Mare Horse Quotes

Kate smirked. "What?" "Your horse looks pink." "So?" "If you paste some stars on her butt you'll be riding My Little Pony." "Bugger off." I patted the mare's neck. "Don't listen to her, Sugar. You are the cutest horsey ever. The correct name for her color is strawberry roan, by the way." "Strawberry Shortcake, more like it. Does Strawberry Shortcake know you stole her horse? She will be berry, berry angry with you." I looked at her from under half-lowered eyelids. "I can shoot you right here, on this road, and nobody will ever find your body.

After the front legs emerged, what looked like a quartered and bloodied cut of steak followed.  This piece of steak had rich and dark fur, wet with the mare’s internal membranes that covered the whole body, but it did not have the look of a horse at all.  And yet from the steak’s center came this pulsating heartbeat, as though its pace-setting qualities tried in vain to pull away or escape from its thoroughbred side.

With his back to us, Sean tugs the halter from the mare's head. She kicks out, but he steps out of the way as if it were nothing at all. With a shake of her mane, she leaps mightily into the water. For a moment she struggles over the waves, and then she is swimming. Just a wild black horse in a deep blue sea full of the ashes of other dead boys.

A few minutes later, she was once again riding her own horse. Deciding to take the lead, she nudged the mare into a trot, and as she passed Brodick and Ramsey, she called out, "You used trickery." "Yes, I did," he admitted. "Are you angry with me?" She laughed again. "I don't get angry. I get even." Unbeknownst to her, she had just recited the Buchanan creed.

Women," Mat declared as he rode Pips down the dusty, little-used road, "are like mules." He frowned. "Wait. No. Goats. Women are like goats. Except every flaming one thinks she's a horse instead, and a prize racing mare to boot. Do you understand me, Talmanes?" "Pure poetry, Mat," Talmanes said, tamping the tabac down into his pipe.

That night he dreamt of horses in a field on a high plain where the spring rains had brought up the grass and the wildflowers out of the ground and the flowers ran all blue and yellow far as the eye could see and in the dream he was among the horses running and in the dream he himself could run with the horses and they coursed the young mares and fillies over the plain where their rich bay and their rich chestnut colors shone in the sun and the young colts ran with their dams and trampled down the flowers in a haze of pollen that hung in the sun like powdered gold and they ran he and the horses out along the high mesas where the ground resounded under their running hooves and they flowed and changed and ran and their manes and tails blew off of them like spume and there was nothing else at all in that high world and they moved all of them in a resonance that was like a music among them and they were none of them afraid neither horse nor colt nor mare and they ran in that resonance which is the world itself and which cannot be spoken but only praised.

Horses are of a breed unique to Fantasyland. They are capable of galloping full-tilt all day without a rest. Sometimes they do not require food or water. They never cast shoes, go lame or put their hooves down holes, except when the Management deems it necessary, as when the forces of the Dark Lord are only half an hour behind. They never otherwise stumble. Nor do they ever make life difficult for Tourists by biting or kicking their riders or one another. They never resist being mounted or blow out so that their girths slip, or do any of the other things that make horses so chancy in this world. For instance, they never shy and seldom whinny or demand sugar at inopportune moments. But for some reason you cannot hold a conversation while riding them. If you want to say anything to another Tourist (or vice versa), both of you will have to rein to a stop and stand staring out over a valley while you talk. Apart from this inexplicable quirk, horses can be used just like bicycles, and usually are. Much research into how these exemplary animals come to exist has resulted in the following: no mare ever comes into season on the Tour and no stallion ever shows an interest in a mare; and few horses are described as geldings. It therefore seems probable that they breed by pollination. This theory seems to account for everything, since it is clear that the creatures do behave more like vegetables than mammals. Nomads appears to have a monopoly on horse-breeding. They alone possess the secret of how to pollinate them.

For the love of the Six, don't call me that. Just Mare. Yes, like a horse. Stupid, I know, but I can't stand Amaranthine. What a ridiculously overlong and pretentious collections of syllables.

The horse could not do without Manhattan. It drew him like a magnet, like a vacuum, like oats, or a mare, or an open, never-ending, tree-lined road.

Those horses must have been Spanish jennets, born of mares mated with a zephyr; for they went as swiftly as the wind, and the moon, which had risen at our departure to give us light, rolled through the sky like a wheel detached from its carriage...

No commentary, Nora. Please,” he said as he pushed an arm inside the mare. “I won’t say a single word,” she pledged as she took the horse’s head in her lap. “Except that this reminds me of my last date with Griffin.

The wind blustered in from the sea, setting the horses’ manes streaming sideways, and the gulls wheeled mewing against the blue-and-grey tumble of the sky; and Aquila, riding a little aside from the rest as usual, caught for a moment from the wind and the gulls and the wet sand and the living, leaping power of the young red mare under him, something of the joy of simply being alive that he had taken for granted in the old days.

But doesn't every precious era feel like fiction once it's gone? After a while, certain vestigial sayings are all that remain. Decades after the invention of the automobile, for instance, we continue to warn each other not to 'put the cart before the horse'. So, too, we do still have 'day'dreams and 'night'mares, and the early-morning clock hours are still known colloquially (if increasing mysteriously) as 'the crack of dawn'. Similarly, even as they grew apart, my parents never stopped calling each other 'sweetheart'.

Until recently, I believed all horses were alike. They’ve been giant, four-footed animals with ugly dispositions and alarmingly large teeth for so long that it’s a bit startling to notice how different they are from each other. Mara’s mare, for instance, is a chestnut bay except for a wide white blaze down her nose that makes her seem perpetually surprised. My huge plodding mount is a dark brown near to black creature, with the most unruly mane I’ve ever seen. Her shaggy forelock covers her right eye and reaches almost to her mouth. Mara’s mare head-butts her in the chest. Grinning, Mara plants a kiss between her wide, dumb eyes, then murmurs something. “Have you named her?” I ask. “Yes! Her name is Jasmine.” I grimace. “But jasmine is such a sweet, pretty flower.” Mara laughs. “Have you named yours?” “Her name is Horse.” She rolls her eyes. “If you want to get along with your mount you have to learn each others’ languages. That means starting with a good name.” “All right.” I pretend to consider. “What about Imbecile? Or Poops A Lot?

The crumpled butcherpaper mountains lay in sharp shadowfold under the long blue dusk and in the middle distance the glazed bed of a dry lake lay shimmering like the mare imbrium and herds of deer were moving north in the last of the twilight, harried over the plain by wolves who were themselves the color of the desert floor. Glanton sat his horse and looked long out upon this scene. Sparse on the mesa the dry weeds lashed in the wind like the earth's long echo of lance and spear in old encounters forever unrecorded. All the sky seemed troubled and night came quickly over the evening land and small gray birds flew crying softly after the fled sun. He chucked up the horse. He passed and so passed all into the problematical destruction of darkness.

Unicorn. Old french, unicorne. Latin ūnicornis. Literally one horned. Unus one and cornu a horn. A fabulous animal resembling a horse with one horn. Visible only to those who search and trust and generally mistaken for a white mare. Unicorn.

If you’ve spent any time around horses, you know a stallion can be a major problem. They’re strong, very strong, and they’ve got a mind of their own. Stallions typically don’t like to be bridled, and they can get downright aggressive—especially if there are mares around. A stallion is hard to tame. If you want a safer, quieter animal, there’s an easy solution: castrate him. A gelding is much more compliant. You can lead him around by the nose; he’ll do what he’s told without putting up a fuss. There’s only one problem: Geldings don’t give life. They can’t come through for you the way a stallion can. A stallion is dangerous all right, but if you want the life he offers, you have to have the danger too. They go together.

Mares had the capability to slow birthing so that the foal would have the dark hours to find its feet and be ready to run from a predator by dawn.

Another leading senator that I degraded was Caligula’s horse Incitatus who was to have become Consul three years later. I wrote to the Senate that I had no complaints to make against the private morals of this senator or his capacity for the tasks that had hitherto been assigned to him, but that he no longer had the necessary financial qualifications. For I had cut the pension awarded him by Caligula to the daily rations of a cavalry horse, dismissed his grooms and put him into an ordinary stable where the manger was of wood, not ivory, and the walls were whitewashed, not covered with frescoes. I did not, however, separate him from his wife, the mare Penelope: that would have been unjust.

You know, for a while there we kept horses for the boys, and we had a mare that had broken down. Couldn't ride it... You could feed it and brush it and water it and all. Sometimes, I've thought that's what most marriages get to. A horse you still care a little about but cannot any longer ride.

Well then," he said, 'I hope you are good-tempered; I do not like any one next door who bites." Just then a horse's head looked over from the stall beyond; the ears were laid back, and the eye looked rather ill-tempered. This was a tall chestnut mare, with a long handsome neck; she looked across to me and said, "So it is you have turned me out of my box; it is a very strange thing for a colt like you to come and turn a lady out of her own home.

The Listeners 'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest's ferny floor. And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the Traveller's head: And he smote upon the door again a second time; 'Is there anybody there?' he said. But no one descended to the Traveller; No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, Where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveller's call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, 'Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even Louder, and lifted his head:-- 'Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word,' he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone.

You, too, are a fool, earthborn, to trust in demon-kind and to ride on a mare of smoke and night. What demons love they slay in the end, and the gifts of demons are snares. Go nowhere on a horse that fades, for your dreams will betray you.

When they had arranged their blankets the boy lowered the lamp and stepped into the yard and pulled the door shut behind, leaving them in profound and absolute darkness. No one moved. In that cold stable the shutting of the door may have evoked in some hearts other hostels and not of their choosing. The mare sniffed uneasily and the young colt stepped about. Then one by one they began to divest themselves of their outer clothes, the hide slickers and raw wool serapes and vests, and one by one they propagated about themselves a great crackling of sparks and each man was seen to wear a shroud of palest fire. Their arms aloft pulling at their clothes were luminous and each obscure soul was enveloped in audible shapes of light as if it had always been so. The mare at the far end of the stable snorted and shied at this luminosity in beings so endarkened and the little horse turned and hid his face in the web of his dam's flank.

She stalked off into the trees, wishing she could just saddle her horse and ride home. She was a good horse, a chestnut mare with a white blaze on her forehead. She could gallop off and never see any of them, unless she wanted to. Only then she'd have no one to scout ahead of her, or watch behind, or stand guard while she napped, and when the gold cloaks caught her, she's be all alone. It was safer to stay with Yoren and the others.

strawberry roan, a black and brown skewbald and a motley assortment of buckskins and bays. At the rear of the herd was a grey mare and a chestnut skewbald with a white face, both of them with foals running at their feet.

Now when I go out, the wind pulls me into the grave. I go out to part the hair of a child I left behind, and he pushes his face into my cuffs, to smell the wind. If I carry my father with me, it is the way a horse carries autumn in its mane. If I remember my brother, it is as if a buck had knelt down in a room I was in. I kneel, and the wind kneels down in me. What is it to have a history, a flock buried in the blindness of winter? Try crawling with two violins into the hallway of your father’s hearse. It is filled with sparrows. Sometimes I go to the field and the field is bare. There is the wind, which entrusts me; there is a woman walking with a pail of milk, a man who tilts his bread in the sun; there is the black heart of a mare in the milk—or is it the wind, the way it goes? I don’t know about the wind, about the way it goes. All I know is that sometimes someone will pick up the black violin of his childhood and start playing—that it sits there on his shoulder like a thin gray falcon asleep in its blinders, and that we carry each other this way because it is the way we would like to be carried: sometimes with mercy, sometimes without.

And I learned this long ago, that sweet freedom can be found in the middle of a meadow, upon the back of a faithful mare. Careless and wild we both shall be, on our ride across familiar fields, with steps that blend into the earth below.

They had wanted to go to the barn and brush the horses. If they brushed the horses and mucked out a few of the stalls then usually Ned would let them take turns riding the mare for the afternoon. But Albie was driving them crazy. What was he doing that was so intolerable? Standing here in front of him now, Franny couldn't remember. Or maybe he wasn't doing anything wrong. Maybe it was just that someone had to watch him around the horses and none of them wanted to do it. He wasn't the monster they told him he was, in fact there wasn't anything so awful about him. It was only that he was a little kid.

As he climbed onto the mare, Thorn's disapproval washed over him. - It does not seem right to see you ride one of those hornless deer animals. - Horses. They're called horses, and you know that. - But it sounds more insulting to call them hornless deer.

Demeter was also a moon goddess. And all through mythology there is a connection between horse and moon and sea. The she-horse is given a sea-name, “mare”; the moon swings the tides, the waves have white manes, the dripping horses stamp on the beach, and their hooves leave moon-shaped marks.

Their arms aloft pulling at their clothes were luminous and each obscure soul was enveloped in audible shapes of light as if it had always been so. The mare at the far end of the stable snorted and shied at this luminosity in beings so endarkened and the little horse turned and hid his face in the web of his dam’s flank.

A landscape glittered behind her voice. There were icicles in it and savage fields of ice, great storms boiling over a flat countryside striped with white rails - a chessboard beneath a storm. Horses were stretched forever at the gallop. Tiny men in silk were brave beyond bearing and sat on the horses like embryos with their knees in their mouths. The gorgeous names of horses were cried from mouth to mouth and circulated in a steam of fame. Lottery, The Hermit, the great mare Sceptre; the glorious ancestress Pocahontas, whose blood ran down like time into her flying children; Easter Hero, the Lamb, that pony stallion.

Miris dipped her head and inflicted a small, but painful, nip on the stranger's left arm. A startled yelp replaced his laughter. Then, it rang out again. "By all the gods, you even have your lovely mare trained to keep horse thieves in line!

Cass snorted with laughter. “She’s a real beast with a bellyful of bedsprings. Wouldn’t wanna be the one to break her in,” he said in his thick Irish brogue. “Reminds me of that hot-blooded redhead in Omaha.” He nudged Sully with a salacious wink. “What was her name again?” Sully chuckled. “Molly.” “Oh yeah, Molly.” A broad grin of reminiscence showed on Cass’s face. “Was a real beauty, that one, wasn’t she? We should name this filly after her.” “We should,” Sully agreed, scratching the adolescent red fuzz on his chin. “Was she your horse, Cass?” Willie asked, giving the young Irishman a curious stare. “Hmm?” Not paying the boy much attention, Cass took a long drag on his cigarette. His slanted green eyes followed the mare’s nervous movements attentively. “Well, Molly?” Willie blinked with impatience. “Was she?” Cass gave him a baffled look, as if he didn’t understand the question. Then, a wide grin blazed across his angular face while smoke came drifting out of his mouth. “Yeah, she was,” he nodded, smirking, and exchanged a brief, meaningful look with Sully. “Had fire and was classy, too, like this one.” Sully hooted with laughter, and Cass joined in. “What happened to her?” Something was funny, but Willie didn’t grasp what it was. Cass took another puff, then smirked again. “Well, I kinda had to get rid of her, kid. A filly like that can take ya to an early grave, y’know. She wears ya out so utterly you’re barely able to walk afterwards.

The horse was a pure-bred Arab. She came, bright and dancing, flaunting into the ring, her tail held high over her quarters, her silken mane flowing over the crest of her neck. Her head was fine-boned and delicate, with the concave line of the true Arab horse. Her dark, lustrous eyes were fringed with long lashes and the nostrils wrinkling her velvet muzzle were huge black pits. She moved around the ring like a bright flame, her pricked ears delicate as flower petals. Her legs were clean and unblemished and her small hooves were polished ivory. After the dull ache of the rosinbacks, she was all light and fire. Jinny sat entranced, hardly breathing, and then her breath burst out of her in a throbbing gasp. She loved the chestnut mare. As if all their long day's travelling had only been for this. As if she had come all the way from Stopton only for this, to see this sudden gift of perfection.

Age didn’t seem to matter; nor did physical condition, though everything crazy you do when you’re young, every bar fight, every rough horse ridden and thrown from, every torturous twist the military does to your body comes back with a kind of staggering vengeance when you get old. Creaking bones, small and large traveling pains, bad vision . . . And none of it seemed to matter even remotely; the pain became a kind of wonderful recognition that I was still alive, another obstacle to beat or, as the Marines put it, “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” Bushwa, of course, but it was and is that way for me

Morozko halted and faced the horse, narrow-eyed. I am not blind, continued the mare. Even to things that go on two feet. You made that jewel so that you would not fade. But now it is doing too much. It is making you alive. It is making you want what you cannot have, and feel what you ought not to understand, and you are beguiled and afraid. Better to leave her to her fate, but you cannot. Morozko pressed his lips together. The trees sighed overhead. All at once his anger seemed to leave him. “I do not want to fade,” he said unwillingly. “But I do not want to be alive. How can a death-god be alive?” He paused, and something changed in his voice. “I could have let her die, and taken the sapphire from her and tried again, found another to remember. There are others of that bloodline.” The mare’s ears went forward and back. “I did not,” he said abruptly. “I cannot. Yet every time I go near her, the bond tightens. What immortal ever knew what it was like to number his days? Yet I can feel the hours passing when she is near.” The mare nosed again at the deep snow. Morozko resumed his pacing. Let her go, then, said the mare, quietly, from behind him. Let her find her own fate. You cannot love and be immortal. Do not let it come to that. You are not a man.

My co-founder, Ali Schultz, taught me the wisdom of horses. Horses, with their supernatural ability to use their limbic nervous systems to discern truth and congruency, do not base their choice of the leader of their herd on strength or intellectual wisdom. Nor is their choice based on which member might keep the herd safe from a predator wolf. They choose the one who feels the group best and who cares the most. They choose the horse—usually a mare—who is most capable of holding that care in a way that calms the whole group. They’re marked by the attunement to the inner and outer needs of those they have the honor to serve and lead.

Not used to be being bested, are you?" "No," he said bluntly. "Poseidon could outrun your mare, and you know it. But I'm not about to risk galloping over a field I don't know. There could have been rabbit holes." "Of course.Rabbit holes.I understand." He frowned,about to defend his actions further, when he noted a twinkle in her gaze. The little minx was taunting him. For some reason, that improved his mood, and he said with a smile, "Sophia, my love, don't tempt a sinner. I am not afraid of you or your horse, and you damn well know it." "I'm sure you have a reason for not wishing to race," she returned in a demure voice, though her eyes sparkled with laughter. "I am just not certain you have a just cause." "I have both. The reason for not racing you is the potential harm to the animals; and the just cause is that I wish to keep you alone for as long as possible. And that will be more difficult to do once we reach the house." Her brows rose, a faint color touching her cheeks. "Oh." His lips twitched. "That's all you can say now? After all that posturing? You are a tease,my lady." "I don't consider myself so." "No woman does, and yet most are.

Horse What does the horse give you That I cannot give you? I watch you when you are alone, When you ride into the field behind the dairy, Your hands buried in the mare's Dark mane. Then I know what lies behind your silence: Scorn, hatred of me, of marriage. Still, You want me to touch you; you cry out As brides cry, but when I look at you I see There are no children in your body. Then what is there? Nothing, I think. Only haste To die before I die. In a dream, I watched you ride the horse Over the dry fields and then Dismount: you two walked together; In the dark, you had no shadows. But I felt them coming toward me Since at night they go anywhere, They are their own masters. Look at me. You think I don't understand? What is the animal If not passage out of this life?

For his son-in-law the Pope suffered no further spasms of morality. Rather, judging from Burchard’s diary, the last inhibitions, if any, dropped away. Two months after Alfonso’s death, the Pope presided over a banquet given by Cesare in the Vatican, famous in the annals of pornography as the Ballet of the Chestnuts. Soberly recorded by Burchard, fifty courtesans danced after dinner with the guests, “at first clothed, then naked.” Chestnuts were then scattered among candelabra placed on the floor, “which the courtesans, crawling on hands and knees among the candelabra, picked up, while the Pope, Cesare and his sister Lucrezia looked on.” Coupling of guests and courtesans followed, with prizes in the form of fine silken tunics and cloaks offered “for those who could perform the act most often with the courtesans.” A month later Burchard records a scene in which mares and stallions were driven into a courtyard of the Vatican and equine coupling encouraged while from a balcony the Pope and Lucrezia “watched with loud laughter and much pleasure.” Later they watched again while Cesare shot down a mass of unarmed criminals driven like the horses into the same courtyard.

I draw myself up next to her and look at her profile, making no effort to disguise my attention, here, where there is only Puck to see me. The evening sun loves her throat and her cheekbones. Her hair the color of cliff grass rises and falls over her face in the breeze. Her expression is less ferocious than usual, less guarded. I say, “Are you afraid?” Her eyes are far away on the horizon line, out to the west where the sun has gone but the glow remains. Somewhere out there are my capaill uisce, George Holly’s America, every gallon of water that every ship rides on. Puck doesn’t look away from the orange glow at the end of the world. “Tell me what it’s like. The race.” What it’s like is a battle. A mess of horses and men and blood. The fastest and strongest of what is left from two weeks of preparation on the sand. It’s the surf in your face, the deadly magic of November on your skin, the Scorpio drums in the place of your heartbeat. It’s speed, if you’re lucky. It’s life and it’s death or it’s both and there’s nothing like it. Once upon a time, this moment — this last light of evening the day before the race — was the best moment of the year for me. The anticipation of the game to come. But that was when all I had to lose was my life. “There’s no one braver than you on that beach.” Her voice is dismissive. “That doesn’t matter.” “It does. I meant what I said at the festival. This island cares nothing for love but it favors the brave.” Now she looks at me. She’s fierce and red, indestructible and changeable, everything that makes Thisby what it is. She asks, “Do you feel brave?” The mare goddess had told me to make another wish. It feels thin as a thread to me now, that gift of a wish. I remember the years when it felt like a promise. “I don’t know what I feel, Puck.” Puck unfolds her arms just enough to keep her balance as she leans to me, and when we kiss, she closes her eyes. She draws back and looks into my face. I have not moved, and she barely has, but the world feels strange beneath me. “Tell me what to wish for,” I say. “Tell me what to ask the sea for.” “To be happy. Happiness.” I close my eyes. My mind is full of Corr, of the ocean, of Puck Connolly’s lips on mine. “I don’t think such a thing is had on Thisby. And if it is, I don’t know how you would keep it.” The breeze blows across my closed eyelids, scented with brine and rain and winter. I can hear the ocean rocking against the island, a constant lullaby. Puck’s voice is in my ear; her breath warms my neck inside my jacket collar. “You whisper to it. What it needs to hear. Isn’t that what you said?” I tilt my head so that her mouth is on my skin. The kiss is cold where the wind blows across my cheek. Her forehead rests against my hair. I open my eyes, and the sun has gone. I feel as if the ocean is inside me, wild and uncertain. “That’s what I said. What do I need to hear?” Puck whispers, “That tomorrow we’ll rule the Scorpio Races as king and queen of Skarmouth and I’ll save the house and you’ll have your stallion. Dove will eat golden oats for the rest of her days and you will terrorize the races each year and people will come from every island in the world to find out how it is you get horses to listen to you. The piebald will carry Mutt Malvern into the sea and Gabriel will decide to stay on the island. I will have a farm and you will bring me bread for dinner.” I say, “That is what I needed to hear.” “Do you know what to wish for now?” I swallow. I have no wishing-shell to throw into the sea when I say it, but I know that the ocean hears me nonetheless. “To get what I need.

There I was, with a mare I knew I could do anything with—but the owners! Mary Pat had never even seen a jumping saddle. Her father had no conception of what goes into the making of a show jumper. But there is a lot of heart in that family, apparently a hereditary condition, for Mary Pat started surprising me. She was the first student I ever had who actually did what I told her to do. Older trainers had warned me that there would be such students, but I hadn’t believed them until now. Watching Mary Pat and Peggy, alone in the California desert, I thought of the diary of one nineteenth-century traveler who had said of southern California, “The mountains cut the land off from sympathy with the East.” I sometimes felt that God was whispering things into the landscape, in the breathing of that child and that horse.

And that one,” Ansel said, pointing to the next stall, “is named Kasida—it means ‘drinker of the wind’ in the desert dialect.” Kasida’s name was fitting. The slender mare was a dapple gray, with a sea-foam white mane and thundercloud coat. She huffed and stomped her forelegs, staring at Celaena with eyes that seemed older than the earth itself. Celaena suddenly understood why the Asterion horses were worth their weight in gold.

Moving on was always the end plan. New York,he remembered, was a fair distance away.It should be far enough. As for tonight, he was going to have a shot of whiskey in his tea to help smooth out the edges. Then by God, he was going to sleep if he had to bash himself over the head to accpmplish it. And he wasn't going to give Keeley another thought. The knock on the door had him cursing under his breath.Though she'd been doing well,his first worry was that the mare with bronchitis had taken a bad turn.He was already reaching for the boots he'd shed when he called out. "Come in,it's open.Is it Lucy then?" "No,it's Keeley." One brow lifted, she stood framed in the door. "But if you're expecting Lucy,I can go." The boots dangled from his fingertips, and those fingertips had gone numb. "Lucy's a horse," he managed to say. "She doesn't often come knocking on my door.

He ducked down under the wooden slats used to separate the stalls in the barn and crawled into the adjacent stall where he began rubbing the belly of the chestnut mare. "Lay down, Lady. Please . . . it's awful cold tonight. Please lay down." The mare complied as she always did to the soothing tone in his voice. Drawing the blanket up tightly around him, he lay down beside the horse, moving in close to her side. He was careful to place his frozen feet near enough to her for warmth, but not so near that she'd protest. "They had a real purty tree, Lady, with candles. Bet it didn't look as purty from the inside, though. Weren't no snow on the inside." He snuggled in closer to the warm beast. "Merry Christmas, Lady," he whispered. The mare nickered and moved her head in closer to the boy as he drifted off to sleep, the scent of hay and livestock surrounding them.

Wyatt. I've just received a letter from Mrs. Samantha Sawyer Rodriguez. She's Ezra's niece and has inherited his ranch." ... "She lives in Argentina." ... She's a widow with one son." ... "She's moving out here." ... "Going to breed horses and take in orphan boys to raise up as God-fearing citizens." "You say this Rodriguez woman is goin' to raise horses?" ... "Horses from Argentina?" "A stallion and five mares. Falabellas. Must be some South American breed.

So I’m there, surrounded by all these young and old girls who are obviously in season and I don’t know what to do.” The trained psychologist cleared his throat, his brows raised. “Girls… in season?” he questioned dubiously. “Yeah… and they’re all backing up to me and I just know that if I let them fall pregnant the boss’ll kill me, but I’m stuck.” “Umm… what exactly are we talking about?” “My dream: me holding the teaser and all the clients’ expensive mares-” “Oh! So these are horses. Tell me, what’s a teaser?

before he went back to helping the boy. Missing from the Warrior tent were Kalona and Aurox. For obvious reasons, Thanatos had decided the Tulsa community wasn’t ready to meet either of them. I agreed with her. I wasn’t ready for … I mentally shook myself. No, I wasn’t going to think about the Aurox/Heath situation now. Instead I turned my attention to the second of the big tents. Lenobia was there, keeping a sharp eye on the people who clustered like buzzing bees around Mujaji and the big Percheron mare, Bonnie. Travis was with her. Travis was always with her, which made my heart feel good. It was awesome to see Lenobia in love. The Horse Mistress was like a bright, shining beacon of joy, and with all the Darkness I’d seen lately, that was rain in my desert. “Oh, for shit’s sake, where did I put my wine? Has anyone seen my Queenies cup? As the bumpkin reminded me, my parents are here somewhere, and I’m going to need fortification by the time they circle around and find me.” Aphrodite was muttering and pawing through the boxes of unsold cookies, searching for the big purple plastic cup I’d seen her drinking from earlier. “You have wine in that Queenies to go cup?” Stevie Rae was shaking her head at Aphrodite. “And you’ve been drinkin’ it through a straw?” Shaunee joined Stevie Rae in a head shake. “Isn’t that nasty?” “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Aphrodite quipped. “There are too many nuns lurking around to drink openly without hearing a boring lecture.” Aphrodite cut her eyes to the right of us where Street Cats had set up a half-moon display of cages filled with adoptable cats and bins of catnip-filled toys for sale. The Street Cats had their own miniature version of the silver and white tents, and I could see Damien sitting inside busily handling the cash register, but except for him, running every aspect of the feline area were the habit-wearing Benedictine nuns who had made Street Cats their own. One of the nuns looked my way and I waved and grinned at the Abbess. Sister Mary Angela waved back before returning to the conversation she was having with a family who were obviously falling in love with a cute white cat that looked like a giant cottonball. “Aphrodite, the nuns are cool,” I reminded her. “And they look too busy to pay any attention to you,” Stevie Rae said. “Imagine that—you may not be the center of everyone’s attention,” Shaylin said with mock surprise. Stevie Rae covered her giggle with a cough. Before Aphrodite could say something hateful, Grandma limped up to us. Other than the limp and being pale, Grandma looked healthy and happy. It had only been a little over a week since Neferet had kidnapped and tried to kill her, but she’d recovered with amazing quickness. Thanatos had told us that was because she was in unusually good shape for a woman of her age. I knew it was because of something else—something we both shared—a special bond with a goddess who believed in giving her children free choice, along with gifting them with special abilities. Grandma was beloved of the Great Mother,

What are you smiling about?" Rider asked. Willow glanced at him and flushed. "That must have been some daydream you were having." If you only knew, Willow thought. "Come on, Freckles, it's time you get back to the ranch. I have work to do." His big work-roughened hand swallowed hers as he helped her to her feet. Against her will, her body responded to its warmth. She snatched her hand away, garnering a searching expression in his dark brown eyes. She quickly excused her reaction with a flirty smile. "I promised not to touch you, remember?" "Yes,but I dont't recall promising not to touch you." He wiggled his brows in a comical imitation of an evil villain in a bad play. She laughed and shook her head. "Help me mount Sugar before I decide to wipe that grin off your face." "And how do you propose to do that?" he asked, retrieving the horses and returning to he side. He bent down, cupped his hands, and boosted her into the mare's saddle. "You weren't planning on slapping my face again, I hope," he said, reaching for Sultan's reins. "Oh,no, nothing like that." She batted her lashes coquettishly, the affect intensified by the naughty twinkle in her eyes. "You better stop looking at me like that, or I'll have to follow Sultan's example and break down your door tonight." "I don't think Juan would be too happy about making me two new doors. It wasn't easy explaining what happened to the first one!

This confirms what we have said about rta as the source of libido where the god dwells and whence he is brought forth in the sacred ceremonies. Agni is the positive manifestation of the latent libido; he is accomplisher or fulfiller of rta, its “charioteer”; he harnesses the two long-maned red mares of rta.100 He even holds rta like a horse, by the bridle.101 He brings the gods to mankind, their power and blessing; they represent definite psychological states in which the vital feelings and energies flow with greater freedom and joy. Nietzsche has captured this state in his verses: You with your fiery lances Shatter the ice-bound soul of me, Till with high hope it advances Rushing and roaring into the sea.102

few years later, Demeter took a vacation to the beach. She was walking along, enjoying the solitude and the fresh sea air, when Poseidon happened to spot her. Being a sea god, he tended to notice pretty ladies walking along the beach. He appeared out of the waves in his best green robes, with his trident in his hand and a crown of seashells on his head. (He was sure that the crown made him look irresistible.) “Hey, girl,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. “You must be the riptide, ’cause you sweep me off my feet.” He’d been practicing that pickup line for years. He was glad he finally got to use it. Demeter was not impressed. “Go away, Poseidon.” “Sometimes the sea goes away,” Poseidon agreed, “but it always comes back. What do you say you and me have a romantic dinner at my undersea palace?” Demeter made a mental note not to park her chariot so far away. She really could’ve used her two dragons for backup. She decided to change form and get away, but she knew better than to turn into a snake this time. I need something faster, she thought. Then she glanced down the beach and saw a herd of wild horses galloping through the surf. That’s perfect! Demeter thought. A horse! Instantly she became a white mare and raced down the beach. She joined the herd and blended in with the other horses. Her plan had serious flaws. First, Poseidon could also turn into a horse, and he did—a strong white stallion. He raced after her. Second, Poseidon had created horses. He knew all about them and could control them. Why would a sea god create a land animal like the horse? We’ll get to that later. Anyway, Poseidon reached the herd and started pushing his way through, looking for Demeter—or rather sniffing for her sweet, distinctive perfume. She was easy to find. Demeter’s seemingly perfect camouflage in the herd turned out to be a perfect trap. The other horses made way for Poseidon, but they hemmed in Demeter and wouldn’t let her move. She got so panicky, afraid of getting trampled, that she couldn’t even change shape into something else. Poseidon sidled up to her and whinnied something like Hey, beautiful. Galloping my way? Much to Demeter’s horror, Poseidon got a lot cuddlier than she wanted. These days, Poseidon would be arrested for that kind of behavior. I mean…assuming he wasn’t in horse form. I don’t think you can arrest a horse. Anyway, back in those days, the world was a rougher, ruder place. Demeter couldn’t exactly report Poseidon to King Zeus, because Zeus was just as bad. Months later, a very embarrassed and angry Demeter gave birth to twins. The weirdest thing? One of the babies was a goddess; the other one was a stallion. I’m not going to even try to figure that out. The baby girl was named Despoine, but you don’t hear much about her in the myths. When she grew up, her job was looking after Demeter’s temple, like the high priestess of corn magic or something. Her baby brother, the stallion, was named Arion. He grew up to be a super-fast immortal steed who helped out Hercules and some other heroes, too. He was a pretty awesome horse, though I’m not sure that Demeter was real proud of having a son who needed new horseshoes every few months and was constantly nuzzling her for apples. At this point, you’d think Demeter would have sworn off those gross, disgusting men forever and joined Hestia in the Permanently Single Club. Strangely, a couple of months later, she fell in love with a human prince named Iasion (pronounced EYE-son, I think). Just shows you how far humans had come since Prometheus gave them fire. Now they could speak and write. They could brush their teeth and comb their hair. They wore clothes and occasionally took baths. Some of them were even handsome enough to flirt with goddesses.

I am going to faint.” “You shall not.” Deene moved behind her and wrapped his arms around her, a bulwark against the roaring in her ears and the constriction in her chest. “Breathe, Evie. It’s just one more horse.” Oh, but not just any horse. Eve knew those gorgeous brown eyes, the deep chest, the little snip of pink skin on the end of the mare’s big, velvety nose. “She’s white now, no longer gray. This is my Sweetness, isn’t it? Tell me this is my dearest… oh, Husband. What have you done?” “I can send her back, if you’d rather not… I didn’t want to upset you, Evie. But you’d asked, and I thought perhaps you’d worried…” “Hush.” She turned in his arms to put her hand over his mouth, but then craned her neck to keep the mare in her sight. “Oh, hush. She will never leave my care again, never. You must promise me, Lucas. Right now, swear to me she is mine to keep.” “She is yours to keep, always. I swear it, vow it, and promise it. It’s in the settlements, it’s in the bill of sale, it’s in my last will and testament. She will always be yours to keep.” That

There’s an old Taoist parable about a farmer whose horse ran away. “How unlucky!” his brother tells him. The farmer shrugs. “Good thing, bad thing, who knows,” he says. A week later, the wayward horse finds its way home, and with it is a beautiful wild mare. “That’s amazing!” his brother says, admiring the new horse with no small envy. Again, the farmer is unmoved. “Good thing, bad thing, who knows,” he says. A few days later, the farmer’s son climbs up on the mare, hoping to tame the wild beast, but the horse bucks and rears, and the boy, hurled to the ground, breaks a leg. “How unlucky!” his brother says, with a tinge of satisfaction. “Good thing, bad thing, who knows,” the farmer replies again. The next day, the young men of the village are called into military service, but because the son’s leg is broken, he is excused from the draft. His brother tells the farmer that this, surely, is the best news of all. “Good thing, bad thing, who knows,” the farmer says. The farmer in this story didn’t get lost in “what if” but instead focused on “what is.” During my monk training, we were taught, “Don’t judge the moment.

The King Horse was so near that I could see the lashes of his dark eyes. His forelock fell between them like a white waterfall between shining stones. His teeth were as big as the ivory plates upon a war helm; but his lip, when he licked the salt out of my palm, felt softer than my mother’s breast. When the salt was finished, he brushed my cheek with his, and snuffed at my hair. Then he trotted back to his hillock, whisking his long tail. His feet, with which as I learned later he had killed a mountain lion, sounded neat on the meadow, like a dancer’s. Now I found myself snatched from all sides, and hustled from the pasture. It surprised me to see the Horse Master as pale as a sick man. He heaved me on his mount in silence, and hardly spoke all the way home. After so much to-do, I feared my grandfather himself would beat me. He gave me a long look as I came near; but all he said was, “Theseus, you went to the horse field as Peiros’ guest. It was unmannerly to give him trouble. A nursing mare might have bitten your arm off. I forbid you to go again.” This happened when I was six years old; and the Horse Feast fell next year.

When I heard the language of men uttered by my mare," continued Aravis, "I said to myself, the fear of death has disordered my reason and subjected me to delusions. And I became full of shame for none of my lineage ought to fear death more than the biting of a gnat. Therefore I addressed myself a second time to the stabbing, but Hwin came near to me and put her head in between me and the dagger and discoursed to me most excellent reasons and rebuked me as a mother rebukes her daughter. And now my wonder was so great that I forgot about killing myself and about Ahoshta and said, 'O my mare, how have you learned to speak like one of the daughters of men?' And Hwin told me what is known to all this company, that in Narnia there are beasts that talk, and how she herself was stolen from thence when she was a little foal. She told me also of the woods and waters of Narnia and the castles and the great ships, till I said, 'In the name of Tash and Azaroth and Zardeenah, Lady of the Night, I have a great wish to be in that country of Narnia,' 'O my mistress,' answered the mare, 'if you were in Narnia you would be happy, for in that land no maiden is forced to marry against her will.

They looked at my stomach and between my legs. They never said nothing to me. Only one looked at me. Looked at my face, I mean. I looked right back at him. He dropped his eyes and turned red. He knowed, I reckon, that maybe I weren't no horse foaling. But them others. They didn't know. They went on. I seed them talking to them white women: 'How you feel? Gonna have twins?' Just shucking them, of course, but nice talk. Nice friendly talk. I got edgy, and when them pains got harder, I was glad. Glad to have something else to think about. I moaned something awful. The pains wasn't as bad as I let on, but I had to let them people know having a baby was more than a bowel movement. I hurt just like them white women. Just 'cause I wasn't hooping and hollering before didn't mean I wasn't feeling pain. What'd they think? That just 'cause I knowed how to have a baby with no fuss that my behind wasn't pulling and aching like theirs? Besides, that doctor don't know what he talking about. He must never seed no mare foal. Who say they don't have no pain? Just 'cause she don't cry? 'Cause she can't say it, they think it ain't there? If they looks in her eyes and see them eyeballs lolling back, see the sorrowful look, they'd know.

Get off your horse, Jack." "Why don't you just ride outta here, missy, and I'll forget this ever happened." Willow's voice trembled with fury. "Get off your horse," she repeated. "Slow and easy." Still grinning his contempt, he did as he asked. "That's good. Now, real slow like, take your gunbelt off and toss it my way." "Like hell!" A shot rang out and nicked a chunk of leather from his boot. Cursing, he unbuckled his gun and tossed it at her mare's feet. "Now,strip them britches off, underwear, too," she ordered. "You little shi-" Bang! Jack's hat whizzed off his head. He dropped his pants in a puddle over his boots, trying his best to shelter his privates from her view. "My,my,Jack." Willow laughed humorlessly. "Is that puny thing you're trying to hide the same thing you were threatening me with?" If looks could kill, Willow would have been dead and buried ten times over, then and there. "Take them confounded boots off so's you can get your pants clear off," she ordered in mock exasperation. He wheeled around, gaining a modicum of privacy while he complied. "You're puny all over, Jack. You got the boniest bee-hind I ever did see. You sure you ain't picked up a worm somewheres?" "You're gonna pay for this,you little slut!" "Shut your filthy mouth and pick them pants off the ground and toss 'em over here at my horse's feet. Then you can put your boots back on." He gave the pants a toss, put his boots on, and turned around to face her, cuping his privates in his hands. "Okay,Jack, finish the job. You've been real generous but I'm a greedy cuss. Give me the shirt off your back, too." Cursing, he again turned around and obeyed. "Oh,ah,Jack, you better reach behind you there,and get your hat. I'll let you keep it. We wouldn't want your bald spot to get sunburned." Scofield now stood in nothing but his boots, using his hat to shield his lower half. Humiliated, the gunslinger's eyes burned with bloody intent. Willow suddenly regretted her damnable quick temper and realized the folly of her reckless retaliation. No doubt,the heinous man would seek revenge. But the damage was done and the man was so mad that backing off now would be the same as signing her death warrant. "Step away from your horse and start walking toward the ranch, Scofield." "You're out of your mind!" "Maybe,but I bet you'll think twice before threatening to poke that puny thing at another lady." "You? A lady? Ha!" Willow's temper flared anew. "Walk, Jack. Real fast. Cuz if you don't, I'm gonna use your puny thing for target practice." Her bullet kicked up the dust at his feet and started him on his way.

Rider's head snapped up at the sound of gravel crunching under Willow's boots. The sight of the girl in boy's garb birthed an oath. Beneath her cotton shirt, her breasts bounced freely with each step. And within the tight mannish pants, her hips swung in an unconscious rhythm, clearly proclaiming her all woman. Hell, she might as well be naked! His body's reaction was immediate. Cursing his lack of control, he turned sideways, facing her horse, and pretended to adjust the saddle straps. Willow took Sugar's reins and waited for Rider to move aside. He didn't budge an inch. Instead, he tipped his hat back on his head, revealing undisguised disapproval. "Is that the way you always dress?" he bit out. Willow stiffened, immediately defensive. Criticizing herself was one thing; putting up with Sinclair's disdain was another! "If you were expecting a dress, you're crazy!" she snapped. "It would be suicide in this country." "Haven't you ever heard of riding skirts?" "Yes. I'm not as dumb as you seem to think. But fancy riding skirts cost money I don't have. 'Sides, pants are a hell of a lot more useful on the ranch than some damn riding skirt! Now, if you're done jawing about my clothes, I'd like to get a move on before dark." "Somebody ought to wash that barnyard mouth of yours,woman." Willow rested her hand on her gun. "You can try, if you dare." As if I'd draw on a woman, Rider cursed silently, stepping out of her way. As she hoisted herself into the saddle, he was perversely captivated by the way the faded demin stretched over her round bottom. He imagined her long slender legs wrapped around him and how her perfect heart-shaped buttocks would fill his hands and...Oh,hell, what was he doing standing here, gaping like some callow youth? Maybe the girl was right.Maybe he was crazy. One moment he was giving the little witch hell for wearing men's pants; the next he was ogling her in them. He started to turn away, then reached out and gave her booted ankle an angry jerk. "Now what?" Icy turquoise eyes met his, dark and searing. "Do you have any idea what you look like in that get-up? No self-respecting lady would dress like that. It's an open invitation to a man. And if you think that gun you're wearing is going to protect you, you're badly mistaken." Willow gritted her teeth in mounting ire. "So what's it to you, Sinclair? You ain't my pa and you ain't my brother. Hell,my clothes cover me just as good as yours cover you!" She slapped his hand from her ankle, jerked Sugar around, and spurred the mare into a brisk gallop. Before the fine red dust settled, Rider was on his horse, racing after her. Dammit, she's right.Why should I care how she dresses? Heaven knows it certainly has no bearing on my mission. No, agreed a little voice in his head, but it sure is distacting as hell! He'd always prided himself on his cool control; it had saved his backside more than once. But staying in any kind of control around Willow Vaughn was like trying to tame a whimsical March wind-impossible!