A/N #1: This is what it is. What you see is what you get. This is not a metaphor. No deeper meaning, even if you tilt your head and squint.

They called the filly Carmilla, after the vampire in Sheridan La Fanu's novel. She was small for a racing Thoroughbred, only fifteen and a half hands at the withers, but she had more heart and fire than any other horse that set foot on the track. Never did she allow another horse to pass her. Once she was in the lead, she fought to keep it and refused to let it go. She was as fierce and imposing as her dam, The Dean, and as swift and sure-footed as her sire, Count Vlad. In her owners' opinion, she was the perfect combination of both.

When Carmilla started her training at one year old, she threw her first jockey. She threw her second, and she threw her third, all experienced men who had ridden dozens of horses to victory over the years, and bit her fourth hard enough that he refused to have anything to do with the headstrong young filly. But when her owners brought in a fifth jockey, a young and inexperienced girl called Ell, Carmilla did not bite her or throw her. She took to the girl faster than she had taken to any of her other jockeys. For whatever reason, Carmilla was more comfortable with a female jockey in the saddle than a male.

It mattered not to her owners, so long as the filly was trainable and able to race. They were pleased with their filly's progress, and even more so when Carmilla ran and won her maiden race. From there, she went on to win her second race and her third race, all the way up to her tenth race.

Then there was a noticeable change in Carmilla's behavior. She hardly ate, she hardly slept. She was moody and intolerable, unpleasant to be around and even more unpleasant to ride. She trained as she always had, but refused to give it her all. She seemed to have sunk into some strange lethargy that her owners refused to attribute to the death of Ell in a racing accident, but instead blamed it on her new racing schedule that put her in one race every two weeks.

In the following nine races she ran, Carmilla's undefeated streak was shattered. She placed dead last in her eleventh race, fifth in her twelfth, and seventh in her thirteenth, a pattern that continued up until her nineteenth race, when her owners decided there was no use in keeping her around any longer. She brought in little money, and was taking up space that could have been used for another, better horse.

So Carmilla was sold to the powerful Karnstein family of Styria, a region in southern Austria. The Karnsteins noticed immediately that something was wrong with Carmilla. She still ran in the same apparent lethargy she had settled into with her previous owners. The Karnsteins hired a trainer they thought would be good for Carmilla, one that would help her wake up and run the way she had.

But the trainer's methods were far from fruitful; he was cruel in his methods, putting a male jockey into the saddle and having him lay the crop on Carmilla for half a mile every day they trained. He ran the filly in any kind of weather and pushed her hard. The crop was constantly laid on, and by the time seven months had passed, Carmilla was bitter, angry, and flat-out sour. She lunged and lashed out at anyone who came near; she kicked the walls of her stall and whinnied her fury into the early hours of the morning. She refused to run, and more than once she threw her jockey. The trainer, in response, tried to beat some sense into her with the crop, and Carmilla, having none of that, knocked him to the ground and ran off down the track.

Immediately following the incident, the Karnsteins fired the trainer and the jockey, and left Carmilla alone, wondering what to do with their hurting and broken horse. They were reluctant to hire another trainer, for fear of what would happen to Carmilla. It was through word of mouth that the Karnsteins heard of renowned horse trainer Danny Lawrence, known for being gentle in her training methods and her understanding of the horse's needs. It was not long after this that Carmilla found herself being loaded into a trailer, and on her way down south to Silas Farm.

~O~

There was a light rain tapping on the windshield as jockey Laura Hollis drove to work that morning in March. The sky was just beginning to lighten to a pale gray from a soft dark blue-gray, and it was beginning to take the rain with it. It had rained hard the night before, hard enough to leave puddles along the sides of the roads, and no about all over the race tracks. Laura doubted she would be riding that morning, unless the puddles somehow all cleared up and the track dried up.

She had no problem with waiting to ride, after all, her safety and that of the horse's came before the need to train the horses. Danny would make sure of that, she knew. The trainer never let anyone ride if the track or weather conditions were bad.

Laura counted the number of water-filled potholes she hit on the road until she pulled into the dirt driveway of Silas Farm, a large complex of pastures and barns that housed some of the best races horses in Styria. And that morning, Laura remembered as she watched a red pickup truck towing a long silver trailer behind it in her rear view mirror, they were going to get more.

She pulled her car up next to the sheltered outdoor ring. It wasn't her usual parking space, but she wanted to see the new horses that arrived at the barn this morning. Danny had mentioned in passing that the farm was going to be getting special arrival, and Laura was anxious to see just what kind of horse this special arrival was.

The trailer was already parked next to the ring, in another half that was nothing more than a sheltered dirt pavilion, and Danny was sorting out a couple bay horses from the back of the trailer. Laura looked them over closely, but found that she never would have been able to tell the difference between them if she tried. She joined Danny just as the redhead finished giving the two stable hands leading the bays their directions.

"…take them to barn seven, second isle. There are two empty stalls."

Laura watched them go. "Who are they?"

Without looking at her, Danny answered, "Yearlings from Castle Hill Farm up north. I won't be training them." She brushed by Laura and went around to the side of the trailer. The side door had been opened and a ramp had been drawn out. There was a slight commotion from inside, a harsh snort and gentle voice whose owner remained to be seen, and then stable manager Lola Perry stepped out onto the top of the ramp with a taut red lead rope in hand, clicking to the horse on the other end.

The horse snorted again, refusing to come out.

Perry disappeared back inside the trailer, whispering words to the horse that Laura couldn't hear. It seemed like hours before Perry at last was able to coax the horse out and down the ramp, revealing a lean-framed filly, solid black with no trace of any other color on her coat. She stood quiet by Perry, ears swiveled forward and her nostrils widening and shrinking, trying to figure out where she was and who it was who was in her presence. She tossed her head, throwing her long forelock out of her eyes to get a better look at the grou.

Perry lightly patted the filly's neck, though the horse pinned her ears and jerked her head. The redhead drew back, uncertain. "A bit touchy," she commented.

Laura took a cautious step forward as Danny looked the filly over. "Who's this?"

"The Count Vlad filly out of The Dean," Danny answered, walking forward to circle the filly. At the last name, the filly's ears shot up and her head went up, pulling at the lead rope. The whites of her eyes flashed. Her nostrils flared. She flatted her ears and tried to pull her head higher, tugging harder at the lead rope.

Perry clicked to the filly and pulled her head down before the situation could spin out of control. Carmilla obliged, albeit unwillingly, even if it was just to get the redhead off her back.

"They call her Carmilla," Danny went on, "since her sire is named after Vlad the Impaler. I guess they wanted to keep with the vampire theme."

At the sound of her name, Carmilla dragged one hoof through the dirt with a snort in a way that said Damn right.

"Course, if you asked anyone who worked with her before, they'd probably tell you she's as bloodthirsty as they come," the trainer added. She patted the filly's neck, reaching under long, wavy mane that wasn't typically seen on racing Thoroughbreds; Carmilla pinned her ears and turned to nip at Danny, but Perry held her back

Laura frowned. "I think I know her name from somewhere…"

Danny and Perry turned to Laura, disbelief on their faces. "How?" Perry asked. "She's a racing legend, well, more or less. She dominated the track in her early career."

Laura took a breath, remembering the name she'd heard around the barns. Perry was right, the filly was a racing legend, and a champion, but something had changed in Carmilla's mannerisms that led to her winning streak breaking, and she repeatedly lost her races. What had happened to the filly after her disappearance from the race track after her last race, Laura didn't know. "What's she doing here?"

"I'm supposed to fix her," Danny answered, stepping back beside Laura.

"I thought you didn't rehabilitate washed-up racehorses?"

"I don't, but this one is a special order from the Karnsteins. They think their filly still has some potential left in her, and they're not ready to give up on her. They want me to fix her."

"They couldn't get another trainer to do it?" Laura regretted the words immediately as Danny turned to her, eyes hard. "Not that you can't help her, but this was a long way for her to come. You can help her, I know it, there's no one better for helping broken racehorses, I just mean that—"

Danny's expression softened. She put a hand on Laura's shoulder. "I know what you mean, Hollis." She sighed, looking back at the filly. "They tried to get another trainer to do it. But he just made her worse."

"What was his name?" Laura asked, feeling her blood turn warm with anger. She knew nothing of what had happened to Carmilla, but she had the distinct feeling it was nothing good.

"Timothy Coffin," the trainer answered. She waved Perry off to take the filly around in an easy walk. When the pair was far enough out of ear shot, she went on. "He put more weight on her than she's used to. Made the jockey whip her the whole length of track she ran when he trained her. It made her sour. No one wanted to get near her."

The filly Danny described didn't match the one that was willingly following Perry along at an easy trot. There was strength in the filly's body, strength that only came in a horse that was built for the track.

Laura tipped her head. "She doesn't seem that way now."

Danny took a breath. "She's probably calmed down a little now that she's out of that environment. Maybe that'll make her easier to work with."

"When are you going to start with her?"

"Not for a while," Danny said, shaking her head. "I want her to relax for a while, get used to the new barn. I'll start with her later next week. She needs a little down time right now. You up for helping me out?"

Excitement made Laura's stomach jump. Of course she was! "Oh, yes!" she said. "Absolutely!"

"Great." The trainer patted Laura on the shoulder, not taking her eyes off the filly as Perry took her into a steady jog. "Then in the mean time we can keep working with Detective Sherlock. I have to say, I'm impressed with the colt's progress. He's shaping up to be one hell of a racer."

Laura nodded, though she was only half-listening to what Danny was saying. She was distracted by the filly's movements, awestruck at the fact that there was a champion racehorse in her barn. Her barn, of all places. "How soon can I ride her?" The words slipped out before she could stop them.

"Easy there, tiger," Danny said with a laugh. "I want to start her slow. Once she's had enough time off, I'll start her on a lunge line for a while, and go from there."

"Reasonable," Laura agreed, forcing her excitement down. She watched Carmilla as close as Danny, and now noticed a certain glaze in the filly's chocolate brown eyes, as though she was permanently sleepwalking, aware of her surroundings and movements but unable or unwilling to respond. It could have been from the ride down from northern Styria, Laura mused, sure that she had seen the same glaze in the eyes of the other two horses that had come down with Carmilla.

She'll come out of it, Laura promised herself. She just needs to rest up a little. She'll be fine. She'll be just fine.

But when she glanced at Danny as Perry led the filly away, Laura suddenly wondered if the glaze in Carmilla's eyes had less to do with the trip and more do with the reason for it.

UPDATE 5/11/15: I'm reediting the first two chapters because I don't like the way they turned out. This story isn't that far along, but I'm getting that feeling that I have no direction for this as far as getting it to where I know it has to be. I'm doing my best, but let me know if there seems to be something wrong with the flow of the story. I want this to turn out the best it can!

A/N: This was inspired by Seabiscuit, Secretariat, Ruffian, and Racing Stripes. Again, no deeper meaning, no metaphor.

Brownie points to those of you who can figure out the symbolism of Timothy Coffin and all that. ;)