“Dorcas, hun, you need to sit on the pockets of your jeans not where the zipper is” Marlene called out softly from the fence line that circles the round pen, leaning against the metal fencing resting her booted foot against the bottom rail of it.
She was watching as Dorcas struggled to keep everything in proper order – Her heels down, toes in, shoulders back, arms steady and near Szymon’s wither, her knees squeezed tight on the jockey seat, her lower leg steady and most of all keeping her ass in the seat – it was slightly amusing to watch her struggle
Dorcas pulls Szymon down, from a light jog to a stop. “You make this seem a lot easier than it actually is.” She drops her reins so they catch the horn. “My legs are killing me.”
Marlene lets out a snort, pushing herself off of the fence to circle towards the gate. “Eh, Szymon’s just a dunce,” She pauses her sentence as she pushes the old rusty gate open. “He also doesn’t listen that well without spurs.” She lifts her foot off of the ground and shakes it a bit, letting the metal of her spur jangle for emphasis.
Marlene stands near the open gate where they keep the extra crops, spurs, lines and whips. “So,” she starts looking over to Dorcas. “I can throw you on a line, might not use one ‘cause this is a round pen and there's really no point, I can let you try with spurs or a crop, or you can hop off if you’re not feeling it.”
Dorcas runs her tongue over her teeth as she thinks, a little quirk of hers. “But you practically said my seat is ass, why in Merlin’s name would we keep on trying?”
“Well,” Marlene drawls. “You won’t get anywhere if you don’t try – and if you fall you fall, hope you ain’t broken and hop back up.” She smiles up at Dorcas, tilting her head fully up to get a good look at her up on that saddle. “You can, however, hop on off and I’ll show you how it's done.” She states with a little snark and a little flirt, a healthy mix of both.
Dorcas grabs the horn with her hand, and a display of confidence that wasn’t there before, leans down towards Marlene. The brim of her helmet touching the brim of Marlene’s hat just barely. “Game on.” She breathed out, tilting her head a bit as she spoke.
Before Dorcas could’ve taken another breath, Marlene pushed up on her toes and pressed a kiss to the tip of Dorcas’ nose.
She scrunches up her nose as she sits up properly on the saddle, regarding Marlene with a raised brow. “You broke the moment.” Dorcas huffs, hunching her back so her shoulders are rounded in a bored fashion.
“That was getting too eerily close to foreplay for my son to be in our presence.” Marlene says flatly, gesturing vaguely with her hand towards Szymon before patting him on the shoulder.
“Your son?” Dorcas gasps out scandalized. “I thought that he was our son, do I mean nothing to you?” She tries to hold a victimized demeanor, but she breaks after a couple seconds and lets out a soft laugh.
Marlene stares at her flatly and in a monotonous voice says “I helped as his mom foaled, that’s practically my kid.”
Dorcas opens and closes her mouth “What in Salazar’s name is ‘foaled’?” she asks, furrowing her brows and squinting a bit at Marlene.
“You’re kidding.” Marlene blinks at her until she realizes Dorcas is in fact not kidding.
She takes a deep breath, as if preparing herself to answer the question – about something she considered common sense – and then opens her mouth to speak. “To foal is to give birth?” She says as a slight question trying to give Dorcas a way to say that she did know what that meant, before letting out a sigh and elaborating. “Foal” She says pointing to a little horse in a nearby paddock. “Baby horse; baby horse starts to come out and the mama horse is foaling.”
Dorcas snorts “That’s like a person's baby starts crowning and you’d call it babying.” Marlene pauses “Well, to be honest that’s probably the thought process behind it being called that”
Neither quite know how to reply to that so silence fills in after them.
Marlene claps her hands together breaking the lack of talking with a loud smack. “Hop off him, I’m going to lunge him out then we’ll walk him down to his field.”
____________
Dorcas’ arms are wrapped tightly around Marlene’s torso from where she sits behind her on the back of Szymon. Her chin resting on her shoulder, letting the warmth of the day seep through her onto Marlene. Both the warmth for emotion – loving, cherishing, happiness – and the warmth from the warm July sun.
But the sun isn’t fully up anymore, the transition from day to night casts the sky in a beautiful blend of warm and cool colours. The way the light reflects off the clouds, casting the outline of them in an orange halo, is simply calming and tends to make her a little sleepy.
The comfort of it is drowsing.
Each step Szymon takes makes them both shift on his back, but not in an uncomfortable manner. Just in a soft swaying, rocking them back and forth as he walks down the path.
The soft rhythm and the lighting of the sky, make Dorcas try to blink away the tiredness from her bones. Fighting the sleep that calls for her. Because just down the path there’s a field that Szymon’s lived in all his life. Same with his mother, and her mother before him. Just as the Mckinnons have been here for so long.
Dorcas nuzzles into Marlene’s shoulder, pressing her nose into the junction of her neck. Listening to the breathing of the women she loves, someone she’ll always love.
“Feel free to close your eyes lovely, it won’t be too long but don’t worry too much about it.” Marlene murmurs softly, and from where Dorcas is pressed into her neck she can feel the rumble of the words through her neck as they are being spoken.
So Dorcas does, she closes her eyes and lets the swaying and the sun drag her into the calmness that is similar to sleep, just not quite there and this time she’s fine with being awake.
Because here right now, under the setting sun where the sky turns from red into blue, there is nowhere else she'd rather be.
With a gentle and soft horse of blue hue.
With a person she never thought she’d find.
The love of her life.
And maybe.
Just maybe.
Hidden in the back of her drawer, there is a velvet jewelry box.