Evergreen Tirohanga Trek

Botanical Beginning

The Florian Express pulled up to a small barn amongst a forest. The members of Formal Friesians Riding School got out of their seats, grabbing their horse's lead ropes and leading them through the front gate. A black and white dog came bolting toward the crowd, greeting them with lots of sniffs. The students were patting the dog, as a lady came out from the barn. "Hello! You must be Formal Friesians." She said, placing a saddle near a bay snowcap Appaloosa. "I'm Madeline Reynolds, and I will be your trekking leader." She introduced. "Great! I'm Tien Bush, and the rest of these losers can introduce themselves." Tien said. "Mysie-Iris Paulson." "Gage Parnorm Witherwilt!" "Fries." "Cassiopeia, call me Cassie though." "Alex." "Carbs Cocoa." "Katelyn, or Kate!" "Zari!" "Hippolyte." The others announced their names.

"Nice to meet you all! You can start tacking up, then we can head off when we're all ready!" Madeline declared, grooming the horse she was going to ride. The others started to do the same. Once they were all done tacking up and preparing, they attached some light saddlebags onto their saddles, then mounted. Madeline swung her leg over her Appaloosa. "This is Capellini, she will be the trekking co-leader. And Winnie will be following along with us." She said, pointing to her horse, then to the dog that greeted the 10 earlier. "All right, let's head off then! We've got a long ride ahead of us." Madeline exclaimed, opening the gate and letting everyone out. Once Hippo rode out of the gate, Madeline shut it and realised what she just saw. "Wait, are you a dog riding a horse?" She asked. "Yeah." Hippo replied. "Interesting... Okay, let's go!"

Capellini trotted in front of the rest of the horses, leading the other riders to a path that travelled through the forest. They all walked behind Madeline and Capellini, admiring the quietness of the forest in it's serenity as Winnie played around with the fallen sticks everywhere. Tien tried to slide her clipboard from her saddlebag, struggling as Florian stepped on the bumpy trail. "All right, cabin sorting time! I'll share with Fries, Mysie stays with Carbs, Gage gets Alex, Kate watches Cassie, and Zari supervises Hippo." She announced, hearing booing from Fries, Carbs, and Cassie. "You unholy bottlecaps got to share with Gage the other 3 trips, be grateful." The other chaos group members glared at Alex jealously.

Alex managed to control Gloria to shuffle towards Gage and Prancer, still going along the path. She observed as Gage wrote down some notes about the environment in a miniature notebook. She then noticed a bundle of white and green flora in the corner of her eye, turning to face it. She managed to lower her body near the ground, still staying in the saddle, picking the flowers from the bunch of wood anemones. She pulled herself back up, seeing Gage looking at her. "What was the purpose of that?" The nerd asked. "You know I like flowers. These are wood anemones!" Alex smiled, showing the flowers to Gage. "Ah, anemone nemorosas!" Gage said. "Yeah, they're pretty, aren't they?" Alex questioned, sniffing the flowers with all of her remaining oxygen. "Precisely!" Alex carefully placed the wood anemones in the empty part of her saddlebag.

Winnie ran past all of the members, holding a large stick and jogging next to Capellini. Hippo stared at the stick, mesmerised by it. "Lucky." She whispered to herself. The ground below them started to become smoother, with only a few rocks around. Madeline grabbed the stick from Winnie. "When I throw the stick, we can canter for a bit until it gets bumpy again." She said as she threw the stick. Winnie dashed off to locate it, and the horses instantly changed gaits, being influenced by each other. Winnie started running back with the stick in her mouth again, mimicking the horse's movements and moving along with them all. Everyone was enjoying the moment, going at a fast pace through a green-filled scene with dust flying around, as Mysie recorded some of it with her phone to post on the Formal Friesians Riding School Instagram later.

They all kept riding through, when the leader noticed a log on the track. "You're all advanced English riders, right?" She asked the members behind her. "Yeah." Tien replied, also seeing the obstacle ahead. "Well, let's hope we can all jump this log." Madeline shouted, lowering her heels more. Capellini leaped over the log, and so did the Friesians behind her. Madeline slowed her horse down, making the others slow down as well. Winnie hopped over the log, trying to catch up with the horses, with the stick in her mouth again. The path started to get rough again, and the placement of the trees seemed familiar to the trekking leader. "There's going to be a stream coming up, are all of your horses good with water?" She questioned, hoping for no mishaps. "Mine isn't..." Fries said, patting Nova. "All right, no worries, there's also a bridge. I'll take you over it." Madeline reassured, calming the class clown.