#tsrf2022

We have set up a discord for the festival- and fans!- right HERE. Feel free to join us to keep up with Festival news, and to talk about our favorite story year round!

Here is a confession, Scorpio Races fandom: I think the recipe for November Cakes included in the back of the book is…lacking. Don’t get me wrong: they’re tasty, and I love them. But they never really seemed to capture the magic of the cakes described in the novel itself. They’re a recipe easy enough for a teenager to make at home with minimal supervision or special ingredients, but they just don’t feel like something you yearn for all year.

So I’ve taken it upon myself to spruce them up a little.

@thescorpioracesfestival

Maris used to be my brother’s horse, he rode him on his last race, the one where he fatally died; and now I take care of him. Well, partially, because as a way to pay me less than my co-workers, Benjamin Malvern has promised to let Maris stay at Malvern Yard’s own stables, where I still have to look after him but mostly during work hours. Sometimes I stay later than that, I don’t trust most of the goons that work here to look after my horse.

My horse. It was my brother’s, but my brother is long gone so Maris is mine now. He could have gone to my dad, but my dad doesn’t have any interest in the races or the uisce horses, so to the youngest daughter he goes. At first, I didn’t think it was fair, what would a 14-year-old do with a depredator like that? I had to get a job so I could get Maris a place to stay, and I’ve been working at Malvern’s ever since. 

I click my tongue once I enter the stables I know Maris is in. His dark head pops out when he hears me coming closer and I can’t help but smile seeing him.

“Hey, boy!” I greet him, with the same tone a child would use with a puppy. Maris neighs and moves his head up, in an attempt to get close to where I’m standing. “How have they been treating you, my boy?”

I pet his head, brushing the hair on his mane with my fingers. Maris is beautiful, and I’m not only saying that because he’s my horse. He’s tall, just like every other capaill, but his strong, long legs make him look even bigger than the rest. His fur is as dark as the night, it technically is black but I could swear it looks midnight blue when I look at it. He neighs again, shaking his whole head and hitting me with his mane. 

“I know, I know. I should have been here sooner.” I wish I could have brought him something to eat, a treat for keeping him here, but I got distracted talking to Isadora when I could have used that time to go to the butcher instead. It’s not like he’s going to starve, but a treat would be nice. 

I keep petting him, making sure he’s clean and untangling his long mane. I keep my head close to his, which in another time of my life would have gotten me a scolding by any responsible adult (“What are you doing with your face that close to a capall uisce? Do you want to have part of your face missing?”) but it’s something I do in my regular life now. 

I wouldn’t be this close to any other horse, though. It’s only Maris that gets this attention from me. Sure, I’ve come to know some of the other horses that Malvern Yard’s has taken in through the years, but Maris is different. I’ve practically trained him, although one can never truly tame a capaill uisce; but Maris and I know each other. He won’t eat me and in exchange, I keep him comfortable and well-fed.

Plus, Josh Bremner, Isadora’s brother, taught me practically everything I know about capaill uisce. He’s a few years older than me, but when my brother died and I inherited a whole living horse, he was the one who stepped out to teach me how to properly take care of him and eventually, learn to ride him. Josh Bremner, who I always refer to by his full name as second nature, has participated in the races since he was about my age, so he knows how to ride a capall not only with care as to avoid getting eaten, but also he does it faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. I’m not as good as he is, hell, I don’t think I’m ready to participate in a race, but that isn’t stopping me. 

Maris moves around his box, agitated. His ears twitch, hearing something far from where we are. 

“What is it, boy?” I try to pet his neck, but he shakes his whole body, trying to get on his two back legs but the space isn’t big enough for him to do that, so he just moves nervously. I’ve seen him act like this before, sometime a year ago.

They are finally back, emerging slowly from the sea, but back nonetheless. The Scorpio sea calls each capall now, their true nature shows once the rest of them show up in time for the races, just live every other year.

And this time Maris and I will be ready.

Week Four: THE RACES

Reading Challenges: chapter 48 - chapter 66

We delve deeper into the traditions of Thisby through Tommy’s funeral. How does this diverge from the spiritual and religious beliefs that we’ve seen so far?

As I see it there are two sorts of religion on Thisby: a form of christianity and a more "pagan" religion we see expressed through Tommy's funeral, but also through the use of bells and holly leaves to harness the magic of the water horses. I imagine that like in many other places the "pagan" religion (sorry I don't know what else to call it, I don't think it is ever named in the book) was first and the christian religion was later imposed on them by outsiders. Hence Gabe calling the Falk's religion "old Thisby". The fact the scorpio races are still held however shows that christianity has not yet won over the island, as I think the races are very much old Thisby.

How do the goals of the characters shift as race day approaches? How does their relationship with the Scorpio Races change?

Puck realises the races are rooted in tradition, they are about the islanders and the capaill uisce and their connection to Thisby. She now better understands the opposition she is facing for partaking in the races, but her ultimate goal of having to win to get the money to pay for their house doesn't change in the last part of the book. I think it is mainly Sean's goal we see shift. Because even though he still very much wants to win and be able to get Corr, his main goal becomes making sure Puck and Dove survive the races. Puck at one point wishes the race money would be enough to help both herself and Sean, she quickly realises that it just isn't enough money and that thought doesn't really influence her decisions. Luckily sweet Finn placed that forty-five to one bet, he always knew that despite the odds his sister would come through.

Do you have any favorite scenes or quotes from this section?    

The last line: "He is slow, and the sea sings to us both, but he returns to me."

How does the ending sit with you? How have Sean and Puck’s arcs taken them from where they were at the beginning of the story to where they are when it ends?

@solidaritetwatson

I stand on the cliffs and let the wind rip through me.

It smells like October, is cold in the exact way of October, my heart is beating to the accelerating pace of October- and there she is. The first horse out of the ocean.

From here she is a speck, small and wet and shiny. She is the kind of black that glints brown in the sun. She is shaking free of the salt water resentfully, as if she would rather nature didn’t call to her. I know the feeling.

The wind is blowing towards me and she will never smell me, and even if she could, it would be a long way down the beach before she could find a way up this cliff. So I watch her with a kind of calm one should never have about a capall uisce. Even when they are too far away to hunt you, you are meant to be afraid of them.

I was born without fear in my body and it is a wonder I am not dead yet. I was also born with the strange inability to feel pain - a genetic error that should cause me to fear everything. That would be a shitty way to live my probable short life though. Instead, I notice everything. I notice the hoof-scoops of sand scatter and break as the horse startles and takes off to the right, darting to and away from the water, indecision incarnate. Her tail is a banner streaked red by the dying sun, and the sea is a dark and morbid laugh that refuses to be turned magical by the same glittering light.

Well, it is magical, already. Just not with a kind magic.

I turn back into the island, the capall uisce such a small dot now that she’s not worth watching. The sea grass bends away me, a thousand bowing heads in reverence to our island, our mother, our home. I crouch down and pinch a little worshiper between my fingers, my shadow reaching out long in front of me, someone taller and wiser and impossibly old. The gulls cry from somewhere further off the cliffs. The wind whistles past me, making a wreck of my hair. I let it. I’m listening to my island.

I’ve been asking her a question, a question I ask every year: if I ride in this year’s races, will you break my mothers heart?

I roll the stem of grass between my palms and whisper into its broken end a simple spell: “keep me, keep me.” Keep me from the sea that hunts us, the sea who’s monsters I play with every year, just to feel under me the will of that which would hunt me. The closest thing to pain I will ever feel.

The Scorpio Races Festival 2022

If you’re participating in the Character Challenges, sign up as a Rider!

Reblog Gratton’s Chalkboard with your character’s name and your capall’s name to show your support for the festival as a Rider. Sign-ups end on October 9th.