The trip back from the Sacred Forest was, luckily for them, uneventful. Not much was said while Ajan and Reynar took the two of them back, as Rickith's mind was seemingly off in the clouds, trying to figure out exactly what the plant was that he had found. He hoped it was a healing herb, but he wouldn't find out until he talked with a medic. That could probably wait for now. As they approached the Imperial Medical Headquarters, Rickith smiled, and said to Jinyel, "Let's get these two into a warm stable..." He was referring of course to Ajan and Reynar. Once they got into the stable, Rickith wondered if Jinyel was going to do the same thing he had done earlier and grab his hips, to lift him off the donkey and onto the ground.
That thought that crossed Rickith's mind again was how incredibly strong Jinyel had to be to do that and help Rickith off of Reynar. It was still impressive, and if Jinyel did it again, Rickith would let his feet hit the ground, give Jinyel a genuine look of interest, saying, "Thanks again for the help." Looking around the stables, and glad they were in a warmer area once more, Rickith asked, "So, where should we go from here? I can wait to ask a medic what these herbs are till the morning, if you just wanted to talk a bit more?" Rickith was beginning to really enjoy speaking with Jinyel. He knew that the way he talked was probably due to the nature of what his life might have been up till now, but that didn't bother Rickith. As a scholar, he felt he could learn a lot about things outside of the city by speaking with Jinyel.
And he genuinely thought his situation would be much more dire had he not met Jinyel. Jinyel may not be able to get Rickith back to Scalvoris, but Rickith was sort of hoping that whatever had happened to get him here, would hopefully happen again and take him back. Maybe returning to that spot, and looking for that rainbow stone once more, might take him back to Scalvoris. It was worth an investigation anyway, but not at the moment. At the moment he'd just enjoy spending some time with Jinyel, that is, if Jinyel wanted to continue speaking and conversing with Rickith...
Last edited by Rickith Lanza on Tue Feb 18, 2025 2:15 pm, edited 2 times in total. word count: 403
The trip back to the castle was quiet, which suited Jinyel fine. Ajan made a quick pace, just as eager to be can in shelter as his rider. In the dark of Cylus, the castle lights stood out like a cluster of orange stars against the forest. The stable waited for them, warm with straw and breathing animals. And Jinyel didn’t even need to use the reins. Ajan took himself back to the correct stall, then threw his head impatiently for Jinyel to get down.
Jinyel obliged.
He unhitched Reynar from Ajan and led him to a separate stall. Because the gelding was the fussiest, he tended Ajan first.
“Talk?” Jinyel echoed. “I. Er. I’m not good at that. But I can try. Do horses first, though.”
He pulled the torch from the saddlebags, lit it, and held it out to Rickith.
“Can you hold it?” he asked. “Want to check their backs.”
Assuming Rickith agreed, Jinyel would turn to the task of untacking. The saddle straps came undone, the stirrups hung on the saddle horn so they were out of the way, and the whole thing was slung over the wall between Ajan’s and Reynar’s stall. The bridle came next, which Ajan was always tense about. He took the bridle every day, so it was never new, but for some reason, no matter how gently Jinyel removed it, the gelding was always startled when the bit slid out of his teeth. Tonight, like all nights, he jerked his head back and snorted in worry.
Jinyel hummed and patted the animal’s neck. Rickith had wanted to talk, and with the tack undone, Jinyel blurted the first question he could think of.
When Jinyel lit the torch and asked Rickith to hold it, he nodded and said, "Sure thing."Watching how Jinyel unsaddled Ajan, then took the bridle out was interesting. There seemed to be a lot of care in taking care of a horse. Rickith didn't know the first thing about it, but he figured while he was here, he could learn about it a bit more. Once Jinyel had completed taking off the tack, he suddenly asked Rickith if he was a doctor. That prompted some quick thoughts in his head, but he initially said, "No, I'm not a doctor, but my mother was. She taught medicine at the College of Viden, and so, I naturally felt like following in her footsteps, but I don't even have a Letter in medicine yet, even though I've got plenty of knowledge about it..."
He quickly thought about it and realized that Jinyel might not know what a Letter from a college was. "A letter is a piece of paper basically saying that you're competent in the craft you work. I've always been interested in science, and have a knack for alchemy as well, and well yeah, pretty much anything that is science related interests me, though watching you take care of Ajan and Reynar, has piqued my interest in perhaps getting my own horse to take care of some time. Now that my mother is gone, she... well, it was quite recent that she passed, I figured I might branch out into other things, though medicine or alchemy will probably be my main vocations in life..." he said.
The thought of his mother passing brought a tear to his eye, slowly rolling down the side of his cheek. He let his head fall slightly as he was hoping that Jinyel didn't see it at all. With both of Rickith's parents now gone, he was pretty much on his own, as he had no family that he could reach out to. His grandparents had died arcs ago, and his father, he just found out never made it back to the Aukari, instead he was killed and flayed alive on his way back to them. The realization was starting to hit him a bit more, even as much as he tried to distance himself from it...
Last edited by Rickith Lanza on Mon Feb 17, 2025 3:02 pm, edited 1 time in total. word count: 390
After the saddle was off, Jinyel leaned close to examine Ajan’s skin. The hair all lay flat across the gelding’s back, but down at the hip, where the saddle blanket touched the hindquarters, there was a patch where the hair was thin. A saddlesore? That could get worse, if it was allowed to continue. Was the saddle blanket too long, or perhaps the saddle itself had shifted too far back? Jinyel didn’t have one of those fancy chest-straps that military horses wore. Once the warthog hide was finished, perhaps he could make one.
He was, of course, a bit confused about what a “letter in medicine,” might be, and for a moment imagined Rickith writing and actual letter and sending it off to this mysterious College of Viden.
But, no, Rickith clarified that a “letter” was a piece of paper regarding education. And that his mother had been an educator. And that she’d died very recently, and then Rickith’s voice began to waver in a way which Jinyel knew well.
For a moment, Jinyel focused on Ajan. He didn’t know much about conversation, but he knew about loss, and he certainly knew about being alone. He knew the feeling of his throat closing up like it was trying to choke him, and how hard it was to swallow when he didn’t want anyone else to know about it.
Some people talked about their feelings. Some people didn’t. Jinyel was of the second sort, but he knew that the first sort could feel better with a listening ear.
He didn’t look Rickith in the eye as he turned, preferring to keep his gaze on the stable rafters as he held out a horse brush.
“Better to talk?” Jinyel asked. “Or to be distracted?”
As Jinyel asked him if it was better to talk about it or be distracted, Rickith wiped the tear from his face, and said, "Probably better to be distracted and not think about it. I haven't really spoken about it with anyone yet, mostly because I didn't really know anyone in Scalvoris when we came there and tried to find a cure for her illness. She died a few days after that..." His voice wavered a little further, but on the inside, he decided the best thing was to distract himself with something. Looking towards Ajan, Rickith pointed to the spot with the hair that was thinner, and asked, "What's going on there? His hair doesn't seem as thick in that area, is there a particular reason for that? Was he born that way?"
He didn't know much about horses in general but was more than willing to learn about them. And the distraction would be good for his nerves right now. He needed to not be thinking about his mother, and this was a good way to not do that, even though the thoughts would always be within the back of his mind. Waiting for Jinyel's answer, he'd scan the rest of Ajan to see if there were any other spots of hair like that.Being observant was the best way of investigating things, and he knew the more he observed, the more he would learn. Plus Jinyel may not be good at conversation, but when he explained something to Rickith about what it was he was doing, he generally did it in a way that Rickith could understand.
Last edited by Rickith Lanza on Mon Feb 17, 2025 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total. word count: 277
He turned his back to give Rickith privacy, and spent all his attention on the place which had been pointed out.
“Saddlesore,” Jinyel said. “Or, the beginning of one. When a horse moves around, the saddle can shift down their back. When you put the saddle on, it’s important to make sure it comes up to here.”
He put a hand on Ajan’s withers.
“When you put the saddle on, you have to make sure the girth ― the main strap underneath ― is tight. The tighter you cinch it, the less the saddle moves, but if you cinch it too tight then the horse might have trouble breathing. Or it might kick you. It’s something you just have to get a feel for.”
He ran a hand down Ajan’s shoulder, and mused almost to himself,
“The cavalry saddles usually have a chest strap. I suppose that would keep it all from sliding too far. But those sorts of saddles are expensive. I suppose I have the leather to make one, now, but I’m not sure how I would attach it.”
He shook the thought from his head. He could deal with the leather later. Right now, he held out one of the soft brushes, still avoiding Rickith’s eye, and asked,
“Have you ever brushed a horse? The soft brush is the second step. I’ll curry it first―” He held up the currycomb, a hard wooden ‘brush’ with short pegs instead of bristles. “― and it will mess up the hair, bring all the dirt to the surface. Then it needs to be brushed back in the right direction, and the dirt swept off.”
Rickith smiled as Jinyel was giving him the distraction he needed. It was good to learn about horses, especially as they might end up being Rickith's primary mode of transportation if he ever is to get back to Scalvoris. Watching as Jinyel explained saddlesore, Rickith commented, "That probably doesn't feel too good for the horse, I'd imagine. Perhaps you could make a chest strap with the leather you'll get from the hide of the warthog. As for attaching it, i'd say that's a bit beyond me..." Smiling, he looked towards Ajan, and then listened as Jinyel explained how to brush a horse. So the curry brush is used first, and then you follow it up the opposite direction as the curry brush does. That didn't sounds too too hard for Rickith to grasp.
"I'll admit, I know very little about horses, but does it hurt them if it messes up their hair? Brushing the wrong way? It sounds like it might have the chance at pulling their hair too and I know that getting my hair pulled can definitely be painful. I'm guessing if you go easy with the brush it'll avoid that outcome?" he asked, genuinely curious as to if a horse getting it's hair pulled is like a humans, it could definitely hurt a bit. Looking towards Ajan, Rickith smiled. "He really is a marvelous animal," he said to himself as he observed Jinyel brushing him to see how he used the techniques with the dual brushes to get him clean again. Then a question popped into his head that piqued his curiosity again, and he decided it would be to ask it.
"How do horses in the wild clean themselves? Or do other horses in the herd clean each other with their teeth or something? Rickith asked. "You'll have to forgive me, but growing up in Viden, and living near the college, I really didn't need a horse to go anywhere in the city..." He felt he needed to explain his ineptness with horses, or well any animal for that matter.
Last edited by Rickith Lanza on Tue Feb 18, 2025 2:13 pm, edited 1 time in total. word count: 357
Jinyel wasn’t sure how to explain what currying felt like for a horse. Not with words anyway. He pondered the question for a few moments, then reached out, took Rickith by the wrist, and rolled up his sleeve.
“It feels like that,” Jinyel said, running his finger against the flow of Rickith’s arm hair. “And then like that.” He smoothed the hair back down.
It wasn’t a perfect metaphor, as Jinyel demonstrated when he put the currycomb against Ajan’s hide. He curried in circles, some motions against the hair, some alongside it, but all with a rather messy path left behind. Dirt came to the surface, with the barest few strands of loose fur. It was Cylus, after all, and Ajan wouldn’t begin to seriously shed for another cycle.
"In the wild, they... well, they take a bath by rolling around in dirt. Or rather, they do it no matter where they are. Wild, captive, trained. Rolling in dirt is just a thing horses like to do."
Jinyel started at the shoulder, then went across the side and back to the hindquarters. Once there, he crossed behind the horse ― keeping a hand on Ajan’s flank to announce he was there ― and crossed to the other side.
Then he paused, and looked over the horse at Rickith.
“Always let a horse know when you’re behind them,” he said. “Talk, or touch them, or something. They get spooked easily by noises they don’t understand. And walk as close behind them as possible. If they decide to kick, they need space to really make it strong. The closer you are, the weaker the kick will be.”
After that, the next side was much the same. Jinyel curried from the shoulder to the flank, in circles that forced all the dirt to the top. Two sets of hands would make the task go by faster, since they still had Reynar to do, and the hooves still needed picking.
As Jinyel took Rickith's wrist, and rolled up his sleeve down his arm, Rickith let him, because he was quite curious as to what it felt like for the horse anyway. But as he did so, he caught the look on Jinyel's face, and it made him smile. As Jinyel ran his finger down the hair on Rickith's arms to mess it up a bit (well as messy as arm hair could get), then smoothed it back over. "Oh, so that doesn't hurt at all then," said Rickith as he rolled his sleeve back up when Jinyel let go over his wrist. He then listened to Jinyel tell him about how to walk behind a horse when you pass them, keeping a hand on the horse's rear end to let the horse know you were there so it wouldn't spook. It would be good to know these things if Rickith was to ever get a horse of his own. That might be something he'd have to invest in at some point. Certainly, would make traveling a lot easier.
Even as Jinyel was explaining how to walk behind a horse properly, Rickith was listening, and watching. He observed Jinyel's motions and movement when he was brushing the hair back with the currybrush, and then taking the soft brush to smooth it over. He could almost still feel the tingling sensation in his arm from Jinyel touching it just moments ago. It was a good feeling, one that Rickith had not felt since he was a child when his mother used to rub his back to put him to sleep. Shaking out the thoughts in his head, he'd continue to listen to Jinyel's explanations.
Then Jinyel mentioned something about hooves needing picked. "I take it that is how you clean the hooves of a horse?" he asked, letting Jinyel know he was still listening, even if his gaze seemed to go a distance before returning to Jinyel, the thoughts pervading his mind of his mother. Refocusing his sights on Jinyel, he blinked a few times, then listened to Jinyel's explanation of how to clean a horse's hooves, if he were to show Rickith that.
Jinyel nodded, and put the two brushes on Ajan’s back like a shelf. From the care kit on the saddlebag, he pulled a hooked line of metal, blunted on both ends so as not to cut the horse.
“Ajan.” Jinyel said the animal’s name, and for a moment took his attention off Rickith. Ajan could be a fussy horse, and once the saddle was off, he usually got the thought in his head that he was free to do whatever he wanted.
“Foot,” Jinyel said, running his hand down one of Ajan’s front legs.
Ajan pretended not to hear.
“Ajan, foot.” Jinyel tugged the horse’s ankle.
Ajan lifted a bit of weight off, but didn’t lift the actual foot. For some reason, he had decided to test if Jinyel really wanted to lift his leg.
“Ajan, foot.”Jinyel hauled up the foot by force, earning a startled snort from the gelding. But the weight was already off, and so there was no stumbling. Jinyel bent over, holding the hoof between his legs with one hand and picking the grime out with the other.
After a few moments, the inside of the hoof was clean enough to see clearly. Jinyel pointed to the hill of flesh at the center, and said, “This is the… er, frog. It’s called a frog. The horse’s frog. I don’t know why. But it’s soft, not like the outside of the hoof. I suppose it’s like the palm of the horse’s hand. Be careful not to scrape it with the pick. If rocks push too hard against it, the horse could go lame.”
He dropped the hoof and went to the next one.
“Could you unsaddle Reynar? Do you think you could brush him? Ajan gets fussy about his feet. I don’t know how long this will take. Reynar is easier.”
