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The Fire Demon

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TIS DONE :D The month from hell is over, I promise the rest of the season will breeze by in comparison. Also look at my Lucifer baby all growed up *FLAIL* Go have one. Do it. I dare you.

WARNING : Hella long. But its done!

Marzanna was as silent as the grave in the paddock at Saratoga. The day was sweltering, swollen with humidity, but the massive filly showed no signs of even noticing. Everyone around her was drenched with sweat, attempting to look somewhat elegant for the GIII Schuylerville, but at the same time struggling to even care. Jonah was still clinging to the fact that Hallie was coming back and therefore seems to hold it together a bit better than everyone else. Scout was back at the shed row pretending the world didn’t exist, biding her time for escape. The black War Emblem colt had magically come through surgery with flying colors, patient and easy for once in his life. The surgical center had called Jonah twice already to compliment his incredible behavior. It only left a sinking sensation in Jonah’s stomach, he’d thought the colt was crazed and stupid but brilliantly fast. Now he was beginning to wonder if he’d had it wrong, if the colt understood the world on a level that some people can’t even get close to. Understood that he was hurt bad, but not bad enough to retire should he be good and heal properly.

“What’s the plan boss?” Mal Quinn asked suddenly, breaking Jonah’s ramblings.

“Just let her run,” he grunted, Mal's question was a stupid one they'd discussed strategy all last night, but habits die hard. “Let her do what she does. The competition is stiffer, but it ain’t that stiff. Let’s just see what she’s got today, alright?” Jonah finished because it seemed necessary.

Mal nodded and gave the filly on long glance. The filly did not return the gaze, her eyes were stuck to the dark space that led to the track, her heart was already out there. The call came and Sal boosted the jockey up. Marzanna swung out walking in that sure walk of hers. The bystanders had been paying attention to her in the way that bettors and handicappers do, detached, critical, doubtful. In that moment though the eyes who’d never seen her walk before opened wide. Jonah couldn’t help but grin underneath his fedora, yes a few of them would be running to change their bets.

Despite the overwhelming physical presence of Marzanna, her inscrutable pedigree ( a daughter of a Triple Tiara winner and an Australian legend), she was not the favorite. Rather that honor had gone to a self-assured chestnut, a half-sister Shackleford, who’d done her best to emulate her older brother’s pre race antics. Already she was drenched in sweat, her bulked up body writhing and flaunting her insane musculature. Jonah wondered about steroids for a moment, but ultimately decided that the filly just took after the rest of her family in being broad, bulky, sprinter types.

“She’s going to provide speed Mar hasn’t seen yet,” Mal muttered from atop the filly. Jonah didn’t glance up, just nodded.

“Course Mar never seems all too attached to early speed,” he continued, talking more to himself than the trainer.

They reached the track. Sal let the filly go and Jonah gave the kid a pat on the shoulder before heading up to John McCailen’s box. John and Travis were waiting, both looking considerably cooler than everyone else. John looked off somehow, the circles under his eyes were darker. Travis was simply Travis. Jonah hadn’t seen the young man in a few months but it looked as though he’d grown another two inches and put on 30 pounds of muscle. He looked better, less like a scrawny boy and more like a man.

“So you think the filly’s a good one?” John asked offering Jonah a hand.

Jonah always found it amusing that John always asked about the horse the second Jonah walked into that box. Jonah had talked to John twice today, once at 5:30 and again at 10 after the filly had gone for a slow job around the track. They’d spent three hours discussing the filly, her potential, her apparent talent, her impending future. All of it.

Travis’s mouth twisted into a smirk. Hey, maybe the kid was developing a sense of humor.

“Yeah John. I do.”

John gave a nod as though the few words had been the most reassuring phrase in the world.

“What of the Poltergeist colt?”

“He’s good too. We’ll see tomorrow how good. He’s not bad to deal with and he’s got a hell of a stride.”

“It’s that El Diablo blood. I should have gotten my hands on it sooner,” John muttered.

“You’ve got it now,” Jonah said simply, eyes glued to the big bay filly’s warm-up. Nothing had gone wrong yet.

“Yes. Yeah. I suppose. How’s the Nicostratus filly? Mac Paulson called me the other day, saw her out for a walk, said she’s a real looker.”

“She is. She hasn’t figured herself out yet though.”

“He offered to buy her.”

Jonah arched an eyebrow, “How much?”

“200 grand.”

Jonah shook his head, “Keep her. Her pedigree isn’t anything special but she’s got grit. Grit’s a priceless commodity, you know that John.”

Funny, Travis was the one who silently nodded to that. John just stared at Marzanna as she slipped into the gate like a fish.

“The Achak colt?” he said releasing a breath as the filly settled and disappeared behind the metal bars, settled and comfortable.

“Small. A brat. Everything I told you he would be. He’s building up though. I think by fall he’ll be ready to start. She loves him you know.”

John turned and raised his eyebrows, “What the filly? Marzanna?”

Jonah nodded, “She’s desperately in love with him. Only thing she loves.”

John laughed at that, “Really? What a funny thing.”

Jonah was beginning to find it not so funny, John could afford to find the attachment amusing, he could not. Two days ago Jonah had tried to work her out early before the leerers and stopwatches came to gawk at her. He’d taken her out alone and watched her have a meltdown. The filly who never showed anything nearly fell over from a self-induced panic attack the second she realized that Ash wasn’t meeting her out at the track. The colt had been rushed out in just a halter, and immediately she slipped right back into the ice princess routine.

For some reasons racing without him didn’t bother her, she always bumped his nose on the way out of the shed row and kept right on going without a concern. On her way back she bumped his nose and then once cooled off and fed would pass out on the ground, completely comfortable with life.
The ring of the gate releasing jarred Jonah out of his thoughts.

“Holy shit!” Travis shouted in tandem with it as Marzanna was nearly knocked to her knees by a flighty gray.
Jonah’s heart stopped for a full ten seconds, he knew because he counted. The filly had come back clean from her encounter with the black demon but could those knees withstand more abuse?

Apparently they could.

Nearly knocking Mal off in the process the filly surged forward, out for blood, hitting that incredible cruising speed within three strides. The chestnut panicked, and lurched forward, unused to being challenged quite so soon. She wobbled left to right as Marzanna set her sights straight ahead, burning up the dirt as she took the widest path for home. The dark devil cocked her head once to acknowledge the chestnut flailing beside her and then like a bullet dug a route straight home. Mal rocked uselessly atop her, the other fillies had barely made their way around the turn as she pummeled the home stretch with fury and passion the likes that Jonah had never seen. She came in fifteen lengths ahead of the chestnut.

Stillness overtook the entire grandstand, everyone shocked into silence by what they’d just seen. The filly didn’t care though, she snorted and arched her long neck, fully aware in that moment of her own greatness. The ice queen act had been dropped for the slightest second as she celebrated her own sheer power in the sweltering heat of Saratoga’s homestretch.

***

“She tried Jonah. I don’t know,” Luc said with a shake of his head.

Zahra, the she in question, let out a shake breath. The three year old was blowing hard, head low, and nostrils bright red in their effort to cycle enough air into her lungs. The Coaching Club American Oaks (GI) had gone off and ended not twenty minutes ago. In that time Jonah had watched his filly hold first two furlongs from the wire only to be speed dueled to the end by a pair of chestnuts. The winner a little golden thing from out west had ended up triumphing over the other by 7 lengths. Zahra had come in a very defeated third. She’d been hosed twice, and was in the process of being walked by a very sympathetic Sal. Luc felt he’d done everything right, shit he knew he’d done everything right, he’d seen the replays in the jocks room on his way out to attempt to explain everything to Jonah.

Jonah just gawked at the Hard Spun filly looking as confused as Luc felt. It didn’t make any sense, the filly was so well conditioned that she’d become difficult to physically manage simply because she was holding so much lean muscle on her 16.1 hand frame. She had broken well from the gate, had settled in her usual position, and went through all the motions perfectly only to come up short.

Finally Jonah shook his head, “Sal get Estefan to call the vet. Just to be sure. Watch her close okay?”

The boy nodded and led the filly off. Jonah let out a sigh and turned offering his hand.

“Good job kid.”

Luc took it but he didn’t feel that the compliment was even remotely deserved.

***

It would have been a lie to think that Paranormal would be able to do anything half as impressive that Sunday in the GII Sanford. Still Jonah was fairly positive that the white splashed Poltergeist son had something worth showing off. The colt was a bit up in terms of personality during the saddling and whatnot, but by the time Luc had the colt out to the track itself he seemed to have settled. He wasn’t all fire like his sire had been, but he certainly had some spark in him.

Unlike the Schuylerville the day before the Sanford was proving to be a difficult race to call. Paranormal was currently sitting in the center of the odds, behind three undefeated maiden winners. Honestly that was were Jonah preferred to be at this stage in the colt’s development. There was more riding on this colt than the devil filly, John had seen Kentucky Derby the second his mother had dropped him to the straw, but John wasn’t so convinced. Sure he was precocious now, but Jonah didn’t see a reason to push it. Poltergeist came back incredibly strong in his later years, and Dol Niwlog never quite mastered her own long frame.

This colt seemed more comfortable in his own skin than either of them, but he was only 2. The classics could wait in Jonah’s opinion. Owners were owners though, and John wanted his best hope for glory running in the best the summer had to offer. He was a real fine looking animal too. Masculine, long like his mother but tall enough to offset that quite a bit, he was well balanced and had rather straight legs. He had a massive chest and barrel, but his hindquarters were lacking a bit. He was the start of a good horse, a great horse even, but Jonah couldn’t help but want more time to get him there.

There was no time left to have though. The colt was in the gate and out of it before Jonah could finishing wishing for time, he broke a little too strongly to the left, but Luc’s hands prevented him from veering into the bay colt beside him. After that he floundered a bit, boxed in and unsure of what his own body had in it to give. Luc let him be confused up to the turn, then the jockey expected a response. Like magic a hole opened up and the colt made a decision to bolt forward.

It was no means a well-executed move, he wobbled a bit, balked at the big steamroller of a colt on his right, but managed to get past him on moxy he no doubt inherited from his sire. The front runners, a rose gray and a chestnut, were in the midst of a rather impressive speed duel. Paranormal did not seem inclined to join them until Luc tapped him with the whip. Almost with resignation the splash colt pushed forward to pick the faltering chestnut off. The grey though was better, more experienced, he’d seen Paranormal coming and had thrust all his adrenaline forward, beating the Poltergeist son by two and a half lengths.

“Second, not bad, not the filly, but he’s young yet,” John recited to himself.

Personally Jonah was just happy it was over. So happy that he scarcely noticed on Monday that all of Scout's things were neatly gone.



Name: Marzanna (A Slavic goddess of death, winter, and nightmares. I know, lovely name, but I mean she is the daughter of Lucifer, she earned it :D)
Nickname: Mar, Zan, Zannie, Devil Mare, Ice Princess
Gender: Filly
Breed: Thoroughbred
Age: 2
Height: 17.0hh
Color: Bay
Markings: Two hind socks and a wild blaze
Genotype: EE Aa
Discipline: racing
Preferred Distance: Not Applicable
Running Style: Not Applicable
Sire/Dam: Lucifer x Saba
Offspring: None
For Stud/Lease: No (too young)
Personality: Calculating and cold she moves as though she owns the entire universe, therefore all other living beings simple exist in her world and are treated accordingly. She was born independent and intelligent and has a knack for thinking her way in and out of trouble. Shows little affection to any other creature save Ashkii who won her over by sheer perseverance.
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© 2012 - 2024 Geronimo24
Comments6
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sealle's avatar
8D

honestly, im in love with the Ice queen. I am going to need to steal her one day for babies!