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Submitted: December 21, 2012
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on thin iceby =topcreek

Digital Art / Drawings / Animals

_{The new girl, Emma Dawson, was to be considered pretty ordinary by the usual standards. She wasn't pencil skinny and she had come to learn that she also did not fall under the category of what most would consider conventional beauty.

However, that didn't stop her from holding her own in a crowd of snobby pretty girls when she'd leased her first horse at age fourteen.

Despite being submerged in a veritable cesspool of unsolicited cosmetic and equine related advice, she had upholded her confidence well into her twenty first birthday and could boast that most of the people who knew her would say she was one of the most compassionate people they knew; had she not been the modest character that she was. So when this human ray of sunshine had stepped out of her beat up pick up truck and onto Top Creek soil for her first day as the new exercise rider - all smiles and giggles and curiousity over each and every horse - Lisa Green had been struck with one thing; envy.

Envy and the uncomfortable blooming of contempt that came along with it. She hated how she was able to make Kenny and Pepper laugh only moments after arrival. She hated the way her smile reached her eyes and seemed to radiate a sense of kindness to both people and animals.

After a brief tour, Lisa left Emma in the courtyard to fend for herself, after relaying orders from Robin that she was to take it easy on her first day and focus on one horse. And most of all she hated how she seemed to fit in so quickly like a missing part of the puzzle without even trying; as she had been for the past three years.
And it was this general train of dark thought that temporarily shut down her sense of compassion and lead her to reply, "The bay with the wing on his shoulder." When Emma came into the tack room where Lisa was polishing her gear to ask what horse she would be riding today.

"What's his name? Robin told me I think but I was too excited and I forgot." Lisa responded without hesitation, having known what horse Robin would have assigned to her. "Frostbite." Emma nodded. "Right! That's the one. Thanks!"

Because it was her first day and she possessed what felt like all the time in the world, Emma had taken great care to dress the bay up as if he were in a show, bonnet and all. Perhaps she would look more impressive than she felt if her mount was dolled up and groomed nicely in case anyone would be there to watch.

Things went smoothly at first through the jumping portion of their exercise. After they entered the heated indoor arena and she briefly had a hard time getting him to stand still as she got on him, the stallion flew like a bird over the orange hurdles despite the difficulty she had with his refusals at the beginning. She had experience with flighty horses, so she had no cause for alarm or suspicion yet; merely figuring it to be a test from Robin. To see what she could do with clay that had not yet been molded, so to speak.

An hour later, she was having fun with her slightly jumpy mount, who she had been told answered to his name; though she'd had no luck in that department as of yet. Lisa had entered rather unexpectedly after another thirty minutes and leaned against the wall for a few minutes to watch as Emma completed the course again, most of the refusal gone from the bay stallion as he took the hurdles like an old pro.

Irked that her small sabotage attempt hadn't gone completely according to plan, she put on a faux smile and strode unabashedly into the center of the arena, halting the large stallion and his rider mid-stride. "Hey Emma! Why don't you let Frostbite here take you onto the trail so you can look around the property? He's a great hacking horse and he's been in a lot of endurance races so he should be able to show you around pretty nicely."
She lied, a small twinge of guilt nagging at her for putting the horse endanger. She'd never really enjoyed thoroughbreds though, so she was granted enough self assurance to put that fact out of her mind.
"I don't know-" she laughed awkwardly, "-it looks pretty cold out there."

"I insist. It's imperative that all our riders know the lay of the land." Lisa shook her head accompanied by a slightly more forceful tone. "Well, okay." Emma grinned on her perch above her, Lisa resisting the urge to drop her false smile and push Jinx's drooling face away when he moved his head to nibble on her shoulder. She shifted in discomfort but Emma didn't seem to notice, already putting her faith in who she assumed was a new friend as she exited the arena, leaving Lisa to contemplate what she'd just done.

There was a bit of confusion about where they were going, since Emma hadn't the slightest clue of the layout of the property, and at first the bay wanted to turn around and head back to the shelter of the stable. She didn't blame him though, it was cold and she almost considered turning around herself but she had a commitment and she still had four or five hours left on the clock before she was due to go home.

Couldn't blow the first day. Still, she was beginning to become slightly skeptical about his supposed trail prowess when the stallion flinched at an oddly shapen rock and almost caused a small panic in his rider when he began to twist around and refuse to continue. She was able to goad him into calming down and returning to the path. After awhile however, she wondered whether or not she should have completely refused Lisa's order, no matter how familiar with the property she wanted her riders to be, because now she had no idea where they were or where they were going.

Frostbite's little freakout had caused them both to become slightly disoriented, and large flakes of snow were beginning to fill in their tracks. There was enough evidence there to work with that she could reorient them on the path back to retrace their steps, but a sinking feeling filled her heart when her steed began to pull anxiously on the reins, tired of standing in one place when the ground was so cold.

"Alright. Calm down." She cooed nervously, slowling feeling her control slip away. And then, in a moment of careless panic, she accidently dug her heels into his sides and Emma honestly had never felt so close to death. The stallion was suddenly off like a cheetah, surging through the snow at breakneck speed while Emma temporarily forgot anything she'd ever learned about horses against her better judgement, more concerned about clinging onto his neck for her life now than calming him down. And now she remembered why she had been skeptical about taking him out on the trail.
This was a thoroughbred, and not just any thoroughbred. A racehorse. She could feel his movements, and none of them were that of a well manicured trail horse now that she reflected on it. She'd assumed the first time he'd startled that he just had not been ridden in awhile, but now it was clear.

As if the evening could have gotten any worse: on top of being stranded in the middle of a blizzard with a jittery, spooked out racehorse in unfamiliar territory, and clinging to him for dear life as he bolted through thickets and thorns weighed down and hidden with snow, said racehorse was now taking a sharp turn onto an iced over lake; the realization coming a tad too late for her to bail on her ride.

And suddenly, the fact that her life was in danger became all that more real.

Realizing the lake wasn't all that steady under his hooves (it was a miracle that it could even support his weight in the first place), Jinx halted abruptly, causing shreds of ice to fly up into both his and his rider's face as both of their ears tuned into the crisp sound of the ice cracking. A second later, she was submerged in freezing cold water, feeling it invade her clothes and chill her to the bone.
Paralyzed and too much in shock from the temperature difference to move, she hardly realized when a strong brown neck re-emerged between her arms and began surging toward the shore, causing the ice to form a wake around him as his hooves broke through it wildly; dragging her toward safety whether he knew it or not.

All the stallion seemed to be focusing on at the moment however was getting to land, and when they did, Emma had never been happier to be alive. Her jaw was shivering involuntarily and causing her teeth to clatter together uncomfortably, and her mount was somewhat hunched in an akward position as he bobbed his head numbly.

Her fault or not, she'd have something to talk to Lisa (and Robin) about when she returned; if she ever did. The odds were looking slim now, with ice cold, wet clothing and a shivering, jumpy horse. And it was beginning to grow dark.
---

BEEHOOOOOLD the longest i have ever written
lisa is a bitch lol
ugghhhh this pose was so hard to reference because it had motion blurr and ewww his anatomy lol
anyway i wanted to put another twist on my stable that didnt involve crazy whacky vampire horses, as this one is a little more believeable. plus i needed a prompt to writeeeee something more interesting than frostbite trotting around in a ring for a show

to anyone who read that entire tl;dr thing, i praise your patience. also because my writing is awful lol
i know there are logistical errors in this story but suspend your disbelief pls
---

everything (c) me}

~OccasionalSuicide Dec 22, 2012

that would be scary. When I worked on the ranch ice was a hordes biggest enemy, the facial expressions on both horse and rider match up almost exactly to any of our 'ice skating' expiriences

=topcreek Dec 22, 2012

That's terrifying! I would NOT want to be stuck on a heavy horse on top of brittle ice ;A;
If you went down all those hooves would be flailing and eek

I'm glad it's accurate to the expression though LOL

~OccasionalSuicide Dec 23, 2012

exactly haha even the calmest horse had its day on the ice

*WolfsMoon1 Dec 22, 2012 Digital Artist

I wish my horse could run over ice like this D:
He always slips on smooth snow ._.

great drawing c:

=topcreek Dec 22, 2012

Thank you! Haha I doubt any horse in real life could actually do that, but I played with the logic a bit to make the picture more interesting.

~Secret-Assasin-Emery Dec 22, 2012

Lovely picture! And i really enjoyed the story :3

=topcreek Dec 22, 2012

Thank you! Haha! <3

~Secret-Assasin-Emery Dec 22, 2012

Very welcome!

*Chumpi-Champi Dec 22, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Oh no! D=
But great picture ;D

=topcreek Dec 22, 2012

Ikr? D;
And thank you!

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