[♥ soft]

taming tolters may not be bred until
● all tasks are completed
● september 13th

username: obsessed
Name: Piper's Magic - Piper
Gender: Unaltered Stallion
eye color: brown
dam: --
sire: --

[Obsessed]

Oh my stars oh my goodness my very own Tolter to maul with affection. Thank you so much ♥ twitchy I love him. I am so pumped to write his taming process c:

Username: Obsessed
Name: Piper's Magic {Piper}
Gender: Unaltered Stallion
Eye color: Brown
Sire: --
Dam: --

[Obsessed]

I'll post my tasks here so it's neat and clean c:

Task 1 - Completed 7-15-15 (Hooray for the first)
Task 2 - Completed 7-16-15 (Curse writer's block)
Task 3 - Completed 7-17-15 (12AM so close to two in one)
Task 4 - Completed 7-17-15 (Sleep is for the weak whoot whoot)
Task 5 - Completed 7-17-15 (I am on a roll gonna be so tired)
Task 6 - Completed 7-17-15 (Hurray! This one was a little hard, but it's done. I've been itching to get to ground work)
Task 7 - Completed 7-17-15 (much tired very write)
Task 8 - Completed 7-17-15 (Getting a little sappy are we)
Task 9 - Completed 7-17-15 (Totally sappy. What happened to me)

On the first day of the several year adventure that came to just be known to her as the ‘Day Piper came’ she wasn’t coming to Bear Run Equestrian for a semi-wild stallion. She wasn’t, she had thought, even coming for a horse. Just to look and talk for a little while, and see if maybe there was a gelding she could bring home for ranch work. Once, she had trained horses, but not in a long time. Being kicked in the chest hard enough to have six ribs and your collarbone shattered tended to do that.
Now?
Now she lived on a farm, raising cows for milk and meat to supply a local grocer, and most days the old breaks didn’t bother her. When they did, she took it as a sign, depending on the ache. Some perfectly clear days she ached bad enough to be near bedridden and knew it was going to storm. Sometimes her aches meant a cow was going to drop her calf early. It was usually right.
Now, as she pulled in and stopped the dusty truck, she ached. She knew right then and there she was getting a horse, whether she had planned it or not. Getting out slowly, she walked up to meet the already waiting hands, describing what she was looking for, why she had come, as she had done over the phone. In her ears it sounded like a weak argument against the inevitable, but she ignored it.
A gelding, a nice calm gelding, nothing more, nothing less.
Walking through the barns and was pleasant, the rich smell of horses bringing back the many memories of a not-so-long ago time. Though the geldings were remarkably beautiful, and only one horse tried to bite her (out of mischief, not malice) she didn’t see a partner in any of them.
And what she needed more than a cow pony was a partner. A horse she could work with. So she conceded and met mares, met a few stallions just because she could and she had all day. It was, with weary resignation, that she conceded to going home late that afternoon. Walking stiffly down the neat path to where she had pulled in, she heard a whinny.
Not the normal routine whinny, but something sharper. She saw him long after he had seen her, mottled Grullo and white, eyes rolling as he regarded her. This wasn’t an abused horse, she could see right away. Each twitch showed that each muscle was toned and strong, and the stallion – stallion? Yes, stallion – carried his head with pride and fear.
No, this was a horse who had never known man’s touch. And she could have laughed, if she wasn’t so afraid of startling the stallion, because her bones were right again. She just couldn’t believe it. When the hand gave her a funny look, she asked if the Grullo stallion was for sale.
As it so happened, he was. There had been a roundup recently, of wild Tolters. So that was how with the help of several farmhands she loaded a semi-wild stallion into her trailer. He fought, twisted, stepped high and tall against the halter and pushing and pulling. Through the window at the top, she could see him, watching her with laid flat ears and a lifted head. He was noble, for sure, and she didn’t want to break that.
She heard the kicking about two minutes after she started driving and groaned.

Word Count: 580

[Obsessed]

{Gaaaah writer's block here's some art too.}

As it turned out, the stallion settled quietly soon enough. She was anxious as she drove in, anxious as she lifted the hatch to the pen with a fence eight feet tall, anxious as she backed the trailer up. Gate lifted, trailer parked, she clambered over the fence stiffly and opened up the back.
The stallion shot out like a rocket and with all the force of a rifle crack. He charged across the pen, attempted to clear the walls, and gave her enough time to walk through the trailer and drop the pen’s gate. She watched him race around the edges, nostrils flaring to show red, eyes wide and rimmed with white.
She watched, and part of her resignation was replaced with excitement and awe at the magnificent creature. From the strong hindquarters to the flowing gait, he was an excellent specimen. She made a note to ask one of those at Bear Run what the brand meant, looked at the red horizon, and went off to bed.
In the morning she stretched sore muscles, walking down the stairs after throwing on a pair of jeans to check on the newest addition to her ranch. The stallion was pacing, but not with the same intensity as the previous day. She checked his water trough, the condition of the grass in the pen, and chucked hay over the fence.
More notes she needed to add. Her shopping list was forming in her mind’s eye as she watched the suspicion on the stallion’s face. He needed a name, because ‘The Stallion’ was not going to cut it. Not if she wanted to actually tame him. She remembered a mare from a stint in Colorado, the easily spooked Mustang having been near impossible to train. She still wasn’t sure how that had worked.
The stallion had moved closer, dancing with high head and steps towards the hay, before suddenly spinning around and galloping hard to the other end. She added vet and farrier to her list, made a note that when he wasn’t so jumpy to check his teeth for sharp bits. Then he dropped like a rock and rolled, bouncing up again with a snort and trotting the perimeter of the fence, nosing at the occasional board.
She watched him a while yet, before duty and breakfast and coffee called, and she left. Throughout the day she came back, again and again with each spare moment, to just stand and watch and make sure the stallion was safe and that he had water and hadn’t hurt himself.
Names were on her mind. Finally, remembering a book she had once read with a stallion that carried himself with the same pride and confidence her stallion did, she settled on Piper. And so, each time she came to the fence, she called his new name, softly and carefully, rewarding each interested swing of his head with a treat thrown near him.
Piper was a fast learner, sharp eyes watching each movement. A week in, and he expected her, responded better to his name, and was growing calmer every day. On day nineteen, he came up to her.

Word Count: 524

[Obsessed]

That first day he came to her she was nearly trembling with excitement. That first moment a horse came was magical. He moved slow and purposeful, accepting the treat from her hand with a flick of his ear. He stood there only a moment longer, and then turned and trotted across the pen, tossing his mane and looking back over his shoulder as if to say, so?
But it was still progress, and she was thrilled at it. Piper came to her more regularly, though some days he merely stood and watched. She ceased rewarding him unless he came to her. It was with nervous excitement that she slowly raised her hand and stroked his nose, a feather-light touch down the course hair to the velvety muzzle. He blew out, once, brown eyes meeting her blue, and she returned the gesture.
After that she got a halter in his size. It was time, and she was sure Piper was ready. So, each time she came, she brought the halter, let him sniff it over, stroking his face, neck, and ears more confidently. She came over the fence on week three. He was calm, much calmer than he had been, and did not start. He bobbed his head once, looking particularly satisfied, and she could not stop the silly grin.
Farm work was divided with Piper Work. Piper Work was stroking the mottled body, showing the simple black leather halter with silver buckles, sitting in the pen watching him watching her, and bracing up for the introduction of the halter. But the anxiety was fading quickly, as Piper settled. The initial fear and frenzied attempts at escape did not show themselves at all.
He tolerated being touched, accepted treats easily. So one warm afternoon she slipped the halter over his head in one deft movement, buckling it and stepping back. Piper, for his part, looked merely confused, shaking his head twice, rubbing it against his foreleg, shaking it again, and then nosed her hand that had been feeding him.
She could have laughed out loud. But she didn’t, because she still had to teach him to accept a lead.
Introducing him to the halter was easy, and she hoped it bode well for the rest of his training. Each day she worked with him, she replaced his halter, associating it with treats, pettings, and affection before it was removed again. He greeted her now at the fence when she came, his low nicker clearly audible, head lifted high as he waited for her to come.
Piper was smart, the way wild horses were. It was a way she didn’t understand but assumed came from living without relying on humans. Once she had a Mustang who trained manners into her small heard that she had failed at for years. She respected Piper, the intelligence and emotion in his eyes, and she hoped frequently he felt the same.
Sometimes, when practicing putting on his halter, he would lower his head to hers, and their eyes would lock for several long moments. Then the world would spin on and he would bunch his hindquarters and sidestep away, tail flagged high and the brown highlights gleaming.
It was exciting, until her six-year-old German Shepherd mix got loose. Then it was terrifying.

Word Count: 546

[Obsessed]

With Piper a part of everyday functioning it was easy to forget not everyone and everything on her farm knew him and was bonding with him like she was. So when she let Angel out back to go to the bathroom, she wasn’t even thinking about it. In fact, she would be hard pressed to answer why it was a bad idea before her first cup of coffee.
Angel wouldn’t bother the cows, and knew the few people who helped her on the farm. But Piper? Piper was new, and Piper was different, and Piper was something she had never seen before. Approximately one ton of instinct and muscle she had never seen before. So when she realized she had not taken her dog out on a leash and said dog had not come back her mind jumped to conclusions.
She pulled on shoes hastily, running outside and sprinting to Piper’s pen. However, the sight that greeted her was not a gory splatter of her pet, or a semi-wild horse in pain that now needed a vet urgently. It was a horse and a dog playing together.
Piper cantered along the edge of the pen, Angel running and weaving beneath his legs, occasionally twisting into the air, batting at the stallion’s muzzle, paw missing the sensitive nose by millimeters. Planned millimeters, as she had never known her dog to be aggressive towards anything. Her shoulders sagged, and she called sharply to Angel who, with one last lick at Piper, wriggled beneath the fence and stood panting hard in front of her.
Once inside, she ran her hands over the dog, finding nothing out of the ordinary. Outside, Piper seemed unperturbed, nosing at her shirt and letting her run her hands over his body, especially his legs, to check for anything that needed attention. There was nothing at all, and her sigh of relief planted an idea in her head.
Angel was an incredibly calm dog. She had worked very hard to make her that calm dog from the anxious rescue. So the next day she clipped on Angel’s leash, grabbed her grooming equipment, and gave Angel a firm command to stay. At first Piper seemed either anxious, excited, or both. He pranced around the still dog, sharp hooves that had enough force to cleave an animal in two missing her with room to spare.
Soon he quieted, snuffling at the dog’s ears, and Angel licked his face with the same motherly expression Angel always bore. Curry brush in hand, she set to work on Piper’s coat while Piper was grooming his new canine companion. It was through Angel’s example that he learned to be groomed and have his hooves picked, making her life so much easier.
They loved to play, she noticed. Sprinting was Angel’s favorite activity, and Piper seemed to enjoy doing it with her.
So when she went, she took Angel, and Piper had a friend. Though she grew nervous at first seeing teeth flashing or hooves coming down dangerously close to paws or back, nothing came of it, for they danced around each other in tandem and perfect rhythm, to some wild beat she did not know but dog and horse did.

Word Count: 535

[Obsessed]

Part of her problem was that she was not quite sure how to earn Piper’s trust. She had earned some obedience, yes, but she worried about trust. Trust kept a horse from panicking. Trust let her introduce him to new things. Trust was better than obedience in some ways, and she craved it.
She set to work on making sure the fencing for a field she did not use was secure, and then went to Piper. He truly needed a better space, with better grazing, as the grass in this pen had worn short. He watched her curiously as she entered, halter in hand, words soothing and quiet. As usual she slipped on the halter and – broken fingers be cursed – twisted her fingers in the cheek strap.
Slowly, with the promise of a treat, she led him from his pen to the pasture. She could feel each muscle trembling and he moved with a bounce in his gate. When she let go of his halter and pushed the gate shut he took off, cantering through his new enclosure, leaping high into the air like a colt and tossing his head.
From her seat on the fence she watched with a smile, shouting his name as he got up from a long luxurious roll. She wasn’t sure what she expected. She knew she was worried he would ignore her, but she wasn’t sure she expected it. No, Piper’s head went up, ears pricked as he trotted towards her.
Her chest grew warm and tingly with pleasure as he gave him the treat she had, rubbing behind his ears. He pressed his nose against her chest so suddenly she almost fell backwards. Cautiously, she moved her arms around his neck, hugging him loosely. The only sounds she heard were the birds and his breathing as cavernous lungs took in air.
Then he raised his head, looked at her, and turned to canter back towards the middle of the field, jumping and bucking. She wasn’t completely sure that what had happened had happened. She wanted to call it a thank you.
For the next few days she lived in a more or less constant state of panic that Piper had jumped the fence and was gone. And every time she went down, she was reassured by the stallion running up and down the fenceline with head and tail raised high. He accepted his halter with ease still, came each time she called and was more often than not waiting for her by the time she got there.
They ‘hugged’ more frequently, sometimes faces pressed together in an awkward replication of a herd’s greeting. It seemed to her that a tenseness she hadn’t noticed was leaving him, a relaxed well-rounded stallion in its place. She knew he trusted her and she could trust him when she came down one morning and the pasture was empty.
She shouted, heart starting to race, wondering where Piper would have gone, when the thundering hooves caught her attention. From out of the cow’s field galloped Piper, clearing the electric fence in a leap to make a younger her weep with envy. She was nearly weeping now as he skidded to a stop in front of her, hopping back over the fence as though nothing unusual had happened.

Word Count: 549

[Obsessed]

With that done and over with, she found herself less terrified of Piper being gone. In fact, she realized one morning, she wasn’t at all. She wanted to start training him to ride. Nearly two months in, and so much progress had been made. Some horses accepted humans faster than Piper. Some were much more reluctant. She was happy with where they were at.
When she was worried she was moving too fast, a single glance or a nudge at her shoulder reminded her that this was a stallion who was not going to rear and buck at the slightest touch. So she started bringing out the saddle, too, when she went with him. It was heavy, and she was balancing the halter and treats, too, but worth it.
The first day she brought the saddle out Piper refused to come near it. She waited by it, waiting until he could be coaxed little by little to come closer. When he did finally come and sniff it, his fear evaporate like ice on hot asphalt. He paid it no more mind than he paid birds.
So she worked more with him, when she had time to do so. She made time. It was busy as calves and cows were separated into meat stock and breeding stock and milk stock and the butcher who usually handled the males was late this year. But she made time, and Piper progressed.
She stood by him one afternoon. He was standing patiently, and she placed the saddle blanket on first, stroking gently, murmuring words of encouragement as she lifted the saddle and bucked it into place. Piper tossed his head, ears laid back flat against his skull, and crow hopping, spinning, and bucking a good two minutes before seeming to realize the saddle was not coming off. He stopped, head swinging back to sniff at the saddle.
Afterwards he calmed. The change was startling, and she was worried about what would happen to her in the saddle. She was not a bronco rider, and she had no intention of Piper being a bronco. But like everything, all he needed was work. She worked with him with the saddle nearly every other day, to keep experiences being called and wearing the halter pleasant.
Switching up days where saddle work was done was difficult. Piper was smart, and devising a schedule he couldn’t anticipate was tricky. But it was working, and he seemed almost to not notice the presence of the saddle after nearly a week and a half. She counted this as a tentative plus and began weighing the bags with sacks of sand.
It encouraged his initial reaction, and she walked with him frequently while he wore it. But, she sheepishly realized, she needed to teach him to walk on a lead and to be lunged, otherwise she would not get much further. She added it to her 'Piper List'. He was adjusting more each and every day, and each time he didn't sprint around like a mad horse or buck and twist and roll like crazy was a day she felt more confident working with him.

Word Count: 523

[Obsessed]

She began working with the lead almost immediately. After having lead him back and forth with her fingers hooked in the halter, this was a welcome change. Piper had come to the fence, interest piqued and the lead thoroughly investigated. She slipped his halter on, shrugging away his nip on her shoulder, grinning when he began nibbling her hair. That he trusted what she was doing made her ecstatic.
Snapping the lead on with as little of a snapping noise as possible, she stepped back and continued walking back. The change made Piper tense up. The first gentle tug resulted in him bracing his legs, refusing to go one step further. So she stopped, waited until he lifted his head again and took a hesitant step forward. She began moving again. He refused.
Their tug-of-war was never rough. When he stopped, she kept the pressure tight, and when he walked, she rewarded him. For the first few days he was visibly nervous and unsure. It was one thing, she supposed, for her to be right there and touch him, and another to have this strange thing attached to his face. But it wasn’t long until he followed her easily on the lead, and she decided that soon, soon she would put him in a stable. But not yet. She led him all over the farm, introducing him to some of the hired help, increasing the length of their walks day by day.
Sometimes she put on the saddle, sometimes she did not. Either way, Piper was alert and attentive, though she made sure to pay him extra attention when he behaved with the saddle. The walks were becoming enjoyable and easy, and Piper seemed to think so as well. His gait was light, his eyes bright, his gorgeous coat gleaming in the sun.
After that was lunging. Her old lunge needed replacing, so she chose a rest day for Piper and went into town to get a new one. To her horror, he tried to follow her and her fear of him being hit made her turn around, placing him in the round pen he had spent the first two months in.
When this presented no problem she went into town, and brought home the lunge. She couldn't start that day, though. Even if it hadn't been a rest day Piper ignored her, turning his hindquarters to her when she called him. She was upset, until she realized she had never left him before.
At first she began with walking him in small tight circles as she taught him four basic commands: ‘whoa’, ‘walk’, ‘trot’, and ‘canter’. It was difficult but rewarding to do so and took more time than the saddle and halter had. He had a hard time learning 'whoa', as he only wanted to sprint forward. Many times she landed face down on the grass with sore shoulders and a bruised chest.
But to stand at the center of the hurricane that was Piper as she lunged him was rewarding.
Watching him let her see both the high stepping trot and the mincing tolt was a pleasure; watching any horse's gaits was a pleasure, but she could not grow tired of Piper's. It was when she had finished training him to lunge she decided it was time to ride him for the first time. He was ready, she knew, and as used to a saddle and a weight on his back as he possibly could be.
So on day seventy she introduced him a bridle and began working with that as well. He took to the bridle easily, being led by the reins both with and without the saddle without difficulty.

Word Count: 614

[Obsessed]

After a careful vet visit, during which Piper behave marvelously, though with a certain aloof attitude, she decided it was time. Her palms were sweating, no matter how many times she wiped them against her jeans, and Piper watched her curiously as she brushed, saddled, and bridled him that morning.
After so many rounds in the weighted saddle on walks, lunging, and just in the field he seemed very unperturbed, but she moved slowly and carefully either way, placing a foot in the stirrups and leaning into it. He shifted his weight, turning his head to look at her, but otherwise did not react.
Slowly, carefully, she repeated this on the other side, and then the other, back and forth again. Piper, several times, tried to walk forward, brought back with a firm hand and made to wait. An ear rotated, but he did not try to run or buck. So she unsaddled him, brought him to the fence and settled slowly on his back.
Their first ride was slow. She could feel the muscles, unbalanced from the weight that was her, compensating as they walked around the pasture. Every now and then he would tug at the bit, trying to go one direction when she said another. But the distance between those times grew with each ride. The bucking she had seen the first time with the saddle was absent, and apparently her weight must have been easier to carry than sacks of sand, for he moved confidently after only a few strides, a gentle walk where the distinction between human and horse seemed to slip away.
With each moment, it seemed like they had always ridden together. When she dismounted it was with awe. Piper seemed unaware of what he had just done, of the importance of this step, as she slipped his bridle off and grinned. But the next day, and the days after, were spent riding or simply being together. It was a long trip to get to that point, and longer still until she could push Piper into anything faster than a trot, but she was happy with him.
Happy that the proud curve of his neck and the gleam in his eyes were still there, and that the same personality she had seen were still there. Sitting on the fence again, bridle in hand, she wound a hand through his mane, fingers brushing the brand near the top of his neck that spoke of his having once been wild.
She wasn’t sure what she would have done if she had come home that day with a gelding. Would she have sensed the hole where Piper occupied now? Probably not. She stood a little shakily, stroking the stallion before leaving the paddock. Which reminded her – the weather would change soon, and she had a stall with his name on it.
They rode more frequently, as she considered training him for shows. He moved into a smooth canter on his own repeatedly, and gave her looks sometimes that said 'I don't need coddling'. With hesitance, one afternoon, she nudged him into a gallop. He sprung forward like a bullet, a mad dash that left her breathless and amazed and the feeling of flying that she had forgotten she missed all swirling together. The worn trails from all their walks and rides around the farm now made a race track that Piper followed with almost no direction from her. When they stopped, she was overjoyed with the stallion.

Word Count: 581