a sideblog for the Scorpio Festival

@thescorpioracesfestival It’s our weekly family dinner and Polly has glared at me since she started chewing on her first potato. She tries to burn me with her eyes until I give in and ask her what’s wrong and I ignore her and pretend everything is fine.

If I give in, she’ll have the higher moral ground because I’d admit there could be something wrong. 

Eventually, she stabs a piece of meat with her fork and hisses: “Why are you racing again?!”

I look up at her. Yes, why am I racing? Because I don’t know any better. Because my heart, against all better knowledge, yearns for a capall’s body stretching beneath me, for me to feel its muscles work, for the speed and salty wind to stroke my face. Because I yearn for the risk. For the adrenaline that rushes through my veins and goes to my head faster than the cheapest wine.

“We could do with the money.” That’s no lie. Gavin is doing alright but not great. Polly’s dress is a little too short because she’s grown another ten centimetres out of nowhere. The food on this table has been a little better once before.

The first and last time Adamante and I won the races.

“You need to win to get the money.” She’s got an honest mouth, that girl, and I can do nothing but shrug.

“The grey one is fast.” 

“What if Pebbles kills you?” 

My nose scrunches up at the name she’s given the uisce mare, but I’ve long ago learned that you don’t argue with Polly about things so insignificant. “Adamante didn’t kill me in four years.” He was not the grey one though. I still can’t get myself to call her by her name. I don’t trust her.

I think again about Polly’s question. Why do I race? I know why I love the festival. It’s linked with all the memories of my father – the only ones I have of him. Every year for the festival he’d come to Thisby to visit me and my mother. Every year until I was thirteen. Then he suddenly didn’t show up anymore.

He had always visited the races with me and when I caught Adamante a few years later, I felt that my father would come back if I were to race. That he could not miss his son giving himself to the mercy of waves and storms and the deadly horses. 

Of course he did not show up but by then I had fallen madly in love with the white stallion I had pulled out of the waves. 

The next year we won the races. It was a stormy day, the waves too high, the wind too rough, too many riders lost their capaill or their lives. But Adamante stayed with me no matter how the sea yelled into his ears for him to follow her and we won.

When I saw the grey one, I felt the same as the night I had caught a snow white capall uisce at the beach years ago. I felt like maybe, she could be a little like Adamante. Of course she can’t replace him but maybe, maybe she can fill up the hole he left in my chest just a little.

Rider Challenge #1: Your Capall Uisce

@thescorpioracesfestival

I have passed her a dozen times and never noticed her in the dark stables or from afar. I was always so determined not to set my eye on another capall uisce ever again that I wouldn’t spare any of them more than a glance when I passed them.

She is pure beauty and I am doomed already.

The horse stares at me from across the small yard. Two ropes are dangling from her neck, another one drags through the sand behind her hind leg as she takes an uncertain step. Someone has tied another, thinner rope around her neck, hung with flowers and bells and red tassels. It doesn’t seem to help much.

Her coat is a deep grey and I could swear to see a hint of blue shimmer in it as the sun caresses her. Her mane is darker, tangled like seagrass, her eyes black and deep and wild and hungry. She has the finest head I have ever seen in a capall uisce.

I’ve sworn I wouldn’t ride in the races with any other horse than Adamante ever again. Her eyes say I’m going to break that promise.

“Do something, Martijn!” Rob, one of the stable hands, hisses next to me and the mare shies at his voice.

The fence around us is more than two metres of solid main land oak and metal but in her eyes I can see that she could take it. If she really tried to jump it right now, she’d be gone. If we were a little further into October, if the sea would call just a little louder for her…

“If I do, will you let me race her, Gavin?” I shouldn’t ask that question. I don’t want to race her. Or any capall, for that matter.

“She just broke her last rider’s leg,” Gavin warns me.

“So you need a new rider for her,” I shrug and take a step towards the grey mare. She could have charged at us already or jumped the fence to get to the cliffs but she’s still standing there, ears pricked, the wild hunger glinting in her eyes. I hope it’s not hunger for me. I know better than to hope that.

I step over the bloodied sand in the middle of the yard.

“It’s not even a month till the races. You won’t have much time to get used to her.”

“Other riders buy their horse just days before training starts,” I counter. The black eyes are staring at me, unyielding, waiting for me to make a move.

“You’re not other riders.”

But I am. Deep in my chest there is the same desire that makes so many sign up for their own death. The sea calls to me as I get tangled in the uisce’s magic. She whispers sweet, sweet tales of drowning in my ear and I listen and I believe.