by Merlin's Heir » Thu Sep 26, 2013 1:20 pm
Owner: Merlin's Heir
Equid Name: Rendezvous (Dez, DAY-ez, for short)
Equid Age: 2 years
Height: 13.3hh
Gender: Male
SHORT story: "Mom, mom, Dr. Smith has a new equine for sale!" I explained to my mother about the gorgeous equine creature that our local vet had rescued the other day, a horse-like animal with large ears and a standing-up mane that ran down its back and about halfway down the long, lion-like tail. She just nodded and mmm-hmmed as usual, until I asked her if we could buy him. "Alexandra, you know we can't afford to have a horse, let alone some strange new species that has who knows how many extra needs!" I was quite used to similar answers - I'd been asking for a horse since the day I was born, dad always told me, but we'd never had enough money. Mom always gave me a flat-out no, but dad said that if I could earn enough money to buy a horse and pay for tack and grooming supplies, then he'd help me fix up the old two-horse stable in the backyard and pay for the feed and hay. The only problem was earning the money; who would pay an eleven-year-old girl for anything? I might be an avid reader who's a year or so ahead of others her age, but that wasn't going to help me get money for the amazing black pinto stallion that Dr. Smith was selling for $1000. I hopped off to my room and counted out my money, all 486 dollars; this wasn't enough, but I suppose it was a head start. All I needed now was paying jobs and for no one else to take an interest in the animal I wanted so badly.
I decided to start the next day, right after breakfast, math, and checking on Rendezvous (I knew I shouldn't have given him a name, but I couldn't help it!). I asked my parents for ideas, and they said I should ask around our small, old-fashioned town and maybe put a flyer up in the store, so that's exactly what I did. I can just see what my day would look like in a movie: various short clips of me laying, sitting, and playing around on the bench outside the store, waiting for someone to need something done. Eventually Mr. Tanner, the owner of the store, asked me to sort some things, and my luck just went up (slowly, but still up) from there. By the end of the day I had done various tasks around the store, weeded out old Mrs. Jones' garden, mucked out a countless number of stalls at Northwood Ranch and several other farms, and who knows what else, earning me a grand total of $87. I had five more days until Dr. Smith was sending Dez to the big city, so if I could just get about this much every day, I'd have enough to buy my beloved friend and the small set of grooming tools at the Second-Hand Bridle Shop, and since Dr. Smith says that Dez's back is too weak for riding, I wouldn't have to buy any tack! I told dad all about my day and he told me that I was doing very well, and that if I kept up my hard work, he would be glad to pay for Dez's feed. I went to sleep thinking about Dez and all the wonderful times we would have together. Everything would be so perfect, so long as I just got $435 more by Sunday morning. But no story is a good story without challenges, and I, unfortunately, had not quite realized that knights weren't the only ones that had to fight dragons to save their fair maidens from certain doom.
Two more days passed, and I was doing pretty well, having earned $91 one day and $83 the next. But Thursday morning brought bad news, for when I went to visit Dez, there was someone talking to Dr. Smith about him and was obviously thinking of buying him. I waited until the vet and his visitor left the small barn and then went in to see my beautiful equine friend. I talked to him for a little while and then left in search of work, desperate to earn the money I needed before it was too late and Dez was bought by some rich city-person who wants him for nothing but fame and fortune. The hot day seemed to drag on forever between my worry about Dez's future and the long, tasking jobs I had to do that didn't seem to pay very much. Mom paid me for doing a few big cleaning jobs around the house, but nothing that I did seemed to help much when I imagined some slick city fellow in fancy clothes handing Dr. Smith a thick wad of dollar bills and taking Dez far, far away from me. When I counted up the money I'd earned that day, $79 seemed like a few pennies; certainly that person talking to Dr. Smith about Dez could offer far more than I ever could, and I still needed $182 more before I could even offer the least the vet would take! Dad noticed that I was looking upset and talked with me about it, telling me that no matter what stood in my way, I could accomplish anything I wanted if I just set my mind - and heart - to it. But I still fell asleep thinking about Dez's future, and even though I realized that as long as he was happy, I would also be, I still had nightmares about him being taken away.
However, I awoke early with the determination to at least go down fighting, and I immediately set to work to earn the money as fast as I could. I needed to earn a little over $60 a day in three days or exactly $91 a day in two days, so I set out with an unquenchable spirit to succeed in my quest. But, of course, in comes reality, barging in to remind me that, since I've been doing so much work over the past three days, there's less work for me to do now! I admit I was a bit disheartened at that realization, but I was still determined to do my best, even if it wasn't good enough to get Dez, so I went around town knocking on every door and doing all the jobs I could in the time that I had. By the end of the day, my entire body was sore from visiting half the town and doing all sorts of jobs, from mowing a whole acre of field to buying some eggs and parsley from the store. Dinner was delicious, long-awaited, and much enjoyed, and I nearly collapsed on my bed in exhaustion afterwards, though I did manage to count my earnings, which was $80 exactly, before drifting off to a deep sleep in my clothes. The next day was very similar: get up early, eat breakfast and do math, visit Dez, visit the half of town that I didn't visit the day before doing all that jobs that I could, go home and eat dinner, count money, go to sleep. I needed $19 more to buy Dez, just $19 more and I'd finally have my perfect dream come true. But of course, one can always trust life to interfere in such delicate matters of the fragile heart when it's at its peak of joy, yet somehow one never expects it to happen...
I was living with my head in the clouds the next morning, so certain of my success that I decided to stop at Dr. Smith's for an extra 20 or so minutes to chat with Dez, and perhaps that was where I erred - that was certainly where I should have done different. It took a good number of hours to earn my $28 from helping Mr. Tanner with the week's shipment of produce, and then I skipped on over to the Second-Hand Bridle Shop to buy some grooming supplies. When I hopped on back to Dr. Smith's place, however, I met with the demon of disappointment that I thought I'd so cleverly left behind in my whirlwind of hard work. A young girl, probably only 18, was clipping a lead rope on to Dez's halter and leading him into her trailer while a man that I presumed was her boyfriend wrote out a check for Dr. Smith. I shoved my hard-earned money back into my pocket and walked over to the girl, asking if I could say goodbye to Dez. She smiled and told me I could, and when she asked about my calling him Dez, I explained how I had visited him every day and named him Rendezvous. She said she quite liked the name and that she'd keep it for him, and I asked her about what she wanted Dez for, to which she replied that she loved unusual equines and would give him a nice, peaceful home with several others of his kind, which were apparently called Wild Mountain Equids. She told me that she didn't live too far away and that I could come visit him and his friends sometime, and I gladly accepted her offer, knowing that it was the only way I could ever see him again. I cried a little when I hugged him goodbye, but I bravely wiped away my salty tears and waved until the glossy, white trailer disappeared on the edge of the horizon, along with my lost dream.
I walked back home slowly and sadly, trying but failing to cheer myself up with the idea of getting a horse with the money that was still in my pocket. I knew, deep down inside, that no creature could ever replace the cavernous gap that Dez left in my young heart. I was so distraught that when I got home, I completely failed to notice that we had visitors until mom called me into the living room to meet them. To my great astonishment and confusion, it was the boy and girl that had bought Dez that were sitting casually on the couch across from my parents. It turns out that they knew my parents and had stopped by for a visit, and eventually got around to talking about Dez, which is when my parents realized that I didn't get my dream and the girl, Ariana, realized that I was the girl at Dr. Smith's. They had "discussed special arrangements," as dad put it, and agreed that, so long as Ariana got half the money she paid for Dez (I was to pay her from my earnings) and got to keep and/or distribute (among the "community of equid-lovers," she said) all but one of Dez's foals (that last "one" being for myself), my dream was mine indeed. I have never been quite so elated in all my life, and I don't believe that I ever will be again, running around and jumping and screaming with delight until mom sent me outside to get Dez settled into his new home. My dream and I were both quite satisfied with our situation, and I almost got the feeling that Dez knew all along how things would turn out. As he rested his head on my shoulder while we watched the sunset that evening, I knew that my life now was, and would be forever, perfect.
(exactly 6 paragraphs of 9 sentences each, amounting to 1898 words)
Last edited by
Merlin's Heir on Thu Sep 26, 2013 6:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Merlin -- Adult Female -- Byzantine Catholic -- Engaged <3 -- Reader, Writer, Artist, Math Lover -- College Class of 2021 -- TolkienAdopted Characters wrote:



New Camelot -- The Book of Equids -- Dark Frigate -- Sunrose Stables -- Aicale Castle


Edge of Eternity -- Mythos Stables -- Sky Afire -- Wind River Ranch