PONIES && PRANKS, tag; lia | dinah

[TRISTAN ROSE]

There was only one person who'd make this much commotion amongst the other stable hands with their appearance, and since he could see the smiles on the young boys faces he knew it wasn't his father, but the one person who Tristan could have gone the rest of his life without seeing again. Liana Ghislaine. He heaved a heavy sigh and stopped raking the hay into the big bay geldings stall and leaned on it instead as he watched the rest of them run around with such panic on their faces. You'd think it was the Queen that they were preparing some little dappled filly for. "You think she remembers us?" Tristan asked the black horse beside him. The horse snorted, annoyed, and then leaned down to nudge the make shift rake he was leaning on to encourage him to keep putting more food in his stall. Tristan ignored him and kept watching as the filly danced and its eyes grew wide and white with nervousness. The general atmosphere of panic easily working its way into her psyche. If they didn't watch out they'd make her snappy and skittish. Tristan thought about opening his mouth… but then thought better of it. Who was he to care what kind of horse that Liana rode? She'd made it perfectly clear she didn't care what he thought.

He spit the stalk of hay he'd been chewing on out of his mouth and leaned a little heavier on the rake which made him lose his balance when then horse nudged it again. "Calm yourself," he laughed rubbing the horses nose and the velvety ridge between his eyes and giving him a flat palm of oats from one of the hanging bins.

When he saw her appear, he couldn't help but be a pain in her ass… which simply meant speaking to her. There were very few who didn't know of their connection. One merely had to look at Tristan to see how much he looked like their lord and his blue eyes made him even more his father's son. "Lady Liana, it's been so long," he drawled as he came up beside her. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

[LIANA GHISLAINE]

Liana couldn't get out of the keep fast enough. Her mother had begun the day in a foul mood, which was starting to become more apparent as her quest to find Lia a husband — any husband — and when the servants had decided to make themselves scarce she had turned on Lia. It seemed like everything she did lately could have attributed to the fact that no one had thus far seemed inclined to propose a union; from the way she twirled her hair and the way she did not sit quite so straight. Even the sound of her voice seemed to cause offense now. Her mother could see every little crack in the prim, proper little mask she put on.

So when Lady Ghislaine was pulled away to settle a dispute brewing in the kitchens, Lia took the opportunity to slip away. Her maid sent word to have a horse saddled for an afternoon ride, but Lia didn't wait to head down there. If she lingered inside the chance of her mother coming to find her again increased, so the sooner she got out of the estate and out into the open fields, the better.

The stables were abuzz with activity when she swept through the open archway. Men and the younger lads busily mucking stalls, lugging bales of hay and, of course, readying her horse. The older stable hands bow and greeted her respectfully, while some of the younger men were too busy smiling toothily at her to remember their manners. Not that she minded much. She would have preferred they saved their bows and 'm'lady's' for her mother. Lia knew she could learn more gossip when people, especially the servants, felt comfortable and familiar with her. Plus, she genuinely liked some of them. Some. The one she didn't however had an awful knack for getting up in her business, just like he was now. At the sound of Tristan's greeting Liana grit her teeth. He may have been her half brother, but she saw him as anything but family. He was a thorn in her side and a constant reminder of her father's preference for a woman and children not his wife and daughter.

The smile she gave him was full of sweet venom, "Just going for a little ride, Rose," Lest he forget he was his father's bastard, "perhaps you would like to join me? Oh what am I talking about? You're much too busy here. Scraping up horse shit."

[TRISTAN ROSE]

He didn't know why he found it so amusing to annoy her. Maybe it was the way she always acted like she was better than he was. Granted, in the eyes of everyone and society, she was because she was their father's child with his rightful wife. She was the daughter that Lady Ghislaine had prayed for every day and finally received when Tristan was seven. His life changed after that and he hadn't quite forgiven or forgotten the way that it changed his life. He went from being the bastard of Lord Ghislaine, but favored to the bastard that was whispered about and kept in the stables to be selfishly close to a father that still loved him, but kept from anything that might take him away even if it would make his social standings better for himself and his mother and sister. He provided for his family while his father had set them up and clearly favored them, but had grown distant with the birth of his daughter.

"Oh, no, Lady Ghislaine -- I don't ride with the novices," he said sharply back. Her preference of calling him by his bastard surname stung much more when he was younger and she'd finally realized what he was. Now, it was an annoyance that he could brush off like a fly. Mostly because no matter how much she used it to hurt him… it still reminded her that he was her half-brother.

He gave her a shrug at her assertion he was much too busy scraping horse shit. He'd been feeding, but that was neither here nor there. "Ah, you're right," he said with a dramatic sigh. "Pity, and I would have shown you how to ride more than just sidesaddle." It wasn't as if he hadn't seen her trying to get her horse to jump over things before. She wanted to ride a little more dangerously than the Lady Ghislaine would ever allow.

He came up to her horse and gripped the bridle to keep her from rearing back. He cooed to her, rubbed the velvety softness of her nose and kept her still. "Do you need a leg up?" he asked. He made a grand display of checking her gear for her while she readied herself, but as he crossed behind her horse he made sure to loosen the saddle a few notches. Just enough so that she'd be riding and it would slip. She wanted to be a bitch? He could be a bastard.