Celyn Talks to Horses

It wasn’t most days, but it was a number of them, that Celyn would go and take his time making sure the horses were fed, tracing out the slow patterns that meant that by the time they were settled and ready to be tacked up he could hear them whickering and muttering among themselves and understand what they meant by it.

Pioden - the black mare with the long stockings and bright white blaze he had adopted as his own - nudged him with her nose.  “Shoulder itches,” she told him, so he fetched out the currying brush and worked at that until she sighed contentedly.  “Treat?”

“I actually got some carrots and there was enough for everyone,” he said with a chuckle.  “I can’t play favorites too much.”

She snorted and shoved him in the center of the chest with her nose.  “Treat.”

He presented her with a nub of winter-withered carrot, and then worked down the rest of the order, with Noble next, and then the rest of the horses according to their own established hierarchy, which he would not disrupt too much.  Everyone got a bit of carrot.

“Everyone doing all right?” he asked the herd.  “Nobody has a problem with a shoe?”

There were a few complaints, mostly itches that he could fix with the currying brush, and he had to scold one of the horses - again - for puffing up so the girth could not be properly tightened - again.  “You’re not going to fool me,” he said with an affable slap on her flank that made her snort and blow out the air so he could do the strap properly.
“Always worth a try.”

“We’ll be back soon and we can all hope no more riding for a bit, all right?  We’re going to have to spend some time figuring out what’s gone wrong in Cleenseau and fixing it, I’m sure.”  He was cheerful about it, if a bit resigned to the inevitability.

The spell was fading off and he could feel it, so he paused in dealing with the horses to shift his attention to Greymalkin, who was, as always, observing with silent suspicion.  He bowed slightly to the gryphon and said, “I know you don’t care for carrots but if there’s something you would like sometime just… Just let me know?  Or ask Robin to?”

The gryphon never seemed to say anything, and he wasn’t at all sure if it was that he only spoke to Robin or that his spell was not strong enough to translate.  A bit whimsically, Celyn added, “I suspect you are too magnificent a being for my mortal magics to translate,” bobbed again, and went back to dealing with the horses.