We have set up a discord for the festival- and fans!- right HERE. Feel free to join us to keep up with Festival news, and to talk about our favorite story year round!
This year’s Festival may be over, but we’ll be talking about The Scorpio Races year ‘round! Feel free to join us!
Marimo leapt forward with an explosion of sand and surf, in his customary half rear, half leap. He hit the ground galloping, and Evvy pushed her hands forward to avoid catching him in the mouth.
Thank you to @thescorpioracesfestival for organizing such a fun and creative event!! I hope to participate again next year.
I am posting all my written drabbles related to the festival on my AO3 in the story “Becoming Thisby” 😁 I’m so happy to have been able to explore Thisby in a immersive sense this year!
Training 11: it’s not much further. Only three furlongs, maybe. I don’t want to hope, but I can feel it pumping through me.
The beach was a throng of chaos, a sea of colors in both horse coats and jockey silks. Marimo pawed the beach, striking out with his right fore, neck arched as he kicked sand into the air. There were cappail on either side of them, screaming and keening for the sea, being pulled in circles while their riders cursed and shook bells in their mounts’ ears.
Evvy shushed her stallion and stroked his neck, tracing E’s and M’s on his crest. She whispered to him as a rosy gray mare hip checked him. Marimo squealed and skittered sideways, nearly into another stallion. The chestnut snapped at him, and Marimo pinned his black ears and swung a kick at him. Evvy swore and pulled him back.
“Easy, easy, hoooo, back.”
“Havin’ trouble?” Someone shouted, and she recognized the voice as Cameron, the so-called cowboy. She cursed again and steered her cappal away, hoping he wouldn’t follow. “What’s wrong, not findin’ the cappail uisce so tame without your bribes?!” His pronunciation was awful, even for a tourist.
“Mo, over here,” Evvy whispered, and asked him to trot towards the sea. “Heeeeeeasy.” She chanced a glance over her shoulder, and exhaled a sigh of relief that Cameron apparently didn’t trust his own stallion, so creatively named “Texas” near the water.
The water lapped at his fetlocks, and he dropped his head down, snorting at the waves. Evvy reached forward and ran her hand down his neck, poll to withers. She hummed a half forgotten lullaby and scratched his withers, before taking a chunk of his mane and twirling it between the fingers of her left hand. She paused to spit into her hand before returning to the twirling, then started tying knots - three, then seven, and again three. He took a deep breath that lifted his back several inches and exhaled seafoam.
It was nearly time.
“There’s an entire rack of lamb for you waiting with Rosalie, Mo. We just need to cross the finish line.”
“Riders! Line up!”
Water horses jostled and screamed, rearing and prancing and leaping as their riders jockeyed for position at the starting lines.
Evvy, focused on her horse, sung softly to him, and thumbed a treat from her pocket.
Pop pop, for standing still, for minding her suggestions, for not allowing the other cappail to goad him into a fight.
His long ears laid back against his head and he reached around to snatch the slice of raw bacon she offered. His ears immediately pricked and he shook himself mightily, sea damp mane slapping his neck and her face.
“Are you ready, now?” Evvy shifted in the saddle, checking its balance - too late now to fix even a loose girth, but it barely shifted. She gathered her reins, and waited. Most of the cappail on the beach reared and plunged, although some were still, tame and calm. Cameron’s stallion, also a plain bay, was one that stood quiet. Quiet, she thought, but not calm. His water horse was held by a heavy iron bit with long shanks, and she could see the blood bay stallion shaking.
“Riders, line up!”
Evvy closed her eyes, and asked Marimo to leg yield out of the water and closer to the rest of the horses.
He pranced on the sand, and tossed his head, but he stayed light in her hands.
And then the race began.
Marimo leapt forward with an explosion of sand and surf, in his customary half rear, half leap. He hit the ground galloping, and Evvy pushed her hands forward to avoid catching him in the mouth.
If the chaos before the race was bad, this was unfathomable. It wasn’t three seconds of running before two cappail had thrown their riders and made beelines for the ocean. The rose grey mare from earlier nearly knocked them over as she bounded across the beach for freedom. Evvy caught a glimpse of her white rimmed eye as the mare wheeled to avoid hitting them. She herself screamed and squeezed her calves against Mo’s sides, and he obliged.
She knew from watching the trainings that she wanted to keep Mo away from any huddles, any packs. She knew she could trust him ankle deep in the water, and that it wouldn’t slow him too much, but that the other horses would be fighting to get into the sea.
Evvy crouched low over his neck, keeping a steady hold on the reins, following his head. Marimo’s black ears were roving around, flat back, then flicking forward, sideways.
“Steady,” she called, and eased him off his speed, save it. Save him. He listened, and she thanked him, sneaking a hand up his crest and stroking him. He flicked an ear in acknowledgment.
There were a dozen or so horses ahead of them, running straight, more or less. That was fine. Marimo’s ears pricked and he started to speed himself, but she asked him to hold, and he did.
She popped lips, and his ears waggled.
Evvy checked over her shoulder. There were a few horses fighting behind them, more had shed their riders, but not all the newly liberated cappail were content to return to the sea. She swallowed as she caught a glimpse of two cappail uisce fighting over the body of a man.
But a blood bay cappal with a long shanked iron bit was gaining on them. The cappal’s eyes were wide and white rimmed, its nostrils wrinkled and mouth gaping against the bit.
Cameron and Texas.
Texas didn’t want to run straight, he zigzagged over the sands and roared around the metal in his mouth. Cameron jerked him hard in the mouth, back towards the chalk cliffs.
Evvy turned back to look ahead.
She checked Mo away from the surf.
Three furlongs? Maybe. She could feel Marimo beginning to either bore or tire, feel his skin begin to have a tackiness to it where her wrists touched him. He pulled towards the sea, and she could hear his blood humming through his veins.
She dropped the seaside rein and drew a letter, an E, then a M, on his crest.
His ears shifted, and he felt horselike again.
She pressed her calves to his sides and whispered, and Mo leaped forward, his legs beating the sandy surf, sending a spray of maddening sea water into their faces. He made a manic noise, tossing his head again in a snakish manner, but put on a burst of speed.
There was a whoop behind them, and she chanced another glance under her arm.
Texas careened over the sand, impossibly fast despite his inability to move in a straight line. Cameron whipped the horse’s flanks, sweat like seafoam lathering on the horse’s neck and chest. His eyes were sea wild and his teeth sharp.
“Mo, we gotta move!”
Texas did not look under control. He did not look tame. He did not look like a horse.
Marimo passed a horse, a chestnut mare. There were five ahead. The finish line drew closer. He was beginning to labor, and she whispered to him her gratitude. It was okay, he didn’t have to win, he didn’t have to give any more than he wanted. As long as they crossed the finish line in one piece.
His ears pinned, and he snapped at a steel gray who shrieked and tried to bite him, but Marimo stretched out his neck and charged. Evvy hissed and grabbed mane further up his neck.
Texas and Cameron flew up on their island side, the blood bay cappal’s fearsome jaw cranked open as he fought the bit. The cappal was driven half-mad between the November sea and the bit in his mouth. So close now, Evvy could see it was not only heavy and iron but also a slow, squared twist with a segunda port trapping the horse’s tongue. The cappal was far too close, she shouldn’t be able to see his cruel bitting choice so intimately. Texas snatched at Marimo but her stallion squealed and skittered sideways before his teeth could make contact. She was nearly unseated but saved herself, grabbing mane.
“You’re alright, thank you,” she gasped, sucking wind, and the two shot forward again, past Cameron and Texas. The blood bay had reached his limit and was running sideways, head in the air with his neck and back inverted. Threatening to rear and to flip. Evvy shuddered and whispered again to her horse. His breath was a roar but he charged forward, and overtook a chestnut, a palomino on the inside, his hooves sending up a spray of water, and she held only the buckle and a handful of mane to steady herself, letting her cappal run.
For a moment, all she could hear was the wind rushing over her ears, feel the burning of salty air in her eyes - or maybe it was tears. Then the world came screaming into focus. Marimo slowed to a trot, then a walk, and she leaned forward despite herself and hugged his neck. He was hot and sweaty and his skin tacky with November Magic, but he shook himself and turned his head to sniff at her pockets, his lips curling back over his teeth. She gently nudged his head away and sat up, but pulled a strip of raw meat from an inside pocket of her jacket.
Evvy scanned the cliffs for Rosalie, who waited with Marimo’s promised rack of lamb. She nudged him forward, away from the finish line as the other remaining pairs crossed.
********
TBC in the last little epilogue piece
Training Challenge #11: "It's not much farther. Only three furlongs, maybe. I don't want to hope, but I can feel it pumping through me."
Create a post about the races! @thescorpioracesfestival
[I won a prize! Yay!! Last two posts coming up and then I'll have to go back to working on my real NaNo project full time, lol oops]
The morning of the races dawns bright and clear. The sun is already burning the mist off the ground as I tack up Benny, leaving her girth strap loose for the walk down to the beach.
The beach is a riot of color - the morning races are wrapping up, and soon the cleaners will be down there to rake the sand smooth again, and clear out the worst of the blood. For now, the tourists' attention is being called to the souvenir stalls, their brightly colored tents looking like a circus troop along the road leading down from town. The betting booth is busy, and our colors have been posted.
Gus meets me on the beach where we'd agreed, my colors in his hands. He gives me a grim smile, and, incapable of smiling, I give him a grim nod. I trade him for my saddle, settle the bright blue across Benny's back, and then refit the saddle, tightening it this time.
It's time for qualifying.
I see Jonah a few yards down the beach, getting final instructions from Epperson. Caedmon's colors are purple, with a white flag.
Three nights ago, I was down on this same beach, trying to talk him out of this.
Training Challenge #10: "On horseback, it's easy to be certain."
Write about the final days leading up to the races. Does your rider feel ready? Is their capall going to listen to them? @thescorpioracesfestival
Every day, my arrival at the beach is met with a few frosty looks and a host of cold shoulders, but no one else is vocal about my training anywhere else. So I ignore them as much as they ignore me, and Benny and I work alone - just as we always have.
Not that I don't pay attention to their little dramas, of course. Like Flynn, who's managing to race with one arm, after she suffered a nasty attack in the last race. So much for keeping blood out of the race for the tourists. There was plenty of it last year.
And Gore, who can't keep his grey in a straight line, no matter how much magic he weighs her down with.
And Truett, who's got the fastest horse on this beach, and is the one to beat.
There's also another small drama that catches my eye - there's a newer rider, who just started last year, I think. He's got a mass of black curls on his head - when they're not damped down by his helmet - and his horse matches his hair. Well, the color part, not the curly part, obviously. Anyway, what's caught my eye is that his trainer, Percy Epperson, has been yelling at him non stop for the week and half we've been out here. Percy is always loud and demanding, but he seems to have really lost his patience with "Coslett" - his last name, I'm assuming, but that's what's being yelled against the wind. It's about everything - his seat, his stance, his grip, his posture, his attitude, his attention, his use of magic charms, his choice of magic charms... I'm telling you, everything.
What's strange is that, if "Coslett" raced last year, as it seems he has, from comments I've overheard, and if my memory serves me correctly - though I was a little preoccupied last year, trying to survive my own first training period - I don't remember this much yelling. Eventually, I solve the mystery by eavesdropping on Sylvie and Taz one day as they cool their capaill down near Benny and I.
McKane was his trainer last year.
Well, last year was McKane's last year. He retired.
Training Challenge #4: Make a Friend
@thescorpioracesfestival, this is a collaboration with @the-man-who-loved-a-mare
Freya felt quite bad for leaving so much of the vet work to grandpa. October was usually quite a busy month for them, with all the damage the capaill uisce was doing, both the racehorses and the wild ones that came up from the sea. This year was no exception. What was an exception this year was Freya herself. Since she had written her name on the board in the butchers shop, the other riders had decided they didn’t want her to tend to their horses. As if she would deliberately hurt the horses just to sabotage for the other riders. Freya was more than a little offended by the fact that people could ever believe such a thing. The older islanders wasn’t too rude about it, they might be pigheaded and refused her near their capaill uisce, but at least they let grandpa tend to them. The tourist that were racing were far worse, and Freya was quite certain that they would have refused grandpas help as well if they had just been clever enough to realize Freya was his granddaughter. Luckily for their income, most of them didn’t make the connection between old Dr. Connor the vet, and the name Freya Thorne written on a blackboard.
So, Freya was left doing all the work grandpa didn’t have time. And today that meant visiting a part of Thisby she’d rarely been to. She’d accompanied grandpa to many of his customers, but not all of them, and never to the Willis farm. But there had been a lame sheep, and grandpa hadn’t had time to go, so here she was, pulling up to a small farm in their rusty old pickup truck and jumping down in the mud.
There were no sight of the boy who had contacted her, nor of any sheep, so Freya poked her head into the windswept barn in hopes they’d be inside, hiding from the October weather. They weren’t. The barn was empty of any living thing, and a part of her brain registered that it smelled rather more like it did in Corax stable, than it did in a sheep barn. But it wasn’t until she walked around the corner and saw a black uisce mare and a boy, holding a struggling sheep, that she connected the name Willis with the name she had seen on the butcher’s board, Jaxom Willis – Saoirse. This was another rider in the races.
Jaxom Willis had brown hair and a scar running across his face. He looked vaguely familiar, Freya had probably seen him in Skarmouth sometime, but she’d never spoken to him before.
When she got closer, he put the ewe down, which promptly tried to escape from the nearby capall uisce but was stopped by the rope tying it to a stake in the ground, and walked to meet her. The black mare followed him, looking like she’d very much have them both for dinner, but before she could do more than moan, Jaxom turned to her with a stern “no” and shooed her away. The offended look the mare gave him reminded Freya very much of Green, the barn cat, when Freya stopped her from hunting birds, and she had to hold back a chuckle.
Jaxom tuned back to her, shook her hand in greeting and started leading her back to the sheep as he talked,
“I’m Jaxom. That,” he nodded at the uisce mare, “is Saoirse. She’s lovely but, uh. Don’t touch her. Sorry we have to do this here, usually I’d have us in the barn to get out of the wind, but my ewe won’t go in there, even if Saoirse’s shut in the paddock. Smells too much like her I suppose. I have us on this side of the pasture since the fence blocks the majority of the wind, but neither one of them are too happy about it.”
Freya could see that. The ewe was almost frantic with fear of the predator looming on the other side of the fence, and the mare still looked deeply offended that she hadn’t been allowed to eat Freya. They stopped by the ewe and Jaxom continued speaking,
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. We usually work with Dr. Connor, but I know he’s too busy with the Races this year to deal with this.”
“Freya. Thorne. She’s a beauty” She smiled at Jaxom and gestured to the mare, who currently had her ear pinned back, glaring at both Freya and the sheep. It was evident in Jaxoms voice when he spoke of her that he loved the capall uisce, and besides, she was gorgeous with those blue eyes, “and this is fine, our sheep wouldn’t go into Corax stable either. Uhm, Corax is my capall. He’s the reason I’m not down at the beach helping. Apparently, no one wants another competitor near their horses.” She couldn’t help rolling her eyes as she said the last bit, as she was still quite annoyed by it.
Freya kneeled beside the frightened ewe stroking her neck and talking softly to calm her down. The ewe stopped trying to escape and her eyes weren’t quite as frantic as before, but she was still tense, and very aware of the capall, but Freya supposed there was no avoiding that.
Apparently, Jaxom didn’t train down at the beach when the other riders where there either, and so he hadn’t heard she was racing this year. He didn’t seem bothered by the fact that another rider was tending to his sheep’s though, and that, in combination with his obvious love for the uisce mare, made Freya decide that she liked him.
The ewe, as it turned out, had stepped on a small piece of a nail, that had embedded itself in her hoof. Luckily, it hadn’t gone deep in, enough for it to be painful for the sheep to step on, but not enough that it had caused any severe damage. Freya managed to get the nail out, and clean the wound. She put on a bandage to keep any dirt out and told Jaxom to keep an eye on it, but hopefully it should be healed up enough that the bandage shouldn’t be necessary in just a few days.
While she’d been examining and treating the ewes’ hoof, she and Jaxom had discussed the races and Jaxom had told her that he was competing to be able to keep Saoirse, since his family didn’t want him to have a capall. Freya had been overwhelmed by a feeling of sudden gratitude towards her grandparents, who not only had allowed her to tend to an injured uisce mare, but also to keep baby Corax and who had helped and supported her every step of the way in raising a capall uisce in their barn. She couldn’t imagine what she would do if they hadn’t let her keep Corax, if she had had to fight every step of the way not to lose him. She really hoped Jaxom and Saorise would make it through the races, and that his parents would be convinced.
When the sheep was done, Freya left the small farm with a smile on her face and the feeling that, maybe, she had gained a new friend.
Training 9: obstacles
Any enemies on the beach?
Training continues—how does it go for your rider? Have they made any enemies on the beach?
“She’s going to get someone killed. It’s bad enough they’ve let the women start racing, but now a bleeding heart mainlander is treating a capall uisce like a puppy as if giving it scraps of meat will tame it.”
Rosalie peered over a copy of The Post at the speaker. She didn’t know the man - it wasn’t Thomas Gratton or Eaton or anyone she recognized immediately. He was obviously of Thisby by his accent. His companion however was decidedly not from Thisby. The tourist wore denim pants and a button down, collared linen shirt and a wide brimmed cowboy hat. He looked a little ridiculous, like something pulled out of a political cartoon. Right down to the tall leather boots with spiked rowels.
“The way I see it, Patrick, these water horses need a real strong hand, and there’s not a thing we know better than that back home in Texas, we’ve got real strong hands.”
“It takes more than a strong hand to handle a cappal, Cameron. There’s magic and skill and -“
“I don’t adhere much to magic,” Cameron, the Texan, drawled.
Training Challenge #10: "On horseback, it's easy to be certain."
Write about the final days leading up to the races. @thescorpioracesfestival
Beach training is going better than Freya would have expected. It’s been almost two weeks since she and Corax first started training among the others and no disasters have yet to happen. The races are in just a few days and, if you didn’t count the possibility of both her and Corax dying, Freya feels quite good about their chances.
She and Corax has walked in the sea along their own rocky shore by the farm every morning, trying to get used to being close to the ever-stronger lure of the Scorpio Sea, and she feels like its working. Corax is attentive, maybe a little too interested in the sea for Freya’s comfort, but ultimately, he never fails to listen to her. And he’s never tried to either eat her or drag her out in the sea, which is always a win when you work with the capaill uisce.
Down at the beach it’s not as simple. The sea isn’t a problem, at least not a big one. And the noise and people don’t seem to bother Corax too much either. He’s curious and Freya always take a few minutes at the start of every training session to just walk around and let him look at everything to get used to it. The other capaill uisce, however, is a problem. Corax hates them. He gets nervous around them and if they come too close and he feels like they’re a threat he will try to attack. Their second day down at the beach he had attacked a bay stallion that had flattened its ears and snapped at Freya’s leg. Corax had responded by surging forward and trying to bite the other stallions face off. Only a very sharp thug at the reins and a snap with a red leather strap right by Corax face had stopped him from doing any real damage. Since then, they’ve stayed as far away from the others as they can get on the beach, opting for training closer to the sea where less riders dare to take their horses.
When Freya had complained about it to grandpa over dinner, he had told her not to worry over it, and that Corax was probably trying to protect Freya as well, which made him like him more.
“But it distracts him” Freya had protested, “he’ll not be as fast as can be, and we won’t win. I just want to honor dads memory by doing good.”
“Freya,” Grandpa had looked at her with a very serious expression on his usually smiling face, “I might not know much about training and racing, but I know this much: The races aren’t about winning. The sea doesn’t care about that. And neither did your father”
Grandpa might not be of old Thisby himself, but his wife had been, and so had his son-in-law, Freya’s father. It was grandpa that had told Freya that her father had competed in the races himself, as a young man, long before Freya had been born. Her mother had never mentioned it, and as long as she had been on the island, the stories of their father had been about what a good man he had been, about him working as a groom in the Malvern yard, and about how much he had loved his family. Freya had never heard a single word about him riding, let alone racing, a capall uisce. But when her mother had left, and Freya had decided to tend to the grey uisce mare with a foal in her belly, her grandfather had told her the stories of her father in the races. He had been a fifth and competed two years in a row on a brown uisce mare with mane as black as the sea in a storm. He never won, but he didn’t do too badly, even managing to get in third place the second time. He had come from a long line of racers, and grandpa had said that the Thorns had competed in the races ever since they first were held, every firstborn son racing at least once in their lives. Freya didn’t intend to break that tradition.
She thinks on that as she steers Corax away from the other capaill uisce and urges him into a gallop along the shoreline. His ears are pricked, and even though his attention is split between her and watching the other uisce on the beach, he seems to enjoy running and her heart is running with him, loving every second on his back. He is not as fast as Freya knows he can be, but she realizes that grandpa is right, it doesn’t matter. She might not win the races, but with Corax under her, her grandpa supporting her and her father’s memory in her heart, how can she ever truly lose?
Training Challenge #8: Home & Family
It has started to rain when Freya walks back towards the farm with Corax after another day of beach training. The clouds are dark and promise a heavier rainfall during the night, and Freya is relieved they made it back before the worst of the rain arrives. She isn’t a fan of getting stuck out in a rainstorm with so many capaill uisce out on the beach.
There’s light in the windows of the house, so Grandpa must already be home. When they come closer Freya can see him moving around in the kitchen, no doubt preparing the dinner. Freya get a warm feeling when she sees him, mixed with the usual worry of losing him. He is all the family she has left now, after grandma died a few years ago. Him and Corax.
After her mother and sister left for the mainland, it had felt like a sign when Freya found Kaja at the beach and Corax was born. Like somehow, she had lost family, but also gained new one. Kaja had also left, but Corax remained a part of Freya’s family, as essential as grandpa.
When she’s brought him inside his stall, put away all the tack and put his dinner, a large bucket of raw meat, down on the stall floor to him, Freya lingers in the stall for a bit. She treads her fingers through Corax silver mane and rests her cheek against his soft black shoulder and hums softly to him as he eats. He is family, and sometimes she loves him so much it frightens her. Most of her family is gone, but Corax remains, as does grandpa, and she doesn’t want to lose either of them.
She gives herself a few more moments to lean on Corax and breath in his smell before heading out of the stall and out into the rain again. She doesn’t want to worry grandpa by staying out too long.
Before she heads inside though, Freya decides to check up on the sheep to make sure they’re secure in the barn before the rainstorm comes in at full force. She’s greeted by soft bleating when she enters, and although she had intended to just do a quick count of them and then head inside, she can’t resist sitting down in the straw among the sheep for a few minutes, the way she use to as a child. Two of the sheep, Moon and Jen, immediately approaches and demands pets by softly nudging Freya with their muzzles. They don’t keep many sheep, only eleven ewes and, in spring and summer, their lambs. Freya knows them all by name, was there when most of them were born, and no matter how much she loves Corax, there is something about interacting with animals that she can let her guard down completely around that is hard to beat. The sheep gives her a feeling of safety, of familiarity, of calm that is hard to find anywhere else. They remind her of being a child and playing out in the barn with Jenna, after their father had died and they moved to their grandparents’ farm. Jen was named in honor of Jenna, born the spring after she and their mother had left Thisby, and with wool the same warm brown colour as Jenna’s hair. Freya’s own hair, with its frizzy yellow curls, bare more resemblance to the straw she’s sitting on than to any of the sheep surrounding her. Evidently, the sheep thinks so too, because a sudden thug brings Freya straight back to reality as Gretel, one of the youngest ewes, tries to eat the ponytail sticking out from under her beanie.
“That is not for eating.” She flicks Gretel gently on her muzzle and the ewe stops chewing on Freya’s ponytail to give her an offended look. “I’m sorry, but its not.”
With a last few scratches behind the sheep’s ears, Freya gets up and starts to brush off the straw from her pants, just as a loud “meow” announces the arrival of their black barn cat, Green. Freya smiles and meows back at the cat and Green comes closer and starts to stroke against her legs.
“Hello pretty girl, have you caught any mice today?” Green meows as a response and continue to circle around Freya’s legs, making the walk out of the barn more difficult than necessary.
One look at the sky outside, and Freya decides to bring the cat inside the house with her. If there’s really a storm coming tonight, she doesn’t want Green to be out in it. She scoops up the now purring cat and, shielding her as much as possible from the ever-increasing rain, hurries to the house.
Inside she is greeted by their large grey sheepdog, Ash, the smell of freshly baked bread and grandpas voice calling from the kitchen to tell her to wash up before dinner. With a smile, Freya does as she’s told. She wants to spend as much time with grandpa before the races as she can, so tonight, she has decided to let herself forget all her worries about the upcoming races and just have a nice evening. Tomorrow, she can worry about something going wrong during the races. Tonight, she’ll have dinner with her grandpa and fall asleep to the sound of him reading to himself in the living room. Tonight, she’ll feel perfectly safe.
Training Challenge #9: Obstacles
Training continues—how does it go for your rider? Have they made any enemies on the beach? @thescorpioracesfestival
[note: I've been skipping around to the challenges I'm most interested in writing, because I started late so I won't have time for them all anyway.]
The second week of beach training is almost nothing like the first. The first is filled with the chaos of the uncertain riders - now, they've all been weeded out, and there's a certain air of determination. The small time riders take up the widest strip of the beach - the pros are willing to risk the narrower bit in order to distance themselves from the horses more likely to get out of hand.
I have to go with them, if I'm to be seen as anything at all.
Last year, a few of them were more curious about me. Kinder. Considered the chance that I could turn into one of them, with enough grooming, the right trainer - if I showed enough talent, I could get sponsors. Hey, they all started somewhere - yeah, that somewhere was mostly in the elite stables of the island, working their way up from stall muckers, maybe, for a few, or otherwise getting jobs as grooms or trainers' lackeys, depending on who they're related to... but they all started somewhere, didn't they? So why not this farmer's son? He's got heart, we can all see it... these are the kinds of the things I'd overhear them saying at bars, or when they thought the wind would carry their voices away from me, or on a few occasions just right in front of my face.
Then Benny took a chunk out of one of their legs, and I failed qualifying, and they don't really seem to believe in a Cinderella story for me anymore. Only a handful of them did to begin with, anyway. Most of them have always shook their heads at me - but I don't mind. I've never been the sort of person who needs anyone's approval.
Training Challenge #7: “Racing is about more than riding.”
What is your rider learning about racing, especially on a capall uisce? @thescorpioracesfestival
Racing, if you do it right, can be a religion.
Up on that rock, calling out my name and Benydiau's, spilling my blood - that, for me, is like lighting the first advent candle, or getting your face marked with ash on Ash Wednesday. I love those things too - I love all ceremony, all symbolism - but long before the priests came to this island, my people had a way of reaching God.
The found Her on the back of a horse.
When I ride Benny down the beach, I'm thinking about a lot of practical things. I'm thinking of keeping her head straight, which keeps her feet straight. I'm couscous of the way her body feels beneath me, how loose or tense she feels. I'm watching her ears and reading the messages they're sending me. I'm skimming iron over her withers to get her to pay attention when she loses focus, I'm tying knots in her mane when her ears are only swiveling to the sea, I whisper my own song in her ears so she remembers why she's here, I trace circles across her skin when she needs calming. It's a constant act of motion, a balancing act. It involves my whole brain and my whole body.
And also my whole soul.
While my body and my mind do the hard work of staying alive, my soul is quietly singing in worship. In awe and wonder. It's in the gritted teeth happiness that comes from existing in the chaos between life and death that I can see the face of the Divine. It's in the knowing you're alive because at any moment you could die.
We are dust. To dust we will return.
Or on Thisby - we are salt of the sea. The sea drinks our blood. The sea knows her own. To the sea we will return.
To the sea we all, man and capaill alike, return. Some of us are just more alive when we do so.
I'm not condoning everything my people ever did to celebrate this connection. They used to spill something a little worse than sheeps blood on the rock before we call out our names. I don't think any of us should ever be condoning everything done in the name of God - the people aren't what makes a thing holy, or right. That would negate the purpose of a higher power anyway.
What I am saying is that I'm not in these races for the purse, or for the fame, or for any of those tangible, commercialized things. I ride the races because I find God when I'm on the back of my capaill, magic fizzing through my veins and salt filling my lungs and sand pockmarking my face.
And in this world, in this day and age - God is hard enough to find.
Training Challenge #6: Explore the Festival
How does your rider navigate the Festival? What do they do before and after the Riders Parade? @thescorpioracesfestival
I used to love the festival - back before I had any blood in this game, back before anyone knew my name. Or had any reason to spit on it, that is.
Still, there is a kind of addictive magic to it, once you're in it. The Mare Goddess haunts the night, the drums get under your skin and into your bloodstream, until you can believe magic is real, if you didn't already. Everything smells like smoke and sugar. And blood, later. Or if you stand too close to The Mare Goddess.
Kids are scrambling for her dropped sand and rocks, looking for the shell, and the tourists debate among themselves if that's real blood, and I stand back from the crowd and let the surge of all it tip me forward, as if towards a ledge.
The ledge is the rock, and my blood dripped down upon it.
Last year, no one thought I'd be able to come up with the money for the fee, and this year, everyone thought the same - because how could the son of a farmer who does nothing but odd jobs for people all year have come up with enough again? On top of feeding a capall? But he has, and the bills are spread out on the counter at the butchers where everyone craning their heads around can see them.
I tip forward on my toes as the forward motion of the magic rushes through my body.
This night, and the races. That's when I can almost imagine how it used to be, back when there were dozens of farmers boys like me climbing that rock and calling out their names. Back when this night was as religious as church on Sunday. As monumental as Easter or Christmas.
OK, well, to be fair, those have been commercialized too, but you get my point, right? About how big of a deal this is. What it used to be. The way it wakes up something old and buried in people's hearts. Something they turn off for the rest of the year, something they forget as soon as the night is over.
My sister finds me just before the parade starts marching the riders up the hill. She's wearing a mask with horns and she's got flowers draped around her neck. She smells like cheap beer.
"Come on," she says, grabbing my hand roughly, "You can't hide in the shadows all night."
Because my sister doesn't approve of what I'm doing either, and she thinks that if I'm going to be mocked, it should be to my face. Because once upon a time I used to spend the night in a mask, eating November cakes and drinking beer and being a pain to her and her friends, and now that I've moved on to something else even more obnoxious to her, she's decided that she misses the old version.
In our path suddenly stands the Mare Goddess. My sister gives a high laugh and says "Quick, get a picture with her!" trying to shove me forward and pulling out her phone. I stand stonily still, watching the dead horse head with the glass eye.
We still never know who's under there, and the horse head is forever old and carefully preserved. My mother mutters about an old cult still operating on the island and keeping up the tradition, but if such a thing exists, it's managed to stay hidden from me. And I am very thorough.
Someone distracts Miriam - one of her friends - and they turn around and grab a selfie with The Mare Goddess together, but the Goddess hasn't moved. She's still looking at me.
"If you're here to grant me a wish," I say quietly, so quietly that I'm not sure she can even hear me, "Then what I want is to get through qualifying."
It's a lie. I want to win. But there is such a thing as to wish for too much. At least that's what I think, until she lowers her head until her dead cheek is next to mine and says in a low, gravely, women's voice, "Wish with your mouth what you wish with your heart, or don't bother wishing at all."
I blink as she walks away, the smell of blood filling my nose and stinging my eyes - though I should be used enough to it by now.
"Come ON," Miriam says, grabbing my hand again and clearly not having noticed my little conversation with the Goddess, "You really are such a BORE." And she's pulling me into the crowd and dancing to the drums and I watch her, and the kids in rubber horse heads dancing around her, and the jangling of bells is hurting my head and finally, finally, they are getting in line to march up the hill.
I quietly get in line with everyone else, and everyone else ignores the fact that I am here. I am invisible. I don't mind.
I'm not in this for them.
Congratulations to our winners! All prizes were designed by the lovely @denimwingsface!
Our 1st place giveaway winner, @vintervittrannerd, has won a notebook!
Our 2nd and 3rd place giveaway winners, @solidaritetwatson and @lucimiir, have each won a button and a sticker! (Please let us know when you message us which horse you would prefer for each item.)
Rules:
“Based on my experience on the beach the day before, I form a new plan.”
How did your rider’s first day of training go? @thescorpioracesfestival
The sea has started spitting out horses, so the pros polish up their boots and iron out their best riding clothes and head down to beach to make a show of it.
I don't hate them. I know if may sound like I do, but I don't. I just think they're a bit annoying. And that most of them have sticks up their butts. That's all.
Wether I like them or not, I have to train with them. So I get up before the sun, check to see if Benny will eat anything - as expected, she won't, she can smell the scorpio sea and she's high strung and eager. She'll be ready to eat after a good run - and hopefully her hunger won't lead her to eat something she shouldn't. But that's on me.
I frown, watching her crane her neck to catch the scent of the sea through the barn door. Her sharp, curved ears are straining for sound - waiting for the calls of her kind. She starts to keen for them, but I sing low over the top of her, drowning her out and annoying her, her ears flickering to me and away again, to me and away again, until she gives up with a snort of impatience. She almost sounds like a normal horse, then. Those moments will get fewer and farther between, the close we get to November.
By My Blood
“I will ride. Evvy Zimmer, Marimo. By my blood.” She repeated the phrase over and over again. October was flying by, and the call of the water was growing by the day. Sometimes, a hand left too long on the stallion’s neck was hard to pull away. And yet, his eye was soft and without the harsh seafoam white. He still looked like a horse.
He looked like a horse on the beach, even when the October sea lapped at his fetlocks. Evvy closed her eyes, feeling the stallion’s legs moving out in purposeful, even steps under her as they walked along the hard packed sea damp sand. Marimo exhaled a huge, wet snort, but kept up his pace steady. She opened her eyes and slowly gathered her reins. She had braided his mane with a green ribbon to match his saddle cloth and, hopefully, remind him of the land. She checked her landmark on the far side of the chalk cliffs and realized they had drifted deeper into the ocean than fetlock deep, waves coming half way up his cannon bones. Evvy took a deep breath, and opened her rein towards the beach. The stallion followed the suggestion and she popped her lips before offering a hunk of meat on a stick. He took it politely enough and she allowed him the time to chew and swallow before stowing her stick and readjusting her reins, and asking him to move off her legs. Marimo leapt up into a trot, ears pricked forward as he splashed through the shallow water.
The only other rider on the beach was down the other end, schooling their cappal uisce in circles in the surf as well. She couldn’t see who it was at this distance, but the dark horse was obviously bigger than Marimo, even at this distance.
Someone was on foot though, and Evvy thought she recognized the approaching shape in the dusky morning fog.
“You’re not planning on having a bag of meat on the beach are you?” It was Rosalie Duncan. Evvy circled her cappal around the reporter and lifted two fingers from the reins in greeting.
“I’ve been weaning him from rewards for each signal, each correct choice, for a while, but I don’t know that I can ask him to do the races without any form of reward on me.” She nodded out towards the end of the beach. “I don’t mean to be rude, Roz, but I need to finish warming him up before I go for a breeze.” Evvy paused, thinking. “Would you hold the bucket for me?” She eased Marimo to a halt and unbuckled the bucket from her hip. Marimo turned his head on his long neck and nosed it. “Manners,” the cappal made a face but followed the cue and turned his face back to midline. Evvy leaned down and handed the bucket to Rosalie. “Grab a chunk of beef heart and when I give the signal, toss it to him, will you?”
Evvy smiled, and Rosalie took the bucket, brown eyes bugging out of her head. Although he kept his face forward, Marimo’s inside ear was trained on the reporter.
“Wh- what’s the signal?”
Evvy popped her lips and the horse slowly turned his head. Rosalie gulped and tossed a large piece of bloody meat at the horse. It landed in the sand by his hooves, and Evvy let the reins out to allow him to pick it up.
“I’m going to trot him down and back, will you do the same when we get back? Then again at the gallop? You can say no! I know he’s a bit intense.”
“Are you kidding? No one else will let me near their cappail.” Some of the fear had eased from Rosalie’s expression. “Is this your plan for race day?”
Evvy shrugged.
“We’ll see. I might not be allowed to, and he might not take kindly to this idea. I think I can keep a few pieces in a smaller container under my cloak if needed.”
She opened her rein and steered Marimo away from the reporter and found the packed sand by the water. The water was part of her plan. Marimo seemed, at many times, more food motivated than ocean-called, and she wanted to use that.
Evvy urged Marimo back up into a trot, and he leapt into it almost joyfully, reaching forward into the bridle, and chewing the reins from her hands as he played with the bit.
“Thank you, boy, good boy,” she whispered, and posted along with him, hands following his mouth. Wind off the sea caught her hair and stray pieces of his mane; it was invigorating. They trotted up the beach and then turned and headed back. She felt Marimo consider protesting but she dropped her seaside rein to trace a letter E, a letter M, on his neck, before picking it back up. He shook his head once then obliged.
His trot felt floaty and even, strong. They rode past Rosalie and then slowed to a walk before turning around to her.
Pop pop!
Rosalie had the meat waiting this time, on the stick. Marimo’s long ears pricked and he reached curiously towards it.
“Manners,” Rosalie said slowly, but the uisce stallion listened, and paused, coming no closer and waiting instead for the meat to come to him.
“That’s promising, that he knows it from not just me,” Evvy breathed, and stroked his neck. He chewed and his ears waggled to and fro, listening to the ocean and the beach and the island.
“I’d like to try it at a gallop, if you don’t mind.”
Rosalie nodded and stepped back.
“There are few others coming down.”
“This is my last one.”
She gathered her reins and checked her girth before standing in the stirrups, crouching down over his neck.
“Ready, Mo?” She let her hands creep up his neck, and then, with an exhale, she squeezed her calves against his sides. The stallion grunted and jumped forwards, his front legs lifting as he launched over the beach. Fingers found mane, and she let him go. Breathe, breathe, she told herself, and don’t fall off. The October sea sprayed them with cold water as he thundered over the sand, and Evvy reached further up his neck, letting him have his head. A gentle touch of her seaside leg and he stepped away from the surf. She popped her lips but urged him to continue and he, to her relief and pride, obliged. The chalk cliffs reared up over them as they approached, and he started to slow himself before she asked. That was fine. She stood in the stirrups and asked him to come back to a trot, to a walk, and then she popped her lips again. He looked quizzically at her over his shoulder, turning his head to look at her.
“When we get back down there, Mo.”
He blinked at her with his large, dark eye, and there was an unmistakable hunger in his gaze, but listened, and they trotted slower this time back to Rosalie.
“Empty it on the sand, Roz,” Evvy called over the wind and the waves. “Just let him have everything in there.”
By my blood, she repeated to herself.
Training Challenge #2: “She’s moody and she’s slippery and she’s in love with the sea.”
Describe your capall uisce. @thescorpioracesfestival
I caught Benydiau the day before the races the year I turned eighteen.
I'd almost despaired of catching anything - first, I just seemed to be in the wrong places at the wrong times, missing the capail uisce that emerged that night - night is when they come up the most, though it's possible to catch them in the day - then, when I finally did find one, I failed to catch it. That was a scary experience. I was lucky to have the old lighthouse keeper see me and get one of the farmers near by to help - not that he was happy about it - or I probably wouldn't have survived. It's best not to do these things alone, but I've never had very many friends, and besides, Sean Kendrick had caught his horse alone. And at that age, I was still a little bit whimsical and heroic. I got a good shouting at for that one - first from the farmer, Mr. Lewis, who helped me out; and then by my parents; and then by my grandmother, who was still alive at that point. After that, I managed to convince one of my school friends, whom I'd barely talked to since we'd graduated, to go with me, even if all he did was hang back with a piece of rope and a pocket full of salt and tell me nervously all night long that I was a crazy pisser. Still, he went out night after night with me - one capall we saw from too far off and it eyed us, with all our magic hangings-on, and took off in the other direction before we could get close enough; another we screwed up, mostly because Gus was nearly shitting his pants the whole time and couldn't stop calling on god long enough to catch a decent breath - once again, it was a mercy from someone's god that we survived, though I'm not convinced it was Gus's. Or that Gus ever believed in a god outside of that moment. Another time, bullies I thought I'd outgrown from school decided to come back into my life, the news of my failed attempts having spread, because of course it had, everything spreads on this island, and even the smallest scrap of gossip counts as news. They followed us around for three nights, hooting and hollering and saying things that don't bare repeating, as well as making gestures I never bothered to look at and won't bother describing now. Somehow, this only made Gus all the more resolute (bullies always got to him more than me, I'm good at wandering off in my head), so when the bullies got bored, Gus, my only sometimes friend, stuck by me.
He was still by my side, now a little braver, and decked out in iron as well as salt, that last night before the races, and was trying to bolster my failing hopes. Not that I'd said I was losing hope - I think the downwards turn of my mouth, hunched back, sleep deprived eyes and overall demeanor were enough to clue him in.
Then a black shape came out of the sea.
She was stunning - picking her delicate feet high above the foam, arching her shiny neck, the white blaze on her face shinning in the moonlight. Her eyes were a terror - flashing and watery and hungry, and something about her made Gus let out a string of curses rather than prayers.
We worked on her for hours - playing a game of ropes and ribbons, salt and iron, shouts and screams. (Shouts from us, screams from her) It was a long night. We were bone tired and a bit bloodied by the end of it - mostly from cuts in our hands from the ropes, but I also had a gash in my forehead from underestimating her reach at one point, and Gus had suffered a stomped on toe - but we had a water horse, at long last. Shutting her up in the barn was one of the most triumphant feelings I have ever felt in my life.
Actually, most of my triumphant moments involve Benydiau; Benny, for short. The first time I got a bridle on her, the first time I rode her without getting thrown, the first time I raced her down the beach... and some of my most humiliating moments have involved her as well. The time my crush at the time witnessed my nearly get eaten when Benny threw me and I got tangled and my cousin Matt was barely able to rescue me; the time she bit a chunk out of Henry O'Mally's leg and cost him the race that year (nothing like proving to a professional racer that you can't keep your horse under control); and the time she broke out of the yard in high summer when I should have still been taking her very seriously (but wasn't) and she ate the neighbor's cat and nearly gave their grandmother a heart attack.
There's more, actually, but let's stop there.
Benny is ornery. Benny is stubborn. Benny is tricky and good at undoing locks. Benny is just as slippery and violent and cunning as all the rest of her kind, and sometimes, I think she must be the worst of them currently on the island. The professionals either catch better mannered capaill uisce, or they are simply so much better at training them (which is very possible) that theirs seem nearly like different creatures sometimes. Sure, they're just as likely to eat you as the next one, but something about them just seems slightly more... civilized. When you watch the pros and their horses, you are left in wonder that man and wild beast could match each others wills so perfectly, that such violent chaos could be made to look like sportsmanship.
When you watch Benny and I, I feel like most people tense and close one eye and afterwards are left in wonder that no one died.
Benny is fast. She's elegant. Regal, beautiful, stunning really... and a royal pain in my neck.
But she's mine. Sometimes I mutter about her being the only thing the sea would let me have - but it's not really how I feel. I don't ever take her for granted. I'm honored that she's here. I take my responsibility for her very seriously, and I intend to one day return her to the sea in good order.
Or else she'll be returned to the sea by other hands while I burn on a pyre, but that's not what I prefer.
I'm still a dreamer, deep down somewhere in my calloused heart, and I want to see us in The Scorpio Races, holding our own with the champions.
This year. This year, we're going to make it happen.
Training Challenge #1: Welcome to Thisby
Like most beautiful and unique things in the world, the Races have been commercialized and sterilized and bound up with string in a pretty, bundled, all inclusive package for tourists, so that it’s hardly recognizable now to the races my grandparents would have known.
The races I was told about, the ones remembered in grumbles and mutters and shaking of heads, as my grandparents sat in the stands with me and watched their island, and their races, change before their eyes, year after year.
It’s not a new phenomenon, and it’s unavoidable. This is how the world works. There’s no point being bitter about it - there are other cultures in the world being more violently swallowed up than ours is.
But I am. Bitter, that is. I wish I could have lived back in the days of Sean Kendrick, when the races were for everyone, and there were simple, homegrown heroes racing down that beach.
Since the races are largely a spectacle for tourists now, the cultural significance beaten to a pulp by mass migration off the island for jobs and to fight in wars that weren’t ours, and by the influx of modernization - the only people racing are those sure of a chance of winning. The prize is still quite significant, and the population still generally below what would be considered middle class back on the main land, but there’s no reason to risk life and limb in the races when you don’t believe in something Larger anymore. Plus, there’s plenty of money to be made off the tourists. Let the professionals put on the show.
Which is why my mother can’t understand why I’m racing.
She couldn’t understand when I dragged my first horse out of the sea and she couldn’t understand why I kept it after I lost in qualifying last year and she doesn’t understand, still - she shakes her head at me now, as I walk past with a bucket of blood in each hand.
My father, who’s parents I was chiefly talking about when I referenced my grandparents and their memories of the good ol’ days, understands more - but he’s still far removed from the tradition. He understands it in a physiological way. He can go on for hours about the importance of cultural identity and how we need to go back to what’s important in life and be more in the present and involve ourselves in divine mysteries… but give him the reality of a capall uisce frothing at the mouth, and he suddenly doesn’t have much to say.
His father never raced. His grandmother did. Inspired by Puck Connolly, rode for the first time just a few years after she did. I used to beg for those stories - hung off every word.
“Now don’t be getting any ideas into that little head of yours,” my grandmother would scold me when I got too eager. “You keep both feet on the ground, now, like a good boy. Don’t go breaking anyone’s hearts with needless risk taking.”
Finally, one day, being very annoyed by this, I retorted, “Grandma, it’s not like everyone died from it. Everyone did it! They can’t have all died from it.”
“First of all, no, not everyone did,” she corrected me, giving me her famous raised eyebrows that said “I can’t believe your attitude right now” and which everyone feared, relation or not. “Secondly,” she continued, placing the cookies we’d been eating out of my reach as I went to take another one, “the average lifespan back then was much lower. And the horses played into that. So,” she said, waggling one of those eyebrows in a way that dared argument, “enough died.”
Like most kids, I thought I was invincible and had a hero complex. Thankfully, by the time I was old enough to skirt my parents prohibitions and catch a capall uisce for myself, I’d had a few falls from grace and had a more humble view of myself.
I had an even more humble view after Doctor Lawrence had to sew two of my fingers back on - I was lucky, really, to get them back, most the time they get swallowed - and still more humbled when he had to get my arm bone back into my skin, and set it and stitch me up again.
There’s a reason people stopped doing this.
“Why don’t you become a historical reenactor,” my mother will lement, “or a history professor, or an archaeologist?! Why does *this* have to be the way you connect with the past?”
That’s why I do it, I’ve told her. I’m fascinated by history, I want to connect with my heritage and my culture, I want to look into the past.
But I’ve told her that because the real reason is too hard to explain.
The sea knows my name. The capail uisce, races, the smell and the thrill of it, and the way the sea sounds and looks different right before racing season begins, and then sings to us all more and more potently until we’re near drunk on it, racing down that beach on the 1st of November…
But I’m engaging in a fantasy again, aren’t I? No one hears the sea anymore. If they do, they ignore it.
Except for me.
