![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Imriel (he's Imriel today, nicknames hurt, especially 'Gorgeous') still hasn't taught her to ride, but she's had stable lessons. Grooming, picking out the stalls and the hooves, and if Savannah won't let her take care of the kids, at least she can fucking take care of Bonny (who chewed through her tie and found Kate again) and England.
Kate attacks England's white (gray, fleabitten, whatever the fuck, it doesn't matter, Archie's gone, so who cares?) coat with the curry comb. The horse makes this low little noise at her that sounds...it's probably supposed to be soothing or friendly or something, because it's not loud or shrill, just a little sound like a horse-purr and then he tosses his nose. She's not hurting him. He's just talking horse talk.
"Sorry, British," she says, and then instantly bursts back into tears. She'd been trying to make a play on his name, trying to fake herself out (nicknames still hurt). On Archie being so British. But it just reminds her that Declan's gone and Archie's gone and...she shouldn't even fucking miss the Chief of the IPD. What kind of fuckery is that? But she does.
Somehow he was important. Or maybe it's just easier to miss him never quite trusting her, always calling her "Miss Freelander", never knowing what to make of her jokes than it is to let go of Declan whose bed she didn't even sleep in the last night he had on the island. Who she's been kind of distant from while she figured out the whole Garris thing. But whose kisses she can still taste, whose hands she can still feel, whose eyes she still sees when she closes her owns.
Somehow it's easier to stand here and cry while she brushes a horse that's not hers in stable that isn't the Sanctuary on an island that isn't even an island than it is to go brave a bar and drown herself. Somehow. Right now. Right now the clean-dirt scent of horseflesh, the dry almost-fur scent of shedding out winter coat and the dusty-musty-gold scent of clean straw and the damp, tangy smell of tears from her face buried in a coarse white mane are better than the tequila she's bound to find at the saloon. Not for long, but for now.
Kate attacks England's white (gray, fleabitten, whatever the fuck, it doesn't matter, Archie's gone, so who cares?) coat with the curry comb. The horse makes this low little noise at her that sounds...it's probably supposed to be soothing or friendly or something, because it's not loud or shrill, just a little sound like a horse-purr and then he tosses his nose. She's not hurting him. He's just talking horse talk.
"Sorry, British," she says, and then instantly bursts back into tears. She'd been trying to make a play on his name, trying to fake herself out (nicknames still hurt). On Archie being so British. But it just reminds her that Declan's gone and Archie's gone and...she shouldn't even fucking miss the Chief of the IPD. What kind of fuckery is that? But she does.
Somehow he was important. Or maybe it's just easier to miss him never quite trusting her, always calling her "Miss Freelander", never knowing what to make of her jokes than it is to let go of Declan whose bed she didn't even sleep in the last night he had on the island. Who she's been kind of distant from while she figured out the whole Garris thing. But whose kisses she can still taste, whose hands she can still feel, whose eyes she still sees when she closes her owns.
Somehow it's easier to stand here and cry while she brushes a horse that's not hers in stable that isn't the Sanctuary on an island that isn't even an island than it is to go brave a bar and drown herself. Somehow. Right now. Right now the clean-dirt scent of horseflesh, the dry almost-fur scent of shedding out winter coat and the dusty-musty-gold scent of clean straw and the damp, tangy smell of tears from her face buried in a coarse white mane are better than the tequila she's bound to find at the saloon. Not for long, but for now.
