_______________________caldera & buddy
____________________________nothing happens to you, it happens for you

“Buddy!” Cal yelled through the crack in the door. “Hurry your tail up! We’re gonna be late.”

There was no verbal answer, but she heard him snort. Unable to take it anymore, Cal pushed the door open and presented her familiar, who was standing in the middle of the barn, a pointed look.

“You can’t rush perfection, Cal,” he said lazily.

The ridiculous aja was being waited on by about half a dozen small children, most of whom were clutching brushes or grooming materials of some description. They chatted and giggled animatedly as they brushed as high as they could reach, some standing on mounting blocks to be able to stretch up towards his middle-flank. One of the older children had relinquished her brush to a smaller one, and was cheerfully plaiting Buddy’s tail. He might not be the celebrity here that he had been on Xara, but his unusual looks had earned him the interest of every horse-obsessed minor in the area. Cal refrained from rolling her eyes with some difficulty.

“Alright, let’s go, people,” she clapped her hands to get the children’s attention. “Buddy and I have gotta go and work now.”

A collective sigh went up. As the children dutifully trailed out, one of them hooked a daisy chain he had been making around Buddy’s left ear. The aja presented his ker – fairy? – with a dignified look, and she had to bite her lower lip to keep from laughing.

Years of practice had taught Cal how to mount without a block. She placed her hands firmly on Buddy’s back, well spread apart, and jumped up and over chest-first. Using this momentum, she swung her far leg over and sat upright, twining her fingers through his short, spiky mane. There was no tack on Xara, and bridle-like leads were only constructed and used to capture and retain aja illegally. Cal had never even witnessed riding without tack until she arrived on Shaman; it had freaked both her and Buddy out at first. Especially Buddy. He often remarked on how unnatural and unpleasant it must be for an aja to wear ‘clothes’, as he called them.

They walked briskly, but the girl she had been told to wait for was already there, seated atop a black stallion. Cal gave Buddy a small, subtle kick to let him know that this was his fault, but he chose to interpret it as a sign to speed up. She jerked forward when he broke into an unexpected canter, but was well enough used to her aja’s unpredictable nature to be able to hold her seat. Buddy pulled up sharply next to the black stallion and rounded his neck, leaning forward to exchange a nonverbal greeting. He hadn’t yet met an aja on Shaman which could talk, but he lived in hope.

“Hello,” Cal smiled and touched her heart, which was the ker equivalent of a handshake. She was careful to use her professional voice, too. “Are you Alethea? My name’s Cal, and this is Buddy. We’ve been assigned to be with you today.”

The girl was exactly as described: tall and pretty, with honey-coloured hair and stunning blue eyes. Prior to coming to Shaman, Cal had never seen blue eyes on anyone except Buddy. Alethea’s weren’t as bright as Buddy’s – which were startling in their hue of electric blue – but they had a multi-layered quality to them which made them unique. Cal reached down to rub Buddy’s neck so as to avoid unprofessionally staring. It was all going rather well until she spotted the wolf. Unfortunately for Cal’s professionalism, nobody had thought to tell her about Alethea’s familiar.

“Wolf!” She yelped, flinging one arm out in front of Alethea and reaching for her spitter with the other. Buddy flicked his head up abruptly and pointed his ears forward, stamping his hoof in alarm. Later, he would pretend he’d done it to try and scare the wolf away. Her spitter was in her hand quicker than a blink, and she kept both it and her eyes trained on the wolf while she pointed back towards the stables. “Get back in there and lock the door.”