Garrett Landry ☩ Lancelet of the Lake (chosenchampion) wrote in thereincarnates, @ 2015-03-31 23:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | freddie morgan, garrett landry |
Who: Garrett Landry and Freddie Morgan
What: Freddie has to see a man about a horse.
Where: Destrier Stables, outside of Wichita, KS
When: Wednesday, April 1; midday
Warnings: So. Much. Awkward. But PG, PG-13 for language at the most.
Arrow was a courser, not one of the destriers that the stable was named for, but she was Garrett’s special lady. He’d named her himself, when she’d been born his first year at the stables. She’d been the first foal he’d helped deliver, even if all he’d done was bring water and fresh straw during her dam’s labor. It was tradition, though, to let the new guy name his first foal. Her full name was Elf-Arrow, chosen not just because of Lancelet, but because she was small, and dark, and something about her had Lancelet swearing that she’d be as quick as one, too. They’d called the filly Elf for the first year of her life, until it became clear that Lancelet’s prediction was right; she was always a little bit ahead of the rest of the foals her age, a little faster, a little more graceful. Garrett had taken over training her himself as soon as he could, getting her used to the saddle when she was two, and used to people mounting and dismounting when she was three. When she was four, and her spine was developed enough for actual riding, he’d been the first one on her back. Garrett enjoyed riding the challenging horses, enjoyed the way it felt like he was riding a force of nature instead of an animal, but when he rode Arrow it was like she read his mind. He knew the boss had gotten plenty of offers to buy her, some of them an impressive amount, but he’d always turned the offers down, claiming that Arrow was too good a horse to sell. Garrett knew that he kept her for him.
The boss hadn’t told him much about the potential customer that they were getting in today, not even when to expect him. All he’d gotten was that it was a ‘him’, since not even the boss was mysterious enough to completely avoid pronouns. All Garrett knew was that he was supposed to show him the stable’s best. Everyone else had expected him to saddle up Avalanche, their biggest and most challenging destrier. By the end of the visit, Garrett did plan on introducing the potential customer to Avalanche, but the destriers, they weren’t for everyone. They weren’t even the most commonly ridden horse in the Middle Ages, like everyone always thought. No, the horse that most people rode, and that most people needed whether they knew it or not, was a courser like Arrow. Riding Avalanche would be more a demonstration of Garrett’s skills as a rider than of the quality they could offer in their horses. Maybe he was a little prejudiced, but he thought Arrow was the best horse in their stables, and if their guest was as important as his boss kept hinting, Arrow was the right choice for first impressions.
Of course, Garrett didn’t know when to expect the potential customer, either, so he’d just started out exercising Arrow like he normally would. They’d gone slow at first, warming both of their muscles up. After that, though, she’d do anything he asked of her, and do it happily. He’d worn his show sword, guessing that this was probably a representative from some big reenactment group who would appreciate seeing how well their horses responded to a man with a sword on their back. Not all of them took to it as well as Arrow, but again… first impressions. Arrow was unphased as he ran her, sword drawn, taking swipes at imaginary foes as they went. He was well balanced in his stirrups, firmly planted on Arrow’s back even as they wheeled and turned. His girl was fast, and she was patient, even if she wasn’t as extensively trained as a destrier. She might not be able to hold her own in a fight, but Garrett would put his money on her any day when it came to carrying him through a battle unharmed. Not that there were many battles in his future, at least not real ones. He tried to ignore Lancelet’s disappointment at that, and his own, and just be satisfied with the training yard.
He commanded Arrow to turn with his knees, and the reins laid flat against her neck; she responded quickly, rounding the familiar turn of the ring. Garrett laughed, shaking back sweaty curls that kept stubbornly falling in his face. He’d given himself just as much of a workout as he had Arrow, and his day was far from over, though if his customer didn’t get there soon, he was going to have to give her a rest and make his first impression perched on Avalanche’s broad, impressive back anyway. It was a shame that the guy was missing what Garrett’s Arrow could do. His loss. Garrett would just have to show off all of Avalanche’s tricks to equal the performance he and Arrow had put on… but, wait, he didn’t recognize the two men by the fence. Neither of them looked like the kind of customer the boss would break out the big guns for, but Garrett clucked at Arrow and sat back in the saddle to slow her before guiding her over in that direction, anyway, calling out a greeting. “Hey! I’m Garrett, are you the one I’m waiting for?”