#For Signae it just stopped his greying process on the very classy stage

[thunderboltfire]

I'm curious to know about your OCs' horses. Are they normal horses, or are they rational beings or magically bonded allies or anything? Are there any interesting stories about them being acquired or entering the story?

Thanks for the ask! :)

That very much depends on a horse! Out of named horses, Gniady (Daen's horse) is a regular animal - he's well trained, agile and fast, but he isn't mentally different from any regular equine. Daen isn't eager to talk about his past, so it's unclear where he exactly got him, but it's implied he trained him from a young age. Similarly to the team's pack mule, who sometimes doubles as Theria's ride - he behaves pretty much how one would expect from an animal of his kind.

The trouble begins with Aquila and Signae. They are technically magically altered animals, and it's difficult to say whether they don't tread the line of sentience.

(this turned out to be pretty long, so the rest is under a cut)

A starbound animal and rider pair is created throughout a complex magical ritual. It's a remnant of an old elvish magical technology. After the spectacular fall of elven civilisation catalysed by a magical catastrophe, most of the old magic and technology was lost. However bits and pieces have survived here and there. It's highly probable that starbound riders were a prototype that didn't go on to be in a widespread use and got repurposed after the catasrophe. Many people have heard of the riders, but they are few and far between so they're far from being a regular occurence. The magic involved in starbound rider's binding to their horse isn't simple or widely understood, and as it often is with magic permanently affecting living beings, it breeds mistrust, strange tales and legends. In some places people say one has to trade a piece of their soul for a starbound steed.

The binding is only practiced in a handful of remote monasteries and hermitages and it isn't available to just anyone - its price is paid not in money, but in knowledge or favors. The hermits also don't accept just anyone - a suitable candidate has to have significant resolve and be good at handling stressful situations. This is because the bond can, and often will, be a mental hazard to a rider. There are no strict requirements towards an involved animal - however it's pretty normal that it should be in good health and of good character. It should also have existing bond of trust with its rider, as it lessens the initial confusion.

The ritual creates a permanent bond between the consciousness of both horse and rider and gives the horse several supernatural qualities. Starbound horses live for as long as their riders do and age on a similar rate, are more inteligent to the point of limited understanding of speech and are partially resistant to offensive magic. They are also always aware of the whereabouts of their riders. Their most important trait is the ability akin to instinctive short-distance teleportation. It's physically draining for them, but it's invaluable in a dangerous situation.

They never seem to become something non-equine in a psychological sense - they're generally speaking still horses, and they still have most of equine physical and mental needs. It's harder to scare them or fool them, but they still have distictively equine responses for emotionally overwhelming situations. So they can play checkers with you, but they also can start to weave, pace and panic if they're in emotional distress. The side effect of the ritual is that in most of the cases, the horse becomes entirely sterile.

Phasing in and out of physical dimension is a feature, not a bug.

The entire ordeal affects the rider to a lesser degree - having forged the empathetic bond, they always know where their mount is (at the very least the general direction) and they can to a limited degree communicate with them telepathically. The information the horse is getting is the intent, or a direction - whether they do what they're told, is another thing entirely. For a well-established horse and rider pair this eliminates misunderstandings and makes them work in a close synergy, with the communication unrestricted by a surrounding chaos. They seem to navigate the dangerous circumstances with an incredible intuition - it's very hard to imbalance them or surprise them in any way, and they're capable of fine - tuned manouvers, conducted as if they were one creature in two bodies.

A significant downside is however that one can undergo the ritual only once. Should a rider lose their horse, they can never get another starbound steed, and they will suffer due to lack of the familiar presence in their consciousness. To be fair however, starbound horses usually are pretty good at keeping themselves alive.

Not everyone is prepared to deal with the telepathic communication, and what's a blessing can also be a curse. The bond can cause a very unpleasant side-effect called a surge, in which the powerful emotional state of one side causes them to mentally broadcast their whole sensory experience directly to the other. It's safe to say, humans aren't equipped to perceive things in 270 degree angle of vision, and they are not quadrupedal. They also think and understand things in a very different way - the resulting cognitive horror can in the best case cause someone to shut down for a while, and in the worst case cause a lasting trauma which'll put them out of commission for weeks. The opposite is also true - reportedly, a sight and sound of a horse that desperately tries to speak with its equine mouth is not a pleasant one. That's why one's psychological resistance comes into play. A surge can sometimes be stopped - and the better the horse and rider are at managing the bond and keeping each other from spiraling into a frenzy or panic, the rarer it becomes and its instances are less crippling.

It's probably the very individual, permanent nature of the forged bond and the fact that it relies on qualities that are difficult to gauge beforehand that resulted in it never being used on a larger scale. However, for the few that are willing to work through the difficulties, it can prove to be extremely useful. Especially to someone who cannot always rely on strenght in numbers, the horse which will literally watch their six and respond appropriately and a possibility to straight up disappear from under an approaching blow is invaluable.

It's hard to tell to what degree the starbound animals are capable of rational thought, so it's difficult to discuss the ethics of this arrangement. It's hardly a symmetrical thing too, but it's mutualistic, to a degree. For the standards of mostly feudal world, this aspect is rather neutral to its inhabitants. They more often freak out about uncanny horses that seem to know way more than horses should (and people who seem to have a full conversation with their silent horse) than about someone using a possibly sentient being as a mount.

Now, how did the present starbound riders got in this situation?

In case of Igna it was pretty straightforward - she got Aquila when the mare was two years old from her father. Igna was fourteen at the time. She had previous riding experience, borrowing her uncle's old draft horse and sometimes helping him to hold horses for shoeing. The young, pitch-black mare was the most precious gift she's ever got and she looked after her dilligently. Whether she'd go on to patrol the borderlands or choose to become someone else, she could use a horse, and a hardy mare was a relatively easy keeper. Igna's father's old favors granted her a possibility to undergo the ritual. The idea came from Eberre too, some time after Igna has declared she wants to become a Wanderer. They've travelled together for a while and after one dangerous encounter on the road, Eberre thought she may need an additional advantage if she's to one day inevitably deal with various dangers alone. The choice was left to Igna - she was a little scared, but was pretty tunnel-visioned too, so she decided she'd go through with it. Mila, being a Keeper of Borders wasn't pleased with an idea of exposing her child to a permanently altering ancient magic with an uncertain result, but Igna, then a stubborn 17-year old, has managed to put her foot down and went on to become a starbound rider. It had driven a further wedge between her and the people of Iseni - she never was fully one of them, but now, atop her weird, two-colored horse she seemed even more alien. Fortunately, she's had plenty of space to get accustomed to Aquila's new abilities and by the time she ventured out of her home, she was completely accustomed to the bond and proficient at using it.

Argo got Signae back when he was a little foal, and he himself was a little kid, around 10 years old. It would be a little far-fetched to say that Signae was bred specifically for him, but he surely was raised with him in mind. While Argo had absolutely no magical ability, he took to horses and bows like a bird to the sky, and soon enough he galloped around Riss atop a little dappled horse. The idea to make Argo a starbound rider came from his mother, way before he decided he would enlist as a Wanderer. It was practically a sort of a life insurance - while being a dead end of the current ducal dynasty, Argo was comparatively safer than if he was a valid heir, the possibility of someone trying to hurt him to threaten his father has remained. A mean of a magical defense could one day decide about his life, and Argo, who in a way grew up surrounded by magic didn't really mind getting bound to his horse in this way. The initial weeks of adjustment were a little difficult, but once he got accustomed to it, he didn't have much problems with it. Signae's stable, gregarious presonality has definitely made it easier, too.