WE'RE ALL MAD HERE

Dan got thrown. It was an accident on both their parts. In fact, Cat had not really tried to throw him at all. He did pretend to, but the fact that Cat held back did not escape anyone's notice.

Despite Cat being lenient, Dan was riding bareback, and it was extremely tiring on his thighs because all the grip he had was really between his legs. It's not like he could pull on the horse's mane. He didn't want Cat to seriously throw him!

So after the first few minutes of Cat pretending to absolutely hate having a rider the two of them dropped into a nice trot. Dan was really at his physical limit by then, but he was just about to reach breakthrough, and Cat was only just starting to understand his body signals to cooperate properly. Just a little more - which was a little more than Dan could take.

You see, there was this little ditch, just a very little one. Cat, being the wild stallion that he was, didn't even hesitate to jump it. It wasn't even a real jump, more like a half galloping stride, but Dan had just relaxed his hold on the horse and didn't anticipate it. His grip on the horse slipped and he was thrown off.

It happened so quickly, Dan had only realized when he was in the air.

At that exact moment though, a black panther leaped out of his shadow on the ground to catch his fall… but a white cat also appeared as if out of thin air and threw out a forcefield to catch him. Either one of them on its own would have saved Dan, but what resulted in combination was the forcefield blocking off the black cat which knocked Dan in mid air into a brand new trajectory so that he tumbled and then landed directly in the ditch.

Dan hit the ground with all the grace of a test dummy of a motor accident demonstration. The witnesses of his fall from grace snorted and gasped accordingly. "Dan!"

Thankfully the little ditch was wet and large enough to catch all of Dan and he wasn't smashed on the road or icy ground. The cold mud helped.

It was a good thing he had taken off his jacket. This was his favourite Betamen, dammit.

Wolfgang, Wilhelm, Zora and a few other horses were quickly around him. Edel and Ori came over to push their large cat faces into Dan's face.

"He's alive!" Edel announced with great relief.

{Cat! You fool!} Captain Zora scolded the horse who was no longer nameless, {Dan Lion isn't like the wolves around here. He's just a human. He'd break if you drop him!}

"Humans are very fragile." Edel felt he should add, "What were you thinking to allow it, Captain?"

Captain Zora shook his mane, "I was not the one who misplaced my forcefield."

Edel hissed.

Cat's eyes were tragic, but aloud he whinnied, {It's his own fault for falling off. Do you hear me, Dan Lion? Don't ride me if you can't stay on!}

"I'm alright." Dan tried to reassure everyone.

"You better not stand yet." Wilhelm advised, "Let's make sure nothing's broken."

Actually, Dan felt like everything was broken, but aloud he said, "It's not my first time falling off a horse."

{That's not something you should sound proud of!} Cat scolded.

{The horse has a point.} Edel pointed out with a languid paw.

"I'm fine, Cat." Dan stood up, "See."

One of the horses had some healing power, but he wasn't a healer, all he could do was speed up natural healing.

"That's miraculous!" Dan said.

The horse with healing power shook its head and made a nickering sound, "It's nothing compared to my rider's abilities."

"We shouldn't have let you ride without a healer around." Wolfgang was most regretful.

{Of all the riders in the world, I end up with the most useless one.} Cat was regretful for other reasons.

{I'm human, not useless.} Dan rubbed Cat's neck soothingly. His horses had always liked that. Horses were very intuitive, a friendly neck rub, a calm quiet voice, and they usually settled back nicely, "I just need a saddle next time."

"And a real healer on standby." Edel said.

"Should I also have a seat belt installed?" Dan asked lightly, because he was talking to a cat. A real cat. Not a fire wolf or a talking horse.

The healing speed-up really worked, and in good time, Dan was well enough to wave his thank yous and goodbyes and take the short trek back to their car.

{Don't come back!} Cat neighed.

"I'll be back!" Dan promised.

He found himself grinning at the thought, "We're all mad here."