“I will never get used to those bloody hats.”

Floréan sighed as he rearranged the feathers on his tricorn. While he admired how elaborate and fancy baroque riding costumes could be, he still preferred helmets over the matching hats. His wife seemed to love seeing him in those clothes, and to make her happy was reason enough for him to keep on wearing them.

He had seen the Crystal Hall while they had been practicing, but now that it was lit for the occasion – a prefect mixture between wintery darkness and the cosiness of candlelight – he could truly understand what Aydan had meant when he had said that ´one has to see it to really comprehend it.´

“Rebecca would love this” he mused as he got onto the mare, but jokingly decided not to take any pictures, as he was sure she would go crazy over them, and there was no way they could afford such a fancy riding hall. Theirs was…almost shamefully rustic compared to this place. Then again, this had a manor as a main house, and their own estate was a renovated farm, so there really was no way to compare these two.

“At least we have whole fields of lavender sunflowers, and poppies in summer”. Ha! At least something to be proud of. And proud of his estate (or rather his wife´s estate) he was; he just sometimes felt a bit humbled looking at and going to all of those fancy places. Although their stable was their home, he believed that Becky deserved all the castles and mansions and glass palaces she could get – and he knew how much she loved them. And he wished he could give them all to her.

Alas, all he could try to give her as of now was a placing in this competition, so he breathed in heavily, patted his mare, adjusted his tricorn one last time as he waited for the music to begin.

(325 words)