` flat on the floor [Emma]

[Blake Cyran Taurus]

Blake hated the days when his trainer came in to watch him on Maggie. Sure, he and his trainer were at the same level by now, but everyone could use someone on the ground telling them what they couldn’t feel, but he did hate it. He hated showing too. Wait, no that wasn’t it. Breeches. He hated breeches. Yeah, that sounded closer to correct. He would much rather ride in jeans and a t-shirt, there was no real difference in his ability, but no. He understood why he had to wear breeches for shows and all that, but when his trainer came? Why was she so convinced that he had to look like he was about to go to competition. Okay, fine, he knew the reason; it was easier to see if his leg was correct when his clothes were more closely pressed to his body, but he still hated it. What straight guy wanted to wear pants as tight as a girl would? Sure, the only girls he was really interested in at all were horseback riders because, well, he liked the sense of pride he got when they watched him ride or whatever else, that they knew what the breeches were for, so he supposed he shouldn’t mind too much.

Anyway, Blake made his way to the barn fairly early that day, around nine in the morning so he would have plenty of time to take care of Mint and talk to Sasha about how Will’s training was going before he had to go get Maggie ready. He did take care of his own horses, at least, he tacked his own horses and cooled them down and all that stuff. Just because he had worked his way through multiple horses in his life and he had to admit, he saw most horses as nothing more than a tool to success, more like his soccer ball than anything else. In fact, the only horse he had ever managed to get attached to, so far, was Mint. Granted, Mint was the only horse he kept for more than three years of his life so maybe if he gave other horses more of a chance he’d get close to them too, but for now, his way was working pretty well. Hey, he was about to become the youngest rider on the Olympic team and, sure, he didn’t expect to win anything this time around, but he would have a lot of Olympics in his future if this kept up.

So, after spending some time with Mint and then letting him out into his private pasture he went to talk to Sasha, who was currently trying to get Will to stay soft to his hands when going over a two foot fence, and failing but he was getting better. There were no epic fights in the short while that Blake was watching, so that had to be good. They talked about how everything was going for a bit before Rick had to quickly leave to get Maggie ready for her ride. He cross tied the mare, who was actually more of a brat than his stallion during this whole process, but what could he expect with her being in heat, or at least he assumed so since Mint also went crazy yesterday when he went and took care of Maggie and then see the stallion so, well, it didn’t really matter. He could control the mare either way, he just would always prefer geldings and if he could get his hands on a gelding as talented as Maggie he would jump at the chance, but he had to remember he was only twenty-two at the time so he had to take whatever he could get.

He groomed and tacked the mare before walking her out to the outdoor arena, now having her behave much better on the end of the reins. Once he got to the arena he attached the running martingale to the reins and pulled the lower band of the figure eight noseband around her mouth before tightening the girth and belly guard and mounting the mare with little trouble. He made her stand still for a while after he got on before allowing her to walk around the arena track on a loose rein. After some time he brought the horse up to a trot and started to warm up. He always warmed up before his trainer, and Maggie’s owner, showed up so he didn’t have to take her time. He could warm up a horse; he’d been doing that his whole life. He had just finished asking her for a couple flying lead changes each direction when the trainer showed up and watched one going each way before getting his attention. Once that happened he pulled the mare up gently and moved her over to the trainer, who gave her a firm pet on the long neck.

The two spoke for a while before the trainer told Blake to take her over a fence for a warm-up, so she could watch how Maggie was jumping and all that before they took up the jump height. Just because Maggie could jump five feet doesn’t mean she did it every day by all means. In fact, she never did, she was an eventer, not a show jumper. Generally she was kept around four feet, which she would be doing today, but she wouldn’t be doing it again for quite some time. After the warm up the trainer raised all the jumps from between three and a half feet and four feet and gave him a random, slightly crazy course to go over. They did the coarse twice, getting yelled at the whole time to fix little things like choosing a better spot or turning his feet in more, but all in all they had a good round. Maggie never refused a jump and only knocked down a pole once, but that single knock gave a loud crack and probably hurt a bit, enough to make her pick up her feet the next time. It was about an hour after Blake first got on that he started to cool off the horse, talking to his trainer for a bit as she followed him around the ring before she had to leave to go look at another horse. It was then that the small crowd watching the jumping left, or at least most of them and Blake finally relaxed on the mare, reaching down to pat her neck.


((sorry it's not great but it is a post! lmao))

[Emma Sullivan]

Four months after settling into her apartment in Caramel Rivers, Emma Sullivan had sufficiently adjusted to her new life in the suburbs of Chicago. After a complete “physical” at Jiffy Lube, her faithful 2000 Civic, still running like a dream after being owned by both Sullivan kids, had made the journey all the way from Hillsborough, California to just outside the city limits of Chicago with no problem. Well, there was the slight problem of minimal storage space, which meant Emma had needed to cram her trunk and backseat as tightly as she could and still had to have her mother ship some of her things out to her new home.

Moving in was the easy part; Emmelina had always been a very efficient worker in most facets of her life, and two days after her arrival, she was completely unpacked. The hard part was finding her way around Chicago and De Paul's campus. It took a few days and a lot of asking other students for directions, but eventually the girl could find her way around town and campus unassisted.

Classes were small and short, as she'd settled on one hour, three time a week classes, the same option she'd picked during her undergrad studies. While it was probably nice to only have to go to class twice a week, she simply didn't have the attention span for two hour lectures. For the first few weeks the material was quite simple, but began to pick up by the time the first month of instruction was over. The internship that came along with the master's program, however, had not. The first day she'd come into the office, she'd been sat down at a small desk in the corner of the front office and asked to file papers. She hadn't complained, figuring that perhaps they didn't have any real work ready for her just yet, or that they were planning on easing her into observing sessions or working with patients herself. Two and a half months had passed since she began her internship, and she was still basically an underpaid assistant, organizing these files or filling out those forms. It was frustrating as hell, and Emma had resolved that if things didn't change in the next week she would talk to her “employer,” as well as the doctor who oversaw the master's program. She hadn't applied to learn how to collate papers, and she had assumed that if the firm was part of the master's program surely they had at least claimed they were willing to give any interns actual psychology-related work, not office chores.

But none of that is on her mind now as she crunches along the neat dirt path connecting one of the three barns and the large outdoor arena of Caramel Rivers Stables, the equestrian center located just ten minutes from her apartment. She was still on the hunt for her first horse, aided by a colleague of the trainer she had worked with for eight years back home, but had so far had little luck. The two Thoroughbreds she'd gone to see a few weeks ago were far too green for her tastes, and last week's Hanoverian mare practically had to be beaten to go any faster than an easy trot. Until that elusive perfect horse was found and purchased, Emma was riding a stable horse twice a week. Cassie was a handful but actually liked to work; Emmelina, used to having to channel a horse's energy, didn't have much difficulty with the pretty chestnut. She had finished her ride for the day quite satisfied with their collective performance, lightly sponged the mare where she was sweaty, and carefully groomed the rest of her before putting her back in her stall. Tired and grungy and ready to go home, the girl had almost walked right past the outdoor arena and straight to her car, but noticed out of the corner of her eye that a group of about eight people had gathered at the periphery of the ring. The girl's interest was sufficiently piqued, and she carefully assimilated herself into the little gathering to see who it was that had attracted such a group of viewers.

“Holy shitballs that is Blake Taurus.” A few of the other onlookers chuckled at this rather loud, very crude exclamation, and Emma blushed slightly. Surely your reaction would be similar if you discovered that an Olympic level rider was riding out of a barn in this small, rather unknown town. The management certainly hadn't advertised that fact to her when she'd gone to introduce herself and mention that she'd most likely be bringing a horse in soon. Well, they probably hadn't needed to, seeing as how she had basically marched in and said “Hi, I'm Emma, I'd like to board a horse here in the future.” No pushing had been needed on their part, so they probably hadn't thought to mention him.

It took a fair amount of effort for Emma's mouth to not open up slightly and give her that very classy “drooling idiot” look as the fact that Blake Taurus was just feet from her began to really sink in. The man leaned over and clapped his mount's neck, and for a moment the girl contemplated introducing herself as soon as he dismounted. Then she realized that she would only be getting in his way and very likely bothering him and decided against it. The rest of the spectators went their own ways and very quickly Emma was left standing there on her own. She was silent and motionless for a few moments before speaking out just loud enough for the man to hear.

“That was a great round, you two look really nice.”

The girl nearly gagged at the idiocy of her own remark, but there was no taking it back now. With any luck, he would just ignore her and continue about his business. Well, at least she hadn't stuttered.

[Blake Cyran Taurus]

Blake was used to people gathering around when he rode, well, when he jumped. No one seemed as impressed when he was working on the dressage course, which he did have trouble understanding because anyone who actually knew horses, as he hoped the people around the stable would, would know that dressage was just as difficult as jumping. Well, more difficult for the young man and his chestnut mount. Eventing horses always seemed to have trouble being gentle and supple during the first day of an event and Blake was used to it by now. That being said, it didn’t help that he had trouble paying attention in the dressage ring as well. Without the fast paced movements his adrenaline (which he only really felt at a competition) went into all the wrong things. It was something he worked to correct and was doing better, but whenever he was showing he still managed to have to dig himself out of a little hole after dressage. Luckily, Maggie’s best event was cross country so it usually worked out pretty well. Either way, the small crowd that had gathered didn’t surprise him. What always bothered him, however, was it was rare that someone would stick around and ask questions or even have any idea who he was. Now, he didn’t have that much of a god complex, he didn’t think many people needed to know who he was, that being said, none of those idiot teen girls would ever get any better if they just gawked and never asked why or how something was done. Then they went and tried it on those poor stable horses, failed, ruined the horses and he was just bad.

As for school, Blake was almost done with his undergraduate, which he needed right now. He needed to find more time to get his name out there and all that, because he already had success in what he wanted to do with his life. However, he wasn’t an idiot. His grades might say otherwise, but that was because he was always so busy with sports… anyway. He knew that he needed some sort of degree and the business degree he was getting was going to give him plenty of wiggle room later in life so he felt that was his best bet. That way if something went wrong with the riding thing, which he understood was very possible, he had something to fall back on, and had a lot of choices of what that could be. That being said, he had never liked school. He never felt that it was an efficient want to learn what he actually needed to learn. In other words, the busy work as well as the extra classes outside of his major drove him insane. When would he ever need knowledge of Greek mythology? Not to say it wasn’t interesting, but the class was a waste of time, time he could use riding or talking to trainers around the world to get his name out there.

Blake had to admit that he liked the smaller barns. He preferred his horses to get more personalized attention and everyone knew a horse like Maggie deserved the best of attention, which both he and her owner thought she was getting at Caramel Rivers. He had always preferred the smaller barns as well, just because everyone knew everyone else and if someone saw your horse hurt or just acting oddly they would always call you and let you know, unlike at larger barns when they would see the horse hurt but have no idea who to call so left it. It wasn’t a huge deal for him now, since he was out at the barn and checked up on all his (well, not his but you get the idea) horses every day but before, when he only went to the barn about every other day, those once minor injuries could get bad in that short amount of time. It had happened with Mint once or twice and it always made him so mad, which was when his parents moved the stallion to a private barn. It was a little further from their house at the time, but it was also the better stable, especially for a stallion.

As he cooled down the mare the crowd dispersed and he was admittedly freighted when he heard an unknown voice from the rail. His head jerked up to see a female that he actually didn’t know standing there watching the two of them. It took a while for him to be able to make sense of what she had said, but when he did he couldn’t help but roll his eyes. He knew that. They rarely had a bad run, but people and horses of their caliber were with them in that aspect. It wasn’t who had the worst weekend; it was who had the best, generally speaking. “Well, at least you know a good round when you see it,” he said, loudly enough for her to hear her as well. He watched Maggie’s ears twitch back to listen to him before she felt his leg push against her side to encourage her over the rail where the girl was standing. Upon seeing the girl she was, in fact, not bad on the eyes. She was dirty, sure, but what girls at the barn weren’t? Or at least, what girls that he would be interested in? It kind of came with the territory of a rider that you weren’t going to stay perfectly clean. She could maybe use to lose five pounds or so and didn’t have much of a chest but beyond that he didn’t have too many complaints. Granted, this was Blake, he would always find something else. He was a very physical person, right now, but he also liked life a little on the wild side.

“I haven’t seen you around here,” he said, giving a slight sawing motion on Maggie’s bit to inform her that he meant stop when he told her to stop. “Can you loosen the lower noseband a hole?” he asked, knowing Maggie would feel better if she could open her mouth a bit. Blake lifted his feet out of the stirrups and let them fall by the mare’s side, once again needing to remind her to stand still. And this is why they had dressage troubles. “How long have you been riding here? I can’t have missed your face for too long,” okay, yeah, he was a flirt and he didn’t see a problem with it either. “Any idea who I am?” he couldn’t help but ask. He had an ego, that much was very true. He knew he was one of the, if not the, best rider in the stable and he wanted to make sure everyone else knew that as well. Well, that and when girls knew he placed in the Rolex they were much more likely to go to bed with him, which, right now, was what he wanted out of a relationship, or so he thought.

[Emma Sullivan]

Emmelina certainly hadn't meant to frighten the man still mounted on the now tired, sweaty bay mare, and her heart jumped up into her throat as he jumped at the sound of her words. The girl could feel her face heating up in embarrassment as his gaze settled on her. It occurred to her that she should probably apologize for startling him, but her mouth simply wouldn't form the words her mind bade her to say. The intended apology ended up being unnecessary; after a moment or two his reply sounded and she breathed easy once more. It was on the sarcastic side, yes, but the girl didn't really mind. It could've been worse and, honestly, if she was a rider of his level and someone had made the inane comment she had, Emma probably would've said exactly the same thing. It was cool to think that even in a tiny way, she and a talented Olympic-level rider were alike, because she wasn't on par with him when it came to riding, that was for sure.

The fact that Blake didn't seem to hold anything against her calmed her nerves, but the second he put his leg on the mare's side to steer her to where Emma was standing, that nervous, semi-breathless feeling returned. She had been planning on making her escape while the man dismounted, The girl was normally very perceptive but today was far too intimidated to notice that she was being appraised. If you're not quite understanding why she's feeling this way, let me put it this way. This situation is a little bit like a young guitarist having a conversation with Frank Zappa. Well, at that point you'd have bigger problems than being intimidated by talent, because you'd either be staring a ghost in the face or clinically insane, but you catch my drift, I'm sure.

In any case, it was probably a good thing that Emma was clueless as to where Blake's mind had wandered off to. She probably would've passed out not from mortification, but simply having no idea what to think or do. When it came to matters of the opposite sex, Emmelina had very little experience. She could certainly tell you all about the building blocks of a successful relationship and the traits or actions that can lead to dead or abusive ones, but it's all theory from between the covers of various psychology textbooks that she has never put into practice. Her longest relationship had lasted three months, and she and her then-boyfriend certainly hadn't been thinking about building a strong, healthy relationship.

The brunette offered Blake the strongest smile she could manage – not very – and silently thanked the powers that be that he was taking the lead in the conversation. She groped around for a response to his words that wouldn't sound as stupid as the last thing that had come out of her mouth, and was glad that not seconds after his first statement, the man asked her to loosen his mount's noseband. “Yeah, sure thing,” she replied just a mite too eagerly, leaning slightly over the arena fence to give the mare a friendly rub on the nose before completing the favor asked of her.

Unfortunately, she wasn't off the hook just yet, as Blake now wanted to know how long she'd been at this particular barn...and she had to admit she was rather stunned by the addendum he tacked on at the end of his question. Emma was inexperienced, yes, but stupid she was not. She was being hit on, and by Blake Taurus no less.

The girl did everything in her power not to let the fact that she was flustered show. She breathed normally, leaned against the arena fence to relax her very tensed up muscles, and told herself that he was probably just being friendly or flirtatious by nature. Emma was rarely ever hit on, and had by now convinced herself that anyone who did so either needed glasses or was just a huge flirt. If she was blushing, and she strongly believed that she was, it could be chalked up to the fact that she had just been riding and working around a barn; that's certainly enough to bring a flush to anyone's face. Fortunately, if she completely ignored the flirtatious elements, this was an easy question. She wasn't so starstruck that she couldn't remember when she'd begun riding Cassie.

“I just moved here from California in August, actually. I've only been at the barn for a few weeks.”

There, that wasn't so bad. She'd managed to answer his question without sounding like a moron! How sad, that a very eloquent graduate student was rejoicing in managing to formulate two elementary level sentences...

Emmelina couldn't help but chuckle at his next question. She was still intimidated, yes, but the inquiry amused her enough that she shot him a look that clearly said “You're joking, right?” Did anyone around the barn really not know who this guy was? Any rider who paid even the slightest attention to high level competitive riding should have known who Blake Taurus was. Yeah, there were definitely better, more experienced equestrians out there, but the fact that Blake was quite young and competing well with riders twice his age made him one of the riding world's standouts in Emma's mind.

“Does anyone around here seriously not know who you are? It's not all that often someone your age manages to place in the Rolex, or generally ride at an Olympic level.”

If Emma was feeling like herself, she might've poked fun at him and asked if he had posed the question to get an ego boost, but she wasn't pushing her luck when it came to speaking English.

[Blake Cyran Taurus]

Blake didn’t hold anything against Emma because, well, she had startled him, not Maggie. He could handle being a bit spooked, it happened every once and a while to even the calmest person and humans had the ability to reason their way through what had scared them. Horses, on the other hand, would get scared at one end of the arena once and then spend the next twenty times around the ring fighting to avoid going near that rail again. When the girl spoke now, however, Maggie didn’t even twitch her ears. It was a good thing that Emma had been there after the ride instead of before the ride because if Maggie hadn’t been tired Blake knew she would spook with the best of them. He could ride a spook, but what ride of his caliber couldn’t ride a spook? It was more of the fact that then he’d be fighting her to go near the spot again all day. Sure, she was a lot better than she was when Blake first got his hands on her, but going to the weirdest places on the world and jumping over giant wooden ducks generally did help a horse out, but sounds that weren’t an intercom still freaked her out from time to time.

Blake knew he was something important and someone a lot of people did tend to talk about when they followed eventing, but he still wasn’t used to the “star struck” thing some people he talked to seemed to get. Sure, he did love himself but he wasn’t so narcissistic to think that he was the best. He would have thought people would rather hear about him talk about William Fox-Pitt or Phillip Dutton but instead what they wanted was to hear about his third place ribbon in this last Rolex, which he did like to talk about, but seriously? Oh well, don’t fight convenience, right? Come on, who wouldn’t like people gawking over them? It was fun… until it got annoying but Blake had yet to get to the point where he ever found it annoying, generally because of his sport, though. The people he often spoke to were the girls around his age riding at the barn. Granted, he knew a lot of the attention, if not all of the attention, was because he was young but that also helped him get the type of attention he really wanted.

When this girl loosened Maggie’s noseband Blake felt her play with the bit in her mouth for a moment and give her head a slight shake before relaxing her neck downwards once again, which Blake allowed by reaching the one hand he had on the reins downwards to make sure neither the reins, and hopefully the martingale attached to her bit as well. Blake shifted in his saddle as he waited for her response to her question. A huge flirt? Yeah, that sounded about right, but he was more than a flirt. Maybe a player was the right word for it, but he wouldn’t put the title on himself. Or… at least not in front of anybody but his guy friends. He did in fact notice there was a little more color on her face than there was when he had first began talking to her and that did make him chuckle, but he tried to keep it to a minimum. He didn’t want to embarrass her to the point where she wanted to walk away or something like that.

When she finally answered the question he nodded. That explained it, he had only recently returned. “Where did ya move from?” he asked, mostly to keep the conversation going, not so much because he was really curious. “You’d be surprised,” he answered after she answered about knowing who he was. He was actually surprised. He would often ask that very same question and people would stare at him like “should I know who you are” and then they acted as if they just couldn’t think of his name when he told them or something like that. It was actually a little sad. Either you knew who he was or you didn’t, and he would understand either way. Hell, when you saw the Rolex on television how often did one really see the face of the rider? He was actually quite impressed as long as someone recognized Maggie.

He chuckled when she continued and reached down to pat the mare on the neck. “Thank her, and her owners that let me ride her,” he said before clicking his tongue to get the mare’s attention off the grass at Emma’s feet. “That’s a lot of what it is, getting your hands on a horse that can do it. And having parents that make you ride constantly since you can walk and know the people with the horses that have that type of ability,” he said, with a smirk and a very, very slight eye roll. Yeah, he knew he was amazing too, but he wouldn’t be placing in the Rolex if he didn’t have Maggie as a mount. “You know who she is?” he couldn’t help but ask as well, motioning down to the mare. Most people did know her if they knew him, but rarely could tell him her barn name or anything like that. It was often a very robotic answer “Twenty-two year old Blake Taurus on Million Dollar Baby, a thirteen year, 16 hand, thoroughbred mare owned by Bruce Davidson” which just made Blake wonder how many times they had watched his ride on youtube, but what could you do?

“So,” he started again, looking back down towards the female standing in front of him and the mare, “you know you I am, but I know nothing about you except you just moved here and that nice face of yours goes red easily,” he said, with a playful and flirtatious glare in his eyes. Yeah, he wasn’t the same guy he was when he was interviewed. He was girl crazy, flirtatious and egotistical. Then there was the fact that, when he wasn’t trying to flirt with someone, he could basically be a jerk. An intelligent and educated jerk, but a jerk nonetheless. Maybe he would grow out of it, but it was very hard for such a young man not to let the fame go to his head.

[Emma Sullivan]

In some ways, it's easy to understand Blake's slight confusion at all the commotion riders seemed to go into when it came to him and his riding. He probably still saw himself as being in a different league than the older, more seasoned professional riders he competed with. And he is right that he's no Phil Dutton, but the fact that he was even competing at the same level he did said a lot about Blake's skill. Yes, tons of other factors were necessary to get where he was – money, connections, a skilled trainer able and willing to take you to the top, a horse with enough talent for that kind of competition (or someone willing to let you ride theirs), and more money – but the most important factor of all was skill. You could throw money and six-figure horses at a sub-par rider and they still wouldn't accomplish very much, and certainly not reach the level Blake had.

Now, the point of all ego-stroking that was to say that it didn't matter to Emma that there were better riders than Blake; she'd be flustered in front of them, too, probably even more. The girl easily became nervous or awkward (or, in the worst cases, both) when not in her comfort zone, and talking people she held in high esteem – from the Olympic show jumping gold medalist or the winner of a Nobel prize, to the rider dead last at Burghley or a psychologist who simply wrote a book she found enlightening and enjoyable – definitely qualified as pushing her outside its safe little box. Fortunately enough for Emma, if it proved that person she was nervous around was nice enough, she bounced back quickly enough. She probably would've been perfectly fine by now if it wasn't for the fact that Blake had been flirting with her.

Emma was rather surprised that Blake bothered to ask where she was from, but figured he was just trying to keep up conversation with someone he'd just met. She humored him with an answer, very glad that she didn't have to go fumbling about for a topic of conversation that wouldn't make her sound like a moron. “Hillsborough, California. A little city with lots of rich people, not very exciting.” When they learned that she was from California most people seemed to assume that she was from Los Angeles and had spent her days tanning, surfing, and bumping elbows with celebrities. This couldn't have been further from the truth. Emmelina had never even touched a surfboard in her entire life, was definitely on the pale side, and was born and raised in a quiet enclave of wealthy people just a few miles south of San Francisco. There were a few notable residents, yes, but they were more along the lines of small time actors or former pro athletes and tended to keep to themselves. Her life had been pretty simple, definitely not filled with the glitz and glamor some people probably had in mind when Emma mentioned that she was Californian, born and bred.

Blake's next statement was more surprising than the last, and Emma cocked a brow slightly. Blake wasn't a household name like Pessoa or Wylde, but most people who rode (at least eventers, or just people who kept up with pro eventing) knew who he was, even if it was just for the novelty of his young age. How odd that people at the barn he rode at didn't know him. Most surprising of all, though, was when he asked if she knew the mare he was riding. Certainly if Emma knew who he was, she could recognize his mount.

“Hmm. I'm going to hazard a guess and say Million Dollar Baby.” Emma gave Blake a small joking smile. It certainly wasn't a robotic repetition of the announcer's call before a ride, but the girl really had no idea that her barn name was Maggie. “She's even prettier in person.” This last statement wasn't an attempt to suck up to the mare's rider but an honest statement of opinion, as anyone could easily tell from the appreciative sparkle in the girl's eye as she appraised the animal. The chestnut was a lovely horse, especially considering that she was a Thoroughbred and Emma found many of them too gangly or spindly or generally awkward for her tastes.

As soon as she made this statement Emma started working to find a way to bow out gracefully. These plans were foiled when Blake continued on, throwing out the most flirtatious – and definitely most embarrassing – statement yet. The girl's face flushed even deeper at the mention of how her face had turned red from his attentions, but she did her best to laugh at herself. It helped that Emma had a pretty good sense of humor, but even if she didn't, the girl certainly couldn't deny the blush coloring her face. She produced a rather weak but genuine chuckle and reached up to tighten her ponytail just to give herself something to do, and perhaps appear less awkward as well (though I'm not sure how well that really worked). Her left arm returned to its original position pressing against the arena fence, and her right hand fell to rest on her slightly cocked hip.

“Well...I'm pretty boring and a huge nerd, I don't think you'd really want to get to know me.” Even as these words fell from her lips Emmelina was wondering why on earth she was uttering them. She hadn't said it in a particularly saucy way, but perhaps it could be construed as some form of flirting back. Emma, who knew little about the fine art of flirtation, could only hope this was so as she quickly tacked on an addendum.

“But since you seem interested, I can humor you with the vitals. I'm Emma, twenty-two, grad student at DePaul. Anything...” The brunette had been planning on asking if Blake wanted to know anything else, but changed her mind in a split second. “On second thought, if you want anything more, you'll have to tell me something about yourself first.”

While not entirely sure where this idea had come from, the girl was glad she had acted on it. Not only did it get her ass out of the hot seat temporarily, it gave her the opportunity to get to know the rider who was very different from the persona he displayed in interviews. It made sense, the girl supposed; most people who read interviews with riders were probably only really interested in them as a professional, not as a person. Plus, it would probably be in bad taste to be playful and flirty with a woman trying to do her job and interview you.

[Blake Cyran Taurus]

Blake was a flirt, there was no doubt there, but he could often rein himself in (no pun intended) when he was around people he knew he shouldn’t flirt with. Such as someone who might let him ride their horse or his female competitors. Lucky for Emma, he saw no reason not to really lay it on thick. She was a rider, which was really the only type of girl he was even slightly interested in anymore, knew who he was, was rather attractive and, hell, if he could get her into bed that was all the better. Sure the last thing he really needed was a baby at the time being, but he was careful to avoid that. And, well, he didn’t really need a girlfriend either. Once he got his degree he’d have a little more time on his hands but at the time being he was either in school, some sports practice (which he often got out of in order to do something horse related) or out at the stable training or with one of the other horses he worked with. That reminded him, he should really spend some time with Mint today. He missed the big gray stallion that brought him so far and today he figured he had time to take the stallion through some of the lower cross country fences or something like that. Yeah, that sounded fun.

“So, you’re rich?” he teased, reaching up and taking the helmet from on top of his head. He shook out his hair, which was now fairly sweaty and stuck wherever it decided was best. He reached downward slightly and clipped the helmet around the keeper that was there to keep his saddle pad in place. He did feel that the way she said it was slightly bragging. If one lived with rich people, they were probably rich; it’s just kind of how it worked. He himself lived in a very middle class society. His parents made a lot of money, but a lot of that had gone into his equestrian career so they didn’t live in a neighborhood or house that signified the amount of money they actually brought home. Blake though, of course, was living in his own apartment by now, fairly close to the college and it worked out for him. A nice, private place to… entertain company.

Blake chuckled when she managed to get the horse’s name correct. He reached down and patted her neck gently. “Maggie,” he half correct, half informed, watching the chestnut ears flick back towards him as she recognized something her rider said. Though he didn’t mind her registered name, he didn’t particularly like it and besides, the horse was so much a Maggie. When she spoke again Blake smirked and nodded before putting his left leg into her side and asking her to move over so he could dismount without landing on the fence, and the girl behind it, though the latter he wasn’t sure he’d mind too much. “Thanks,” he said, with a slight smile. “I was actually always a warmblood person myself, the horse I rode before her, my stallion, was a Dutch. I’m not a huge fan of thoroughbred’s… gangly-ness I guess, I always feel like their legs will break right off. I wasn’t all that excited when my trainer said the horse she found me was an off the track mare, but after riding her I may have been pulled over to the dark side. Though the girl does still have a bit of a race horse’s mentality,” he said, almost as if teasing his mount. He finally put his left foot back in the stirrup and swung down from the saddle, bending his knees slightly when he landed before standing up straight once again. Now, if he knew Emma felt the same way he did he would have played up his opinion even more, but as it was, Blake was no mind reader.

Blake couldn’t help but chuckle again as her face went even more colored than it was before. He shook his head slightly as he began to run of the stirrups on the left side and loosened the girth. He also unclipped his reins to remove the running martingale, when he tied the two parts of the reins together at her chest so they didn’t hit her as she walked. He gave her a slight look over his shoulder when she said he was a nerd as he continued to make his horse more comfortable by fixing up the other side of his saddle and removing the lower noseband completely and loosening the upper one a hole or two. The big in her mouth wasn’t that strong, just a single joined full cheek, but it would be nice to not have her mouth forced around the bit. They put her in something stronger for competitions, a slow twist for show jumping, but the only thing riding her in that for training would do is give the girl a hard mouth, which nobody wanted.

When she turned his question around he looked towards him in a fairly surprised fashion. “You know plenty about me already,” he joked, pushing his hair back with his free hand as he went to lean against the fence as she was, very close, but this was Blake Taurus. “Uh, what else is there? I’m almost done with my business degree for Chicago U, but I don’t know what I’m gonna do with the degree. I play sports for the college, which I got a scholarship for, and I’m so happy I’ll never have to play football again. Uh…” he paused for a second with a slightly flirtatious look on his face before chuckling and looking away. “My stallion’s name is Mint and I’ve had him for… five, maybe years. I’m an only child and then only reason I ride, or do any sports at all, is because my parents made me,” he shrugged, as if saying “yep, that’s all I have” before shifting his weight slightly so he leaned a bit against Maggie, even though the mare was sweaty.

“So…” he continued, kind of awkwardly, “your horse here yet?” he asked, just assuming she owned a horse because she looked like a rider, and most people around here did, in all honesty. Well, that and he was hoping to maybe get this girl to consent to riding with him when he took Mint out. She didn’t seem the type that would be easy to pull into bed with just a single conversation so he had to butter her up a bit. That and, hell, he loved it when people would compliment him on his riding, and even more so on Mint. Mint was the only horse he had really connected with to the point that he couldn’t get rid of the animal, so it was nice he was a stallion so he had a job to do even after retirement.

[Blake Cyran Taurus]

Blake was a flirt, there was no doubt there, but he could often rein himself in (no pun intended) when he was around people he knew he shouldn’t flirt with. Such as someone who might let him ride their horse or his female competitors. Lucky for Emma, he saw no reason not to really lay it on thick. She was a rider, which was really the only type of girl he was even slightly interested in anymore, knew who he was, was rather attractive and, hell, if he could get her into bed that was all the better. Sure the last thing he really needed was a baby at the time being, but he was careful to avoid that. And, well, he didn’t really need a girlfriend either. Once he got his degree he’d have a little more time on his hands but at the time being he was either in school, some sports practice (which he often got out of in order to do something horse related) or out at the stable training or with one of the other horses he worked with. That reminded him, he should really spend some time with Mint today. He missed the big gray stallion that brought him so far and today he figured he had time to take the stallion through some of the lower cross country fences or something like that. Yeah, that sounded fun.

“So, you’re rich?” he teased, reaching up and taking the helmet from on top of his head. He shook out his hair, which was now fairly sweaty and stuck wherever it decided was best. He reached downward slightly and clipped the helmet around the keeper that was there to keep his saddle pad in place. He did feel that the way she said it was slightly bragging. If one lived with rich people, they were probably rich; it’s just kind of how it worked. He himself lived in a very middle class society. His parents made a lot of money, but a lot of that had gone into his equestrian career so they didn’t live in a neighborhood or house that signified the amount of money they actually brought home. Blake though, of course, was living in his own apartment by now, fairly close to the college and it worked out for him. A nice, private place to… entertain company.

Blake chuckled when she managed to get the horse’s name correct. He reached down and patted her neck gently. “Maggie,” he half correct, half informed, watching the chestnut ears flick back towards him as she recognized something her rider said. Though he didn’t mind her registered name, he didn’t particularly like it and besides, the horse was so much a Maggie. When she spoke again Blake smirked and nodded before putting his left leg into her side and asking her to move over so he could dismount without landing on the fence, and the girl behind it, though the latter he wasn’t sure he’d mind too much. “Thanks,” he said, with a slight smile. “I was actually always a warmblood person myself, the horse I rode before her, my stallion, was a Dutch. I’m not a huge fan of thoroughbred’s… gangly-ness I guess, I always feel like their legs will break right off. I wasn’t all that excited when my trainer said the horse she found me was an off the track mare, but after riding her I may have been pulled over to the dark side. Though the girl does still have a bit of a race horse’s mentality,” he said, almost as if teasing his mount. He finally put his left foot back in the stirrup and swung down from the saddle, bending his knees slightly when he landed before standing up straight once again. Now, if he knew Emma felt the same way he did he would have played up his opinion even more, but as it was, Blake was no mind reader.

Blake couldn’t help but chuckle again as her face went even more colored than it was before. He shook his head slightly as he began to run of the stirrups on the left side and loosened the girth. He also unclipped his reins to remove the running martingale, when he tied the two parts of the reins together at her chest so they didn’t hit her as she walked. He gave her a slight look over his shoulder when she said he was a nerd as he continued to make his horse more comfortable by fixing up the other side of his saddle and removing the lower noseband completely and loosening the upper one a hole or two. The big in her mouth wasn’t that strong, just a single joined full cheek, but it would be nice to not have her mouth forced around the bit. They put her in something stronger for competitions, a slow twist for show jumping, but the only thing riding her in that for training would do is give the girl a hard mouth, which nobody wanted.

When she turned his question around he looked towards him in a fairly surprised fashion. “You know plenty about me already,” he joked, pushing his hair back with his free hand as he went to lean against the fence as she was, very close, but this was Blake Taurus. “Uh, what else is there? I’m almost done with my business degree for Chicago U, but I don’t know what I’m gonna do with the degree. I play sports for the college, which I got a scholarship for, and I’m so happy I’ll never have to play football again. Uh…” he paused for a second with a slightly flirtatious look on his face before chuckling and looking away. “My stallion’s name is Mint and I’ve had him for… five, maybe years. I’m an only child and then only reason I ride, or do any sports at all, is because my parents made me,” he shrugged, as if saying “yep, that’s all I have” before shifting his weight slightly so he leaned a bit against Maggie, even though the mare was sweaty.

“So…” he continued, kind of awkwardly, “your horse here yet?” he asked, just assuming she owned a horse because she looked like a rider, and most people around here did, in all honesty. Well, that and he was hoping to maybe get this girl to consent to riding with him when he took Mint out. She didn’t seem the type that would be easy to pull into bed with just a single conversation so he had to butter her up a bit. That and, hell, he loved it when people would compliment him on his riding, and even more so on Mint. Mint was the only horse he had really connected with to the point that he couldn’t get rid of the animal, so it was nice he was a stallion so he had a job to do even after retirement.

[Emma Sullivan]

At this point in her somewhat awkward first conversation with Blake Taurus, Emmelina had managed to calm herself down and was feeling much more in control and comfortable. By now the embarrassed flush across her face had mostly subsided, though it would very likely return should Blake make anymore flirtatious comments. Considering how many he had made so far, it seemed likely that he'd at least throw in one more before they parted ways. While the logical part of Emma's brain – which was most of it, really – told her that he probably flirted with anything in a skirt, she did enjoy the attention. In an embarrassed, flustered sort of way, at least. Had she known that the main motivation behind the flirtation was sex – which, of course, she didn't because when it comes to dealing with the opposite sex she's fairly naïve – she would've ended the conversation a long time ago. Good thing she remains unaware, otherwise we wouldn't have a thread.

The girl hadn't meant to come off as braggy when she mentioned where she was from. In fact, the only reason to add the word “rich” into the description of her little hometown was to illustrate how boring it usually was. People with money to spend, particularly those looking to start a family, often chose to invest it in a nice house in a safe, quiet upscale neighborhood. Now there's nothing wrong with living in a safe, quiet upscale neighborhood; it's a luxury many people don't get to enjoy and definitely something to be thankful for. Life can, though, get quite boring when many of your neighbors are the squash-playing, sweater-round-the-neck-wearing country club type. If you wanted to meet interesting, lively people or do anything more than just kinda fun, you had to venture out of the confines of Hillsborough and into the grown up playground that is San Francisco.

“My family's comfortable.” Emma gave Blake the vague answer she offered to anyone whenever this subject came up in conversation. It wasn't a lie, but it glossed over the truth quickly enough that most people weren't tempted to take the subject any further. Even worse than the assumptions people often made when you told them you were from California were the assumptions they made when they found out you were well off. Some of them were pretty true, but many were just...wrong (at least in Emma's case). Fortunately for Emmelina, this statement seemed to close the book on the topic she had unwittingly brought up, and the topic of the moment became the great Thoroughbred v. Warmblood debate.

The brunette nodded in agreement as the rider expressed his opinion. “Completely agreed. Warmbloods usually look much more proportionate and substantial. I've seen a few really nice, well-built Thoroughbreds, Maggie being one of them...” (here the girl smiled as she made it a point to put into use the chestnut's newly learned stable name) “...but not too many.”

Instinct caused the girl to lean away from the fence slightly as Blake swung his leg over the mare's body and dismounted easily. Maybe Blake wouldn't have minded knocking into her, but that would probably be getting a little too close for Emma's comfort. She didn't like the idea of anybody falling on top of her whilst dismounting, but if it were someone she was still slightly awkward around, that would only make it that much worse. Fortunately the girl was not pondering possibility of having Blake fall on top of her, as by now she had been prompted to share more about herself. She felt quite lucky that he wasn't focused on her as she unconsciously admitted to being a nerd, but noticed that he did glance away from his attentions to Maggie's tack to give her a slightly odd look. Emmelina gave a small and rather bashful smile in response, but the flush in her cheeks, thankfully, did not increase.

The fact that Blake had obviously not been expecting for her to turn his question back on him pleased Emma, and her small, shy smile widened. It was nice to have the tables turned for once; up until now she had been the one responding to unexpected questions the best she could. Her satisfied smile only dimmed in the slightest as the man leaned up against the fence just inches away from her before answering.

Emma raised her eyebrows when the man disclosed that he was a football player, scanning his build quickly in a slightly puzzled manner. She'd always been under the impression that football players were much bigger and broader than Blake was. Then again, she wasn't really a fan of football to begin with. Even more surprising than the man's involvement in football was the fact that the only reason he rode was because his parents had pushed him to. The general consensus seemed to be that most professional horsemen went into the business because they truly loved it and didn't want to do anything else with their lives. Or, at least, you had to assume that they loved what they did enough to put so much time and money into competing when they could easily get a job that paid more. Blake was just full of surprises.

“Now see, I didn't know any of that. You're not really like I thought you would be...but I guess nobody ever is.” Emma's gaze moved just slightly beyond Blake and took on a sort of thoughtful glassiness, as though she were still thinking about the few bits and pieces she had learned about this man – and she was. Her train of thought was soon interrupted, though, by its focus himself, and her eyes slid back onto his face before responding.

“Oh, I don't have a horse of my own just yet. I've been searching for a few months but haven't found what I've been looking for.”

[Blake Cyran Taurus]

Blake had a love/hate thing going for the naïve girls he would try to flirt with. Sure, they were more likely to give him the time of day than the girls who weren’t so naïve and didn’t want anything to do with a guy who only wanted sex, but they were also less likely to get the hints he dropped. Honestly, at this point in his life, he just liked the girls that were easy. Of course, he would never want such a reputation to get out among the world so was always careful when he was around a camera or whatever else. Being known as Blake Taurus the player in eventing circles wasn’t what he wanted, for now he was just happy with Blake Taurus the young one. However, at the comfort of his own stable, he’s treat girls how he wanted to. He was never mean or anything, but respectful was probably going a little too far. What was respectful in treating girls as if they were only something he could screw? That being said, who would believe the girls who rejected him if they went around telling anyone he acting this way? Kind of a he-said she-said, and he was well believed with the people he cared about.

“Sure,” he said when she mentioned her family as comfortable. He actually hated people doing that. Just say it, you were either rich or your weren’t. His family would be, if his parents didn’t put so much money into his sports, and mostly his horses. Mint had put a good dent into their pocket book, much less to have him go through all the performance tests to allow him to breed, but that’s what they wanted to do and now Mint was paying the money back pretty well. Of course assumptions were made off rich families, but not generally the assumptions people thought it. Sure, there were times when spoilt came to mind and having no idea how to do barn work or something along those lines, however that wasn’t his first thought at all. His first thought was more or less the idea that people who came from wealthy families never understood where people coming from families on the poorer side of the scale were coming from. He remembered when one of his teammates had put a girl he was trying to woo in tears because he made light of the importance of the scholarship she had gotten to school, saying she shouldn’t be as happy about it because the school wasn’t something to be too proud of and he had many types of instances where such problems occurred. Granted, this usually turned out to be all right by him because he could support the girl and usually get her into bed not long after, but it didn’t make his buddy’s approach to it correct and he had never seen someone come from a wealthy family who were more respectful. Sure, they may not be so blatant about it, but it was always there, at least in peaks.

“Maggie’s not well built,” he counteracted, with a roll of his eyes. “A well built thoroughbred is one who can race, that’s what they’re bred for, that’s what people want and if legs the size of toothpicks gets that done then who cares what the horse looks like? She never won a race in her life, which was good for me because I got my hands on her. I like warmbloods for eventing, I’ll never deny that, but you have to judge a horse by the breed standard,” okay Blake, that wasn’t going to help you get in her pants, but he really had issues with people trying to compare the body types of warmbloods and thoroughbreds as if the two breeds were made for the same purpose. A thoroughbred was a thoroughbred and a warmblood a warmblood. The second you started trying to compare them directly you may as well be comparing a Shetland to a shire. Just because thoroughbreds could be used in eventing doesn’t mean they weren’t a breed bred for racing and acceleration while warmbloods were bred for agility, which was why they could use the extra muscle on them and didn’t need to be as tall. It was a pet peeve was all you could really say, and he was going to correct people until he was blue in the face if he had to.

“Defensive lineman,” he joked when he saw the look she gave him. He couldn’t, however, keep the face straight. “Wide receiver,” he paused for a second, to see if she understood what he was saying, “I caught the ball and made the touchdowns,” he explained, once again rolling his eyes. Girls who knew nothing about football, now that was a turnoff. Just because he didn’t enjoy playing it didn’t mean he didn’t like watching and he wasn’t expecting his woman to be excited about it or anything, but he did expect them to know what a down was and what the basic positions did. He just felt it was quite an American thing and knowing the basics was just something everyone should know, like the National Anthem or the Pledge of Allegiance, though not as important of course. Besides, one of these days all those girls who knew nothing about football would turn a guy off them by asking what a down was one too many times.

“No, they’re not,” he joked, running a hand through his hair to try and get it to lie normally, but the fact that his hair was sweaty didn’t help that. “And off camera, I’m actually a twenty-two year old guy who just so happens to be able to ride a horse,” he shrugged once again, as if saying that he got tired of people thinking he should always act as if he was in his forties or something. He was young and he had a right to act his age, right? Well, he did, but he still hid it from public view. He planned to be in it for years, didn’t want to always be fighting the title of player, even if that’s what he was.

“That’s hell,” he said, glancing over at his mount as she jerked her head over to look at something, but soon decided it wasn’t too interesting to look at and went back to half sleeping on the reins. “It took half a year to find all the horses I’ve ever owned, nine months for Mint actually, but I had my eye on him after three, but my parents weren’t too interested in a stallion,” he shrugged. “They were right, of course, but I am glad they were convinced otherwise,” he smirked at the thought of his stallion. He’d probably ride Mint today, out on the trails or something easy, maybe go over a few shorter cross country jumps, just for fun. They both deserved that. “But I’ll let you know if I find anything,” he paused for a second. “What’s your discipline?” he asked, figuring she may be angry if she rode dressage and he pointed out an eventer he’d love to work with.