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!.
he couldn't help but a feel a sense of pride at the fact he'd managed to scare her. it was good to finally get back at her for all the times she'd done it while he'd been talking to the horses in germany. he saw that smirk turn up the corner of her mouth as she turned and it took everything in him not to drop the act and to grab her into his arms and kiss her senseless in the middle of the yard. but that wasn't how this game was going to be played, it would be much more fun to keep playing for now.
he reached out to take the brush from her, making sure to brush his fingers against hers as he did and he moved between her and the horse, laying his hand gently on the mare's neck and shushing her slightly as he studied her. "what did she do to you beautiful." he murmured softly to the animal, his voice soft but the teasing tone still clear. "i think she needs to keep that beautiful ass in the saddle where it belongs and keep her hands off the brushes." he spoke to the horse, knowing full well that riley could hear him and he glanced over his shoulder at her slightly, rubbing the brush along the horses silky neck as he did.
"you know me, can't stay away from a hostile environment." he said, referring to the hospital around the. it was hardly the place for warmth and coziness, not unlike the sterile and almost clinical way that both he and rhett had been brought up in. he shifted towards the chair before he remebered that he had the bag of grapes in his hand and he reached to dump them gently onto the table next to his cousins bed.
"i brought grapes, movies led me to believe they have healing powers." he joked a little as he settled into the chair and then raised an eyebrow at his cousins comment about their family. he wasn't surprised, he was sure rhett could actually die and all his parents would be worried about is who they'd give their fortune too or pass on their companies to. there wouldn't actually be any grief there. "you want them to visit you? you must be sicker than i heard." he said as he lifted one leg to cross it over his knee.
"believe it or not, i followed a girl here." he said as he settled a little more into the chair. he didn't see the need to hide that fact, it was just by some divine, or devilish, chance that they were both in the same small town. the odds were remarkable. considering they hadn't talked in years. "how about you? is there a reason you're here or did you just hear wonderful things about their hospital and want to try it out."
porter walked through the barn, taking in the horses that stuck their heads out to see if he was friend, foe or bringing food to them and when they saw he was nothing interesting, they quickly lost interest. there were some nice looking animals hidden within the stalls that looked like they'd seen better years. though he didn't judge the caliber of a place on what it looked like, he'd worked in some places that were fancy as fuck and they'd treated the horses like dirt, so there were more important things than looks. usually anyway. he wasn't here to look at horses though, at least not yet. there was someone else that was on his mind.
someone he was supposed to have been able to forget. he'd been her groom overseas and she's quickly won him over with everything she was. it was supposed to have been fun, they'd talked about it. fun while they were together because she wouldn't be around forever. but when she'd left, he'd been unable to just forget. he wanted to see that smile, that stubborn set of her mouth and even the glare she gave when he annoyed her that much that he'd quit his job and hopped on a plane to come across and find her. whether she'd been thinking about him or not remained to be scene, but he had been willing to risk it all on a chance.
he rounded the corner and he saw her, his heart beating just that little bit faster, though he'd refuse to acknowledge it, even at gunpoint. he watched her for a moment or two before he started walking towards her and he crossed his arms over his chest lightly and he stopped just a few feet from her. "you call that well groomed? i call that a horrible attempt at a hack job. how about you let an expert try." he said, though his voice was teasing.
was he sure there was a reason he was doing this? morbid curiosity that there was someone else in this place that had been lucky enough to be named rhett perhaps? was there a genuine reason that he was going? probably not. even if it turned out to be his cousin it wasn't like they were anything except related to each other. of course they'd grown up knowing about each other, seeing each other at the family events that usually ended up as a shit show or a pissing match between members of the family and then there was no talking with each other until the next family event where not showing up would cause gossip. it had been a thrilling family life.
he walked down the halls of the hospital, asking for the room he was after without giving too much away. luckily the people were friendly enough that there wasn't too much trouble finding where he needed to go. he had a bag of grapes with him, after all what better food to gift someone in hospital than fruit, apparently anyway. he stood outside the door of the room, almost walking away before he let out an almost sigh and he pushed open the door, without knocking because who knocked in hospitals anyway. there was still the chance he was going to walk into the room of a total strange and to be honest that would probably have been easier but alas, the man laying in the bed was the very cousin he'd been wondering about. "here i was thinking some poor other sod was named rhett." he said casually as he walked towards the bed, dumping the bag of grapes gently on the table in the room.
full name • porter baine griffiths. nicknames • port. age • twenty two. birthday • janurary 13th. occupation • groom. gender • male. sexuality • heterosexual.
the appearance
face claim• jannik schumman.
identifying features• with his sharp jaw and ice blue eyes, he doesn't need to try very hard to pull off the perfect blue steele. he has two sides, his work side and his not so casual side. when he's working he's roughing it in jeans and tee's and he's happy to look a little like a mess but when he'd not working, his upbringing that was beaten into him means he does dress with a little more style. he can ignore most things about his childhood but he can't ignore that. he doesn't have any scars, tattoo's or piercings, he figures if he was meant to have them he'd have been born with them.
the personality
likes • proving people wrong, a good argument, horses, not being told how to live his life, pepsi, any kind of junk food, ice baths, reading the newspaper, a challenge, his freedom. dislikes • his family, fruit juice, taking tablets, social media, stubbing his toes, cold showers, large crowds, being the center of attention, pine scented things, peppermint. strengths • his ability to say no to people, his patience with horses. weaknesses • not being able to admit he has any, being told what to do. dreams • he had one, to break free from his family. fears • ending up like his father. overall personality • honest | brutally so. he doesn't pull his punches, he never has. he doesn't care of his words hurt someone because the truth is always better than a lie, even to spare someone's feelings. honesty is always the best policy and anyone who can't handle that, he doesn't have time for and he won't make time for them. he's never going to pull his punches.
hard working | he'll throw himself into any job he's given. he'll do any job with the same gusto, from mucking out stalls to cleaning a house. he'll do the best he can because he was raised to be the best, to never do things by halves and if you kill yourself doing it then you've done it right. he might have broken away from his parents influence but he hasn't been able to break this habit.
secretly romantic | he knows how to woo a woman. he doesn't flaunt it though, he doesn't do overstated. but he knows the meaning of surprise flowers, putting thought into the dates you go on and knowing that variety is the spice of life. that surprising her is only good if it's something she's into and planning dates that he wants to do, probably isn't the best thing to do early on in a relationship.
technaphobe | he hates technology. it hasn't made life easier, it's made life harder. it's not that he can't understand it or use the god forsaken things, it's that he doesn't want to. give him a pen and paper any day, a landline over a mobile and a proper camera over an mobile with a camera. he carries around the most outdated nokia phone that still works, he won't get a new one because he knows that it's going to be one of those new ones he hates and he really doesn't want that.
intelligent | he had no choice but to be when he was growing up. his time out of school was spend with tutors who took their jobs seriously, because his parents paid them well too. he did want to do his best though, so like everything he did, he threw himself into it because he hoped that one day it might make his parents look twice at him when they walked past him in the hall. he got the best grades he could, graduated top of his classes and it wasn't enough.
the history
father • allistor griffiths, 56, trust fund baby, useless VP of his father's company. mother • elia griffiths nee signe, 54, interior designer / socialite. siblings • none. important people • Rhett David-John Signe , 27, overachiever, cousin. hometown • sussex, UK. overall history • it's one thing to only have a child to carry on the family name, it's another thing to tell the child that. porter knew from a young age that his parents hadn't had an interest in having children. it was just expected of them to produce at least one heir to the family fortunes because it was what had been done for generations before them. his father, who had an air of arrogance and self-importance about him, had married his wife, who some might have thought was a gold digger if she wasn't rich in her own right from her birth family, it was the perfect marriage. money + money = more money and if he's being honest, porter wishes he was born into a family without it. he had the best of everything from the day he was born but it wasn't because he was loved, it was a show that his parents put on to people who might look at them. how society percived them was important.
he was raised by various nannies, his parents not happy with any of them so what was supposed to be a stable source of care changed at least twice a year so he learned not to become attached to them, it seemed the more he fell for them the more eager his mother was to rip them away from him. she had no interest in being a mother, no interest in the child she'd birthed unless she was watching him treat someone else like she was his mother. so he learned not to, because it was easier than saying goodbye to them. he didn't have any other family he could turn to really, apart from his cousin rhett but they weren't what one would exactly call close. their parents only coming together for the obligatory family events such as christmas and easter but it was only to play some sort of one upmanship games with each other, they didn't care to see each other.
he learned so many things while he was a teenager. his parents threw him into just about every sport they thought acceptable, moving him from activity to activity that some days he felt like he had whiplash. when he wasn't at school there was lessons. be it music, horse riding, tennis, polo and there was even chess for a six months period. it seemed that whatever they thought was good for him he needed to do. it didn't matter if he was good at something or not, six months was the time he'd spend doing it because it was enough time for him to know how to do it, that was enough. he could play tennis with business partners kids, he could join a choir with someone they wanted to connect with or he could play polo with a rivals kid. none of it was for him, it was all because they wanted to use any means they could to grow their fortune and influence, it didn't matter.
there was this pressure to be perfect, to not show any cracks, to be the best the world had ever seen. his father tried to prepare him for his job, to take over when he retired but porter knew there was no real job there. his father was a figurehead, someone who had a title but no real power, no real control over what he did and didn't do at work and that wasn't what porter wanted. it took him until he was nineteen to break free of his parents grasp. he almost died to impress one of his father's workmates. swimming had been the new in thing, the sport they'd wanted him to focus on and spend all his time doing. a cramp in the pool had lead to him sinking, taking in water and needing to be pulled out of the pool in front of everyone. while most parents would worry in that scenario, his father was furious. he can still see the look of his father staring down at him from the bleachers while he was laying on the side of the pool. it was that moment he knew that his parents didn't care if he lived or died. so he walked.
and he's never really looked back. he knows he's lucky that his parents havent cut him off and they don't plan on it. purely because of the comments, disgust and disgrace it would bring them to the people they've tried so hard to impress so he knows he has access to their money. he just doesn't use it, often. he's spent the last few years travelling the world with a riding company, they competed around the world but were based in germany and he's never been happier. he's a groom, so he picks up after horses, helps the riders when they need it and while he can compete with the best of them (thanks to his parents insistence that he be the best at everything, he was trained by the best they could afford) he doesn't. he doesn't want to show off, he's happy being a pleb and knowing that he can leave at any time. he didn't think he would leave though, he was happy in his job until he met her. and fell for her.
riley ryan. this whirlwind had come to ride with them in germany and he'd been assigned her groom and it had all gone from there. it had started with flirting before it had grown into something more and soon they were closer than most grooms and riders were. what was supposed to be a fling, turned into something more for him but he didn't know that until she'd gone home. he missed her, missed her like he'd never missed anything in his life so he did the only thing he could think of in that moment. he used his parents money to buy a ticket to hickstead and he followed her. he's using his parents money to live off of until he finds a job here, but he plans on putting it all back once he's not unemployed. while organizing flights and at least letting his family know where he was, on the off chance they worried about him, he found out that his cousin was in the same little town and he doesn't know if it's fates way of rewarding him or laughing at him.
the role player
alias • shadow. age • 29 + ? other characters • he's my 89823732th character.
