Chương 47: Rideable Squirt

Squirt peered around the corner into the stables. Though it was early morning, the stables themselves were well lit, and there was a flurry of activity as fey prepared the mounts for Lord Prince Ranin's party to leave this morning. Hay and horse mixed with a distinct musk she recognized with acute annoyance. The musk of elk. While there were horses being saddled, they were all on the other end of the barn being attended to by larger fey. This end? All elk steeds.

And none had more than a couple of months of training at best. Lord Everwinter, standing beside the hidden Squirt who was dubiously peering around the corner, gestured towards one of these dumb-as-bricks spook machines and said the words she dreaded.

"We have prepared an elk mount for you, Athereon." Squrt gave the creature innocently munching on hay in its stall one look through the partially opened doorway before she turned back to Lord Everwinter with a firm but whispered, "No." Lord Everwinter raised a brow.

"No?" She threw up her hands, "I'm not riding the gods damned deer. I'll walk if I have to!"

"You cannot keep up with the group on foot, and a horse is not nimble enough for your purposes." Squirt burst out, "Gods, you'd never understand!" wiping her hands down her face. They were having their quiet argument just outside the stables. Inside and preparing for the trip ahead were Anvanil and Zakam, who could see but not hear the argument, and the knights and guards the lord prince had brought with him from the Capital for this journey, who could neither see nor hear the argument. And Squirt was panicking.

Rideable deer steeds were common in the more forested areas, being somewhat nimbler in the Wylds than even the nimblest pony. However, they were also considered less valuable than beautiful warhorses, and thus the previous lord had stopped all training programs in the territory decades ago. Some titled fey had them for servants as they were cheaper to feed and care for than horses, but they were considered a steed of a lower class of fey.

These new rideable deer steeds had only been training for a few months at the behest of the new Lord Everwinter. It wouldn't matter how intensive the training was, any steed that had been trained for less than a year was a gamble she did not want to make. Plus, she'd never particularly liked them, anyway. First off, they bounced more as they moved, and Squirt, being as small and light as she was, bounced more than the average rider.

Second, she'd only ridden one once or twice before, and when they spooked, they leaped. Third, because of reason one and two, they threw her. And last but not least, every time she'd had the opportunity had been before she'd lost use of her wings. She no longer had a reliable way to catch herself and not get thrown into a tree.

Or worse, she would, repeatedly, pull out her wings all day every day while riding a barely trained animal that would spook and throw her at the slightest provocation while she tried to hunt feybeasts. Nope. Not happening. And it was something he, as a giant male, would never understand. He asked softly, "Do you trust me?" Pulling back a little from him, she asked warily, "Why?"

"Keltos came with me from the Capital. He's an incredibly talented beast tamer, Athereon. His beasts have never let me down." The scowl Squirt had aimed at the ground slowly softened to contemplation. She shifted from foot to foot, her eyes darting around and her shoulders slightly hunched in on herself before saying, "… give me leather scraps so I can make some modifications to the saddle." The smugness radiating off him made her eyebrow twitch as he said, "Already done, Athereon."

"… I hate you." He chuckled, then stepped around the partially open barn door into the stables themselves.

"Come. I'll show you." Muttering to herself about what kinds of modifications would be best, she kept her eyes down as she trotted after him, eyeing the beast his lordship had gestured to darkly out of the corner of her eye. It was a smaller variant of the rideable elk in the same way a pony was a smaller variant of the horse. Two horns split off into four points, two pointed forward, two curved like a shield high over its back. As she watched, it turned its neck, using the tips to scratch its flank.

The horns on these beasts were not the same as antlers on a true deer, as they did not shed yearly. Instead, truthfully, the beasts were closer to goats than deer, with the horns attached directly to the creature's skull. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. But Squirt knew Common had its flaws.

"Milord, Madame," said a nervous voice. Flinching at the formal address, Squirt then squinted up at the tall, gangly man, his eyes low in deference and shoulders hunched in submission. Maybe it wasn't obvious to others, but to greenlings? Auras were all they saw. And this man was powerful with magic.

He was clearly a Fallen—a fey that birthed the legends of angels, their wings much like pixies only modeled after birds rather than insects, their bodies full sized and not halfling sized—based on the general faint glow of his skin. Also gross, he called her madame. Unperturbed, Lord Everwinter smiled kindly at the nervously shifting fey.

"Keltos. I trust you are ready with Athereon's steed?" The nervous fey shifted on his feet, his scraggly dark brown hair and scruffy almost-beard gave him a disheveled appearance, awkwardly nodding to the lord in answer. His eyes were the pale gold of a day fey, an odd combination with the dark brown color to his hair almost incongruent with general color schemes for day fey.

He couldn't keep his hands still, running them over himself and his clothes, adjusting this or that in a nervous tick that annoyed the fuck out of Squirt. He bowed to her and gestured to the animal at his side as he kept his eyes fixated on the ground, his voice a loud and bland monotone of stilted, heavily rehearsed lines.

"This is Mole. He is very fast. He is trained to follow you once I introduce you, and will obey commands to stand, stay, and follow at distance. On—" he awkwardly reached into a pocket of the dirty apron he was wearing, pausing in the middle of the rehearsed speech and practically lunging forward to give her a board. He then straightened and continued exactly as he had been.

"—this board," he gestured to the board in her hands, "I have written up all his commands and training, treats, feed schedules, and so on." The strange fey fell silent, his eyes widening slightly and darting around, having clearly forgotten, then the spark of remembrance lit up his face for a brief flash before he went back to the monotoned rehearsal.

"He is also trained for battle and will attack beasts on command." Then pointed and whispered, "That's, that's there. That part. I wrote it up." Squirt slowly lifted her head from where he had pointed to raise a brow at the odd man. He didn't notice, his eyes fixed back on the ground, straightened with a proud smile on his face like he'd just nailed his presentation. Squirt sighed.

"How do we do this introduction thing?" She'd just have to suck it up. If it was trained to follow her, she could always just hop off it and run. The man smiled bright enough to illuminate the Shadowlands. Squirt's expression flattened, but he didn't notice as he had yet to look anywhere but the ground. He then turned to the stall, opened it up, and just let the beast out. No tack. No lead. Not even a hand signal between them.

His eyes rose to greet the animal with a happy smile as it nuzzled his hand affectionately.

"Hey there, Mole," he said softly, like they were old friends, with none of his former stiltedness.

"Your fey is here. See?" He stepped closer to her, leading the beast over to sniff her. She held out her hands like she would for any animal, and it pressed its nose against her palms as it smelled her. It stepped to the side, eyeing her with those horizontal eyes like it was studying her. He then tugged the creature's head back up to look at him, smiling and saying, "You keep her safe, you hear? She's yours to protect now. Listen to her and be good. I'm proud of you." And people thought Squirt was weird.

He even kissed the thing's head. It snorted, nuzzling him once, nipping affectionately at his clothes, before dutifully starting to inspect every inch of Squirt. She scowled but let it happen, reading over the notes. As she did, the scowl faded to contemplation. She turned her head to eye the beast.

"Back." It took a step back. She turned to the board, holding it with one hand and attempting the gesture for the same command. It took a step back. Hot damn. She hadn't even needed to assert her dominance. Horses tended to be tricksters, fucking with new owners unless a strong relationship was built between them.

Things like sucking in air so the saddle was loose and would slip, or escaping their stalls to run around, or seeing if they could get close enough to the filly in line in front of them to nip her while they rode in formation. She scanned back down over the board, then glanced up. The beast hadn't moved. Scanning over the words, she tried seeing if she could combine the depicted hand motions, chaining commands together as the instructions said was possible. Back-left-hide.

The creature snorted, tossing its head a little like it was challenging her, then took two steps back and hid himself in the open stall on the left.

"Mole." It trotted out, all the way up to her as it playfully nipped her clothes when the most magical thing happened. Squirt giggled.

"Alright there, down boy," she said as she playfully pushed his head away.

"Enough. Let me read the rest of this." Before her eyes had returned to the page, she spotted the man returning carrying a saddle like she'd never seen before. He easily tossed it over the creature's back, an impressive feat considering the amount of cushion it had built into it and meaning either that he was absurdly strong—definite possibility—or that the saddle was built just that light. It had several sturdy looking large loops on the top, sides, and back, and two straps on either side of the horn.

He paused and asked awkwardly, "Ah, uh, you… you know how to put on a saddle, yes?" She raised a brow.

"Depends. Is it the same as a horse?" He smiled with a nervous jittering laugh, "Ah, yes. Right." Then did up the belt and tied it off before stepping back and staring down at the ground, gesturing and going back to the rehearsed monotone.

"This was made per your specifications, my lord. Grips for quick getaways and acrobatic movements, with him trained for a moving, active rider. Straps for assurance of holding the rider in place in emergency and… and optional—" he jolted as he reached into his apron, pulling out two flat bars of thick, padded leather with ends that fit into holes in the saddle's front ridge, "—leg braces," he gestured to the obvious leg braces, "for extra support during fast getaways to allow for the—the marksmanship of the rider."

Once again, the man beamed in pride at having accomplished the act of speech. She didn't care. It was beautiful. He awkwardly pointed to the board with that smile, his eyes still fixed on the ground.

"Um. Notes on the back for the saddle and its care." She nodded tightly. He lifted his hand to the beast's neck as his smile bled with melancholy.

"He's one of my best. Take good care of him for me, please." She nodded. Then she dropped her eyes to the board as she focused on memorizing everything she'd been given. And blatantly ignored the smugness radiating from the lord behind her.