Trinket (Reverse Harem)

All Those Shortcomings

Like what, a parade through the streets celebrating something?

[DUDE 2] was a bit older than me, good looking, seemed polite and used to dealing with students of station.

"Let me see your hands, my lady," he said as he led me to an arena with groomed sand where a pony that had been groomed to as nice a shine as could be managed from a diet of contaminated grazing, stood waiting already wearing a saddle and bridle.

"Why?" I asked.

"So I can judge what size gloves. I was expecting you'd have brought your own, but we have some to borrow."

I extended my hands. They were clean, but the callouses visible.

His solicitous expression washed over, and his averted, polite gaze became one of aversion. "Ah, I think you will be fine without gloves to hold the reins."

I said nothing in response, but as he had me mount (which I knew how to do, thank you very much, but was the last thing I wasn't corrected for) and started to correct how I held my reins, I glanced at my masters to see if they'd picked up on the chance in [DUDE 2]'s demeanor.

Itek had shifted back into animal form and lay stretched out in the dirt, sunning his gleaming body.

Asshole.

[DUDE 2] set in correcting everything from my leg position to my rein length to how I sat while the saintly pony plodded around the arena like a reanimated corpse.

"It's always so difficult to teach adults the refined way of riding," he said for the third time, tone mildly annoyed. "It's something you have to learn as a child to do properly."

Right. I got it. I was a low-bred and he'd spotted me the instant Itek had circled overhead. Guess he didn't also want to hear that my legs and hands were already exhausted from clinging to Itek for dear life for an hour before we got here. Nope. Just tell me how shitty a student I was, and what a waste of his time this was.

"Good enough for today, I suppose," he said. "Come in and let's see you dismount. Properly."

That I also knew how to do. I took care to swing my leg high enough to clear the pony's hindquarters, then dropped to the ground. He put his hand on the reins under the pony's jaw, but the chances of that pony moving unexpectantly were about the same as me morphing into the Lost Hippocamp Princess or Asund rushing into Haven and throwing himself at my feet and groveling like a good little wolf about all the mistakes he'd made in his life.

"You're never going to be an elegant rider. The people you'll be riding with will have been in the saddle since they were tots. You're never going to have that elegance and they'll see it. But I'll do the best I can to teach you to hide your shortcomings and not make a fool of yourself."

The second time that day I'd heard that advice.

Itek rolled to his chest, shook himself, and ambled over. He switched his tail and lowered his wings to make it easier for me to mount.

"No," I said. Not a chance I was going to get on his back and fly back to Haven. My legs were jelly, my hands were exhausted. I'd tumble over his ass to my death. Haven was twenty miles. I was walking it. They could walk it with me if they wanted, or circle me like buzzards, I didn't care, I wasn't riding back.

I walked down the lane towards the road. Itek click-growled and Korr rumbled, but I ignored them. I was walking and they could just deal with it.

I was down the lane and on the main dirt road with its thick ruts and cracks and piles of dried dung when I spotted Korr and Ethat circling above me, and Itek alighted next to me. He shifted into human form. "You're being absurd."