Salvatore

"Things got a lot easier when I paired up with Salvatore."

"Who's that?"

"He was my horse. Stumbled across him the middle of my first winter. Shortly after the Energon soup incident, actually. He'd gotten himself tangled pretty bad in some barbed wire, and I cut him loose and nursed him back to health. He never voluntarily left my side after that."

His eyes lit up. "You had a horse? What kind was he?"

She gave him a sideways smile. "I take it you like horses?"

He blushed a bit. "Yeah. Maria, one of my older sisters, knows a lot more about them than I do, but I've picked up a bit from her."

"I gotcha. Nuthin' wrong with being a little horse crazy." Raf giggled. "Anyway, Salvatore was pure PRE." He looked confused for a moment. "Andalusian," she clarified. "Gorgeous blood bay stallion. Twelve years old when I found him, two diagonal socks, a stocking in the front, and the most perfect star and snip I've ever seen. Near as I could tell, he jumped the fence to get at some mustang mares a few years before, and went feral. The summer after I rescued him, I saw a faded reward poster. Turned out he was part of a stud farm. Took him to his rightful owners, claimed the reward, and he escaped about a month later. The trainer couldn't handle him anymore, and the owner decided to put him down. I had been missing him, and got to the property line just in time to see the head honcho come out with a gun in his hands. Salvatore dodged, took a shot across the shoulder, and kicked the dickens out of both guys just before I stepped in there and busted him out. Took him straight back to camp, and we never looked back."

Raf's eyes were the size of dinner plates. "They were going to kill him?! Why?"

"He'd gone feral, and now had a bunch of scars. Can't show with scars, and you can't show, sell, or breed a horse that you can't handle. In their eyes, he was useless. I don't agree with it at all, but what can you do?" She shook her head. "They were just too lazy to put in the effort to get through to him. Once he stopped being mad at me for taking him back, he was a total sweetheart. Stunning Dressage horse too."

"How did you know he was mad at you?"

She chuckled. "Lil' stinker broke my toe. Looked me right in the eye, ears pinned back, and deliberately stepped on only that one toe. Used just enough weight to break it, but not crush it. I was limping for a week after, and he refused to let me ride him for a bit, even after both of us had healed."

He laughed. "I didn't know horses were that smart!"

"Smart enough to laugh at me anytime he saw me hobbling around afterwards. He'd bob his head and give me what could only be described as a smirk." Addie got a faraway look in her eyes.

The preteen had to sit down, he was laughing so hard.

She shook her head again. "Yeah, it's pretty funny now, but at the time, I was hopping mad. Literally, hoppin' around, clutching my poor toe, cussin' him out while he just stood there with that smug look on his face."

Raf started wheezing, tears of mirth rolling down his cheeks. "Stop… I- I can't take any more!"