oatz

	That evening, Lumalia dismounted Noble with a beaming grin.  “Noble, my friend, thank you for the lesson,” she said happily, and the Celestial Pegasus spirit affectionately nuzzled her.

	Linus beamed with pride.  “You’re getting the hang of it now,” he said.

	“At long last!” Lumalia said.

	He coughed.  “You didn’t need to say it,” Lumalia teased.  “I’m worse at horse riding than anything I’ve ever put my mind to.  But now I can handle a canter over uneven ground!”

	“Noble can’t wait until you’re ready to ride him in the air,” Linus informed her.  He tapped his brow.  “He tells me every time.  He loves flying with you at night.”

	Lumalia leaned over and pecked the huge spirit on the cheek.  “Oh, I’ll get there eventually,” she promised.  “But for now, Noble, it’s mealtime, all right?”


	The trio of divine fighters walked back to the mansion together.  Noble had had very specific conditions it expected to be upheld in its new residence, and Linus had dutifully rebuilt the farm stables to its exacting standards.  Noble, no mere beast, had declared the new stable ‘adequate’ and settled in, where it had promptly lorded over the farm animals that dwelled on Linus’s land.  It was no substitute for galloping over the endless green plains of Elysium nor the gold and blue flowers of the higher rings of Mount Celestia, but it was nice, and he quite appreciated the awe the other animals held him in.

	Linus paid for the good oats and barley from the city to be shipped up to his manor.  Every tenday, when the farms outside Waterdeep sent their horse feed up to the ranches and equestrian training grounds of the nearby township of Amphail, a cartful of the best peeled off and deposited at Linus Vorth’s mansion.  There, the farmhands would dutifully shovel it off to the beasts, who dug in with abandon.  Noble, who had subsided for years on the products of Linus’s Create Food and Water spell that was clearly not designed with Pegasi in mind, was in hog heaven, and happily munched armfuls of the oats down.  Those were his favorite.