Welcome to Hickstead, home to both Seven Oak Stables, and Blue Acre - two rival stables. Both offer opportunities for their clients to reach the highest level of excellence. Each stable differs from the other, so choose wisely and never forget, loyalty is everything... Meanwhile as the stables battle it out, there's trouble brewing at the university. Be careful, if you don't pick a side you may get caught in the cross-fire...
This is an chilled out rpg with a super friendly and relaxed atmosphere! Remember to sign up with your characters full name in all caps and don't forget to do your claims! Thank you and Welcome, we've been established since 10th March 2009 but unfortunately have had to close guest view of our boards due to multiple sites ripping off our hard work, such a shame! Come chat to us in Discord before joining if you like!.
Raleigh Landis couldn't believe it. Of all the shit to happen to him, he apparently had a fucking kid. To say that he was annoyed was an understatement - he didn't even remember the girl in question he had slept with. Truth be told, Raleigh didn't remember any of the names of the girls he had slept with back when he had been a fighter. Guess that came back to fucking haunt him. He wasn't even sure how they had gotten a hold of his DNA, this fucking PI, without his permission...unless the manslaughter incident had his DNA on file. Fuck. It took everything in his power to not get out of his truck right now and just throw his fist into the side of it. Honestly, if he wasn't sitting in the parking lot of the airport, the man knew he would have done it.
Why couldn't the kid had just shown up on his door step like they did in the movies? At least then, he could have just slammed the fucking door. Raleigh leaned back in the driver seat, his head craning against the head rest as he closed his eyes and blew out his breath, "Just stay calm," he muttered to himself, the breathing helping. How could this kid not have another adult in her life that would take her? That alone baffled him. Nobody looked at him, an ex UFC fighter with a death on his hands, and said, yeah, that guy is dad material. He lived on a shack on a ranch for god's sake.
On the passagener seat, his phone buzzed - alerting him to an British Airways puddle jumper arriving from Heathrow. The flight that carried his fifteen year old daughter. Raleigh had been selfish and hadn't bother to look at her picture or file, he wanted nothing to do with her. Yet here he was, feeling sympathetic enough to not leave her stranded at airport. God. He needed a fucking drink. Grabbing his phone now, Raleigh opened up the truck's door and shut it behind him, walking over to arrivals to mill about and stand out like a sore thumb against the cheery and happy people waiting for their loved ones to show up.
I'm Afraid Of What Happens When Somebody Pushes Me Too Far
Victoria Greco had the perfect life: her parents were filthy rich, she had been given anything she asked for, and more, and she knew she was loved - adored even - by both of her parents... Or at least that's how things had been. Now? Her life had been flipped on its axis, and while she was trying to work out up from down, she had been thrown out of the only home she'd ever known, dumped at an airport with a boarding pass and her passport, and a photo of some man who might be waiting for her at the other end of her flights. Yes, flights, plural.
Tori had spent most of the flight from Philadelphia to Heathrow in tears, as she'd even had her phone confiscated from her before she was put into a taxi. She was still grieving the loss of her mother, and now she was being sent to god only knew where, to meet a man. She pulled her passport out of her bag and took out the photo that was tucked inside, wiping her eyes with her sleeve so that she could study the face of this unknown person, trying to work out what he had to do with anything. She frowned in thought, remembering the words her paternal grandmother had said, that she was no longer her dad's problem to deal with. "Who are you? And who am I?" She whispered.
When the plane landed in Heathrow, two flight attendants whisked her away, through customs and down so that she could make her connecting flight - which they got to just as the gates were closing - and she was settled into a new seat for another flight, still trying to work out up from down and having no clue as to what the time was, as she knew that the time on her watch was completely out of whack now. She closed her eyes as she leaned back in the seat while the plane taxied down the runway.
Jetlagged and hungry, Tori shouldered her backpack, as she followed the other passengers off the plane and into the terminal. She circled her shoulders a couple of times to try and loosen her joints, as she'd been sitting for way too long, and she pulled the photo out of her pocket to look at the image before she looked around the people waiting by the gate, greeting family member or friends who had come off the plane. She frowned as she caught sight of a man who looked like he'd rather be anywhere but here and compared his face to the photo before sighing and walking toward him. "Hi, I'm Tori... uh, Victoria." She said softly with a tired smile.
Raleigh watched as people began to dump out of the arrivals tunnel with their luggage, his piercing blue eyes flickering from one teenage face to another - watching wearily as each individual splintered off to their respective families. For a moment, the man wondered if this supposed child of his wouldn't show up. But it had been a foolish thought as he caught sight of a teenage girl now and he knew, just knew, it was her. The resemblance between her and how Raleigh had looked when he had been her age was unmistakable. He looked away, ignoring her, as if she wouldn't walk right up to him now.
"Hi, I'm Tori... uh, Victoria." Her voice was quiet, barely a whisper amongst the chatter of the airport. Raleigh should have walked away when he had the chance, but now it was too late. His blue eyes returned to her now, staring at her once more. It was painful how much she looked like him, there was no denying this, not even to himself. Raleigh was also ashamed to admit that this girl looked nothing like a woman he would remember, which made it all the more worse, "Raleigh." The man simply replied.
He hovered for a moment, waiting to see if she would run away, yet she didn't. The man supposed she couldn't though, as he nodded to her bags, "That everything?" He asked now, the question lingering in the air. His brain clocked the hours of the flights, nor did it go unnoticed how her eyes remained puffy and rimmed. She had been crying. Whatever life she had was gone, and now she was here with him. Raleigh still felt uncomfortable, certain that he was incapable of love, that he didn't want joy. Raleigh perhaps pitied this girl more than he did himself though, after all, the United States Courts deemed she was stuck with him and whomever she had called father before had not wanted her, "You hungry...Victoria?" Her name sounded utterly foreign on his lips, as if he were still trying to figure out how to say it, "It's a long drive to my place...so..."
I'm Afraid Of What Happens When Somebody Pushes Me Too Far
"Raleigh." Tori nodded as she repeated the name to herself, trying to file it away, though sure she would need him to repeat it a few more times before it was committed to memory. "That everything?" She blinked and looked up at him before nodding. "Yeah." She offered with a shrug, while also hitching the bag up her shoulder. "There's an envelope in there for you. I can pull it it now if you want." The large envelope she had been handed was sealed, and she hadn't dared to break into it while on the plane, she was told to give it to the man waiting for her, and she hadn't been in the right headspace to have really cared about what was in it.
"You hungry...Victoria? It's a long drive to my place...so...""It's Tori" She corrected without thinking, and then shook her head, ignoring her rumbling stomach. "No thank you" Airports were known for selling food that could be bought for half the price anywhere else. "I'm sorry I've be dropped on you like this." Sure, she didn't want to be here, but she was sure that this... Raleigh, didn't ask for his life to have been interrupted too.
Blue eyes stared at the teenager as she announced that there was a folder in her bag for him. His eyes drifted from her to the messenger bag for a fleeting moment, "I think I know what it is. I don't need to look at it until we get to my place." Raleigh didn't dare call it 'home' in front of Tori, uncertain of how she would react. It was becoming clear though that this was just as awkward for her as it was for him. Neither of them wanted this, and nobody had cared to ask them about it. Raleigh was court ordered, and so was Victoria Greco.
He took her heaviest of bags off of her hands now, motioning for her to follow him as he lead the way through the airport - stotic as ever. Each step felt like a march towards the end of this life as he knew it. Tori - his daughter - was yet another unexpected complication. The irony of it all was that this state of life that he was in now probably made him better dad material than he ever would have been during his MMA career, and that was grasping at straws. As the teenager correcting him on her name, blue eyes glanced over at her and he offered a faint smile, "You said Victoria earlier..." Guess she was already getting comfortable with him.
It was surprising to hear her reject the offer of food, but he wouldn't push it, "Alight." He put her stuff into the back of the truck now, nodding to the passenger door, "It's unlocked." He shut the gate, but before he could move towards his side, Tori made him stop in his tracks: "I'm sorry I've be dropped on you like this." His earlier thoughts in his truck had flooded his mind for a moment, and he just took a breath to re-center himself, "Don't apologize. It's not your fault." Raleigh paused, stewing in silence a bit more before saying, "Look, Tori. I don't know what you know about me, but I need you to know that I'm not...I don't know how to be a dad."
I'm Afraid Of What Happens When Somebody Pushes Me Too Far
