Peaceful's just a nicer word for boring. [ She's maybe a little disgusted by it, the idea of spending her whole life on the farm, had spent years trying to figure out how to get away from it. Peaceful isn't perfection; living in the quiet of the country doesn't mean escape from stress and unpleasantness. It just lacks the noise and resources of the city.
There's a small pause, and she sighs, gets a comb from the shelf. Her tone gains a thoughtfulness when she adds, ] But there was this one back meadow that no one really had time to take care of. And in the spring, April and May, the whole thing would be covered in wildflowers, mostly weeds. Daisy weeds, milkweed, dandelions, that kinda stuff. When I was outta school for spring break, I'd wake up and put everyone in the pasture, then take the horses out there and let 'em run. Ridley, that was my boy, he was a big ol' draft horse that someone worked too hard, sold him for a song when he couldn't pull weight anymore. My uncle, he had a real soft heart, wound up buyin' him just to keep him alive, and I got put in charge of gettin' his weight back up, makin' sure he recovered. Just basic stuff. He wound up livin' until... [ until Captain Trips killed most of the animals ] until things went bad, and he loved that field. Even if I wasn't ridin', he just wanted to lay out in the sun and eat clover, he'd bother me all day if I left him in the paddock instead. That was peaceful.
[ She hasn't exactly been paying attention to what she's doing with her hands while she talks, and she realizes abruptly that she's long finished combing out his hair. It's not something she usually thinks about, the actual parts of her life before the pandemic that she'd liked; it's almost always easier to keep those memories tucked away in locked boxes in the back of her mind. It's simpler to remember all the things and people she hated, that Trips let her slough off like dead skin in her journey to Vegas, because losing things you wanted to lose anyway doesn't hurt. But Ridley, the horses -- she'd always planned, in her mind, to have horses once she was away from Kansas, when she was rich and famous and had everything she wanted.
Careful to avoid the nasty welts marking his back, she drapes her arms over his shoulders, leans to one side to better see him. ] That castle, is that your home? It's beautiful. We don't have nothin' like that in America.
[ She treats that wolf no differently than she would treat a little yap-yap lapdog. People food and cuddles and belly rubs. It's not like she's never met a wolfdog before. They were very legal in Kansas. ]
no subject
There's a small pause, and she sighs, gets a comb from the shelf. Her tone gains a thoughtfulness when she adds, ] But there was this one back meadow that no one really had time to take care of. And in the spring, April and May, the whole thing would be covered in wildflowers, mostly weeds. Daisy weeds, milkweed, dandelions, that kinda stuff. When I was outta school for spring break, I'd wake up and put everyone in the pasture, then take the horses out there and let 'em run. Ridley, that was my boy, he was a big ol' draft horse that someone worked too hard, sold him for a song when he couldn't pull weight anymore. My uncle, he had a real soft heart, wound up buyin' him just to keep him alive, and I got put in charge of gettin' his weight back up, makin' sure he recovered. Just basic stuff. He wound up livin' until... [ until Captain Trips killed most of the animals ] until things went bad, and he loved that field. Even if I wasn't ridin', he just wanted to lay out in the sun and eat clover, he'd bother me all day if I left him in the paddock instead. That was peaceful.
[ She hasn't exactly been paying attention to what she's doing with her hands while she talks, and she realizes abruptly that she's long finished combing out his hair. It's not something she usually thinks about, the actual parts of her life before the pandemic that she'd liked; it's almost always easier to keep those memories tucked away in locked boxes in the back of her mind. It's simpler to remember all the things and people she hated, that Trips let her slough off like dead skin in her journey to Vegas, because losing things you wanted to lose anyway doesn't hurt. But Ridley, the horses -- she'd always planned, in her mind, to have horses once she was away from Kansas, when she was rich and famous and had everything she wanted.
Careful to avoid the nasty welts marking his back, she drapes her arms over his shoulders, leans to one side to better see him. ] That castle, is that your home? It's beautiful. We don't have nothin' like that in America.
[ She treats that wolf no differently than she would treat a little yap-yap lapdog. People food and cuddles and belly rubs. It's not like she's never met a wolfdog before. They were very legal in Kansas. ]