Quoted By:
Truly, this mare - a Tarraconense - is so well muscled it looks as if she had wandered off of a plinth. Clearly perceiving your attention, the mare hefts her head to get a good look at you – she wickers, then goes still, steadily returning your gaze. You have to wonder if she would even feel your weight, if you were to actually mount and ride her. How many leagues could a creature like this manage in a day? Hopefully it will not come to pass that you have to abandon or part with your stage and the rest of the team, but if it were to happen ... well, you would be very well served by this horse. Interestingly enough, the mare has yet to take her eyes off of you – though you don't get the sense that this animal is nervous or on edge. She is just … watching. In the end, it is you who breaks eye contact first – you have to find five other horses for your team, after all.
Unfortunately, compared to the Tarraconense the rest of the stable is middling, and it takes you a bit of doing - and worse, <span class="mu-i">time</span> - to suss out the other five best. Ultimately though, you get what you consider to be the 'pick of the litter' – and judging from the reaction of their owner, you'd hazard that he'd be in concurrence with your assessment. So with the horses and the conveyance picked out, Goodman Nasturtium leads you off of the yard and back into his office to actually do the haggling. As he does, it occurs to you to ask him if any of the horses that you picked out have names. When he answers in the negative, you decide on a whim to name them. While part of your Chirurgeon training involved operating on and caring for animals, you have never actually owned or paid for animals before, and you want to treat your property properly. And it seems to you that the first part of treating your animals right is naming them ... and even if anything were to happen to them, or ... you were even put in a situation where you had to butcher one of them, well ... those Middenguard you bludgeoned to death all had names, and that certainly didn't stop -
Fraying Hell, you cannot be thinking like this! Not now. Not <span class="mu-i">ever</span>. You do what you can to clear your mind of ... distractions, and spend the rest of the time that it takes to get back into the office thinking up names for your team. By the time that you slide into the seat on the other side of Goodman Nasturtium's desk - just as cautiously as the first time - you settle on naming them after heavenly bodies. Perhaps some of the Behenian fixed stars, or the planets of antiquity. The star Alchameth, seems like as good of a namesake as any for her. To the pagans who named the star, it was known as the Heart of the Dancing Horse, but to the Astronomers of Reformed Priests of the Pattern, it is the Wandering Watcher – moving in lockstep at the base of the Lodestar's Seat.
