Bow Wave

Stefan Marković on Dreadnought in Dressage - Freestyle at The FWR Beach Event - 2nd place!

It has been confirmed that I love to make things difficult for myself. xD And so yea verily, I saw the beach dressage class in *evil-firewolf's fantastic beach event and thought it would be great for doing some sort of relaxed showing with no need to strain my brain drawing uniforms and saddles and things - so of course then I had to do something daft because I HAVE A PATHOLOGICAL AVERSION TO EVER BEING SERIOUS I SWEAR, and I'd always wanted to do a sort of gentle gag about the effect of Dreadnought's ridiculous size on his gaits (which really is not funny at all when you explain it to someone unhorsey, trust me, so I can only slightly hope that the execution raises a slight titter here), so the uniform and the saddle got replaced with PERSPECTIVE and CLOSE-UP UNIVERSAL BRIDLE, and I ended up learning stuff and trying a few things and only remembering then that it's RNG. xDDDD But actually everyone else has put in loads of effort too, so I feel no guilt. c:

I declare this dedicated to the crazy hot bit of summer we just had, which seems to have been replaced with the usual greyish drizzle. xD

I don't think I've used a lens flare since 2006.

Story:
Stefan Markovic was not a small man. He and Daels were nearly of a height, but at six foot and-a-bit Marko had a good inch-plus edge. He had the breadth and strength of an established infantryman, with the extra that nature had seemingly thought he'd need in his growing years for wrestling bulls or something. The point was, he himself admitted that he looked a bit daft on Fannar and Brynja, all thirteen-hands-something of them, and that sitting astride one of them he looked a bit like a bear on a bicycle.

Dreadnought was Ironclad's first son. He was also her biggest son. Nobody had ever seen his sire, but the general consensus was that he had probably been a whale, because that might explain the progeny. Every other horse in Horsepoint could quite successfully use Dreadnought as a windbreak, with the exception of Trip, who could - and would - use him as an open-sided rain shelter.

Dreadnought made Marko look like a child.

***

"Sometimes I think you do this deliberately." Hester bit the top off her rocket-shaped ice lolly. Daels cast her an unamused glance.

"Next time I'll try to plan spraining my ankle for a more convenient time," he said dryly, shifting his weight uncomfortably. "Or, better yet, I'll tell Howitzer that he has to pick less important days to throw me off into an oxer."

"At least you did a good job of it." Hester suppressed a broad smile. "I couldn't have demolished it better with a heavy mortar. I think the way the wings also went fl-"

"Anyway, Marko will be fine," Daels said, swiftly returning the topic to the point. "He was the one who volunteered." Beyond the spectators barrier, they could see what looked like a boy entering the arena on an enormous grey wall, but which was in fact Marko on Dreadnought.

"He's not really much of a dressage person, though, is he?" Hester pointed out as the two of them began. "He's had plenty of time with Dreadnought, but it's all been up at Winter Warfare or driving. I think he generally leaves the fancy shit to you."

Daels shrugged with a chuckle. "He can do it all when he wants to. It's not a complex routine, in any case, and Dreadnought will do exactly what he says."

"There is that bit, though..." Hester waggled her fingers as best she could while holding the lolly stick. "What was it you said about extended trot the other day? Something including Fannar being like a bicycle."

"Fannar's extended trot is like freewheeling down a hill on a really cheerful bicycle," Daels supplied. "Howitzer's is like the morning of war." He licked a drip off his own lolly. "Dreadnought's is like clinging to the roof of a speeding freight train with your bare fingers."

Hester nodded with a grin, remembering, then frowned. "Weren't you going to warn him about that?"

They felt the booms through the sand before they heard the drawn-out expletive, and then an unstoppable mass of grey fur was thundering past in a spray of sand and water and with what more than one bystander later swore was a vicious slipstream. They watched them go. Marko did manage to stay on, t-shirt billowing in the wake of their passing and expletive fading into the distance.

"Er," said Daels. "Yes, I was."

Anisotropics reference
Image © to me (=KanaScott)