19653/All the pretty little horses

All the pretty little horses
Date of Scene:	12 December 2024
Location:	Horse Stables
Synopsis:	Hope and Monet chat about everything and noting in the stables while Hope grooms a horse. Perhaps soon there'll be an addition to the stable?
Cast of Characters:	Monet St. Croix, Hope Summers

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Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet is wandering around when she picks up a moderately familiar psionic signal. Coming from the stables. There are no real signs of a panicked arrival, so that probably means she's going to enter into a scene that she imagines will be, despite Hope's great protestations otherwise, incredibly adorable.

Hope Summers has posed:
'...dapples and greys, pintos and bays,'

A soft alto comes from one of the stalls. A deep darkly colored rucksack lies just outside one of the stalls, and within, a bay horse with a white star upon its forehead has her head down to the ministrations of a brush.

Hope is there, rhythmically brushing the longer coat of the winter-horse, a hum where words may be as she continues.

And while Monet may pick up her particular 'mark', that particular ability wanders in the other mutant's direction. She doesn't lift her head, but the singing stops, and her voice rises softly, "Hey," in greeting.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would glance at HOpe, "Ms. Summers, I hope the season finds you well and that you are in good cheer." Hope is here and is brushing the mane of a horse, and seems to be relaxed. Something that she never thought she would see, the girl having a soldier's mentality just like her adoptive father. But, Cable had shown up for Thanksgiving so perhaps there was more to it than she thought.

"You do seem to be relaxed."

Hope Summers has posed:
"Season? Oh.. that's right," and there's a hint of color. She's not one to celebrate 'the holidays'. Asks too much of her, and the last thing she'd want is resentment to cloud her abilities. After all, if she //expects// to have time off, there is that feeling of a 'lack of readiness'. And if there's one thing her father's taught her?

Always be ready.

Hope shrugs and continues work on the mane, pulling some of the straw bedding from the black, thick horse hair. "I was just looking for a moment." She smiles slightly, a single shoulder shrugging as if almost embarrassed for that moment. "Was a song I remembered."

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would nod, "Would you care for me to sing it?" She would inquire over to HOpe. "If you only remember fragments of it. With your permission I could taket hose from yoru mind. And then we could sing it together then?" She would offer gently, seeing if that was something that the othe rgirl felt safe with.

It was a gentle offer, and a very un-M like one. Hope had earned her trust and had shown just a little bit of vulnerability.

Hope Summers has posed:
A breathy chuff of a laugh exits, the sound more intro" spective than amused. "It's okay. Dad actually might know it all." When she was part of a family, so many years ago now.

Hope shrugs, though it's not in any way dismissive. Just, a touch self-concious for showing another side. One meant for her and those 'pretty little horses'.

She takes a couple more brushes through the mane before her arm drops and turns to face the other young woman. "Thank you, though." And from all psychic indications, Hope means it truly; genuinely. "Ever have that little bit of 'home again' in your head? That wish that things just weren't the way they were, and it's all a bad dream?" It's an honest question; one not formed from anger, but self-reflection.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would nod over at Hope, "Very well. And yes, I have. I believe that everyone has." Her tone is soft and gentle. Her expression empathetic. And yet internally she can't help but wonder from what little she knows of the girl.. But mostly what she gets of her body language, how she presents herself, and that Cable is her father figure.

What part of her life could the girl have ever had that was a home and gave a sense of nromalcy that was not about war and the preparation for conflict?

Hope Summers has posed:
For all anyone knows, including herself, Nathan Summers is her father. Adoptive, certainly, but the only one she's ever known. And, for what it is, the one constant in her life. Cable and war. Two constants, rather.

Though, she once had a mother!

Hope gives Monet a long, lingering look before she nods slowly, more to her own thoughts than anything spoken. "Probably," she allows.

"Hey, pass me that stool? I want to braid her mane. Gives me something to do. It's a really great way to focus and not get tangled in the little pictures and losing focus of the bigger one."

She's quick to smile again, but it's there and gone; friendly. "Do you ever ride?"

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would go to pick up the stool over and then pass it over to Hope to let her be propped over on it and stand up, Monet going to ease herself a few feet away.

"I was given a proper education which included equestrian training as is standard." Because of course a rich girl educated at a private boarding school or private tutors or whatever life M had included all those sorts of things. "I understand that a great many here find it quite relaxing. You should ask Tabitha about her.. Adoptee sometime if you've not met them."

Hope Summers has posed:
Hope chuckles, the sound genuine. "Not the question," she teases. "But, with the stables here, I might look into getting my own." Something that sounds important to her. Not the horse per se, but.. //her own//.

Brows rise, and she nods her thanks, complete with a softly uttered 'thanks' before she pulls it over and steps up. The horse, naturally, takes a step back, juuuuust out of reach for where the redhead wants to start. "Okay, you're just being a jerk," to the horse.

"Tell me about them," she offers up conversationally. Nothing on //that// radar yet!

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would let out a sigh over, "Very well then, a proper education consisted of culture, history, tradition, etiquette.." Monet goes into listing all those sorts of things that a family that considered itself as close to nobility as possible and wanting to pass for it, and enough money to go through with it would possibly call for giving as the two would fade away.