TwilightBlade

Seven Deadly Sins - GLUTTONY There was a rabbit in the show jumping arena. It shouldn’t have been there. Rabbits, especially wild rabbits, tended to hole up a bit in rainy weather, tuck into their burrows, or hide in a bush to nibble greens. He should know. He’d hidden with them a few times. This rabbit, in full defiance of survival, was not hidden anywhere, but sitting up as nice as you please by some of the decorative plants at a vertical. It should have been frightened off by the crowd of humans, the pounding hooves, the sheer rush of the great creatures called horses as they sailed overhead or trotted by. It was not frightened. Stupid rabbit. Adam Teal glared at it for an instant, denying any sense of worry he had for the soft-looking creature, and held back a shiver. The show jacket wasn’t enough to keep off the light rain, and he was getting cold, sitting up here on Shadow Icefire’s back as she stared the creature down. The rabbit should have been scared. The rabbits on

Seven Deadly Sins - WRATH The black colt half-reared under saddle, golden hooves lashing out at nothing but air, ears laid back as he squealed in fury. William Sandhya rose in the stirrups to stay with the angry colt, murmuring to him in a steady stream of words, talking about everything and nothing. Image de Nuit’s ears stayed pinned to his neck, but he settled back to earth, snorting out quiet little puffs of smoke in a low-level simmer from his bottomless well of anger. His black body was radiating heat by now, a mix of his own energy and the bleed-over of suppressed magic, but the extra warmth was more comfortable for both of them under the broken clouds of mid afternoon at Pemberley. William patted his neck, stroking his hand over the shimmering, silky black hair and sleek muscle that was already hot and damp with sweat, and was rewarded with the colt’s ears flicking forward for an instant and a slightly longer, almost sighing, huff. Image went back to his little puffing snorts

The long grey legs stalked forward into the ring as Rain of Tears put her full focus on the jumps. …the crowd cheered at their appearance, and Rin turned Rain toward the center of the circus ring, silver-blue water magic sparkling off her coat like mirror-mist, flowing up around them as the mare half-floated across the ground, ears pricked. Rin could feel the mare’s determination in her pricking ears and firm strides, as steely as her coat, and knew she was in for a ride. It was brisk at 40 degrees, at least for them, and she was just glad Rain wasn’t jumping out of her skin like Hawkflame had been during their practices over the last couple of days. She could feel the coolness in the air from the mist of water, a hint of freshness in the stifled hush of anticipation around them. All of the horses were feeling more than a little frisky after a longer-than-usual winter break, and despite the practice she and Rain had been putting in, the mare was no exception. The bell rang and

Dai Sandhya was finally back on a racetrack with a purebred Thoroughbred under him rather than a wildly colored Daemon, and it was proving to be both familiar and crazily surreal. First, despite the fact that he was riding a Thoroughbred, it was a mare rather than a colt, and they had a mix of both on the track today. Second, she could be considered to be a fairly unusual color for that breed, but she still wasn’t the most brightly colored horse on the track. And third, while she was definitely never going to be as tall as all but one of her stablemates at home, he still somehow managed to be riding the tallest horse on the racetrack. He half wondered if he’d stumbled into some mirror side-world, and considering the theme of the event, and the fact that they were part of the Millennium Falcon Derby, he wouldn’t be surprised if he met a few aliens. Certainly the horses from Silver Wings Ranch other than Sandusky could be considered “aliens” since they were from another world, but did

The increasing bounce in the strides of the mare under Adam wasn’t helping his confidence at all. One of these days she was going to hurt someone; likely herself and her rider first. Carnival above the Sea had never truly acted her age despite being seven years old now, and her long legs and slim-built body helped build the visual lie that she was around two or three years old. Those same long legs took them sweeping sideways and nearly backwards on the track before Adam could pull her around again. Carnival was a wild and crazy racer despite the sheer amount of training they’d put her through in an attempt to direct her enthusiasm into her speed, and being her jockey meant you were mostly just there for the ride. Fun, but fairly terrifying if you weren’t familiar with Carnival. Just like a rollercoaster. He ran his tongue nervously over the mouth-guard he wore, then bit down hard as Carnival took a sliding, sidelong leap that shoved them up against their long-suffering lead pony.

William Sandhya watched from behind as Carnival danced down track. There just weren’t many fantasy breed racers around for them to compete against, and he’d missed the one race Blood on Snow had been in before. He was pretty sure the racetrack wouldn’t let this end up being a match race between two horses from the same stable, but he was always hoping that other “unnatural” horses from other established stables would show up. Either way, he was just lucky to be there at all. They’d never pass up a chance to race their horses, but Twilight had originally only planned on racing their one Thoroughbred mare, Sandusky. That was where the fun started. Where Sandusky went, Carnival above the Sea would be there also. That meant Carnival was going to be one of the racing entries, no matter which other Daemon they chose. But having Carnival as a race entry had its own follow on; Blood on Snow would be the other Daemon racer. The two mares had trained together, whenever Carnival wasn’t with

Emaire Cherthwin and Dark Sun Shaleigha and Makkaliphon Kali saw the big horse approaching before Shaleigha did. He squealed, tucked his tiny fluff flap of a tail down, and took two steps back behind Shaleigha. Kali had seen Shaleigha deal with the bigger horses back at his stable. She could handle this one, or at least give him enough time to bolt and get out of there if things went bad. “Hmm?” Shaleigha looked behind her, feeling Kali shrink away from her. That wasn’t like Kali. He wasn’t usually so shy in a public setting. He rather enjoyed being around the hands that would pet him or voices that complimented his flashy colors. But when she scanned the area, she could see what had his attention. A rather large purple stallion with an impressive crimson mane and tail. Much to Kali’s horror, he felt a little pull on his rope halter to follow Shaleigha after the beast. “You must be my next partner for the Jumping Pairs class,” she spoke to the handler of the large horse. “Hello,