[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/zxCVJno.png[/img][/center][hr][center][b]LOCATION:[/b] Ragadel Ranch
[b]WITH:[/b] Shamie[/center][hr]
[color=d56a49]"Morning, Miss!"[/color] Val gave a jaunty salute as she entered the field and tied off the gate again behind her. That was rule one to making sure the horses and the ules stayed where they ought to be: keep everything secured. Nobody had ever said she was a slow learner. (Or, well, they had, but that was when they were teaching oral histories and pretty useless elven sagas, not unicorn care!).

[color=d56a49]"Yes! It sure is a good one, isn't it? Sorry I'm late. There's a warren of pompadours in my backyard – well, not my backyard, but in the space beside my garden, you know, where the grass is all [i]foof[/i]––"[/color]

She paused to gesture with her hand against her upper thigh to illustrate the length of the grass but apparently had no need to pause for breath, because she continued, [color=d56a49]"And I got up early to watch them, but then I realised, they're not going to come out unless I feed them, and if I feed them, then I'm taking on the responsibility of feeding them [i]forever[/i], so I was dwelling on it. I meant to get here by proper dawn."[/color]

Just when it might have seemed like she'd ran out of things to say, and was toeing the ground with her thick leather boots, the sawdust burning behind the curtain sparked a flame of remembrance. The crumpled piece of parchment was pulled from the pocket of her duster and pushed towards Shamie. [color=d56a49]"Oh! [i]And[/i] there's something about hosting a festival in town. Human shindig, the Celebration of Stars, but anyone can volunteer 'cause we're one big blendy family here. If they did one for ours last season we must have missed it for the set-up, so... it could be nice if we– I mean, if [i]someone[/i] did something to help out with this one."[/color]

As if an automaton, Val noticed her employer's current task of feeding the animals and fell into step, picking up where she ought to be helping in her duties: checking on the horses and the ules (never the wild ones), then mucking out the stalls where Losgann was also stabled.

Come to think of it, Val had missed her own birthday, too – completely forgotten in the wake of setting up the ranch and ferrying messages to and fro. Did people even celebrate birthdays out here, or was it just her?