"'Groom the horse' he says. 'Groom the bloody horse, or there's trouble with your Father, he says..."

Drefan was in an ugly mood.

Of course, he was almost always in an ugly mood, but today, it felt uglier. Today, he was actually going to get to work. He could make no bones about it, sneak out, or weasel his way around it; the problem was standing there, right in front of him, and it refused to move or simply get out of the way. The problem was in the form of a horse -- and it wasn't just any horse, no. It was the family horse. Yes, you heard that right; the family horse. Drefan's family. To make a long story short, Torrin Curston wanted to test his son's responsibility by sending in William, the old man's trusty steed, guard of the family, and friend to their children, to be groomed and taken care of by Drefan himself. There was absolutely no way for him to get out of this -- no way for him to sneak out and get himself into loads of exciting trouble. His father knew that, and Drefan was sad to say that this plan was working.

That in mind, the boy grumpily picked his way through the various tools, trying to remember which one he was supposed to use first. He recalled a certain object with some sort of "teeth" in it, but he couldn't remember what it was called until he finally found it. A currycomb, I think. He observed it, shrugged, and wished for the best. If he got this one wrong, at least he would be committing mistakes on their horse; the punishments wouldn't be that heavy. And William was always all right with getting dirty -- and he was brown anyway, so it wouldn't be that obvious, right? All the same, imagine if Drefan had been grooming someone else's horse and had forgotten then and there the proper methods and procedures. That would be pretty embarrassing, and would result to more awful scolding.

"'Make sure it gets out clean'," Drefan mumbled, his voice mimicking the low, cracked voice of the master stableman as he had done earlier on. The young boy began scrubbing and scrubbing, wondering how it was expert groomers got to see the so-called "dirt" that came off a horse when one started scraping them with a currycomb. He wasn't very good at this, as he never really remembered any of the last times he'd actually tried to groom a horse [the most he could recall were people asking to keep their horses in the stable for a while because they needed to run an important errand, yadda yadda yadda], but he did hope he was doing it right. Even if it was for William, he still hoped all the same. He didn't care much for horses -- which was why this job troubled him very much -- but William was pretty close to him.

Sort of.

The horse, then, flinched and neighed and took a few steps to the side. Drefan jumped back, brown eyes wide. He stared at the currycomb and wondered if he'd scrubbed a little too hard. He turned back to William. "Sorry, old beast..." he grumbled, right before moving toward the animal once again. He gently stroked the horse's smooth back in a feeble, clueless attempt to get it to calm down some more. "I'll be careful this time." Then he set back to work once more, trying not to be so into his ugly mood, otherwise he could end up taking it all out on William, and William wouldn't like that. ...Neither would his Dad. And that wasn't good. That was bad. Thus, the young boy tried to steer clear from the angry thoughts that had plagued his head the very moment he'd heard the master stableman's voice.

Despite what most horse-lovers say, grooming a horse was, in actuality, very, very boring work. It was tiring, yes, and required much cautiousness, but it was still very... well, boring all the same. In fact, Drefan was fighting hard to keep himself from thinking about anything else -- because whenever he thought about "anything else", the first thing that entered his mind right away was almost always the cause of his bad mood. ...But there was nothing else he could do. Elinor had always told him that it might help if he talked to the horses. Of course, Drefan had tried that before, but it was all in vain. The most those animals could do was to stare at him while chewing their food rather noisily. Drefan was stuck. Stuck inside his job, inside this awful, awful job, stuck with boredom, stuck with William [not that there was anything wrong with being stuck with William, but still]...

Drefan looked out the stables, and began staring fixedly, longingly, at the streets outside. What was there to do?

Drefan shook his head and tore his attention away from the hustle and bustle of the town outside. He rubbed his eyes a little, blinked them, and stared at the horse in front of him. William stared back. Drefan sighed and scratched the back of his head. He could almost hear the low, cracked voice of that blasted Master Stableman telling him to get back to work. He sighed again, and held up the object in his hands. The progress could not be seen. Could not be seen at all. The currycomb looked just as it had looked like earlier on, when Drefan had picked it out of the tool shed. His forehead scrunched up a little. Where was the dirt? Shouldn't there have been some stupid tiny specks right about now? Even just two or three tiny specks? Anything to tell him that he had made progress?

The thirteen-year-old gripped the cleaning object in his hands, shut his eyes tight, and tried to keep himself from throwing the blasted object across the area. He trembled in irritation for a moment or two, then he took to exhaling some air. He opened his eyes, breathing in, breathing out... All right. Just relax. No violent reactions. You've done this before. ...Kind of. He repeated words of encouragement inside his head and found himself nodding along slowly. "Okay," he breathed. "All right. Back to bloody business." He held up the currycomb, stared at it -- almost as if he was willing it to cooperate -- glared at William straight in the eye, and proceeded to clean the horse all over again. He honestly, honestly hoped that he was getting even just a bit of work done with this. Honestly hoped.

...

"You're doing it too softly, and you're tickling him. Male horses like for you to be firmer. Also, it helps them get cleaner."

Drefan stopped. Then he blinked. His face looked awfully confused. He brought a hand up, stuck his pinky out, and began circling it inside his ear. Had he heard right? Was someone actually talking to him? Someone who wasn't the Master Stableman? Because this voice, this new voice, was honestly very, very far from the scratchy 'crackiness' of that old pillock's voice. "Excuse me?" Drefan, trying not to sound a little too offended that someone had actually bothered to correct him [but probably failing, as he knew nothing about subtlety and keeping feelings and emotions 'down low'], said as he turned round to face whoever it was that had talked to him. And when he saw who -- or what -- it was, Drefan froze.

A girl stood in front of him. She was rather short. ...No, actually, she was very short. Really very short. Shorter than he was [and if someone was shorter than he was, then it was a wonderful accomplishment on Drefan's part and an insult on the other person's]. She was definitely younger, that the boy was sure of. Her face had that "young", jovial... sort of appearance. He didn't understand why she was there, and, more than that, he didn't understand why she was talking to him. ...Oh, and right about now, she was taking the currycomb from him. "What? Wait, I--" Then she just started cleaning the horse. No, really, she just started cleaning the horse. Drefan even had to rub his eyes to double check. But no matter what he did, it was the same thing; circular motions on William's brown coat.

Drefan looked from the girl to her hand to the horse. Then back again. And before he even knew it, it was over, and the girl had given the currycomb back. She smiled, and he raised an eyebrow. "Er... O-okay," he started to say. He felt unsure. "Uh, thanks." He hated saying thank you. It was better to try and figure things out your way. ... But then again, he lacked competence with horses and grooming horses, so all right. Perhaps this was acceptable. ... But it still felt awkward, though. He absentmindedly rubbed the back of his neck. "You know, you didn't have to--" Then he stopped himself short. Almost immediately, his attention went back to one particular question that he had yet to ask, for the answer to it was something he needed to know more than anything right now.

"Wait. What are you doing here?"

"I really wish you would quit looking at me like I'm a freak."

Not even a minute had gone by yet, and already, Drefan felt as if it was almost completely impossible to have a harmonious acquaintanceship with this girl. It wasn't Drefan's fault that he was looking at her like a freak. He wasn't the one who had suddenly decided to pop up out of nowhere. He wasn't the one outside the area. In fact, he was inside the area. He was working. Minding his own business. Confining himself into misery and sadness and even more misery. And then some random person crops up. Literally out of nowhere, yes. Probably from over the wall, or maybe even over the window. That was not his fault either. Not his fault that he was the type to get surprised easily when it came to that sort of thing. Because young girls who come dropping out of nowhere to suddenly start helping him served as a common, daily occurrence to him.

Right.

Drefan could only roll his eyes at the "freak" comment. Not his fault that she had decided to interpret his look as a judgmental sort of look. It was funny and a wee bit irritating how assuming the girl was; wouldn't she have been surprised had Drefan jumped over the wall to help her out with her job all of a sudden; it was a no-brainer, really. Though Drefan still did not understand what she was doing there and what she was still doing there. Had the Master Stableman been around, he would have accused her of "trespassing", and he would have sent her straight out, and Drefan would never have to deal with the likes of her ever again. ...However, knowing how that old man was, he would most probably assume that this girl was a friend, and that Drefan had brought her over in an attempt to brighten up his day and keep things less boring.

But that was not the case. Drefan didn't want to be friends with this girl. Not at all. Of course, it was, initially, mostly because of the fact that he wasn't all that fond of making friends [he "worked alone"], but then the reason for it sort of escalated when the girl finally answered Drefan's question. Hearing her say "the same thing you are" in that irritating, What's-Wrong-With-You sort of voice just made him want to wring her neck and throw her out the big hole in the damned wall. It was like she couldn't understand the source of his confusion. Damn it all, she obviously did not understand that she and her sudden appearance was the source of *his* confusion. That wasn't very difficult to comprehend, and she didn't have to be THAT rude about it. Honestly. What was wrong with her?

"I don't think so," Drefan told her. "You don't even work here." He pointed to himself with his thumb. "I do." He turned back to face William, currycomb in hand. The horse was quiet throughout the whole thing. He moved a bit, sidestepping from time to time, swishing his tail here and there, but other than that, there was no other indication that the horse felt anything particularly important about the whole situation. Perhaps he was confused too. "And I know I may not be very good at it," Drefan added, one hand doing its best to try and scrub the horse clean, "but my father forced me into this, ergo you can't really blame me." He tried to formulate an excuse inside his head, just so he could go back to the tools area and pretend to look busy.

"Now, if you'll excuse me..." He pushed past her, and tried not to look too irritated -- although he was very sure that he wasn't doing much of a good job on that. "...I need to be getting back to my task." Drefan was in an ugly mood. ...He had been in an ugly mood even before the girl had appeared. He had been in an ugly mood even before he had started cleaning up that horse. He had been in an ugly mood ever since his father had assigned him to this blasted job. ...And that was a bloody year ago.