I walk towards the closets that stand tall against the left wall, "So, which closet do y-" I stop mid-sentence when I see half of the closet is already packed with clothes, "Okay, I'll take this," moving to the right where an empty closet is facing back at me.

Starting to unpack all of my things, it's already 4:00, and when I hear a knock on my door, I already know that someone is coming to bring us down to an "opening meeting". As I open the door, I hear Ariel sigh deeply behind me, and, rolling my eyes, I see Ellie perched against the doorframe. She stands up straighter as I look at her.

"Ready to go? I have no idea where this "thing" is, so we'll have to figure it out on the way," she laughs, walking through the door.

I turn around and see Ariel's red head not moving, but staying right where she is, "You coming, Ariel?" She holds up her hand as if telling us to "do not disturb" her. I swivel on my heels to face Ellie again, and we both shrug.

We walk out the building and helplessly roam around the campus until we see a group of other students walking towards a larger building. As we enter an auditorium, Ellie finds a small section of empty seats, so while we walk towards them, I scan the crowd for people that I know (AKA Hanson because who knows).

A few hours pass, and we head back to our dorm, failing in the mission of meeting new people. I flop into bed, comfy in my pajamas, tired from the hectic things that were happening today. I haven't gotten any time to just sit down and relax, but now I can. Looking out my window at the palm trees and the beach just touching the border of the grass-lined campus, I close my eyes, and the world vanishes from my vision.

⏛

The morning was going well, until Ariel woke up, "Jesus Christ, Leigh, how long does it take to find some clothes to wear! Two people can't go in the closet at the same time, and if you haven't noticed, it-"

I step to the right just enough that she can fit in, "It's our first ride here, and I want to make an impression, is that so wrong?" I reply, walking towards the bathroom with charcoal Equine Couture breeches, mix-match socks, a black leather belt, and a plain black polo from Ralph Lauren. I hear her mumble a "whatever", and I stifle a laugh. As I change into my clothes, Ariel is just picking out her clothes, and before no time, she's sliding on her boots.

"I don't understand why you don't just leave them at the barn," I say to her, putting on my Sperry's and grabbing my small, pink and turquoise cross body purse where I put my phone, I.D., and spare money.

I wait for Ariel, and on our way out, we both grab an apple and a croissant from the kitchen, and I thought it was sort of strange that we're eating a croissant from Hawaii. I haven't let the whole idea of being in Hawaii sink in yet, mostly because I don't want it to sink it and let me forget it. It's completely different than what my old barn was, a small one on the east coast, but here, it's a huge boarding school on the outskirts of an island.

We walk into the barn, and it's like experiencing it all again. I spin in a small circle, tilting my head upwards to see the large dome-like overhead circle around me, and walking forward, the beams shoot across the building. I walk towards Ikky's stall, and he stands there half-asleep in a bedding of shavings. I laugh softly, and slide the door open, rubbing his forehead and start grooming him. I just felt different tacking him up in a new environment, but he didn't seem to mind.

Adding some finishing touches to our "look" (AKA matching black and white boots and bonnet). I adjust the (also matching black and white) saddle pad, and put on my Charles Owen, slide my gloves on, and grab my crop while following the crowd of riders into the arena. We stand in a line full of colors, riders and horses matching in red, white, brown, and many others. I scan my "competition", and notice a few nice looking horses with great conformation and tough looking riders. I straighten my back, trying to imitate them, and hold my head up high while I step in line with Ikky, looking as handsome as ever.

"Hello, riders!" a tall women walks in with two other adults walking behind her. She stands in the middle of the line, where her boots glisten in the sun that's peering through the open sides of the arena, only a wood fence blocking the horses from running out, "I'm Daria, and I'm going to be your head trainer for this year, and this is Lauren, your dressage trainer, and Joe, you're cross country instructor,"

We carry on with introductions, introducing ourselves, where we came from, our horses' information, and a little bit about our riding experience. As we went through, and riders were telling things about them, I noticed that Daria had a hard time believing them.

"Great, Miguel! Next?" she turns towards me, and I'm almost one of the last people on the end. My eyes widen before I notice that I'm supposed to be talking now.

"Um, sorry," I sheepishly laugh, "I'm Leigh Hartman, and I'm from the United States on the east coast. Um, this is my horse Icarus, or Ikky, and he's a, obviously buckskin, Canadian Warmblood gelding, and stands at 16 hands. I've been riding for almost eleven years, and I jump about 3'11" more or less,"

She smiles, "Thank you, Leigh. I'll be looking forward to teaching you and 'Ikky,'" I internally freak out while the person next to me talks, and I can't help myself but smile really big.

"Alright, I'll make this short and sweet now. As you all know, I'm Daria Reynolds, and I graduated from an equestrian college about six years ago-" she continues her speech, and it takes us almost fifteen minutes before we're allowed to actually mount. Thankfully, my old trainer never got us an actual mounting block, so I'm so used to mounting from the ground (and plus, Ikky isn't that tall so it's not so much a struggle).

Daria swivels on her heels down the line, looking at our standing posture, "Good, Leigh. Remember to push your shoulders back. Try rolling your shoulders," I follow her instructions, and feel my shoulder rolling back, "Okay, stop!" I stop rolling them, and hold the position that it's in.

We head out to the rail at a sitting trot, and I have a feeling we won't be doing as much jumping the first day as I hoped. Daria goes around critiquing people's equitation and posture. An hour goes by, and thankfully, she gives us a five-minute break. I relax, my legs throbbing with pain as I walk Ikky towards the wall and grab my water.

"Well that was brutal," I turn to my right and see a boy, a little geeky looking, with curly brown hair sticking out under his GPA helmet.

I nod in agreement, "Definitely. I'm Leigh," I sort of extend my sweat covered gloves. He shakes it, and takes a big gulp out of his water, then twisting the cap back on before setting it back down.

"Sawyer," he smiles, and I can't help but feel it's contagiousness and smile back, "and this is Trust," he pats his chestnut pinto, it's head lowered to the ground as it gulps out of the water trough with Ikky.

"He's adorable. This is Ikky," I smile down at him, who is just about to close his eyes before I give a slight tug on his reins.

He reaches over to pat his neck, "He looked amazing out there, full of spunk," I remember him crow hopping in the beginning of the lesson.

I roll my eyes, "He's got lots of that for sure," before I can say another word, Daria starts clapping her hands, and Sawyer and I roll our eyes together, laughing before we head out onto the rail once again.

"Great, now, we're going to start popping over some low fences, so don't get too excited," as the workers set up a small grid (consisting of a bounce, one stride, one stride, bounce, and a two stride), we start trotting and cantering around them. "Who's first?"

Without a doubt, I see a pale arm rise quickly next to me, and of course it's Ariel. Daria nods at her, and Ariel cues her sparkling white horse to canter (I'm convinced he's a unicorn). They go through the grid cleanly, without a single mistake the human eye can catch, maybe other than George Morris, but that's beside the point (even though he can catch every mistake).

We go through the line, Daria leaving critiques, and soon enough it's my turn. I shorten my reins and start walking Ikky, then signaling him to canter from a walk, which may I add, responds amazingly. We canter through the short side, and I remember my trainer shouting in my head that corners set up your whole line, and push him farther into the sand banks. I hold Ikky back a few strides, letting him go a stride before the large cross rail. Following his movements, keeping my heels down, and counting the strides create a beautiful grid, and I canter away smiling.

"Excellent, Leigh. I love how you let him figure out the majority of it, but left the counting to you," Daria turns away and nods to Sawyer, and I find myself judging his appearance with Trust.

Trust isn't exactly the most graceful horse there is, but he manages. His stocky build isn't made for jumping, but somehow along the way, Sawyer managed to teach him the ins and outs of jumping and how to cope with the excessive energy that Trust seems to lack. Before the first jump, I noticed that Sawyer threw his shoulders forward, causing Trust to lose his balance, which made the bounce quite sloppy, but Sawyer has quick thinking, apparently, and didn't try to fix the balance until the one stride where he regathered his reins and brought Trust back to make a clean rest of the combination.

"I'm glad you knew your mistake and waited to fix your balance. If you tried to do it in the bounce, it could've ended badly. Great thinking," Daria says, and watches the next rider go.

I still haven't seen Hanson, but maybe it's because he's wearing his helmet and I haven't had time to actually look, or maybe my head is so focused on riding it can't function otherwise. After a few more rounds of jumping in different formations, like going through them from the other side, no stirrups, one handed, no reins, etc., Daria lets us leave tired and weak.

This is going to be harder than I thought.

⏛

"This is so going to be sore tomorrow," I whine from the bathroom, taking off my sweat-dried clothes and turning off the faucet.

"Tell me about it," I hear Ariel from the other side of the door.

I let the sweat roll off my skin as the water comes out of the showerhead, and rather than singing like I usually do, I just shower. Shower without thinking about the future. Having fake arguments with amazing comebacks against my enemies.

As I wrap my wet body with a towel, I step outside the bathroom, slipping on some comfy clothes while Ariel swaps places with me. After drying my hair, I sit on my bed and decided to text my parents. Minutes have passed and I never realized it was that late.

I always thought that leaving my family and my home was easy, considering I've always traveled with my grandmother and went to sleep-away camps, but I never quite snapped into the reality of boarding school.

⏛

okkkkk

I've finished (sort of) two chapters!! obviously it's already posted, and I'm literally writing this while I'm supposed to be showering butttt really? (I mean hygiene and stuff, but who cares)

and the picture up top/on the side/in the media is Wings of Gold "Ikky" (Leigh's horsie pon)

so I hope you enjoy remember to like, comment, vote!!

*and a follow would be nice ;)*

x, winter