Username: Taxidea
Show Name: TT Lost in the Woods
Barn Name: Birch
Gender: Mare
Height: 15.2hh
Halter color: Purple
Prompt:Willow was the best horse I've ever known. She wasn't perfect -- stubborn, opinionated, and liable to flat out ignore you if she wasn't feeling like participating -- but when she was game, she gave her all. For reasons I don't like admitting to myself (namely, our similar personalities), she and I clicked. We certainly had our battles (she always won; I'm not dumb enough to fight a 1200 lb animal who probably has good if hard to understand reasons for saying no), but they became less and less frequent as we learned and grew together. Truly, is there anything better than "that horse" rushing over to you as soon as you walk up to the fence? Unfairly, tragically, gut-wrenchingly, Willow was taken from me too fast and too soon when colic hit with all the worse conditions and we just couldn't get her the right help in time. I was devastated and even left the world of horses for almost a year because I wasn't ready to be around them without her. Did I miss horses? Absolutely. But I just couldn't bring myself to go back.
Then, I met
Olive. I certainly didn't go looking for her. A lifelong friend from my old barn invited me over for dinner, and we got to talking about the familiar territory of the horse world, and they casually mentioned a new horse that had recently arrived.
Nothing like Willow, no, not at all...well, she was short [I like them pony-sized]
, but she was easy-going and friendly with everyone, just a real people pleaser. Wouldn't I want to come meet her, just for fun? Wouldn't it be nice to just feel a soft nose against my cheek? I was hesitant, even resistant, but a little piece of me thought maybe this was what I needed, just a calm, reliable horse with no strings attached. So I met her, and she was everything my friend had said she was and more. Cute as a button, ears chronically perked, and her worst habit was playfully lipping pockets looking for treats. She felt...safe. I worked out a deal with her owner, just a half-lease, just testing the water. Olive was to be my crutches while I re-learned how to walk.
And it's been good; it's been fun; and I'm finding that a soft, patient horse might have been just what I needed to fill a small piece of the hole that Willow left. And then all this business with the Dark Woods Den started, and I've been thrown for a loop again. Because just when I was starting to feel a little bit of peace over Willow, I saw one of these fiery horses flash across a field, and I knew,
I knew it was Willow incarnate. Did the horse look like her? Not particularly. Willow was a short, stocky varnish bay with a spotted blanket -- this horse was bay, sure, but tall and graceful and with the most bizarre marking on its butt. But there was something about it, and it definitely wasn't the horns (although, Willow and I did have a pattern for dressing as devils for Halloween...), that just screamed
I'M WILLOW! COME GET ME! loud and clear. And maybe it was wishful thinking, and maybe it was just dumb luck, but I think that was why I was able to catch them when others couldn't. Because Willow taught me how to listen to horses in a way I hadn't known before. How to read their body language and understand their motivations without jumping to conclusions about how they were just "mean" or "lazy", and that there was likely a perfectly good reason for why they were behaving the way they were. I learned that if anyone was in the wrong, it was going to be the person who just refused to listen to what the horse was saying loud and clear. So, instead of chasing and yelling and tossing around lassos like others were doing, Olive and I found a quiet, protected place, and we waited. And, sure, I used some tasty treats and sweet, gentle, friendly Olive as bribery, but it worked, didn't it?
There we were, minding our own business (seemingly), Olive grazing in a hackamore and getting the occasional candy corn from me, and me reclining against a tree, an extra halter thrown over my lap for no particular reason. To be fair, we probably could've caught three horses, and saved a lot of candy corn, but I was waiting for the one that I wanted. Sure enough, when I thought the night couldn't get any darker, I saw a faint purple glow moving through the trees. As it got brighter, I could start to make out the outline of the horse, and saw how its shadow flickered in the light. The horse knew I was there -- had known for a while, for sure -- but it ignored me completely as it approached Olive, who had paused in her grazing to greet this new friend. Olive let out a low whinny, the same as she gave to anything that moved in her direction, and the horse stopped abruptly. It lowered its head, usually a good sign, but with those horns it gave the impression it might charge, but it only took a few dancing steps towards Olive and snorted a greeting. Olive, smarter than most give her credit, pointedly looked at me and gave me a stare that could only mean "now is the part where you offer our guest some refreshments". But I had gone cold all over, frozen in place from the essence of this horse. It
felt so much like Willow, that's the only way I can describe it. And, as I probably should've predicted based on this bizarre gut feeling, when I finally broke through my reverie and tossed a couple candy corn in the horse's direction, it stared at my offering like I had just tried to feed it a rare steak. Olive, never one to let a snack go uneaten, happily demonstrated the act of treat ingestion for our new friend. I waited, motionless, barely letting the horse's fiery hooves into my peripheral vision, trying to act as casual as I could with my heart racing and my palms sweating despite the chill air. I thought the horse might leave, having discovered what was causing the strange scents in this lonely back corner of the woods, but it lingered, and I took a chance. I slowly pulled out a bag of cheddar and sour cream ruffles chips, Willow's all time favorite treat, and unrolled the top. I had opened it earlier, not wanting to risk the pop of a chip bag in the dead of night running off both my quarry and my own mount. As soon as the bag opened, the horse took a deep sniff of the air. A shiver went down my spine at the resemblance and the memories it triggered. I didn't throw the chips -- I knew from experience that they are neither aerodynamic or capable of traveling a great distance, and their brief but erratic flight seems to put off horses. I slowly leaned forward, rocking myself into a standing position, extra halter slung over my arm, and offered the entire bag out to the horse. Olive, thankfully, let the other horse take the lead as it slowly approached and took another deep sniff of the chips. And then, I swear, the horse sighed. A deep, full-bellied sigh as though it had been holding the same breath I had been for the past few minutes. I slowly repositioned my arm so that the nose of the halter was over the chip bag opening, and offered it out again. The horse dipped its muzzle into the bag without a second thought. I let it eat for a little before I reached my hand up and pulled the loop of the halter around its poll, careful to avoid the sharp tips of the horns. The horse, nose-deep in my family-sized bag, didn't even flinch.
With the halter secured, I called for Olive, who dutifully came right up and allowed me to gather her reins. Then, with audible crunching the whole way, I led the horse back to the barn without even touching the lead rope. Wherever that chip bag went, the horse went with it. It wasn't that they were so lost in the chips that they didn't see their surroundings -- they were obviously flicking their ears toward new sounds and stepping carefully over the ground -- but they seemed to sense the same connection that I had felt when I first saw them. I was worried about what would happen when the chips ran out, and more than a little guilty about feeding this horse an entire bag, but when the glow of light through the barn doors illuminated the path ahead of us, they lifted their head, snorted over my shoulder, and continued walking with Olive and I right into a stall. It certainly wasn't perfect from there on out -- that horse has personality to rival Willow -- but I knew as soon as I saw their reaction to the chips that my intuition was right. Maybe this horse -- this mare, I discovered -- isn't Willow come back, but she, and dear Olive, were absolutely what I needed to make me realize that I needed to keep listening to horses the way Willow taught me instead of running away.
