This has been sitting in a folder since 2006, waiting to be edited... Whoops.
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Amongst Miri's scant possessions, ready to be packed at a moment's notice, is a small conch shell picked off the rocky beach by her childhood home. She'd wanted to make a clean break from the life she'd known, but her mother had pushed it firmly into her hands right in front of everyone, and she could hardly refuse it.
There you are, love. Now you can hear the ocean no matter how far in-land you are.
She had resolved earlier not to cry, but seeing her strong, no-nonsense mother weeping into her father's shoulder (she hadn't batted an eyelash at seeing a single one of her sons off to sea), Miri was undone.
Taking the first step towards the Rider recruitment stall at the fair (the first step away from her family) was the hardest thing she's ever done.
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She travels back to the castle with a small group. They don't ride, to her relief. There aren't enough horses for everyone.
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When Miri was little, she'd wanted to be a fisherman. She always knew that women on boats were considered Bad Luck (even saw the practical applications of not decimating the population of a country by having women die in shipwrecks), but never fully understood that it would also apply to her until her little brother was taken out fishing with her father for the first time, leaving Miri at home.
Stories of the Riders had trickled down, and she decided she would do something where she didn't get held back for a stupid superstition. She was tough, she could read and write, and she welcomed an exploratory life where she could be away for long periods of time. Except for the small problem of never having been on a horse, Miri felt she was a shoe-in. The recruiting officer agreed, and said they would teach her to ride later; they welcomed people from all walks of life. Miri went home and packed that night. Riders travel light.
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Miri finds the ponies mercurial – foul tempered at times, sweet and placid at others. Clever and tricky, not entirely trainable, and she likes them a lot.
The crest and wave of ponies in a herd are her sea, and so Miri does not miss the ocean very often. Mostly she just misses the smell: the brine, the salt, the sea air. Ponies smell of must and dust, fields, and forests, and very much of pony. Riders generally smell somewhat worse. Miri keeps her conch for the smell, but eventually it gets faint.
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Finding her seat is harder than getting her sea legs (Miri can't remember back that far, anyways), but it's just matter of adjusting her weight and balance to the motion of another unstable surface. Once she gets the hang of it, she would rather ride than walk.
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Miri thought she would miss her home more, but the truth is, she has no time to miss it. She is constantly learning, working, talking with friends, scrubbing down her ponies, scrubbing her tack, and the list goes on.
One night she dreams of drowning; she flails as wave after wave crashes after head, dragging her down. She wakes up with a start, and darts her eyes about to see if she's woken any of her roommates, but no one so much as twitches. She relaxes her tense limbs and gets back her breath, flaring nostrils inhaling the salty smell of her sweat. Looking over, she can see that the conch shell her mother gave her is sitting on a chair beside her bed. She wraps it round and round in yards of bandages and places it on the small shelf given to her for her personal belongings. Miri doesn't belong to the sea anymore.
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