The Ball Starts Rolling
Chapter 1
The Ball Starts Rolling
“That was my best round by far!” Evaline shouted mid-canter from across the outdoor arena to her instructor who was standing in the middle of the sand ring. She had been preparing for her first higher level competition for the past few months after a successful show jumping season the year prior with her dark bay gelding, Royal.
“Lovely jumping today, Eva! You two have been progressing beautifully since last show season!” her Instructor, Tory, replied. “Now give him a good cool down before untacking him, that was a tough workout for the both of you!“.
“I know, Tory, you don’t have to remind me about simple things like that! I’ll walk him to his pasture and untack him there!” Evaline shouted back, already heading for the gate of the arena.
“Good girl! I’m too accustomed to my junior riders who are far too preoccupied with sprinting back to their romance books as soon as they’re finished the lesson to pay their mounts the attention they require,” Tory mentioned “I always seem to forget that there are still some responsible students of mine!”
Evaline shook her head with a smile on her face as she bent down to unlock the gate that closed off the arena from the surrounding green field. “Thanks for the lesson, Tory,” She called back. “you’ve got the patience of a saint!”
When her instructor bid her farewell and took to the skies on her grey Pegasus mare, Evaline surveyed the fading image in envy. She had wanted to find her fated Pegasus as soon as she learned about them from her parents’ stories of bonding with their Pegasides at the age of thirteen for her mother, and fifteen for her father. They had told her of the mythical creatures and the bond humans shared with them when she was only five years old.
The typical age people wound up finding their Pegasides is sixteen, but she was already nineteen and still hadn’t had any inkling of having some fated bond with a Pegasus.
Evaline’s two best friends already bonded with their Pegasides, which just contributed to her jealousy and sorrow when it came to this topic. There are some people who didn't even accept the bond with their Pegasus, and instead rejected the pairing with them, which just seemed like denying fate to Evaline. She could never understand the audacity these people had when rejecting these bonds as these mythical creatures were a gift to humans from the gods. However, the reality was that not everyone was a horse crazy fanatic like herself, and the bond simply didn’t mean much of anything to them.
Having arrived outside of Royal’s pasture, Evaline slid down the side of him with a balanced thud to the ground and rolled up her stirrups. Once she removed his saddle, boots, and eventually his bridle, she opened the gate to his pasture for him to enter. She offered him a juicy apple that he gladly gobbled up and followed with a generous amount of clean water from his trough. Once Royal had quenched his thirst after their tiring lesson, he slowly made his way to the round bale that was surrounded with several of his pasture mates currently munching to their hearts’ content.
Evaline turned on her heel after closing the gate to gather all the discarded tack she left on the fence. After a short walk to the tack room, Evaline began cleaning and polishing her tack before propping it back on the wall. Right as she was about to make her way to the door to return to the house, a pair of hands landed in front of her vision.
“Guess who?” a voice sounded from behind her.
