemed way too smug about it. Though he was twice her size, Rena wanted to wipe that smug grin off his face and replace it with remorse for what she thought he’d done.

“You,” her face turned cold again, and she brushed past where Alex was unintentionally blocking the door, making an effort not to touch him as she did. She crossed her arms again, now staring Max straight in the face. His amusement faded into something more solemn--maybe fear. Not necessarily because of what she was going to do physically, but what she could do emotionally. “I don’t even have words for you. You show up at my door at four in the morning telling me you never stopped loving me-” Max gestured to where Alex was still frozen in the doorway. “I don’t care that he’s here. Max, listen to me very closely. If you still loved me, if you ever loved me, you wouldn’t try to hurt people that I care about, that I love.” She took a deep breath, then very diplomatically and calmly said, “I’m going to be quiet and let you say whatever you want to say now.”

“I didn’t do it. The wedding thing, it wasn’t me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to. I don’t want to talk anymore, Rena. I said my piece last night and you clearly don’t feel the same, so just leave. Get out. Don’t talk to me.”

Though her facial expression threatened to betray her, she took a deep breath, turned, and walked out. She avoided eye contact with Alex until she reached the hallway. Then, she turned, and softly said, “your turn. I already talked to Kholo and explained the situation to her. She was very understanding and talked about you with a lot of love and respect. If she was upset before, she’s not anymore. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you’re still required to help Emily--whoever that is--with the wedding tomorrow. She said that rules are rules and she had to stand by them despite the extenuating circumstances.” She took a deep breath, her eyes still flickering every which way. As the sun had returned to the sky, so had all of the little walls Rena built around herself that they pretended were quirks. She couldn’t look him straight in the eye for more than a second. “Alex, I am so sorry that this happened. Rather, I’m not sorry it happened, I’m sorry you’re getting punished for it. Last night was the most tolerable night I’ve had recently, if at all possible.” Her gaze glossed over him for the first time since she’d barged into their room. His hair was a mess, his stormy eyes were bloodshot. He looked desperately in need of sleep he wasn’t going to get, yet, he looked astonishingly human. Beautifully so. She let a few seconds of silence pass, then said, “I’m going to leave you alone now, seeing as I’ve already done enough damage for one day.” With an almost forlorn, melancholic smile, she added, “I’ll see you around.” It was as if she anticipated that the levels of closeness they’d reached the night prior would stand unchallenged by the coming waves of time. As if they’d smile distantly at one another from across the barn aisle, but never speak again.

The truth was, she wasn’t exactly sure what the future had in store for the two of them. There was no one more for Alex, more in his corner, than Rena, but only for as long as she knew she was valued, needed, and above all, wanted. The hours they’d spent together were blissful in a way she couldn’t describe, but it seemed that every incredible moment they spent together was met with uncharted levels of drama and dysfunction. He was so incredibly difficult to read which made matters worse. She wanted to see inside that beautiful brain of his, to fully comprehend his thoughts and his feelings and his motivations and what he thought of her. She wanted to be in his life in a way that made her novel, in a way that separated her from any other human being he’d ever met.

At the same time, though, she had her own reservations about all of this. The side of her that felt and the side of her that thought were at war with one another, creating a deep inner turmoil. Part of her said that all it was was a pity gesture--that she’d forced him to stay, that she’d created this illusion of what it was when it was not.The other part of her said that Viktor hadn’t broken into her room looking vulnerable and concerned and sleep-deprived in the middle of the night, nor had Reggie or anyone else for that matter. If he didn’t want to stay, he would have declined her offer, he would have said a few words and been on his way. But he didn’t.

Coming to the conclusion that a day spent holed up in her dorm alone wouldn’t bring any clarity to her situation, she considered texting Reggie or Viktor to make plans to sneak out to go to lunch or something of the sort, anything to get her mind off of the situation. However, waves of nausea began to hit her, her body’s response to the residual trauma from the night Max arrived in Virginia. Suddenly being with people seemed to be the only thing she couldn’t bring herself to take on, so she crawled back into her bed, staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours. All she had to do was kill time until the preparations for their horse show could begin in a few days.

Louis Wright | Dublin, HP

With his slight headstart, and the bonus of the gelding having already been groomed, Louis was already up on his mount when Dublin’s one set off a heavy nosebleed. So far, his own chestnut had been a pleasure, and a comfort, since he mimicked the behaviour of the racehorses back home. So it hadn’t been hard to shift himself back in the handler position and pull himself back into the routine. Now five-and-a-half feet in the air, he could feel the eagerness and energy that had built up in the mount. Dublin appeared to have the same energy and anticipation; he’d opted in for stopping the blood with his sleeve, instead of going down some way to pluck a tissue from one of the boxes in the tackroom.

In Louis’ mind, the Scot had proven himself to be oddly clumsy at times, rather endearingly some would say. He had a way of impressing himself onto others, which really held on. Prickly - and an absolute jackass, no doubt - but surprisingly patient and childlike. At some lengths, the two were out and roaming, the equines now happily relaxed and with no threat of someone passing out of a lack of blood, things were going alright. It was a good start. Louis had been slightly uncertain on how to start off the topic, but it turned out that he didn’t have to. The feeling that he’d received from Dublin was entirely accurate. He really did enjoy the topic and had a great deal of knowledge across both spans of theoretical and observational – more than Louis had learnt about all those years back.

But what Louis hadn’t really expected is how the pale-faced, previously sulky man, who couldn’t get two words out had managed to flip one-eighty and dominate the conversation with absolute confidence. It felt nice though, getting to be privy to different sides of people. This was one of the reasons why he loved being social. You hear so much about everything, but also get to see people’s little, hidden nuances of their personality - pretty rewarding if anyone asked him.

His partner would repeatedly switch from discussing to asking questions, back and forth, with Louis mostly unable to slide more than a word into any question. But seeing how Dublin’s posture was straight, open, the behaviour causal, less defensive and the evident smile, it didn’t seem like something worth mentioning. So, he took on the role of paying attention to where they were going, so that at least, they wouldn’t get lost.

But when the sound of Dublin’s voice suddenly dropped away, Louis looked back to other with furrowed eyebrows and a questioning look in his eyes. Why had the other stopped? The topic had moved to Dublin explaining the theory behind the Hawking Radiation of blackholes, which was a unique enough topic to catch onto his attention. And yet, he had found the other apologising – out of the blue – over nothing. Again.

“You shouldn’t apologise for something that you didn’t do wrong. Kind of doesn’t make sense.”

Turning the mount around so that the two riders were facing opposite directions, he flicked the other on the forehead. “Come on dummy – keep going. So what did Hawking discover about the two theories?”

----

The next few days passed on as routine, albeit with Arlette’s nervous tension building up as Hidalgo’s race drew closer. There was less than a week left and the concept of the colt not placing at least third seemed to be eating his sibling’s brain away. When he wasn’t busy helping time Hidalgo, or helping her with the starts, he was either working Loca with Reggie or spending time with his hundred friends, switching between different people as he saw them.

And today started off no differently. He had been invited out to join Reggie on a jog, courtesy of his usual partner being busy with something else. But he did find out a lot about what was going on across different friend groups. Turns out that Reggie’s roommate’s friend and brother had had a mix-up. Oh, and that his friend’s roommate was sort of friends with Arlette, which was a good start. Usually, she kept to herself and only herself. So knowing that she had friends indicated her being slightly nicer, if that was possible.

Striding into the main barn, he pored over the board for a bit, checking what his regime was. He had an evening lesson apparently, so he would have to keep his schedule free. He was pondering over what to do for the next few hours, when another guy came in. If appearance was any descriptor, this guy must be Hans Peter. So that’s what he went over and queried – “Are you Hans Peter? Can I call you Hans, or HP? Pete?”

Willa | Silas

Willa listened thoughtfully to the way he described his sister. He was saying the words with a gentle, warm tone, but the words themselves were rather concerning. At least, the implications from them were. She was gathering bits and pieces from his facial expressions and the phrases she did understand. The ones she didn’t seemed to be cooking or baking references--she wasn’t entirely sure which, mostly because the only cooking or baking she tried to do was burning eggs for sport. Nash was the cook out of the three of them, which wasn’t surprising considering his role as the golden child, the responsible one, the mom fill-in. It was almost painful how loyal and devoted he was, and what a genuinely nice guy. Maybe that was why she was so standoffish and distrustful, maybe it was just because that was the only gap left for her to fill in their family dynamic.

“The fact that you have to ask that question is concerning. But, eighteen isn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things. Look at Sawyer. He’s over twenty-five by some amount of years and he still acts like a toddler. You know how there’s overthinkers? He’s the opposite of that, he’s an underthinker. I think our Maw dropped him on his head when he was a baby one too many times.”

By some stroke of luck, her dollar store tourguide had actually seemed to navigate them towards a row of buildings that seemed promising. From the distance, she could make out that the first one was the medic station, though the remainder of the buildings were less identifiable without the bold red lettering. She assumed that this place was typically bustling with activity if it required its own medic station, or maybe the owners were just prissy. She was used to backyard rodeo events where men walked away vomiting blood and speaking in tongues and still drove their families home on the interstate, her brothers included.

“Heh, no.” Her response to this question was almost identical to the last in tone and expression. It was as if she’d just hit rewind and replay. “My name is Willa. Sarah was our mom’s name.” She paused, cocking her head to one side as if the most basic of his questions was the greatest philosophical pondering. “Honestly? Dunno why I’m here. They annoy me to death, but I think I was scared of what live would look like without my brothers. We’re all we have anymore.”

The way she had explained it left a lot of questions Willa didn’t expect her companion to stick around long enough to get answered. Most if not all of the people in Willa’s life subscribed to the cowboy, lone ranger, desperado lifestyle. It was all so nomadic and turbulent, so spontaneous and unpredictable. She didn’t enjoy it, but she hadn’t ever lived anything else. Over the years it taught her about the preciousness of time, but it also changed her. At one point, she was the most jubilant and outspoken of the three siblings, so full of life and ready to take on the entire world. As she’d grown up, she became distant, private, closed off. She chose to surround herself with people she didn’t care about so it wouldn’t hurt when they left. She didn’t know anything else, she had never figured out how Nash did it. Sawyer was just like the next guy down the line, spontaneous and troublesome, looking for a good time with whoever sat in the barstool beside him. But Nash, Nash felt on a level that Willa had protected herself from feeling on. He was protective, domestic, and above all, loyal. His loyalty is what brought them to Virginia, and what she knew he secretly hoped would bring them right back to Montana. How he had survived for so long in the circles they ran in, she had no idea. She only hoped that he’d find a reason to stay in Virginia. He needed a reason to stop fighting a battle he’d lose over and over again.

“We’re, like, six fake names in on my family, what about you? What’s your name?”

Reyes | Drew

Sitting at a 4:30am meal he could hardly call breakfast, Reyes tossed the rest of his godforsaken eggs to the side, picking at the pancakes on his plate with little interest. Breakfast seemed like such a pointless meal when he had to eat it so early. It seemed like such a pointless meal in general, especially given that there had been no diversity in what was being offered. It was the fifth morning in a row of eggs with some type of carby main course that he felt was a violation to humanity for whatever reason. He made a mental note to skip the dining hall breakfast in favor of getting something in town next time.

In the dim light of the barely-open caf, Reyes sat at a corner table. He didn’t like to feel like an imposition on the kitchen staff who were already doing him a favor by allowing him in so early, so he typically sat in an out-of-the-way location where he could watch the custodian mop the floors and wipe down the tables in preparation of a busy breakfast crowd. Typically he had his journal with him, writing down whatever musing circled his brain that morning, but today he’d replaced the leather-bound chronicle with stationary. He had been writing a letter he intended to drop off in the tackroom before his first ride. Initially he had desired to deliver it to her door, but upon further thought, the tack room was a better place. He wouldn’t be able to tuck a letter inside the dorm doors, not to mention the fact that he would have to wait several more hours to walk the girls’ hall. Knowing the code to Knox’s tack trunk, it would be extremely easy to slip the letter in on his way to gather equipment for his first rides of the day, and he wouldn’t risk someone else finding it. Not that he cared, but he did want his message to reach Drew.

Throwing the rest of his breakfast away, Reyes thanked the lunch staff and made his way down to the main barn in the dark. The earliest indications of a vivid sunrise loomed on the horizon in the company of twinkling stars. Though he was exhausted, he felt appreciative of the beauty of nature. Not having his journal on him, Reyes scribbled on his arm may we never lose our childlike wonder over the beauty of the universe. Within minutes he found himself opening the tack trunk labeled as Knox’s, laughing to himself over the absurdity of the code. 1111. Because Knox never loses, he only wins 1st places, Reyes reminded himself. It sounded silly the first time he’d heard it, but he had grown to appreciate it. He slipped the letter in, then went on with his day. Part of him hoped to be out in town running errands for Kholo by the time she saw it, he feared she was the overly clingy type who might burst with affection for him because of this simple gesture. He wasn’t too worried, she seemed like the type of person to sleep in and miss lessons more than once a week. In his purest state, he was like that too. Dressage had changed him. Part of him felt the need to protect her because of what he had done when he was youthful and carefree, as she seemed to be. He didn’t want her to face the things he had when all was said and done. It was an odd instinct, one he hadn’t felt before. He wondered what the purpose of it was. After all, every feeling has a purpose.

Reyes started walking down to the other barn to bring some of the new horses up. The day prior was their last day of quarantine, and they were now ready to get on a training program. Every time they brought in new horses, he hoped some of them would be dressage-oriented, something he could learn from. He had quickly outgrown all of the farm-owned dressage schoolmasters and sought something of the next level that never came. On his leisurely stroll down, he recalled what he’d written on that fine piece of parchment, sealed with wax and tucked away for Drew to receive at her leisure.

Dearest Drew,

As a friend of Knox, and thus, a friend of mine, I formally request your attendance as my partner in a riding competition three weekends from today. Should you accept, I will require your full effort and participation over the next three weeks as I will be teaching you the highest levels of dressage while learning showjumping myself. This pairs competition is intended to showcase the importance of cross-training disciplines, and my original partner has decided to drop out at the last moment, leaving me in need of a showjumper. Should you accept my invitation, we begin training tomorrow. As letters are my preferred method of communication, I implore you to send yours to room B10 or to my staff mailbox in the main office.

Truly,

Reyes Castel, White Oaks Equestrian Center