#btw travers and renvers are dressage terms

[saphira-approves]

For @ladyofancienttales, who brought up the story of “a riding mishap and how an honorable man should live” that Murtagh talks about in Inheritance and I’ve been meaning to write about for literal years!

—

Murtagh wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened.

Half a moment ago, he had been drilling travers and renvers with a schooling horse—Mila, a slender and well-bred bay mare, whose asymmetrical white blaze had gotten her donated to Pelsa’s riding school—but between one blink and the next, his whole world went topsy-turvy, and now he was sitting in the dirt with a sore backside and the wind knocked out of him.

Mila, for her part, was on the other side of the riding arena, trotting agitatedly in place, reins loosely askew and threateningly close to being stepped on. Swearing viciously as he got his breath back and his feet underneath him, Murtagh stood and limped to her side.

“What the shit was that about, Mila?” he asked her angrily, snatching at her reins, but Mila snorted and jerked her head back, smacking his face with her nose as she went, setting him off on another explosive bout of swearing.

“Hey, hey!” Tornac reprimanded him sharply, jogging over from where he had been watching by the rail. “Gently, Murtagh; that wasn’t her fault.”

“Of course if was her fault, she threw me off!” Murtagh half-yelled, trying to grab at the reins again.

“Stop that!” Tornac’s voice, in that moment, was the angriest that Murtagh had ever heard it, and he froze on a terrible, half-forgotten (but never gone) instinct as Tornac’s hands closed around his wrists. For an awful moment, neither of them moved. Tornac’s expression flashed between a dozen emotions before landing on resigned determination, and he took a deep breath. “Yes, she bucked,” he said, his voice calm and deliberate, “but she is not at fault.”

“So it was my fault,” Murtagh finished for him, voice hoarse.

“No,” Tornac chided him, with the same earnest ferocity he used when he reminded Murtagh that he was a person, not just a dead man’s son. “No, Murtagh, fault isn’t what matters. What matters is that Mila was frightened, and reacted on instinct—she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t help it, alright? You musn’t punish her for something she can’t help; that’s not how an honorable man bears himself.”

Murtagh could understand that. He knew what Tornac was saying, could even make an inkling of an ironic connection to his own experiences. But something tight and hot and awful was churning within his sore bones and welling up behind his eyes. “I’m still angry,” he hissed through gritted teeth, because that was the only name he could give it.

To his surprise, an amused smile tugged at the corners of Tornac’s mouth. “No, you’re not,” Tornac said knowingly. “You’re embarrassed that you fell from a horse you like, in front of… hmm… half a dozen people? And you’re still running on adrenaline from the sudden fright, I can feel you shaking,” he chuckled, loosening his hold on Murtagh’s wrists to run his hands up to Murtagh’s upper arms, rubbing them vigorously, which… surprisingly, was actually very effectively grounding him. “Now, you might be mad at yourself,” Tornac continued, “for not staying in the saddle. But everyone takes a tumble every now and then, Murtagh. It’s the honorable man who gets up, dusts himself off, and moves on.”

The honorable man. A figure from his mother’s stories, something his father never was. Something… maybe he could be. One day.

It took a few tries, but finally, with great effort, Murtagh managed to suck in as large a breath as his still-aching ribs would allow, hold it for a moment, and let it out in a great sigh. With it, the hot, tightly coiled tension in his body suddenly flooded from him, leaving him little other reasonable recourse than stumbling forward into Tornac’s chest so he could hide his still-burning eyes. “M’sorry,” he muttered into Tornac’s jerkin.

He felt more than he heard Tornac’s quiet chuckle. “It’s not me you should be apologizing to,” Tornac pointed out.

After a moment, Murtagh straightened, and turned to Mila, who seemed to have calmed a little, though her ears were still pricked, and he could clearly see the whites of her eyes.

Making sure to keep his breath steady, Murtagh reached his hands toward her nose, careful to keep his movements slow. “Sorry, Mila,” he told her sincerely. “I shouldn’t have blown up at you.”

Cautiously, the mare pushed her velvety nose into Murtagh’s palms. When he scratched below her chin, she finally relaxed fully, and allowed him to adjust the reins so she wasn’t in danger of stepping in them.

“Getting back on?” Tornac asked Murtagh as he made to pull down the stirrup that had, in the commotion, been flung over the saddle.

“Can I?” Murtagh asked him.

“Only if you think you’re up to it.”

“I want to,” Murtagh said decisively. “I think we both can do better. Right, Mila?” he asked the mare, patting her shoulder with a grin.

Tornac smiled, pride gleaming in his eyes. “Then don’t let me stop you.”