Going Round the Bend

[Cortney Smit]

Cortney grinned when their instructor said that her and her partner were going to work on the stepping stones. As much as she had love running and sparing things with a sword, she had been looking at the stepping stones since she had brought Mo into the arena.

Once the torches... well swords... had been passed, she turned the flaxen gelding she was riding toward the stepping stones and lined him up to the ones on the right. Unsure whether she should wait for the other girl or not, she just decided to go for it, Mr Ropata had never said they were racing, at the beginning of the session, he had said it was about mounting and dismounting at speed. Giving a firm squeeze, she asked Mo for a trot and the pony happily obliged as he shot forward. A stride away from the stones, she had kicked her feet free of the stirrups and was preparing to do a flying dismount and try and land on the first step. However, what she wanted to happen and what did happen were two entirely different things as she missed the step all together and if she hadn't been holding onto the pony still, she would have landed on her face.

Stepping up onto the first step, she jogged across them and tried, without much success to use the last one as a launching pad to vault herself back into the saddle, she was left behind a little and ended up behind the saddle. "Maybe we should have tried this at a walk to start off with." She muttered as she pushed against the seat of the saddle and lifted herself up and over the cantle to sit properly and rode around the barrel to try again, keeping her eyes down, not wanting to know what the freshman thought of her.

[Serenity Oliver]

Serenity cast a slightly worried look toward the stepping stones, she was still getting to know Pixie and she didn't know how the mare would react to her riding jumping on and off her while she was moving.

After she had relinquished the sword to the teacher, she turned the rose grey mare toward their next task. Rather than riding straight up to them though, she kicked her feet free of the stirrups and pulled the leathers free of the keepers then rode over to the fence where she leaned down and dropped the stirrups down onto the grass on the other side. If she had her own way, she'd have removed the entire saddle, but she didn't know what their teacher would say about that. Rubbing the mare's neck she asked her to leg yield and they headed back over to the stepping stones.

Seeing that the other rider had taken the line on the right, she eyed up the ones on the left. She had played games like this back home, though she normally played it in the middle of a stream. She giggled at the memory of her slipping on the moss of one stone and knocking herself out, good thing it had been in the middle of summer and the stream was no more than a trickle, so when she had come too, the water had soaked through her clothes and she had a killer headache, was she was none the worse for wear.

Squeezing the mare forward, she asked for a canter and Pixie shot forward. "Steady girl." She whispered as the mare seemed to pick up even more speed, and sitting a little deeper, the freshman asked the mare to collect her stride. Not taking her eyes off the stones, Reni pushed off the mare's neck and kicked her right leg over the mare's back and her feet landed on the first stone, she nimbly skipped over the stones, keeping pace with the mare and sprung off the last stone and back into the saddle. Leaning forward, she hugged Pixie as they rounded the barrel and headed back to their line. This time she rode it so that she would dismount and mount on the offside, she'd have no problem with it, but she knew that the mare might react to it so she was ready for anything.

As the neared the first stone, she pressed against the mare's neck with her hands and kicked her left leg over the saddle. Before she was beginning her decent, she could feel the mare's stride falter. "Keep going." She whispered. "Please keep going." But Pixie came to a confused halt and Reni pushed herself away from the mare, landing on the ground and taking a couple of running steps to regain her balance. "Sorry girl." She whispered as she walked up to the mare and rubbed her on the forehead. "We'll do that again, on the side you're happy with." She now knew that she needed to work on some emergency mounting and dismounting with the mare.

[Deleted]

Ria nodded as she heard Mr. Ropata's instructions, giving him a smile in return to his grin as he explained the rules further, "I'll do that next time, I'm sorry." She held Fern where they were, watching her partner run through the same course, with more success than she had had, but then, whatever. She would do better next time, if she did get to have a next time. She listened to Mr. Ropata's praise, smiling, although she had been the only one to drop a ring, it didn't faze her.

As she realized that she would have a chance to go again right away, Ria smiled, looking at their new opponents. She glanced over at John, asking, "Same thing as before?" As he nodded, she set Fern up at the starting line, ready to begin, and when Mr. Ropata started them off, she had Fern start with a canter again, leaning forward slightly to get the best control of the sword, pointing it to the centre of the rings. This time around, she made it without dropping the ring, spinning around the barrel and achieving an equally clean run on the way back. She reversed the sword in her grip and handed it off to John, slowing Fern as soon as her partner took off, and turning her to watch the rest of the performance.

[Deleted]

John listened to the praise quietly, rubbing Rocky's neck as they waited for further instructions. The dappled buckskin was getting excited, John knew, and from prior experience riding the gelding, he knew that this would either have a wonderful effect, sending them sprinting across the arena, or destroy their work, creating another performance as they had seen during the warmups.

When they had received their instructions, now with an added instruction thanks to his partner's mishap, John nodded at Ria's question and lined up his gelding ready to start when Ria came back. The second time around was much better, with the hand-off going much smoother, and Rocky proved to be on a good day, having gotten his displeasure out before. The even faster speed made it harder to aim precisely, but John tried and hoped, and surprisingly, it worked out well, and they passed the finish line with all four rings on their sword this time around.

After slowing Rocky, no easy task now that the gelding was excited, John rode over to where Adrianna was sitting on dappled grey mare and held out his hand for a high-five, which the girl returned with a smile. She might be younger than the students, but the twelve-year-old sure held her ground, at least once she figured out what was going on.