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Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 23:27:49 GMT -6
There were peas coming in, and more leafy greens than he knew what to do with. His own fault, really, for overestimating. His previous family liked a nice garden salad, though frankly he was just as glad to have the choice now of whether to labor for tomatoes. He liked plants, but he had always resented the tomatoes a little. The eldest daughter had been picky about their quality, and they weren’t easy to raise.
Rising from gathering the greens, he looked to the makeshift corral that he had set up for the doe. It was a little small, he thought. If he meant to bring her here often, he ought to expand it, shore it up better -- but then he didn’t know how long he would be doing this. How quickly did they learn to trust, when they were special made? How long would it be until she no longer needed the fencing?
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Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 23:28:23 GMT -6
It certainly wouldn’t be today, or tomorrow, but as he glanced over, he was heartened to see that she had relaxed somewhat. She wasn’t tense, though she was sometimes alert, when Briar moved or when she heard something that he couldn’t register. Occasionally she put her head down and nibbled at some bit of weed or grass within reach.
Briar wondered if she would like the vegetables. Not all of them were good for her, but some of it might make for a nice treat. Of course, if he didn’t pen her in, then he would have to keep a careful eye on her. There were plenty of plants here, especially in the parts of the garden that Noa cared about, that could kill her if she ate them. Perhaps that was the real reason that Noa kept mostly carnivores, to avoid that issue if he let them roam.
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Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 23:28:34 GMT -6
Revivals were available in the city for the recently deceased, but Briar figured the trauma of it wasn’t worth it for something so easily preventable. And hadn’t he taken her on in the interest of sparing her as much trauma as he could?
Having ascertained for himself that the doe was getting on, Briar returned to his work. Picking produce was only one part of summer gardening; the bulk of it was really spent fighting against pests. He kept up regular weeding and treatment, so things seldom got terribly out of hand, but it still required diligent maintenance to keep things that way. As it was, he was of half a mind to get something that would keep the slug numbers down, though he wasn’t sure what he could use that didn’t run the risk of also taking a nibble of a leaf or flower it shouldn’t.
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Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 23:29:00 GMT -6
When he was finished for the day -- or more accurately, when he had run out of time -- he coaxed the doe out of the little corral and back to the stables. She went a little more willingly once she figured out where she was going. Anything familiar must have been a comfort. He didn’t get in her way once she headed for ‘home’, and he left her with a little treat from the garden for her trouble, in hopes that she would learn to associate the sweetness with the trips.
In the days that followed, when he had time, he would take her with him to the garden. At first there was no visible sign of improvement. She remained skittish and wary, and stayed well away from him unless there was a compelling reason not to -- usually in the form of a bribe, or simply physical barriers preventing her from fleeing any further.
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Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 23:29:12 GMT -6
And gentleness was not as intuitive to Briar as he had hoped. He knew more about being in her shoes than being the one doing the taming. Sometimes he moved too quickly without thinking, though at least he had the benefit of being quiet by nature.
And yet, as time passed, habit and food worked some of its charm. At some point, without Briar quite realizing it, she no longer balked when he approached, and began to follow him to and from the garden in a more reasonable manner. If he had tried to get close, tried to put his hand on her, he was sure she would run away… But now he thought that she might come back, and give him a second chance.
He still hadn’t quite acclimated to thinking of her as his. Yeo-reum, certainly, was not his; and technically everything in the garden belonged to Noa, even if Briar was taking care of it.
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Post by Briar on Jul 19, 2022 23:32:09 GMT -6
In that sense maybe the doe was Noa’s too, though Noa had presented her as a gift. He didn’t know how it worked among rich folk and the people they’d coerced into their service through some means other than formal slavery. But now he felt that a partnership was, perhaps, genuinely possible at some point in the far-flung future.
There was something comforting about that too, not unlike watching a plant sprout from seed. It hadn't been this way with Yeo-reum, though the Tat had been friendly from the outset, and in the end his fatal flaw had been that same lack of caution. But Yeo-reum was clever in a way that the doe was not -- and indeed, in a way that Briar himself was not. When the doe finally came to trust him, it would be a simple thing, without the cerebral caveats and calculations of people.
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Post by Briar on Jul 21, 2022 21:38:28 GMT -6
He wasn’t sure that he had ever felt the weight of that sort of trust before. He had thought, maybe, that this was what had existed between himself and Yeo-reum, but that had been a long time ago, and he knew better now. Yeo-reum had always decided for himself, even when he had been misled by his naivete. Increasingly, the Tat-lung’s biggest source of frustration seemed to be that he couldn’t decide for them both.
Briar watched her, standing still, scenting the wind, and tried not to sigh. It was simultaneously too early and too late to regret this. He could only wait, and see how it would go.
That she did trust him, at least a little, did make up his mind about some things. The next time they were in the garden together, he finished up his work and then went to the makeshift corral, which he had expanded a little after all.
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Post by Briar on Jul 21, 2022 21:41:23 GMT -6
He had done it mostly in the interest of what he was about to do now: teaching her to take a rider. It was, after all, the purpose for which she had been given to him. He didn't allow himself to think about this too hard, the way he didn't allow himself to ruminate on what Noa might ask of him later. In the interest of moving forward, he tried to focus on what he was doing now. Whatever other precautions he would have to take later, he couldn't even ride her right now.
As he approached, it occurred to him that he hadn’t yet put her tenuous new trust in him to the test, to see just how much she would now permit. He hadn’t expected to be able to get close. And yet, as the distance between them dwindled, he began to hope that she might let him make contact.
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Post by Briar on Jul 21, 2022 21:41:35 GMT -6
And by some miracle, when he reached toward her, she did not pull away, though he could feel her hide shudder at the first brush of his fingers over her short coarse fur -- as if she were shaking off a swarm of flies.
If he had still had his tongue, maybe now he would be murmuring a litany of comfort to help settle her. As it was, he had nothing to offer but slow, careful movements and the deliberate, not to say forced, relaxation of his own posture. He was not at all well versed in the workings of creatures, but he had enough common sense, and heard enough hearsay, to know that any tension she picked up from him would be reflected several times over in herself.
He brushed his hand gently over her shoulder, and then her back, though not so gently that it was ticklish -- he hoped, anyway.
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Post by Briar on Jul 21, 2022 21:41:45 GMT -6
He had no way of knowing for sure. But as the motion became repetitive, he did feel her settle. How unsettling must it have been not to know the intent of this strange thing she didn’t understand, he thought, and wished he could better reassure her. For a moment he thought of those ribbons, the ones he had seen on some of Noa’s beasts, but he dismissed the thought almost as soon as it came. It seemed too much like some sort of breach of… privacy, maybe. As it was, he had to fight down a shudder sometimes when he felt the Faeron ghosting over his thoughts.
He took a deep breath and refocused himself on the task at hand. Very well, so she would let him touch her, here, on her shoulder, where there was little vulnerability or discomfort. He let his hand settle on the dip in her back, to see how she reacted.
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Post by Briar on Jul 21, 2022 21:42:29 GMT -6
Now that his touch was no longer the novelty it had been a few moments ago, she was relaxed enough to swing her head around. She didn’t quite nose at him, but he sensed something like curiosity, rather than apprehension -- though all that gave way for a moment when her horns swept dangerously close past his chest.
He couldn’t help it. He tensed. And then, all at once, she tensed too, going rigid under Briar’s hand. She didn’t flee, though it was probably back on the table now.
Briar forced himself to breathe. In, out; in, out. He forced himself to relax, shoulders down, the tautness in his spine loosening inch by inch. He couldn’t tell her it was okay, so he had to show her, by seeming as okay as he could.
Eventually, she relaxed too, and he laid his hand on her back again.
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Post by Briar on Jul 21, 2022 21:42:41 GMT -6
This time when she turned her head, he was ready, and shifted a little so the antlers passed him by. She studied his hand, or maybe sniffed it, and he waited patiently for her to pass her judgement and grow bored with it. This didn’t take as long as he had feared, which he suspected may have been because his hand did not look readily edible. Emboldened by this, he added some pressure behind his hand. It wasn’t his full weight, not nearly, but he had to work her up to that gradually.
She stiffened, but relaxed again soon enough, even if she did turn to nose at his hand now -- really nose at it, touching him. That should have felt like some sort of milestone, that she was now the one initiating contact, but unfortunately Briar was too caught up in the reality of trying to keep her from pushing him away.
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Post by Briar on Jul 21, 2022 21:43:04 GMT -6
No, perhaps she wasn’t relaxed at all. Perhaps this was the form of protest she had chosen. But if she was telling him no, then he had to give in, at least for now. So he retracted his hand, and waited for her to settle before doing it again.
The second time was a little easier. There was less of that initial start when he made contact. This time when he pressed in, she shied away, and stood there staring at him. Briar turned away -- he remembered hearing somewhere that direct eye contact read too much like confrontation for most creatures -- but he tried to puzzle out whether she felt betrayed, somehow, by what he was doing.
The question was settled when she did, in fact, allow him to approach a third time. And then a fourth. He kept thinking that this was going to be it, that she was going to run fully away or kick him or something.
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Post by Briar on Jul 21, 2022 21:43:39 GMT -6
But to the contrary, it seemed that she was slowly coming to the realization that, for whatever reason, he really wanted to do this, and resigning herself to that fact a little bit. Eventually she stopped fussing when he put his hand on her back, though she still sidled off or nosed at him when he put weight on it.
After a time, he gave up too. They weren’t getting any further today, that much had become clear. There had to be a better way to do this, and perhaps in the span of a day or two, he would figure out something else to try.
The next day, he returned -- this time with a small blanket and a set of saddlebags. He placed them in the makeshift corral so that the doe could inspect them at her leisure while he did his work taking care of the garden.
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Post by Briar on Jul 21, 2022 21:43:49 GMT -6
He tried not to check on her too often while he worked, but it was hard not to think about how she was getting on. It wasn’t the first time he had worked in the garden while also babysitting a charge, but somehow it felt different this time around. Maybe it was the knowledge that he would be relying on her eventually. With the King of Evergreen that lived here, and even with the Houluh pups he had raised, there had never been that sort of intent, not really.
When his work had wrapped up, he went over to see her again. She was no longer paying very much attention to his approach, which he took as a good sign. By that point, she was also no longer paying the saddlebags or the blanket any mind, as they had sat on the ground doing nothing interesting for the better part of an hour and a half.
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