For the most part Samuel enjoyed riding with Lena despite the fact that Abyss ran so quickly and Goldy Lox had a hard time keeping up.
The princess didn't say much to him while they were riding. She only looked back occasionally to make sure that he was still behind her. From his perspective though, it seemed like she was enjoying riding so much that he was a secondary thought.
Samuel had to admit when he was thinking of horse riding, he wasn't expecting something so quick paced. He was hoping for something at a lighter speed so that he could get a chance to take in the scenery and figure out exactly how far the land that they owned ran for.
It was hard to tell how long they had been riding because it was hard to check one's phone when riding bareback without the risk of accidentally dropping said phone. The only way Samuel was able to guess was by how far the sun had moved in the sky and the rise in the temperature told him it was probably getting closer to noon.
He couldn't deny that it was fun still though, like riding the motorcycle with the princess, this had a touch of a thrill to it and a sense of freedom because of the feeling of the sun and wind on him. It was almost soothing in a sense.
The fun quickly ended for him however when they reached a slope, it was stepper than he had expected. The way Lena had gotten Abyss to go down it without much of a break in speed made Samuel think that Goldy Lox wouldn't have much of a problem either. He was wrong however, or perhaps it was his own nervous that got that better than him when she started the descending it.
For a split second he panicked when it felt as though he was being thrown to far forward as she galloped in a downward vertical direction, her speed didn't break much as she tried to go down the slope as quickly as possible. The panic made Samuel tug the bridal a little more sharply than he meant to but that was all it took to startle her and cause her to shift her position all too quickly. She managed to not lose her footing, Samuel however was tossed off her back and over her head.
Thankfully by the time that this had happened, she was mostly down the slope, thus the tumble he took wasn't too far but the way he landed still ended up hurting his back though he managed to avoid hitting his head. The tumble also rattled him enough to give him a strong case of vertigo that stopped him from moving out of the uncomfortable position that he landed in.
"I told you not to panic if you didn't want to end up getting tossed like this." His vision was still swimming, but he could tell that Lena was standing above him. He couldn't tell however if the look on her face was something of concern or annoyance over the fact that she had to stop because he didn't listen to her.
"I wasn't used to going down a slope like that, especially not at that type of speed." He replied, wincing as he tried to sit up. He could nothing was broken but that he probably had sprained a muscle in his back and maybe sprained his left ankle from the mild ache he felt in it.
"You watched me. That should've been enough to make you trust that you would've been fine. Even for an unexperienced rider Goldy is good at navigating even the most difficult terrain. She wouldn't have dropped you if you hadn't scared her and messed with her focus." Lena scolded him, but held her hand out to help him up if he needed it.
He was appreciative of this, but didn't appreciate being scolded while he was in pain and already felt annoyed with himself for making such a silly mistake.
"I guess since you've tried to kill yourself now, we should be heading back, it's getting later anyways and I don't want to be late for dance practice." Lena told him once he was standing up and had regained his balance. There didn't seem to be any reason to worry about him having hurt his head, the rest of his body was just a little worse for wear.
"Does that mean we are going to have to go back up the slope that we just came down?" he asked, if that ended up being the case, he would rather just keep riding for a while longer before having to deal with it again.
"No, there's a different way to go back, it just takes a while longer than this, though it is safer." She replied. Samuel only realized once he was standing up that without a bridal, Abyss was standing by Goldy Lox waiting patiently for him and the princess to sort out whatever was going on before they could get back to riding.
"You're going to have to get back on her without the help of the stool this time." She told him as she came back over to the two horses. Looking at the golden horse in front of him who seemed far taller than she did earlier now that he hurt his back, Samuel wondered how he was supposed to get back on her without a step up to get his leg over since she didn't have a saddle.
"Um, how exactly am I supposed to accomplish that?" He asked, feeling a bit embarrassed that he didn't know as much about horse riding as he thought he did. Lena rolled her eyes at him for asking this question.
"Were you really not taught that many commands to give horses back when you learned to ride or did you just forget them all?" Her tone was as sharp as always, if there had been any concern for him before, it was completely gone now.
"Watch what I do with Abyss and see if you can copy it with her." Lena told him. Approach the horse who seemed to be eyeing her like now that she was ready to get back on him, he wasn't going to be having any of that. Rubbing his muzzle she tried to calm him down so that he would focus on her rather than the fact that he was close to freedom where he could bolt away if he liked. After a few seconds she made some type of clicking sound with her mouth. It took a few seconds but much to Samuel's surprise, Abyss lowered himself that he was almost laying down, but still slightly propped up.
In this position, the little queen had no problem getting on his back, she made another noise and shifted back into a standing position.
"You should be able to do it no problem, if you can't you'll probably have to walk back." If he hadn't seen the slight mischievous look in her eyes when she said this, he would've thought she was being serious about leaving him behind. He wouldn't exactly put it past her considering she had said earlier it wouldn't be much of a lose if he ended up dying while riding because he made a foolish mistake.
Sighing he tried to ignore the ache in his back as he approached Goldy Lox who still seemed agitated after what had happened. It had been so many years since he rode that he forget horses could be easily startled by unexpected events. He tried to do what Lena did with Abyss and rub her muzzle and mane to try and get her to calm down, he even moved the bridal a bit to what he hoped was more comfortable position for her.
It took longer to calm her down than it had Abyss and he could tell that Lena was getting annoyed the longer he took, she wanted to get back after all before she was late for dance practice. It wasn't a matter of worrying about getting yelled at for being late or anything, she had as much flexibility as she wanted about showing up. For her it was an issue with the fact that no matter what the occasion was, she hated to be late.
At first, Goldy didn't seem to understand what Samuel was asking for her to do when he tried to mimic the sound that he was certain the princess had made when she got Abyss to lay down. The horse instead just looked at him confused as she appeared to try and discern what he was wanting.
"You're doing it wrong." was all Lena said as he struggled to try and figure out how to copy the sound that she made. Words were one thing, but it was a lot harder to copy a noise someone else made than most people thought.
"Can't you help me then since you're so impatient to get back?" Samuel asked beginning to feel exasperated from the ache in his back and being also ready to head back to the estate where he knew it was going to be much cooler inside.
"If I show you, it'll only be this once so you better make sure to remember it or practice it on you own." Lena told him as she got Abyss to move back over to Goldy. Lena motioned for Samuel to hand her the reigns of the bride.
"Listen carefully." She told him as she repeated the noise that she had made that had gotten Abyss to lay down. She had to repeat it a second time before the horse complied, most likely because she had been confused from trying to understand what Samuel had wanted her to do.
"Are you sure that they don't listen to me because they're not used to my voice?" He asked as got onto Goldy's back and positioned himself carefully to both support his back and hopefully not get knocked off again.
"Animals aren't stupid, yes they can be biased against a person if they don't treat them and might chose to not listen to them because of that. When it comes to commands however, they're trained to obey regardless of who gives them. If they don't, it's because the person directing them is messing up the order." She retorted, handing the reigns back to him.
"We don't have time to waste talking about this though. We need to already be heading back before I end up being late. Don't think just because you banged yourself up a bit that means you won't be attending dance practice with me. The best way to work out a sprained muscle is to keep it active otherwise it'll get stiff and hurt me."
Samuel felt his moral drop after hearing this, but couldn't tell her that as she had already taken off expecting him to follow her. She was harsher than he had expected and pretty sure that more activity wasn't the answer to helping a sprained muscle recover. It wasn't like she was going to listen to him though if he tried to explain this to her.