TwelveKnives
Last night I visited and spent the night over at my great cousin's house. Not only do they have three very large dogs (Rottweiler, Bull Mastiff and English Mastiff) but they own about 30 chickens, 20 goats and two horses. What I want to talk about is the horses, though, in particular.
Since I made her, Ashryn has been training in the skill of Riding and Horsemanship. She needs a horse to be able to travel across the Cobalt Mountains and through the Bronze Woods in search for a variety of herbs for her career. So right as I made her I put 10SP in Riding and 10SP in Horsemanship. It was just a beginning to her skill, to put her above being totally new to the whole thing. Plus I bought her an 80gm Kavinka Paintedmount named TwelveKnives.
The name TwelveKnives, I agree, is a strange one. How did I get it? Well when I was younger my grandfather managed, and then ultimately owned after the owner got sick and left it to him, a horse park with about 15 horses. Basically the horse parked rented out the horses for trail rides, either 30 minute or 1 hour rides that were always guided by a staff member of my grandfather's. (He also had pony rides for the kids but that's irrelevant). My grandfather lived real close to where my family and I lived so every weekend we would pack up and go to the horse park and ride the horses and help my grandfather brush, feed and saddle the horses. That is where I learned how to care for a horse and how to ride one.
My favorite horse was a very calm one named JoeKid. I loved him. My brother's favorite horse was named TwelveKnives. Well, now you ask, why didn't I name Ashryn's horse after my favorite horse instead of my brother's? That doesnt make much sense. I agree, and part of the reason I chose the name TwelveKnives instead of JoeKid if because TwelveKnives is a cooler name, but also because of my experiences with TwelveKnives.
TwelveKnives was an Appaloosa, who had a white coat with black little spots all over her body. She looked like what an Mizaharian Leopardbred would look like. She had about 4 other male horses who were also part of the horse park following her around all the time like kids with a crush. Sometimes these horses would get out of their ties around their posts in the park and go over to TwelveKnives and just hang with her until one of us came and put them back where they belonged. She was a character and for some reason all the boys loved her.
Every time my family and I would go visit my grandfather's park, we would take a ride on the horses. Becase JoeKid was my favorite, I always rode him. and my brother always rode TwelveKnives. One day my brother had the great idea to switch horses, and I thought, well, why not? So we did. My brother rode JoeKid, the calm, trusting horse, and I rode TwelveKnives, the character, the tease. It was all fine and dandy go along until, and I have no idea what happened, whether it was me or something else, TwelveKnives started bucking me. I was like 11 years old and freaking out. I was screaming and holding on to the reins and saddle like nobody's business. My step-mother, for some godforsaken reason, was yelling at me to let go of the horse, to fall off. Looking back I think, seriously? Like hell I am going to let this horse throw me to the ground without fighting it every buck of the way. Afterwards I was extremely proud of myself because, no, I did not fall of that crazy horse. I stayed on until that thing calmed itself down. Then I switched horses and never rode TwelveKnives again.
That story is mainly why I chose that name for Ashryn's horse. It's kind of like a pay-back almost. Like here I can control every move TwelveKnives makes. His personality, the way he walks, his little ticks. Everything. And besides the fact that TwelveKnives is a crazy-ass awesome name, that's why Ashryn's horse is named what he's named.
Another thing I wanted to touch upon is exactly how I am writing Ashryn's training. I believe in research, and if you don't know something about something you're writing, you better look it up before you write something that is wrong. Most of my 'research' about horsemanship and Riding comes from the days I worked and rode on my grandfather's horse park. However it has been years since I've even been around a horse. This is where I go back to my great cousin whom I mentioned in the beginning of this post.
Just like everyone and everything in Mizahar, I wanted Ashryn's horse to be a little unique. But seeing as a Kavinka Paintedmount is one of the most common of the Mizaharian horses, I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to make TwelveKnives different. I had already decided that I wanted him to be black and white, simply because I like the simplicity of it, and the extreme clash of the two colors. I was still having trouble with the unique part though.
Suddenly I thought, how cool would if be if Ashryn's horse had a mane that was a different color than his tail. Now I'm not sure how unique that is, but I loved the idea. However, I wasn't even sure if that was possible. I had rarely been around horses and even then I couldn't remember if any of the horses had different colors like that. When I looked up a picture on Google, I found that that was, indeed, possible, and so it was. I loved it.
Just yesterday when I met my great cousin's horses I noticed that the Paint, as my great cousin said she was, not only had a different color mane and tail, but had a white mane and black bangs to go with it! I was awestruck at how gorgeous this horse was just because of this oddity. I loved it! And then I was even more happy with my choice of uniqueness for TwelveKnives. Now I had real life research to back up this decision too. It was awesome.
WordCount: 1065
by Ashryn on December 7th, 2014, 6:01 pm 
