Can it be fixed?

[hazel]

Hazel had been sent by her adoptive family to the saddelry. They only owned one horse and therefore only one saddle, when the father had the misfortune of going out for a ride to find that said saddle was defunct. The runaway fancied the walk to Knighton to see if there was any way the saddle could be mended. The fresh air would do her good, and it would be nice to talk to another adult instead of the gabbling of children.

Lugging the heavy piece of leather into Knighton, she soon found the stables and tentatively she walked in. "Hello? Is there anybody here?" She asked seeing no one straight away, and more than anything she hoped someone was in, the saddle was only getting heavier in her arms.

[conormccarthy]

The stables was a modest building, well-maintained wooden stalls arranged around three sides of a square un-cobbled courtyard. A wide stone arch at one corner of the courtyard led toward the blacksmith's buildings, and the house where the Smith's family lived. Under the arch, a doorway lead off to a small room where Conor sat tending to the tack.

The tack room had no windows, and was permanently laced with the smell of leather. To Conor, it was one of the most pleasant smells you could come across, though not everyone agreed. With a lull in the amount of leather working to do, Conor was free to spend some time oiling and polishing the tack. He liked to keep his own creations looking as pristine as possible, as Arnold said that customers admired those who took pride in their work.

So the stable hand could be found sat on a stool in the small gloomy room, carefully rubbing a piece of sheep's fleece over the leather straps of a bridle, cleaning and preserving it with a strong-scented wax-like mixture. Upon hearing the call of a lady's voice, Conor stood and hung the bridle back on its peg. Walking out into the blinding light of sunshine, Conor stretched out his stiffened joints and peered around for the caller.

He saw the brunette lady holding a saddle that looked far to heavy for her to carry. With a brisk walk, Conor approached her. He offered to take the saddle with a gesture and met her eyes with a fleeting glance. She was a fair bit shorter than his 5'10", and her hair was a rich brunette. His own hair was blond, bleached lighter from the sun and his eyes were a light blue or grey, though it was hard to tell when he would never look at a person.

"Conor, ma'am. How can I help?" He said, voice quiet and reserved with a hint of Irish brogue. The leather-worker was clearly not a confident man, despite his best efforts.

[hazel]

While waiting for someone to assist her, she looked took in her surroundings. For some reason the stables felt quite homely to her. The smells weren't pungent, or unpleasant, they seemed to add to the cosiness of the place. Hazel wasn't looking for a place to move in, she had a home of sorts. However the runaway did want her own place.

These thoughts were pushed aside when she glanced at some blonde hair emerging into the light. Then the face and especially the eyes, when his glimpsed to meet hers. There was no smile apparent smile and the brunette could sense he wasn't all that confident. "Thank you." Hazel smiled when he offered to take the weight of the saddle of her arms, which at present were shaking with the exertion. The former noble woman had to get used to all this manual labour and it was a steep learning curve.

"I'm afraid I don't know much about saddles, but this one is broken." A feeble laugh escaped her lips at how useless she felt. Trying to be of more use, she indicated the part of the saddle which had snapped and was in need of repair. In her opinion the old thing could've been scraped and a new one bought, but she just had to see if this one could be fixed. "Is there anything that can be done about it?" What she lacked in common knowledge, she made up for with talking.

[conormccarthy]

Conor took the saddle gently, supporting it with one long forearm. With his free hand, he inspected the saddle, lifting the flap and investigating the broken leather strap. To his practiced eye, it appeared the straps holding the stirrup leather to the saddle had worn and eventually snapped. Testing the weakened edge, the young man finally gave a nod.

"I can fix it. All it needs is another piece sewn here and here," He demonstrated by pointing at the relevant points, "To hold the lower end. It should hold steady for a long while." Hefting the weighty saddle Conor thought in passing that the tired old thing could do with lighter supports if women were expected to carry it around. His own saddles were typically a careful hybrid of wood and metal skeletons, with fleece or cotton stuffing and well-treated and expertly cut leather stretched over the frame. This saddle was functional, if a little crude.

Nodding toward the archway he had come from, Conor indicated for her to follow. He paused briefly to scratch a palomino mare's nose as he passed her stall, then led the woman through a low doorway into the stone-build building behind the stables. He bared left, heading toward the blacksmith's workshop. Before they reached the end of the corridor that opened into the furnace room, Conor opened a door to his right and put a wedge of wood under it to hold the door open.

He set the old saddle on a strangely-shaped stool-like construction that seemed to be built for the purpose of sitting saddles on. Thoughtfully, he put the only stool in the room to the side for the woman to sit on and he began to rummage through a pile of discarded leather pieces. He's failed to ask if she'd like to leave the saddle with him until it was fixed, but Arnold usually talked to the clients beforehand. Conor was a genius with leather and horses, but people were not his forte.

[hazel]

Rubbing her shaking arms as he explained what was needing work on. It didn't seem that difficult a task, and the blonde man seemed to know exactly what he was doing, which was probably why he worked here.

Hazel dutifully followed him, she had no other chores for the day to get on with, so the runaway decided that watching the leather worker was going to be of more interest than aimlessly wandering around. Walking past the Palomino, she decided to look and admire, not touching, just in case. It strangely reminded her of her own Dunn horse. The only thing of her former house that she missed. Still following the man closely, she didn't realise how big the stables were behind the scenes, much larger than she expected.

Once in the room just off from the main furnace, Hazel took the seat offered to her, and realised it had been quiet on the whole journey. It wasn't awkward, she might put him off if she spoke to him, but Hazel was sociable and sometimes just liked conversation, even if it wasn't of importance. "Have you worked here long?" It wasn't a slur on any of his abilities, she was simply curious about Conor, as she was for any new person she met.

[conormccarthy]

Conor glanced over his shoulder as she spoke, frowning back at the pile of leather and pulling out a strap that resembled a belt with no buckle or holes. He tilted his head back, lips moving as he thought about the answer. Conor was not a learned man, so he had only the bare knowledge of mathematics, reading and writing. He could read a little, but writing was completely beyond him. He could count enough to manage coins, though he preferred to avoid numbers when he could get away with it. "A few years. Four, maybe five." He answered, taking the strap and comparing it to the damaged part of the saddle. Marking a point with his thumb, he put the strap on the workbench that took up most of one wall and reached for a wicked-looking knife. The blade was small and short but had a deadly point on its end and the blade itself was well sharpened. Conor roughly cut a piece two or three inches long from the end. He then ran the knife lightly down the leather, scoring a line before running over it a few more times to cut neatly away a piece to narrow the strap.

He eyed the piece critically and seeming satisfied, took a few more pointed tools from a wooden box on the desk. He knelt before the saddle, lifting the flap that covered the point where the stirrup leather joined. The young man's lips pursed, and he looked over to the lady. "Could you hold up this flap, please?" He asked, appearing quite guilty that he had done so. The space he had to work in was quite tight, and he had left his clamps in the tack room that he usually used to aid him.

[hazel]

Conor was definitely a man of few words. Seemed her luck she was met with him, when she was very talkative. It wasn't a criticism, people were different and that's why she spent so much time trying to meet new people. Still as she watched him work, she could tell he took pride in what he did, how Conor paid every attention to detail. When he asked her for help, she smiled and stood up. Taking the flap off him and holding it like he had done. "This ok?" She didn't want to obstruct his work, having to carry the saddle all the way home and back again because of her interference wasn't going to be too much fun.

"If I might be so bold, you like working here don't you?" It was almost a challenge to see if she could make him open up more. There was something about him, she knew he was a kind man, but he simply remained silent. Maybe it was because he didn't know her, which made her remember she hadn't told him her name, when the worker had introduced himself. "I'm Hazel, I forgot to introduce myself, I'm sorry." Now she felt guilty, but somehow she felt he wouldn't be too bothered by her rudeness.

[conormccarthy]

Conor was glad for the assistance, and offered the fleetest of smiles, a small dimple denting his cheek before it faded just as quickly as it had come. "Perfect, thank you." He put the short piece of leather he had cut on top of the saddle, taking a borer from his selection of tools and began to push some small holes in the leather of the broken saddle strap.

Conor was quite happy to listen to her questions while he worked, the routine of poking holes for the thick threads was almost second nature anyway. "I do. Always liked horses, and leather." He pushed few more perforations into the leather of the saddle, and feeling the need to justify himself, he explained. "Leather can weaken if it wasn't cut or treated right to begin with. The leather here had been scarped too thin, that's why it snapped. Any higher up, and it would have taken longer to fix. I'd have hand to taken these flaps off, maybe more."

[hazel]

Hazel caught the smile, which made her own slightly wider. Really he should smile more, he looked quite attractive, even more so when his face lit up with a smile. And listening to him explain why he loved his job, it was good hearing him talk. She couldn't explain why, it always made her happy when she interacted with others. "So where did your love of horses occur?" She inquired, looking at the saddle and noticing what he meant about the leather being scraped too thin. Perhaps caused by too much wear and tear. She couldn't say, she wasn't the expert in the room.

It also amazed her how he was working like it was all second nature, like it all came easy to Conor. Just watching for the couple of minutes, she could tell it wasn't an easy job, she wouldn't be able to do it.

[conormccarthy]

Conor kept working, picking up the piece of new leather he had cut and began to put some holes at careful intervals in that too. He was looking down while he worked, so his expression was hidden. "My mother, she kept horses." He still mourned her after all these years, so the subject was a tender one. The grief had faded after a while, but there was still a part of him that missed her comforting words, her gentle touch, her ample encouragement and pride.

It didn't occur to Conor he could simply decline to answer the question. But he was the honest type, and he had no reason not to answer, so why hide the fact. "She died." It wasn't an emotional response, more a statement to clarify. While it wasn't cold-hearted, he was clearly in a state when the mention of it would not damage him further.

[hazel]

If he was that passionate about horses, it would make sense he would have had to have been in contact with them from a young age. "I'm sorry." She said on the information his mother was dead. And even if Conor was ok to talk about her, or mention the subject, Hazel wasn't prepared to. Dredging up the past was constructive to nobody at all.

"Do you have a favourite horse at these stables?" It was at least a safer topic than the previous one. She just hoped that Conor didn't mind her asking all these questions. It was possible he did, he hadn't asked her anything, and was keeping to his work. But he hadn't told her to shut up as yet, so it couldn't be all that bad.

[conormccarthy]

Scrutinising the piece of leather, Conor checked it against the saddle once more and reached for a roll of cotton thread. The strings were wider than those used for fabrics, and had an odd waxy texture. Using a needle-like piece of bone, Conor began to feed the thread through the holes he had already made.

"Lizzie. The creamy girl, in the corner stall." He said, referring to the mare he'd petted on the way in. Conor enjoyed most of the horses at the stables, aside from one or two unsavory characters, but Lizzie had always been his pride and joy.

Conor meticulously made sure the thread was neat and tight, securing the broken stirrup strap back onto the saddle with the new adjoining piece.

[hazel]

Hazel went from watching Conor, to what he was doing. It was relaxing to watch and transfixing. She wasn't sure why it captivated her attention, maybe it was because of the fact it was someone taking pride in what they did. Or because she'd never seen this before and was curious as to how it all went together.

"Do you ride the horses often?" It was a thing Hazel hadn't done in a long while and she missed it. The horse at the house she was staying, with the family, was only ridden by the father. It was told to her straight away and the brunette never questioned why. Their horse, their rules, and she'd abide by them.

Seeing that his work was almost complete, it hadn't taken him that long and it was looking as good as new, if not slightly better. "You're very good at what you do." If she could have her way, she'd wath him all day. It was just amazing the speed at which Conor worked but still managed to get the job done properly.

[conormccarthy]

Conor threaded the last of the holes, and with nimble movements of his fingers, tied a few knots tight and close to the straps to stop the thread from loosening. "I ride them when I can. I don't have a lot of time. You can let go now." Conor answered all her questions with the same conversational tone, but made no attempt to ask any questions of her. He often got int trouble for coming across as rude or when taking to women, discriminating of the fair gender. But Conor never presented himself with a cruel tone. He never raised his voice and he certainly never intended to be rude.

He stood, taking the knife from the bench and used it to cut the excess thread from the newly repaired saddle. "I spend all my time doing this. 'Practice makes perfect'." He tested the fixed strap, pulling gradually to simulate the weight it should be able to take. The repair held up perfectly, and Conor gave a satisfied nod. "Done." Conor was modest, though he knew that in all likelihood, his patch-up job would probably last longer than the rest of the saddle.

[hazel]

Hazel released the flap when he told her to, "You spend all you're time like this?" It seemed unfair that he worked in the stables constantly but didn't get to ride the horses as much as he should be allowed. But what was there to do about it? Conor had to make a living more than he needed recreation time, and he seemed happy enough about it.

Looking at the finished job, she was still stunned by how meticulous and quick he worked. Probably the reason the family sent him here over anywhere else. "Pardon me if I'm being rude, but do you have much free time when you finish you're work?" One thing that Hazel hadn't done for years was go horse riding, not since she left her home. And being in the stables reminded her of how much she missed it. As for the father of her current household not letting her ride the horse they had, maybe, just a small possibility that her and Conor could arrange something.