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Description

~~~~~~~~~~~

Horse: MR Schumini

Rider: Amelia Visser

Event: Mediterranean Sea Tour Venue 3, hosted by lizzartstudios on Instagram

Music: The Firebird Suite: Lullaby (X )
Placing: 2nd

~~~~~~~~~~~
Word Count: 2244
TW: Mention of drugs, bad family relationships, implied abuse

“Well, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I’m going to be a Formula One driver! I’m going to drive for Ferrari because—“
“If you ask a child to draw a car they’ll colour it red, we know. Amelia? What about you?”
“… Don’t ask me what I want to be when I grow up. I’m not a kid like Adrian.”
“Just answer the question.”
“I want to be a Grand Prix dressage rider. Obviously.”
“Well, you guys have that in common. You both want to compete in the Grand Prix, just different ones.”
“What about you, Lance?”
“I’m already a grown up.”
“You’re seventeen. That’s not a grown up.”
“Close enough. I’m a year off from being able to vote. You can’t even buy scissors.”
“Shut up. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I don’t know. Happier than I am now.”

When Amelia looked back on her life - pragmatically, her rose tinted glasses were shattered years ago - perhaps the one thing she could rely on was her family to stay the same. There was her, the scorned eldest daughter, the one who had never been quite as impressive as the rest of them. Adrian, the golden child, her arrogant little brother who has never been told no and instead always told how special he was. Her mother was narcissistic and her father weak-willed, a combination fit for divorce courts. These were things carved in stone, as unassailable as the earth below her. Parents who don’t get help don’t magically become good parents - and if they never changed their standards she was never going to be a good daughter.

Amelia could go through an abacus counting the times her parents had missed her events for Adrian’s - sorry love, we can’t make your competition, Adrian has karting. Your violin concert? You should’ve mentioned it earlier, we’re networking with the F3 teams. It’s such a shame we have to miss your freestyle, but you’ll be okay with your trainer, right? Eventually she’d stopped asking. What point was there? Instead, Amelia chose to play Schroedinger’s cat - if she didn’t invite them, her parents existed in a state in which they’d both agreed to og and backed out at the same time. Frankly, those coexisting were closer to her parent’s presence than an invite. Adrian was no better - he never offered to give up time to take interest in her hobbies or skills, especially not the horses. If anything, he was vocal about how much he hated them. And yet she was still expected to listen to his karting stories, watch the movies and documentaries with their family, relive their fathers tales of his brief F1 debut back in the nineties even though he had a whopping three race starts and one of them involved the car getting lodged in the Monaco hairpin. If invisibility cloaks were real, Amelia was pretty sure she would never have to buy one - all she had to do was ride horses instead of drive cars.

Yet, there was one light in all of this - Hawthorn Hill. The quiet English equestrian estate sat tucked away in a corner of Berkshire, a few miles out of Windsor and only an hour's train from her home in London. When she’d started riding as a child, it had made sense to seek the advice and help of her older cousin - after all, Lance had been successful on the pony circuit back then, and little eight year old Amelia could only dream of reaching those heights. As a teenager, while her parents were dedicated to the career of her brother, Amelia could hop a train every day after school and enter a world in which people cared about her interests, shared them, even. Her summers were spent cantering down paddocks with the wind in her hair, sprawling out on the couches at the main houses with a coke and a fan, spending hours training with Maureen and her dressage trainer. On top of that, there was Lance - the brother she’d lost in Adrian she’d seemed to have found in him. He was intuitively quick and funny, and she’d often found herself with stars in her eyes watching him train for junior competitions, even accompanying him to shows with Maureen and whoever was grooming at the time. It was, truly, the escape she needed from her own home’s motorsport hellhole.

But, as all good things must, it came to an end.

“Hey, Mick. You feeling good today?” Amelia murmured, sliding into his stall with a mint stretched towards the stallion. After their late arrival he had settled in well, better than she could’ve expected. She’d schooled him lightly yesterday to get a feel for how he was going and to make sure his leg really wasn’t giving him problems and was pleasantly surprised by how he’d felt- soft, supple and responsive. He didn’t have the same firepower as she’d felt for the first venue but considering his injury leave it was a gift from God above to feel him move so smoothly. There had been a little stiffness from his travels that she’d attempted to work through with good results, leaving her feeling quietly optimistic about her ride today. If Mick could come back from injury like an elastic band, she could get over the rising nerves in her chest. Not about her ride, no - about the fact she’d invited Adrian to the event.

He’d reached out to her after her comment on his instagram post, asking how things had been since he’d last seen her at the first venue. She’d filled him in on Mick’s injuries, how she’d missed the second venue and her fight with customs the other day, and he seemed pleasantly amused by the whole situation. On a whim, she’d asked if he felt like visiting Cairo - and much to her surprise he said he’d try and make it.

Try.

There was little trying with Adrian. Black or white. He was coming or he wasn’t. Frankly, she wasn’t going to text to ask to preserve her own dignity, nor was she going to beg her own brother to care about her life. If he came, he came. If he didn’t… well, that was just Adrian for you.

At that moment, Amelia could feel her phone buzzing in her back pocket, fumbling to get it out before the call ended. After all, it could be a last minute problem with sponsors, or customs, or-

Oh. Speak of the devil.

Tentatively Amelia accepted the call, raising the phone to her ear.

“Hey, Adrian. Everything okay?”

There was a low rumble on his end of the line, the sounds of crowds and loudspeakers making Amelia squint as she tried to follow his words.

“Yeah, all good, I just don’t know how to find you here. How do I get to the uh… paddock? Whatever you guys call it. I want to say hi.”

“Oh, sure, where are you just now?”

Adrian rattled off a few vague directions and Amelia thought she had a vague idea of where he’d managed to got himself lost - nearby, luckily. Mick gave her pocket a nudge in an attempt to secure more mints as she slid out of the stall, the alleyway abuzz with competitors milling about and preparing. It was a stark contrast to the silent night she’d arrived during, but the excitement was almost tangible.

“Yeah okay Adrian, just wait there, I’m on my way-“ Amelia said into the phone, exiting the competitor area and looking about for any sign of the poor lost bastard.

That was when she saw him.

Not Adrian’s tanned skin and bleach blonde hair, no. Instead of brown eyes she met ice blue - pale skin, dark hair, and the ugliest fucking hand tattoo.

“Oh fuck.” She mouthed audibly, standing stock still as the pair froze in unison. The call ended abruptly, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to call Adrian back.

“Amelia! There you are, why did you sound like you just had a heart attack, I thought you didn’t really get nervous- oh. Oh fuck.”

They stood in silence for a moment, three points of a Visser triangle as crowds pushed past them attempting to get to the arena. Adrian was slack jawed, confusion written all over his face, and Lance, well… he looked good.

Amelia wanted to rip his fucking throat out.

“What are you doing here?” She choked, eyes wide. Lance shrunk back into his jacket even more, almost stepping on a stranger’s foot as he took a step back.

“I just wanted to watch.” He muttered, glancing between Amelia and Adrian. It had been years since she’d seen him face to face, and when she had he’d very admittedly looked like shit. Gaunt, frail, tired. It had been easy at that point to realise his use had gone from casual to a problem, and Amelia would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy every second of it. By nature she was a bitter person, and after everything he’d done? It wasn’t nice, but to her it was karma.

“When did you start giving a fuck about dressage?”

“… Recently?”

“Stop bullshitting me Lance, why are you here?”

Lance kicked at a rock on the ground, completely lacking the self assurance Amelia once knew him for.

“I wanted to speak to you.”

“I have nothing to speak to you about.”

“Amelia, please-“

“Look, maybe you should hear him out-“ Adrian interjected, taking a step towards her.

“Stay the fuck out of this. Since when were you on his side in all of this?”

“I’m not on a side, Amelia - I just think you need to talk it out.”

“Of course you’re not on a side, that would require you to pay attention to other people for more than a second - but fine. Come on. We’re not doing this here.” Amelia huffed, leading the pair past the stables to a quiet area. “Alright. Talk.”

Lance raised his eyebrows, an unsure smile flicking at the corner of his lips. He took a deep breath and began.

“… I wanted to say I was sorry. About Darzin. I am so, so sorry. I don’t know what came over me that day, I was just - annoyed and stressed and not thinking straight. But I just… wanted you to know I was sorry, and that if there was any way we could work past this - I’d be eternally thankful.”

Amelia crossed her arms, her posture rigid and closed off as he finished his speech, looking over at her with the same expression a dog does after they destroy your furniture.

“Okay. I don’t forgive you.”

“…what?”

“You heard me. I don’t owe you forgiveness for what you did, Lance - I was trying to help you. I was trying to make you aware of how fucking awful that man was and how you shouldn’t marry him. All I tried to do that day was look out for you. And what did you do? You sold my fucking horse from under me! No warning, nothing. I just turned up one day and the animal I’d put years of hard work into, that I had trained and mastered and gotten to the highest level, was fucking gone. All because you couldn’t handle the truth that was your fiancé was a fucking asshole. I’m sorry you couldn’t handle that, but I will never forgive you.”

“Amelia, don’t you think-“

“Shut up, Adrian! You weren’t there.”

Lance blinked back at her, tone shocked and pleading.

“Amelia. I know. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to hear it from anyone, but you don’t- you don’t know what it was like for me then. What he was like. I was drugged up on Xanax because I was living the life of a housewife, a uni student and a professional equestrian all at once and I took it out on you and I’m so, so sorry- please forgive me. I can make it up to you.”

“I don’t want your fucking money, Lance. You can’t make this up to me. I didn’t do anything wrong. I- I loved you like a brother! You were my idol! And you just fucking did that to me. You seriously think you can come crawling back here now begging for my forgiveness?”

He went quiet for a moment, staring at his boots.

“… Alright. Alright. I’m sorry-“

“Say that one more time. I dare you.”

“- for not catching you after your ride. I’m- I’m trying to be better. Whether or not you accepted it, I had to apologise. I’ll leave you alone now. But if you ever- you know, want to reconnect? You know where to find me.”

“I am not obligated to clear your conscience. You hurt people. Not all of them are going to just forgive you because you, quote unquote, changed. Now leave me alone. I need to warm my horse up.” Amelia stated, voice low and steady as she gave him one last look before turning on her heels. His eyes were red rimmed, hands shoved in his pockets, an entirely different person to the one she remembered from a decade ago. That’s the thing with family, though, isn’t it? You idolise them and one day you wake up to realise they’re just as fucked up as you are. Just as hurt, as insecure, as broken. And there’s nothing you can do to bring that illusion back.

—————

oof.

ref: Leanjo.com

Description

~~~~~~~~~~~

Horse: MR Schumini

Rider: Amelia Visser

Event: Mediterranean Sea Tour Venue 3, hosted by lizzartstudios on Instagram

Music: The Firebird Suite: Lullaby (X )
Placing: 2nd

~~~~~~~~~~~
Word Count: 2244
TW: Mention of drugs, bad family relationships, implied abuse

“Well, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I’m going to be a Formula One driver! I’m going to drive for Ferrari because—“
“If you ask a child to draw a car they’ll colour it red, we know. Amelia? What about you?”
“… Don’t ask me what I want to be when I grow up. I’m not a kid like Adrian.”
“Just answer the question.”
“I want to be a Grand Prix dressage rider. Obviously.”
“Well, you guys have that in common. You both want to compete in the Grand Prix, just different ones.”
“What about you, Lance?”
“I’m already a grown up.”
“You’re seventeen. That’s not a grown up.”
“Close enough. I’m a year off from being able to vote. You can’t even buy scissors.”
“Shut up. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I don’t know. Happier than I am now.”

When Amelia looked back on her life - pragmatically, her rose tinted glasses were shattered years ago - perhaps the one thing she could rely on was her family to stay the same. There was her, the scorned eldest daughter, the one who had never been quite as impressive as the rest of them. Adrian, the golden child, her arrogant little brother who has never been told no and instead always told how special he was. Her mother was narcissistic and her father weak-willed, a combination fit for divorce courts. These were things carved in stone, as unassailable as the earth below her. Parents who don’t get help don’t magically become good parents - and if they never changed their standards she was never going to be a good daughter.

Amelia could go through an abacus counting the times her parents had missed her events for Adrian’s - sorry love, we can’t make your competition, Adrian has karting. Your violin concert? You should’ve mentioned it earlier, we’re networking with the F3 teams. It’s such a shame we have to miss your freestyle, but you’ll be okay with your trainer, right? Eventually she’d stopped asking. What point was there? Instead, Amelia chose to play Schroedinger’s cat - if she didn’t invite them, her parents existed in a state in which they’d both agreed to og and backed out at the same time. Frankly, those coexisting were closer to her parent’s presence than an invite. Adrian was no better - he never offered to give up time to take interest in her hobbies or skills, especially not the horses. If anything, he was vocal about how much he hated them. And yet she was still expected to listen to his karting stories, watch the movies and documentaries with their family, relive their fathers tales of his brief F1 debut back in the nineties even though he had a whopping three race starts and one of them involved the car getting lodged in the Monaco hairpin. If invisibility cloaks were real, Amelia was pretty sure she would never have to buy one - all she had to do was ride horses instead of drive cars.

Yet, there was one light in all of this - Hawthorn Hill. The quiet English equestrian estate sat tucked away in a corner of Berkshire, a few miles out of Windsor and only an hour's train from her home in London. When she’d started riding as a child, it had made sense to seek the advice and help of her older cousin - after all, Lance had been successful on the pony circuit back then, and little eight year old Amelia could only dream of reaching those heights. As a teenager, while her parents were dedicated to the career of her brother, Amelia could hop a train every day after school and enter a world in which people cared about her interests, shared them, even. Her summers were spent cantering down paddocks with the wind in her hair, sprawling out on the couches at the main houses with a coke and a fan, spending hours training with Maureen and her dressage trainer. On top of that, there was Lance - the brother she’d lost in Adrian she’d seemed to have found in him. He was intuitively quick and funny, and she’d often found herself with stars in her eyes watching him train for junior competitions, even accompanying him to shows with Maureen and whoever was grooming at the time. It was, truly, the escape she needed from her own home’s motorsport hellhole.

But, as all good things must, it came to an end.

“Hey, Mick. You feeling good today?” Amelia murmured, sliding into his stall with a mint stretched towards the stallion. After their late arrival he had settled in well, better than she could’ve expected. She’d schooled him lightly yesterday to get a feel for how he was going and to make sure his leg really wasn’t giving him problems and was pleasantly surprised by how he’d felt- soft, supple and responsive. He didn’t have the same firepower as she’d felt for the first venue but considering his injury leave it was a gift from God above to feel him move so smoothly. There had been a little stiffness from his travels that she’d attempted to work through with good results, leaving her feeling quietly optimistic about her ride today. If Mick could come back from injury like an elastic band, she could get over the rising nerves in her chest. Not about her ride, no - about the fact she’d invited Adrian to the event.

He’d reached out to her after her comment on his instagram post, asking how things had been since he’d last seen her at the first venue. She’d filled him in on Mick’s injuries, how she’d missed the second venue and her fight with customs the other day, and he seemed pleasantly amused by the whole situation. On a whim, she’d asked if he felt like visiting Cairo - and much to her surprise he said he’d try and make it.

Try.

There was little trying with Adrian. Black or white. He was coming or he wasn’t. Frankly, she wasn’t going to text to ask to preserve her own dignity, nor was she going to beg her own brother to care about her life. If he came, he came. If he didn’t… well, that was just Adrian for you.

At that moment, Amelia could feel her phone buzzing in her back pocket, fumbling to get it out before the call ended. After all, it could be a last minute problem with sponsors, or customs, or-

Oh. Speak of the devil.

Tentatively Amelia accepted the call, raising the phone to her ear.

“Hey, Adrian. Everything okay?”

There was a low rumble on his end of the line, the sounds of crowds and loudspeakers making Amelia squint as she tried to follow his words.

“Yeah, all good, I just don’t know how to find you here. How do I get to the uh… paddock? Whatever you guys call it. I want to say hi.”

“Oh, sure, where are you just now?”

Adrian rattled off a few vague directions and Amelia thought she had a vague idea of where he’d managed to got himself lost - nearby, luckily. Mick gave her pocket a nudge in an attempt to secure more mints as she slid out of the stall, the alleyway abuzz with competitors milling about and preparing. It was a stark contrast to the silent night she’d arrived during, but the excitement was almost tangible.

“Yeah okay Adrian, just wait there, I’m on my way-“ Amelia said into the phone, exiting the competitor area and looking about for any sign of the poor lost bastard.

That was when she saw him.

Not Adrian’s tanned skin and bleach blonde hair, no. Instead of brown eyes she met ice blue - pale skin, dark hair, and the ugliest fucking hand tattoo.

“Oh fuck.” She mouthed audibly, standing stock still as the pair froze in unison. The call ended abruptly, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to call Adrian back.

“Amelia! There you are, why did you sound like you just had a heart attack, I thought you didn’t really get nervous- oh. Oh fuck.”

They stood in silence for a moment, three points of a Visser triangle as crowds pushed past them attempting to get to the arena. Adrian was slack jawed, confusion written all over his face, and Lance, well… he looked good.

Amelia wanted to rip his fucking throat out.

“What are you doing here?” She choked, eyes wide. Lance shrunk back into his jacket even more, almost stepping on a stranger’s foot as he took a step back.

“I just wanted to watch.” He muttered, glancing between Amelia and Adrian. It had been years since she’d seen him face to face, and when she had he’d very admittedly looked like shit. Gaunt, frail, tired. It had been easy at that point to realise his use had gone from casual to a problem, and Amelia would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy every second of it. By nature she was a bitter person, and after everything he’d done? It wasn’t nice, but to her it was karma.

“When did you start giving a fuck about dressage?”

“… Recently?”

“Stop bullshitting me Lance, why are you here?”

Lance kicked at a rock on the ground, completely lacking the self assurance Amelia once knew him for.

“I wanted to speak to you.”

“I have nothing to speak to you about.”

“Amelia, please-“

“Look, maybe you should hear him out-“ Adrian interjected, taking a step towards her.

“Stay the fuck out of this. Since when were you on his side in all of this?”

“I’m not on a side, Amelia - I just think you need to talk it out.”

“Of course you’re not on a side, that would require you to pay attention to other people for more than a second - but fine. Come on. We’re not doing this here.” Amelia huffed, leading the pair past the stables to a quiet area. “Alright. Talk.”

Lance raised his eyebrows, an unsure smile flicking at the corner of his lips. He took a deep breath and began.

“… I wanted to say I was sorry. About Darzin. I am so, so sorry. I don’t know what came over me that day, I was just - annoyed and stressed and not thinking straight. But I just… wanted you to know I was sorry, and that if there was any way we could work past this - I’d be eternally thankful.”

Amelia crossed her arms, her posture rigid and closed off as he finished his speech, looking over at her with the same expression a dog does after they destroy your furniture.

“Okay. I don’t forgive you.”

“…what?”

“You heard me. I don’t owe you forgiveness for what you did, Lance - I was trying to help you. I was trying to make you aware of how fucking awful that man was and how you shouldn’t marry him. All I tried to do that day was look out for you. And what did you do? You sold my fucking horse from under me! No warning, nothing. I just turned up one day and the animal I’d put years of hard work into, that I had trained and mastered and gotten to the highest level, was fucking gone. All because you couldn’t handle the truth that was your fiancé was a fucking asshole. I’m sorry you couldn’t handle that, but I will never forgive you.”

“Amelia, don’t you think-“

“Shut up, Adrian! You weren’t there.”

Lance blinked back at her, tone shocked and pleading.

“Amelia. I know. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to hear it from anyone, but you don’t- you don’t know what it was like for me then. What he was like. I was drugged up on Xanax because I was living the life of a housewife, a uni student and a professional equestrian all at once and I took it out on you and I’m so, so sorry- please forgive me. I can make it up to you.”

“I don’t want your fucking money, Lance. You can’t make this up to me. I didn’t do anything wrong. I- I loved you like a brother! You were my idol! And you just fucking did that to me. You seriously think you can come crawling back here now begging for my forgiveness?”

He went quiet for a moment, staring at his boots.

“… Alright. Alright. I’m sorry-“

“Say that one more time. I dare you.”

“- for not catching you after your ride. I’m- I’m trying to be better. Whether or not you accepted it, I had to apologise. I’ll leave you alone now. But if you ever- you know, want to reconnect? You know where to find me.”

“I am not obligated to clear your conscience. You hurt people. Not all of them are going to just forgive you because you, quote unquote, changed. Now leave me alone. I need to warm my horse up.” Amelia stated, voice low and steady as she gave him one last look before turning on her heels. His eyes were red rimmed, hands shoved in his pockets, an entirely different person to the one she remembered from a decade ago. That’s the thing with family, though, isn’t it? You idolise them and one day you wake up to realise they’re just as fucked up as you are. Just as hurt, as insecure, as broken. And there’s nothing you can do to bring that illusion back.

—————

oof.

ref: Leanjo.com