Bring The Missing (Open)

[Rex Carson De Luca]

Missy had always been a finicky horse, which was not saying a lot since she was only a few years old, still a teenager by horse standards. She was still getting used to eating solid food, still getting used to the idea that her mother was now ten stalls down the row from her rather than being within muzzle reach, and the whole concept of life in this big, bad adult world seemed to hit the leggy filly hard. It was not odd for her to reject her feed every few days or so. But she'd pace, get some exercise the next morning and return that night for dinner sporting a healthy appetite again and all would be well. Not eating for three days straight was a bit odd, even for her and her young jaw, her unground teeth.

That was how the oldest De Luca child found the cremello filly that damp evening- pacing restlessly in her stall, a full bag of oats hanging from the sliding wood door to her stall, still heavy and completely untouched. She was starting to wear a track in the bedding on the floor as well, a perfect oval of kicked sawdust marking every step of her shoed hooves for the past 72 hours, where as all of the other horses, her mother included, stood stock still in the slowly darkening evening air. They probably had never worn tracks in their stalls in their lives. Carson's eyebrows dropped toward his brilliant blue eyes in an expression of deep puzzlement. To be fair, Missy was always a fidgety filly- taking after her sire and sporting boundless amounts of energy, she promised to be an excellent racehorse one of these days. But a healthy amount of energy was also usually accompanied by a crazy appetite, and even when at her most finicky, she'd go maybe six to twelve hours maximum without nibbling on something. This three day stint was unheard of.

Unsure of what else to do, the tallest of the De Luca family used his long strides and well built legs to close the small gap between himself and his favorite horse, casually coming to a stop with his chest leaned against the soggy wooden doorframe. Outside of the stables, the sky was cast over with darkened clouds and a lazy rain fell from the heavens in low, gentle rumbles. But the shingled roof was solid and the thoroughbred paused in her stall to eye the soaking wet figure that now peered at her through the bars, swiveling her ears once or twice curiously before silently walking over to where his hand lay outstretched through the door. Without hesitation, she sniffed and then casually nibbled his extended fingers, tugging on the wet sleeve of his jacket, as though to ask why he'd be foolish enough to come out here in the bad weather. But the werewolf only smiled knowingly at the animal and patted her nose gingerly.

"What's the matter with you? Your favorite rolled oats and you've barely touched 'em."

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[Antonio Franklin De Luca]

Bad day, very bad day for the head of the De Luca family.

First, one of his contracts decided to stop paying. A bad move if you were in business with a powerful family. Second, he had a feeling he was going to have to 'take care of' them in one form or another. And third, he had a feeling he would have to do it himself. It's not like it was a bad thing, letting Antonio deal with the problems that his business had, it was just something that he didn't really like to do. He always gave them a second chance if they deserved it, but most of the time they didn't.

So the stress of having to deal with people that didn't cooperate was taking a toll on him. He certainly wished he still had the sheriff on his side, but since the last one died and the new one took his place, it wasn't going well. Antonio did everything to make sure his business plans wouldn't catch the sheriff's attention until he got him on his side. Which so far wasn't a good battle. That damn sheriff knew that Antonio's family had its hand in what went on in the city, but he didn't want the damn man to know how many pies he was in before he got him on his side.

He stood up from his desk and left his office, locking the door behind him. It was a force of habit really, he didn't want people to go into his office when he wasn't there, and he didn't want anyone to get in and mess up his papers. He looked outside one of the windows of the house and saw that it was raining, how much or how long it had been he didn't know, but it meant grabbing a jacket.

Dammit.

So Antonio grabbed the rain jacket and walked out of the house into bad weather, which made him frown even more as older bones and rain never mixed, and started toward the stables, not because he wanted to ride any or to talk to any but he wanted to see if any of his children were around. He had six and oddly enough he hadn't seen any of his sons or daughters in a while. He knew his oldest had a horse that he liked to take care of so maybe Rex -pardon me, Carson- was there.

As he walked in through the stable doors he saw his eldest talking to the horse Missy. He ran his hand through his hair and shook out as much water as possible, then started over for his son. "Hey son, what's wrong with Missy?" he asked, a look of concern on his face. He loved all his children, very much so. He also tried to keep up with what went on in their lives as much as possible. So was he upset when his kids did something that he didn't agree with? Yeah, what parent wasn't, but he knew they all wanted to do their own things, didn't matter to him what they did as long as they were happy.

Words: 520
Muse: Blech, don't ask
Comments: I'm sorry it sucks, it'll get better.

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