Silver Flames

Chapter 5

     I woke up the next morning to Nina shaking me awake. When I opened my eyes she grinned and said "Good morning!" causing both of us to laugh. I noticed Silverblaze wasn't hiding in the  back of the stall this morning and actually looked somewhat relaxed. "He looks better" Nina commented noticing this as well. "Yeah he does, do know when your mom is next coming here to see him? I want her to give Oreo's leg another look if she can." I asked. "I think she said she wanted to come this morning and see him as soon as she could" Nina replied. "Alright, I'll wait for her opinion before deciding to ride today or not" I said. As I finished my sentence Kate walked into the stable and saw us. "Hey, how are the horses?" she asked. "Good" I replied "I'm just going to get Oreo's leg checked before I do anything today" "Good call" she said with a nod. Kate then went into her horse's stall to start grooming. A couple minutes later Nina's mom walked in. "Good morning" she greeted me before going to check on Silverblaze. "He looks a lot calmer" she commented. "Yeah I spent a lot of time with him yesterday since I couldn't ride, while you're here could you look at Oreo's leg too? I'm not sure if I should ride today or not" I said. "Sure" Nina's mom replied as she looked over Silverblaze. "This is weird..." she muttered as she looked at him. "What is it?" I asked curious. "Most of the small injuries look as if they are almost completely healed... Normally it would take longer then two days for those to heal, and the stitches here look like they could be removed by the end of the week...." she explained. I didn't know what to think about that, but I knew Silverblaze wasn't a normal horse, especially after last night. Nina's mom then proceeded to look at Oreo. After an inspection of his leg she told me "It looks better then the other day, but I still wouldn't ride him for at least two weeks." I knew that meant I wouldn't be riding for a while. I thanked Nina's mom and like every visit tried to give her money which she declined. She always insisted I didn't have to pay because her family was practically my second family with how much me and Nina were at each other's houses. I always tried and failed to give her money anyway. I sat down against Silverblaze's stall and sighed glumly at the though of another day with no riding. Kate, who had overheard the entire thing, came up to me and said "You can ride Fox today if you want, I only came to groom him cause I have to go to some boring family party" I laughed remembering a time I'd been in a similar situation. "Alright thanks!" She told me where her tack was and rushed off to meet her mom. I went to her tack box and looked inside. There were two sets of tack inside, on the right there was a dressage saddle that looked expensive and was cleaned to perfection, with a clean white saddle pad and an equally fancy bridle. On the left there was a more casual looking tack set, with a purplish saddle pad and a saddle with a nice space like design and a blue bridle. The tack looked new and I knew you really only saw people with such colorful saddles and bridles on Jorvik usually. I grabbed that set not wanting to touch what was clearly her show tack and tacked up Fox. Eventually I was galloping across the Forgotten Fields enjoying myself. Nina hasn't been able to ride right away because when her mom had left she'd gone with her to help out with something. Just as we looped around a large boulder, Fox suddenly skidded to a stop from a full gallop causing me to go flying over his head and into the grass. I looked up quickly to see he'd turned and bolted off to the right somewhere. I tried to stand only to find that my left arm hurt really badly. I got out my phone to call for help but my heart sank when when I looked at it. The screen had shattered on impact with the ground and the phone was completely useless. Dang it I thought to myself. This was a really bad situation. I tossed away the useless phone in frustration. I stood up carefully, only using my right arm. I decided my best way to get bad would be to find Fox, as on horseback I could get back in maybe twenty minutes if I galloped. That sound pretty dumb to do with only one arm but it was that or walk on foot for a full hour. Plus I really didn't want to go back and have to tell Kate I'd lost her horse after she'd been so nice to let me ride him. I started walking in the direction Fox had gone hoping he hadn't gotten to far.