[Illusionist]

 

Owner       >>> Rondell
 Name                >>> Curare
 Gender         >>> Female
 Adoption Price         >>> 4 non-naturally colored pets
 Training         >>> [Fully Trained][+1]
  =====
. intelligent
. shy when interacting with other mares
. sensitive
  

 

Offspring;
 None

 

[Discipline >>>>> ]
 [Shows Entered > R: W: E:]
 [Shows Won >>>> R: W: E:]

 [Ej > ] [Ep > ]
 [Eh > ] [Ws > ]
 [Wp > ] [Wt > ]
 [Rf > ] [Rs > ]

[Rondell]

Curare's Training

0______________________________0

--------- First Touch ---------
After stumbling across Sam - or his stumbling across me, really - I became quite interested in these so-called Neravontii. They're so unlike anything I'd ever dealt with before! After all, they're quite literally from another planet. After doing quite a bit of reading, though, and after getting the hang of working with Sam, it wasn't too long before I felt confident enough in my knowledge of the species to began looking into a companion for my big boy. Not that he particularly needed one, mind you. I didn't have a whole lot else to do so I ended up being with him most hours of the day, and whenever I did have to be elsewhere, he seemed content enough to be on his own. But I couldn't help worrying about him. He got scared so easily sometimes... I once saw him panic after he unexpectedly came nose to nose with a tiny mouse sitting in his feed. It took him hours to go back to being his old self and serious trouble was only averted because I was there to reassure him. Therefore, I reasoned, getting him a Neravontii companion - the right Neravintii companion - could help him feel more secure in his surroundings even when I wasn't there. And I wouldn't have to worry about him all the time...

The first time I saw Curare, she was standing apart from the other mares in the Agency's paddock, casually wandering along the fence line and paying absolutely no attention to me. Every so often she'd stop and sniff the air, as if searching for something. Then she'd look back over her shoulder at the other Neravontii in the field and continue on her way. Her behavior was so strange that I soon found myself leaning against the fence and watching her, my original purpose in coming to the Agency all but forgotten. I hadn't even made it to the main office yet! But I couldn't help it. Sam had never done anything even remotely similar, and I very badly wanted to know what she was up to. Besides, I wasn't in a hurry or anything, and it was a nice enough day.

After several minutes of watching the blue and green mare simply meander around the paddock, she suddenly seemed to lock onto a scent. Her strides lengthened and became more confident as she stopped wandering. Now she was cutting a straight path across the paddock. Indeed, it didn't take long before she'd stopped in her tracks at the foot of a large oak tree that she'd already passed at least twice, seemingly identical to any number of other trees that grew in the field. But... she must have had something in mind, right? I leaned forward involuntarily. With a final sniff of the air the mare reared up, shifting the whole of her weight onto her hind legs and grabbing onto a branch to steady herself. She was so tall that her head vanished into the canopy immediately, and I was left with nothing to do but wait for several antagonizing seconds, gripping the fence rail tightly with my hands and wondering if she was simply going to climb the rest of the way up into the tree and disappear from my sight altogether, thus leaving me without an answer. But she finally reappeared. And when she did, I let out a breath that I hadn't even know I'd been holding. Curiosity was a terrible thing... Squinting to try and make out a few finer details of the scene before me, I managed to spot a couple of small white things in her mouth. It was then that I had my 'Eureka' moment. She was looking for bird eggs! And quite successfully, too - as I continued to watch her, the Neravontii managed to locate and raid at least three more nests, each time coming away with a mouthful of variously colored eggs that she'd crunch on happily. On one notable occasion she even managed to catch a robin unawares as it sat on its clutch. This resulted in an exclamation of surprise from the unfortunate bird, followed immediately by a puff of brown and red feathers that came floating down from the branches of the tree it had been hiding in. The breeze blew several of these over to me, where they caught in the grass by my feet, and I couldn't help but laugh. Not that I found the bird's demise amusing in and of itself, mind you, I just couldn't help but be tickled by the Neravontii's cleverness.

The mare came down out of the tree at once, her ears angled in my direction. She wasn't too far off now, and apparently she had heard me. She stood there for a moment, flicking her tail, then started moving in my direction at a trot. Needless to say, I hastily hopped down from the fence and took a couple of steps in the opposite direction. Not that she couldn't come right over the fence if she really wanted to, mind you, but the action made me feel a bit better. At least it would keep her from accidentally knocking me off my perch. As the mare closed the distance between us, I couldn't help but notice the bits of egg shell stuck to her snout. The sight set me to giggling again, and before I knew it the mare had stuck her head over the fence and begun staring at me with her eyeless face, nostrils flaring to take in my scent. It seemed the curiosity was mutual.

On a whim I leaned over and picked one of the larger feathers out of the grass.Then, gripping it with the very tips of my fingers, I held it out to her. Carefully, slowly, the mare took it from me, brushing my fingers with her soft lips in the process. This amazed me as I had fully expected her to try and nip me. She then spent several moments turning the feather over and over in her mouth before deciding it wasn't edible and spitting it out onto the grass, at which point she rather boldly reached out and shoved my shoulder with her nose as if to say 'Hey! You cheated me! Now where's the real food?'. Of course this caused me to lose my balance and stumble into a ditch.

Hopefully Sam would take to her. Because I had already fallen for her...

[Rondell]

--------- First Saddle ---------
Several weeks after bringing Curare home with me and introducing her to Sam - an event which I am pleased to report went wonderfully - the day to introduce her to her new saddle finally rolled around. I had been putting it off, actually. Why? Well, quite simply, I'm a chicken. I know that people always say that things get easier the more you do them. I also admit that's true - to an extent. But it also depends on the situation. And when it comes to anything involving a Nearvontii, it also depends quite a bit on how much said Neravontii wants to cooperate with you. If they don't want to cooperate, well... the average Neravontii stands a head and a half taller than the average human. While Curare is in no way malicious, I have quickly found that she can be very stubborn. She is also smarter than most of her kind, and this intelligence has led to a bit of arrogance on her part that frequently makes her hard to deal with.

Unfortunately, on the morning I had chosen as saddle-breaking-day, my mare was as frisky as ever. Curare made it clear right off the bat that she wanted none of it. She actually seemed determined to make the day pass as slowly and frustratingly as possible by being her usual petulant self. To begin with, she was somehow able to tell that I was up to something other than my usual tricks and kept dashing off whenever I'd try to collect her from the paddock. Every time I'd get anywhere near her with a halter she'd flip around to the other side of Sam, using him as a shield, or toss her head and dance maddeningly out of reach. It wasn't too long before her energy began to make Sam a bit jumpy, too, and the last thing I needed was two antsy Neravontii. So, frustrated, I changed tactics. Instead of trying to catch Curare directly, I ignored her entirely and began lavishing my attention on Sam. I rubbed the spot just at the base of his neck that he loved to have rubbed. When he lowered his head to rest it on my shoulder, as he usually did after a good bit of shoulder rubbing, I began scratching him between the eyes. It wasn't too long before I'd managed to completely calm him down. And where was Curare during all this? Well, she had realized pretty quickly that someone was getting loved on, and it wasn't her. At first she continued to stand a little ways off, flicking her ears. Then, when Sam began 'purring' with joy, she blatantly trotted over and began nosing me in the side to get my attention. I was able to fix the halter no problem.

Having finally managed to get Curare into the training arena - a safer place by far to saddle her up for the first time than out in the paddock - I led her over to the place I had set the saddle. Just to let her get a look at the thing before I tried to put it on her back. Not that I expected it to help matters any... She poked at it a few times with the grasper on the end of her tail, pulled at a couple of the straps, then left it alone, having found it to be nothing terribly interesting. I.E not edible. Instead she occupied herself with trying to get at my pockets. Frankly, I was surprised she hadn't gone for my pockets before. They bulged rather obviously, after all, stuffed as they were with as many eggs as I could ram into them, eggs being a favorite treat of Curare's. Offer her enough eggs, and she'd move the world for you. Of course I didn't want her to do anything as drastic as that. I just wanted her to sit still long enough for me to get the saddle on her back. What she did afterwords was none of my concern. So I promptly began emptying my pockets onto the ground, creating a sizable pile of eggs on the ground. The second Curare busied herself with demolishing said pile, I pulled the mounting block over, having thankfully remembered to put it somewhere I could get to it easily, and hefted the saddle. I then quickly - if not gracefully - claimed up onto the block and disposed of my load by setting it gingerly into it's place on the mare's back. Curare flinched, the unexpected weight making her none too happy. She raised her head from her nearly finished egg pile and turned to look at me, shifting her weight uneasily and looking as if she were weighing her options. None of which were most likely anything pleasant. To put her decision off as long as possible, I fished one of the last six eggs out of my pockets and held it out to her. These were special eggs that I had saved for last on purpose. Quail eggs. Curare loved Quail eggs above all other kinds of egg. And when she spotted the one I was offering her, her ears flicked forward and she began trying to snatch it with her tail grasper. I ignored her bad manners for once and simply tossed it to the arena floor where the sand kept it from shattering. I then made use of my precious remaining time to buckle all the buckles that needed to be buckled on the saddle, throwing an egg out whenever it looked as if I needed to, but making sure I had at least four of them in reserve for what I was going to have to do next.

Then came the girth. This was the tricky bit. I had actually practiced this bit... but there was no guarantee that Curare was going to cooperate. The only reason she was tolerating the saddle itself as well as she was didn't mean anything. That was because I'd been putting a gradually increasing amount of weight on her back for the past week to get her ready for it. But I hadn't done anything even partly resembling a girth yet. I wasn't going to concern myself with getting it tight enough for me to hop on her back without it going anywhere just yet. I was only going to get it tight enough for her to get the general idea. Which is why I'd made sure not to exhaust my egg supply too quickly. Taking a deep breath, I reached under her belly and caught the girth's free end. Then, slowly, I tightened it up bit by bit. Whenever Curare seemed to be getting uneasy, I'd pitch her an egg, until finally, I'd accomplished my goal. And none too soon! I was out of eggs!

After buckling the girth securely, I took up the lead rope and walked Curare around the arena to let her get the feel of her new saddle. While she didn't appear to be entirely happy with the idea yet, she was as least not pitching a fit. Which was something. More could wait until another day.

[Rondell]

--------- First Ride ---------
It had taken four weeks but, after much patience and far, far too many eggs, Curare had finally settled into the whole routine associated with her saddle. Actually, it had taken so many eggs that the people down at the supermarket now know me on sight as the crazy egg person - they wave cheerily at me as soon as they spot me and make sure I remember to pick up the two large baskets full of eggs that they've set aside specially for me back in the deli. (Note to self: change where I shop for a little while...)

But I digress.

Now that Curare was well and truly used to her saddle, the time had come for me to make use of it. And while I was emboldened by how easy it had been to get her to wear the thing in the first place, I was still cautious. I didn't just want to leap on her back and see what happened, even though I do happen to be more resilient than the average human. No, I was going to take this slowly. It was the best way to avoid any sort of damage to either of us. Of course this didn't mean that I wasn't going to be pressing my luck. I was going to try and get through this without using up any more eggs because, quite frankly, I was getting sick of them even if Curare wasn't. I didn't want to be the crazy egg person for the rest of my life and I didn't want Curare to keep gorging herself on them because it most likely wasn't the healthiest thing in the world for her to be doing. Plus, if she gained too much weight, it might slow her down in the races. Yet as I watched her streak across the paddock with Sam, she didn't seem to have slowed down any just yet.

After getting her halter on easily enough, I led Curare from the paddock to the arena. I caught myself idly patting her shoulder as we walked - a side effect of my distraction. I was busy trying to create a plan of action that I believed should get this whole thing over with as quickly and as easily as her first saddling. Without eggs. Of course it was a relatively short trip no matter how much I dawdled, so when we reached our destination I still had any number of vague ideas swirling around in my head. The saddle was waiting for us in it's now usual place by the gate, and I continued to think as I picked it up. It was then only the work of a minute to put Curare's tack on, although she balked a bit at the bridle due to the fact that I had only been working with it for a couple of days. A good ear rub calmed her right down, though, and she allowed me to slip the bit between her teeth and lead her around. The walk was more for me than for her. I had no idea why I was testing myself with Curare when I hadn't even tried to ride Sam yet, and he was considerably more obliging than the mare. Was I nuts? Was I just too eager to be done with it? Why was I asking myself irrelevant questions?

All too soon our path brought us back around the the mounting block and it was time to get down to the task at hand. I climbed up and stood next to Curare, my hands on the saddle. Gradually, I started shifting my weight onto her back. Every time she started to look uncomfortable I'd stop, help her to relax by vigorously rubbing her ears, then start all over again. Whenever she seemed to be getting really antsy, more from boredom than anything else, I stopped and walked her around a bit. Finally, after what seemed like hours but was really only twenty minutes or so, I was able to put my whole weight on her back with a minimum of protest. I even laid myself across the saddle like a sack of flour for a moment or two without Curare trying to retaliate. So, with a final bit of effort, I placed my foot in the stirrup and swung myself into the saddle, proper-like.

Curare started a bit and took several dancing steps forward, but I gave the reigns a gentle tug and she quieted down soon enough. Nevertheless, I wanted to keep this as short as possible. As I clung nervously to the saddle I basically just let the mare wander around the arena, only putting pressure on the reigns whenever it looked like she was going to do more than walk. After she had completed a couple of vague laps I guided her back to the mounting block and slipped off her back. I was sure to give her a good ear-rub before setting about removing the saddle, thoroughly pleased with her progress. Now all I had to do was... well, work on those trust issues... Mine. Not hers.

[Rondell]

Artwork

0______________________________0