» Blindingly bright sunlight streamed down through the small windows in the back of the stall doors, creeping through the bars of the stall doors, and spilling out onto the asile floor. Jessie's naturaly rich brown hair flickered between a brown-black color, and fiery-red brown color as she walked leisurely along the dirt track. Her horse, whom she had purchased almost five months ago, had been nothing but trouble from the moment she had got him. At first it had been fun. Training, or more like breaking, a colt just been weaned, to turn into all all out champion horse. Or perhaps just a companion she could turn to in times of trouble. Icy Event, or Rebel as she called him, was anything but. Head-strong and with a free will like no other, Rebel was a constant thorn in Jessie's side. She wanted him to do one thing, he did another. It was a constant battle between horse and person that had racked the planet since it's birth.

» Jessie sighed irritably. Another day, another night tossing uncomfortably on her bed, trying to find some semblance of a comfortable position where she wouldn't lay or put pressure on one of her numerous bruises. Lately she had taken to wearing long sleeves and jeans all the time. While in classes, and even her lunch period, the only skin exposed was her face, neck and hands. The rest of her body was peppered with so many bruises, it looked as though Picasso had used her as a substiture easel. As Jessie neared the stall on the very end of the barn, her ears could detect rustling. It wasn't long enough, before she found herself in front of Rebel's stall, gazing in at her horse. He had grown in the last five months. Grown considerably. His once light grey coat, was now almost snow white, aside from the pale, almost transparent gray circles dotting his coat. Both his mane and tail were now full grown, dangling from his neck and rump with an exotic grace only Rebel could achieve. She noted that not a hair was out of place, and that both his mane and tail were free of any shavings. Someone had definitely groomed him.

» But who would? Rebel always did his best to be as dirty and messy as he possibly could. She usually found herself spending half her day just groomed all the muck from his coat and hooves, and detangling his hair. It didn't help much that she was short, and he was tall. Even on tip-toe, she could barely reach the crown of his head with her arms outstretched. Her arm reached out, almost on instinct, and snagged the halter and leadrope from the nook next to his stall. Rebel nickered softly as she entered, turning his head toward her. Water droplets fell from his chin, soaking the shavings of the stall. It would have been highly amusing, watching Rebel splash all the water out of his trough before drinking any, except that it was such a pain to clean out all the damp shavings. They really stuck to the matts and dirt like two of those really strong magnets that you really, really had to pull on if you wanted them to come apart.

» Upon her way in, Jessie had ducked into the tack room and nabbed on of the lunge lines, and lunge whips, hanging on the wall, which she now attatched to one of the clips on Rebel's halter, looped it around his head, and tucked it underneath. The lead rope she unclipped from the halter and hung it back up outside the stall on the way out. Once out in the rather bright sunlight, Jessie led Rebel over toward the outdoor arena. Lately she had been taking him to the indoor arena, because of his behavior issues, as while in the outdoor arena, he had been constantly kicking at the fence and attempting to jump it. Of course, he hadn't behaved any better in the indoor arena either. Only he resort to kicked the walls, making them echo rather irritably around the arena with enough noise to wake the dead. Only recently, as in the last two or so weeks, and he begun to call down enough that she could even pet him.

» Jessie was entirely clueless as to the cause of his behavior, so she kept their lessons light, merely attempting to coax him toward her so that she could pet or stroke him. She had read that getting young horses very use to the feel of people made them more obedient and easy to work with during the breaking stages. Of course, she hadn't really gotten to test that theory, as she hadn't hardly touched his coat in over two months. She sighed frustratedly, unlatching the gate and watching it as it swung open on it's hinges. If she were a horse, she'd do everything her owner requested of her, without question. With that thought in mind, she led Rebel onto the sand, only stopping when she got to the left-hand side. She had to stand and wait for Rebel to catch up, as he had been trailing behind her, putting as much distance between himself and her as he possibly could.

» Only Rebel didn't stop when he got to the middle. He continued to walk across the sand in a lazy manner, until he felt the now familiar taunt pull on his head as the lunge rope had reached its end. Annoyed, he tossed his head, and yet the rope did not dislodge itself. He turned his neck, glancing at the silly girl. She had been a constant nusience ever since she had come. At first it had been fun, being allowed to romp in the sand and play with his shadow. He had even met most of the other horses currently staying in the barn. But now it wasn't like that. Now it was just him and her, her pestering him to walk this way, or walk that way, or come over there, or to stand over there. Tedious, and rather dull. He wanted to run, to throw his head back and feel the slap of his mane against his neck. He wanted to stretch his legs out for no reason and just throw himself to caution. He wanted to.... to... there was no real desire, he concluded. Jus the apparent boredom of working alone, with the dismal two-legged girl.

» Gently, she pulled on the lunge rope, angling her arm to the left, so as to guide Rebel in that direction. Fat load of good it did though. As always, he stood still, except for the flexing of his leg muscles so as to ground them into the sand. She then tried walking toward him, only to have him take a few steps forward. Wait, he was approaching her? Jessie's face lit up in a wide grin, which quickly fell from her cheeks when he took ten back rather abruptly, yanking her forward into a faceplant. She got up, spitting dirt from her mouth and rubbing her aching nose. Stupid horse. Why did she even bother? She figured she should have gotten one of the horse trainers around here to do it. But no, she had to be all macho, brake a young colt all by herself. Genius idea, if she said so herself. Not. Hours passed, and with ever passing minute, Jessie's frustrations grew and grew. She knew she shouldn't have brought him out here, but in the last week his behavior had gotten significantly better.

» Jessie sighed. She wasn't sure exactly what to do with him. He wouldn't listen to her, and her patience was wearing thin. With a last ditch effort, Jessie ran up toward Rebel. Once she got within two feet, she yanked hard on the lunge line, jerking Rebel's head down to be level with his knees. She took the nessicary steps to close the distance between them and gripped the halter tightly. She pulled his face up until she was staring him in the eye.

"Now you better listen, you silly horse. I've had it up to here with you, and if you don't start doing what I say, it's not going to be pretty."

» With that she let go, stepping backward in a hurry. She wasn't sure what he would do now, and she didn't exactly want to know. She sure didn't want to get trampled. For a while, they just stood there, staring at eachother. Finally, Rebel lowered his head, resting his ears back against his skull. The pose seemed rather submissive. Sort of. With satisfaction, Jessie tugged on the lunge line, and set the whip behind his back legs. She raised it slightly, and nicked his heels with the whip to urge him to move. He did. It had worked. At least until Jessie noted something odd. Rebel would walk two steps, stop, walk two more steps, stop. She had been so caught up in her giddy joy at seeing him finally do what she wanted, she had failed to notice his odd behavior. At the moment, Rebel appeared a highly skittish pony who wasn't sure of his own feet.

» Frustrated, Jessie tugged again on the line, tapping his heels. This time, the reaction was different. Rebel bolted, running completely off the circle, if she even called what he had been doing a circle, and down the side of the fence. He wasn't galloping, thank god for that, but he was cantering. Jessie hadn't expected it, and so was now being dragged through the sand in a flurry of white dust. The sand was hot from the afternoon sun, and dug into her back and arms, the friction burning through her skin. She could do nothing to stop Rebel. Had she spooked him? The only thing she could think of at this moment was if she was going to die. Well, and the curious fellow she had been talking to on the net since the first day she had come here. They had never met, and now she found herself regretting that fact. She would never talk to, or get a chance to see, again. She felt like crying.

words; 1,701
tagged; Theo
notes; >___>;; sorry, I exploded of muse. yay?

» Dead. She had to be. There was no other explanation for the white light in her eyes. Except there was no tunnel. Instead the light was encased in a spectrum of pure blue with puffs of scruffy white scattered about. As her mind started to focus, she could feel the hot, grainy sand digging into the skin on the side of her face and arm. She attempted to wiggle her fingers, not sure exactly where they were right at that moment. She felt light-headed and very disoriented. What she could discern, was that her limbs were in an awkward tangle, that probably didn't look very normal from an outsiders perspective. Jessie groaned, having just come to the conclusion that Rebel had stopped.

» Sound was slowly returning, the urgent tone of a male voice being the predominant noise she could detect. Dammit. She now regretted leaving her jacket on the fence post by the gate. All those bruises from her daily exercise with Rebel were now in plain sight. Jessie was sure that after today, there would be several more. Shakily, she got to her feet, head swimming as she did. Her vision blurred before her, and an ferocious roar pounded in her head. Self-consciously, she wrapped her arms around herself, doing her best to cover the bruises with her hands.

"Yea, I'm alright," she said, not even glancing in the direction of the voice.

» She would have turned toward the voice, except she didn't trust her own two feet at the moment. Who knew? Perhaps turning around would bring back the intense dizziness and she would fall over. Jessie rolled her shoulders, shaking loose sand from the folds of her shirt and jeans, then shook her head, letting then tiny grains of sand flutter to the ground. Slowly, she turned to look at the cause of this: Rebel. Well, she perhaps was a contributor.

words; who knows?
ooc; haha... me crazy? you crazy! and my muse explosion de-explodes... is that even a word?? -shrug- it is now ^^