Maple Stream Riding Academy

Chapter Twenty-Three: Just Breathe

Mason and I sat together watching the first school start their rounds, one person at a time. When the last person leaves, Mason grabs my hand and walks back to the trailer.

"It's Quinn, Winston, then you," he says, taking my captain jacket so I can put on my vest.

"I'm not so sure about this," I say, about to start shaking some more. I get Flame and start walking back to the start of the cross country course.

"Cameron Anne Taylor, you will do phenomenal and everyone here knows it," he says, leaning against the fence at the start of the course. Quinn is getting set up to start her run.

"I don't know," I say, looking around. "Everyone here looks so prestige and talented."

"And you don't?" Mason asks. "Cam, you get, like, double the respect. Your uniform and jacket both say 'Captain' on it, people are going to respect you."

Quinn takes off running on her horse, a strong way to start her run.

"My shirt says captain?" I ask, looking at my shoulders. Sure enough, my left shoulder has 'Captain' printed in bold, white lettering. "Hmm."

Winston sets up to start his run, although hes not leaving for another two minutes.

"Mason, can you give me a leg up?" I ask, standing next to Flame. He helps me mount and motions for me to lean down so he can talk to me.

"Cam, just breathe if you get nervous," he says, pushing a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I turn to face him and he quickly kisses me, letting me go set up to start my run right after Winston leaves.

"Next in the box is Cameron Taylor, riding the well-known 'Dancing in a Ring of Fire'!" The announcer exclaims, making people turn their heads. "Your round starts in sixty seconds."

"Thank you," I say, realizing my phone is still in my pocket. I pull it out and toss it to Mason, who catches it and smiles.

"Nice job," he says, laughing some more.

"Cameron, your round starts in thirty seconds," the announcer says. I refocus and stabilize myself on Flame's back.

"Fifteen seconds."

I look straight ahead at the first jump, and pick myself up from Flame's back so he can run and jump freely.

"Ten seconds."

I start to sweat and Flame gets antsy. He wants to run!

"Five... Four... Three... Two... One..."

"GO!"

Flame takes that as his que and rushes out of the starting box, sprinting to the first jump. It's a brush jump, nothing he can't handle. We soar over the top and there's a two foot drop, so I brace myself for the landing. We sprint up to a trakehner and he has no hesitation jumping over it. There are two skinnys, a few corners, and a table, then a long area to run. But it's up a hill. I stand up in the saddle and lean forward, and Flame runs faster, quickly scaling the hill. The hill then goes down into a pond, so I lean back and let gravity bring us down the hill. There's a log jump into the water, so we rush it and splash across the water, getting people who are watching wet. There's a bank out of the water and a bounce on top, with a little drop after. There are more brush jumps and corners, then there's a coffin group. We go through it with ease. There's a weird horsesoe thing we jump through, followed by a corner and a steep bank up, a bounce at the top, and a steep bank down. There's another water complex, with a log jump down into it. We run across it for a while until I see a jump in the middle of the water, and it's like this wood fish. It looks pretty neat.

We jump the fish and run up to a steep bank up, and there's another area of hilly running ground. There's another trakehner followed by a jump that looks like a barn, then some brush jumps and a ditch to jump over. We're coming up to the final five jumps. There are two corners, a skinny, and a very difficult looking jump. It's a wide ditch followed directly after by a wall, making the horse jump the wide ditch and the tall wall, asking for width and height. We clear it flawlessly.

The final jump, and probably the most exicting, is a big ring of brush. I have to make sure that Flaem doesn't over jump it or else I'll have to lie almost flat on his back. We approach it and I can already tell there will be tired. Flame gets a quick burst of energy and jumps through the ring too high, forcing me to lean all te way forward on his neck to prevent getting knocked off. I stay on and we finished.

I did it.

(Quick A/N to that one person reading my story, I changed Cami's age from 14 to 15, and she's turning 16 soon. Tankyuuuu)