Rita dipped her head and stood silently for a few seconds. Finally, she croaked out, “He’s kind of my cousin.” Jasper snorted and flicked his ears towards Rita.
“Kind of? Don’t tell me you’re that ashamed of me already,” he snorted in a mixture of playfulness and sincerity.
Trevor watched the odd sight of a horse rolling its eyes as Rita did so, then shook her head and stomped one of her hind legs. “It’s not like that, Jasper,” she hissed back with a vertical toss of her tail. “It’s just kind of hard to explain to someone that your cousin belongs to a different species.”
Jasper let out a heavy sigh. “What’s so hard to explain? My dam was your dam’s sister. It’s as simple as that.”
Rita’s ears dipped and she glanced off to the side, trying to avoid Jasper’s gaze as best as she could. With her wide range of vision, though, it was next to impossible.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. But, trust me: as much as I loved my aunt and everything she did for you, people outside of this island don’t exactly feel comfortable knowing that… well, that that’s what happened. We’ve been over this before.”
Trevor shifted uneasily on his hooves, starting to back away. The jealously he’d been feeling earlier was quickly fading away. “Um, should I leave?” he finally asked.
Rita and Jasper stopped talking and looked back at him. For a few seconds neither said anything. Finally, Jasper looked back at her and nudged her neck with his muzzle. “It’s your call.”
Rita snorted a sigh and stepped over to Trevor, leading them a few feet away to talk privately, “No, it’s okay. I’m sorry.”
“So he’s really your cousin?”
Rita nodded. “Yeah. My mom’s sister came here a few years ago. She met a stallion and things happened. You’re, um, not bothered by that, are you?”
Trevor’s ears flicked forward and he instinctively rubbed the end of his muzzle against the side of her long face to console her. “No. I think it’s good that you’re spending time with him.” Then, lifting his muzzle up to one of her ears, he whispered in English, “You’re not ashamed of him, are you?”
Another heavy, sigh escaped from Rita’s nostrils. “No, I’m not. I just didn’t know how you would feel about it. I kind of try to keep it a secret around here for that reason.”
Trevor nodded. “So is that why you’re really here? To see your cousin?”
Rita brightened up a bit. “Sort of. I really am here to try and become a better rider by getting a sense of what my horse goes through, though. Since Jasper’s been a horse his whole life, he’s kind of been training me about it. But, if it wasn’t for him, I don’t think I would have gone in to horse riding?”
“What do you mean?”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been here – though it is my first time to actually be a horse. My mom and I came out here to see my aunt about a year after Jasper was born.” Rita let out a small laugh, “Jasper was just a colt back then. Still had solid gray fur, too. I wasn’t that big in to horses back then, and, I have to admit, seeing my aunt as one was really weird, but Jasper and I really connected somehow. I mean, I couldn’t talk to him back then since he didn’t understand English yet, but we just seemed to know each other, you know? After I got back home, I found I had the same kind of connection to horses. It just sort of came naturally to me.” Letting out a short nicker, “I’ve riding them ever since.”
“So your aunt actually stayed around here after Jasper was born?”
“Yeah,” Rita sighed. “She loved him too much to leave. It’s just too bad his jerk of a dad didn’t feel the same way. From what I understand, he left before my aunt’s pregnancy even started showing.”
“What happened to her?” Trevor asked, remembering Carson didn’t say anything about Jasper’s mom still hanging around.