[Phase 2] Trick up my sleeve

His first morning at the stable was quite an eventful one. Despite having little time to get to know his surroundings, he already escaped and got himself involved in Kal’s walk.

After what felt like a sitcom episode, Kal and one of their stablehands finally got him back to his place. By the time he was back at the stable, it was almost noon, and he was left to think about his choices in one of the fields closest to the buildings, so if he tried anything funny, there would be someone to stop him.

The next few days passed by with nothing particularly interesting to remember them by. Kallisto would visit him at least twice a day to check on him, or hang out, but they didn’t have any intention of trying to ride him any time soon. They still had a lot to figure out before they would even consider doing so.

He was a very nice horse in the pasture, playing around and engaging with Kallisto when they’d visit. He would prance and spin next to them and try his best to get them to chuckle. Truly he seemed like a sweetheart, but still the problem remained, he just refused to be ridden or leave this place. There were also more incidents similar to Kal’s first impression of him, though, thankfully would get caught before he could put too much distance between the stable and the person he was following.

About a week passed when Kal, while watching the little trickster do his usual prancing and showing off, got an idea for dealing with him. “What if I gave him someone to follow? A buddy of sorts…” they thought, “That could work.”. The whole night, Kal searched for the perfect companion that would hopefully make him get out on his own, and as the sun started rising, they finally found it. With no hours of sleep and about 5% of their brain still going, they stumbled into the kitchen to tell their wife the plan they came up with. Some couple of nods and concerned smiles later, they were ushered to bed while reassured that it was going to be taken care of.

By the time they woke up and got ready, some people were already making arrangements. Pyrite, the stallion they ended up choosing, was being led next to the joker’s pasture. Immediately he jumped to follow him, and so they both walked around the property for a bit. After their walk, the two were left alone to get to know each other better.

The reason Kal picked Pyrite was that, besides his calm demeanor and willingness to get along with other horses, he was, for some reason, really good at making horses cooperate with people.

While Pyrite’s effects on the new stallion weren’t an overnight miracle, they worked quite quickly. For the first time since he came to Kallisto, he was willing to get out of the stable while tacked, granted with his friend close behind, but that was still better than the start. 

His first ride was short, just a bit of walking and trotting while following his friend, but for once since the start of this whole thing, Kal finally felt like they could overcome this obstacle.