The Roadtrip Home:
Cassie turned on the headlights of her old, green, chevy as she pulled out of the drive to Cottonwood Ranch to finally head back home with her stunning chestnut mare loaded into the large trailer she borrowed from a her neighbor specially for Lilith's pick up. Her neighbors were better off and could afford a trailer that could fit four or five horses as well as a small area for if a person wanted to go camping. It was a better choice than the two horse trailer she had for the couple day drive it would take to get back home to Tipping Ranch.
It was getting late and the sun was near close to setting or Cassie supposed it was because it was becoming hard to see much outside the reach of her headlights. Not only had it gotten darker as she drove towards home but rain had started to fall as well, normally Cassie loved rain but she worried about having to drive in it while also pulling a trailer behind her.
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An hour later had Cassie pulled over in the parking lot of a small gas station, the rain she worried about had made driving any longer scary for her, even with her windshield wipers going full speed she could barely see more than five feet in front of her, she had to pull over. It pounded down, she could hear the beats of the rain drumming on the roof of the trailer. Cassie moved into the camping part of the trailer to hopefully get some sleep while she waited for the rain to slow down.
The thin wall that seperated Cassie from Lilith didn't keep the sounds of the mare moving around from coming through, Cassie could hear every move that Lilith made. The mare was too spooked with her current situation to calm down and sleep, she paced the space of the horse trailer, sometimes she would pause for a couple moments before pacing some more.
Finally Lilith's movements ceased, all that could be heard was the raining pelting the roof of the trailer in a steady beat. Cassie's eyes slowly closed as she thought about how she was going to go about taming her new horse.
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Pulling into the drive of Tipping Ranch was a victory for Cassie and she let out a happy whoop before doing a minor happy dance in her seat. She had done more driving and less sleeping on the way home than she was used to, a couple rockstars helped her stay up with four hours or less of sleep. It was risky, she knew, to drive without getting the right amount of sleep but she didn't know how long she could keep Lilith in the trailer without letting her out to stretch her legs and run around. So with a record time of two days to get back when it took almost a week to get to Cottonwood Ranch, Cassie felt accomplished, relieved and suddenly pretty exhausted.
Cassie called her sister as she drove up towards the house, she took it slow because Tipping Ranch's dirt road had a couple pot holes that were dangerous taken at normal speeds. She asked her sister to house sit while she was gone picking up Lilith.
"Hey, Leliana. I'm pulling up the drive, can you make sure the round pen is empty with the gate open so I can unload her as soon as I pull up?" Cassie asked as she blinked her eyes tiredly. The small amount of sleep was catching up to her, she would need to get the horse put away before she fell into a sleep coma for the rest of the day.
"Oh, yeah. Sure, I'll head out there right now. I can't wait to see your new mare!" Leliana's voice was filled with excitement over the phone, Cassie listened to Leliana's happy rambling about what happened while Cassie was gone for a couple moments before she cut her off, "I'm sorry, Leliana, I love you and everything but I have to let you go now."
Leliana said a quick 'goodbye' before hanging up. A couple moments later Cassie was driving past her house at Tipping Ranch, the barn passed by as well. She did a large u-turn as she neared the good-sized round pen that would be Lilith's temporary home until Cassie tamed her a bit, her sister had the gate wide open and was grinning as she waved at Cassie. Cassie smiled back for a moment before focusing on backing the trailer up to the round pen. She got it as close to as possible so Lilith couldn't escape.
Cassie turned the truck off and hopped out, her sister was a step ahead of her and had the trailer opened when Cassie joined her.
They both peered inside the trailer curiously, Lilith was standing quietly inside, eyeing them from the farthest spot in the trailer. Her nostrils flared as she took a couple of cautionary sniffs of the air, she couldn't smell them from where she was but that didn't mean she was going move closer. She stayed where she was and nervously flicked her ears around, hoping to catch the sound of something reassuring.
There it was.
A faint whinny was heard from one of Cassie's tolters out in their pasture. It was enough for Lilith, she had been waiting for days to hear something remotely like her herd mates and bolted out of the trailer, avoiding Cassie and Leliana as best she could. Once she was out in the round pen she cantered around with her head, ears and tail held high. She let out a whinny of excitement. She snorted as she heard a tolter reply and desperately looked around for the answering horse. Lilith was so distracted by the hopes of seeing another horse that she didn't care to show any attention to the trailer being driven away from the pen and the gate being closed.
Cassie and Leliana stood outside the pen together after parking the trailer by the barn, it would be cleaned of horse manure before being returned to her kindly, older, neighbors. Lilith was a beauty, her coat wasn't as glossy as a show pony's but it still had a gleam to it, her chocolate eyes were beautiful and Cassie could hardly wait to start working with her. The only thing that stopped her was her exhaustion.
Cassie had just enough energy to put a couple flakes of hay in a bucket for Lilith, Leliana had filled up a metal water trough while Cassie had finished pulling up along the ranch's dirt driveway.
"We're finally home, that's an accomplishment to me." Cassie said to her sister. "Now comes fun the part." Her sister said as they both wondered what kind of horse Lilith was going to turn out to be, would she be a fight or flight type in new, scary, situations. Time would tell.
