Cody Jacob Branson
Jun 30, 2011 12:57:26 GMT -5
Post by Cody Branson on Jun 30, 2011 12:57:26 GMT -5
The easy S T U F F . . .Name: Cody Jacob Branson
Nickname: CJ
Age: twenty-five
Member Group: Local, College Graduate, Meta-Human
Power(s): animal speech (horses)
Play By: Chris HemsworthLet it F L O W . . .
Harrison and Natalie Branson never imagined that they would be parents. They were married under the Montana sun in a flurry of clouds and roses on Harrison’s family ranch on the knees of the Rocky Mountains and set out to begin their new life together as husband and wife…at nineteen years of age. Harrison’s family bred and trained horses for rodeos and various horse shows, as well as holding a rein in the racing industry with their sponsors. Harrison’s father, a great family man, insisted to his son that they try for kids, even if Natalie was still uncomfortable with it. Natalie, part Native American Shoshone, understood the need for a family, but she was still shy around Harrison’s family when it concerned kids. After Harrison’s father passed away, Harrison and Natalie took the ranch and made it grow under their care, breeding fast horses and training them to do competitions under the most skilled of riders.
Before long, a few years passed and Natalie was beginning to feel the family itch. She wanted her own son or daughter to share its parents’ love for horses like Harrison and Natalie did. When she confronted Harrison about it, he brushed it aside, wanting to keep her all to himself, as men were wont to do when their life was planned to their expectations. But Natalie was determined, and soon enough she cajoled Harrison to give her a child. That summer, Natalie fainted on the ranch grounds while checking the well system for the ranch and was brought to the hospital, where it was confirmed that she was two months along with child.
Another few months and Natalie gave birth to Cody Jacob Branson, named after his late grandfather. He was a precocious toddler, always walking and exploring his world with his baby blue eyes and curious hands. One night he even managed to walk out of his house, off the front porch, and end up in the front pasture with the pregnant mares and their foals. Needless to say, Natalie knew that her son would be horse-hearted as she was. When Cody was two, Harrison was deployed overseas to fight in the Army for three years. In those three years, Cody shot up like a weed in height, gained a new vocabulary, and began following his mother in the yard, trailing after her as she tended to the ranch. His first words were “horse”, “mama”, and “Bassy”, seeing as Natalie and Harrison had a Border Collie named Sebastian. When Harrison came back, he was a different man because of the war, and mother and son sensed the difference in him. He would drink, when he wouldn’t drink before, and go into town and stay out until dawn, then sleep until the middle of the day. Natalie and Cody would take care of the chores while Harrison became even less of a man than he already was.
When Cody was ten, his mother found out that her husband had been cheating on her and filed for divorce and child custody. Harrison, in a drunken stupor as ever, got into a fight with Natalie and hit her until she was blue in the face. Cody saw this and ran to his mother’s side, screaming at his father to stop, but ended up getting a black eye for his efforts. His father, seeing what he had done and what he had become, ran from the ranch before Natalie could call the police, but instead she called her family to come and help with the horses. A few months later, Natalie won the divorce and custody battle against Harrison and took her child to Kentucky, where her grandparents and the majority of her family lived. Cody was coddled and loved and learned his mother’s side of the family and their affiliation with horses: horse racing. No matter how much he loved their horses, though, he missed the ones back home under the Montana sky his eyes reflected.
When Cody reached his thirteenth birthday, Harrison came around to come to his son’s birthday party. He had been sober for a year and lived alone on the ranch, with some hired help and some family. His present to his son was Whistle, a four-year-old chestnut Quarter Horse gelding that he had raised since the horse was born. Cody was so happy that his father had come all the way from Montana to give him such an awesome present, he begged his mother to let him go ride. Natalie, not one to be upstaged by her ex-husband, agreed, and Cody went riding on the ranch grounds with his new present. No sooner than an hour had passed that he heard a voice, a male’s voice, trying to talk to him. Dismounting and walking this way and that, he was startled to realize that it was Whistle talking to him, giving him some lessons about riding. Cody ran all the way back to the house, with Whistle trailing behind, trying to calm him, and promptly told his mother that the horse could talk. Natalie, bewildered by her son’s outburst, dismissed the incident, and the party continued as normal.
A couple of weeks later, Cody tagged along with his mother when she took a couple of racehorses to Churchill Downs, the famous racetrack in Kentucky. Entering the barns, he was bombarded by the voices of the horses, complaining about the smell or other horses or their living conditions. One particular voice came loud and clear on his radar, and Cody was standing in front of a stall before he could blink. The horse was a stallion who was particularly kept away from the other horses because of his volatile temperament. The young boy watched as the large stallion reared and bucked and screamed his displeasure to the humans outside his stall, his eyes wide and nostrils flaring as he rattled the walls of his stall. Cody stood on the hay bale outside the stall and peered in.
“What upsets you, sir stallion?” he asked curiously, equal parts amazed, awed, and scared of the stallion’s awesome power. The brute, dark coat shining with sweat as he finally calmed down, looked at the little human with a dark eye and snorted.
“What upsets me are these shoes I’m wearing,” the stallion replied in angry nickers and snorts, wary of a human that could understand him. “They’re too small and they hurt!”
“I’ll help you, sir stallion!” Cody offered with a bright smile, and ran off to find his mother. Once he told her what happened, she got upset, like any sane mother would, and told him never to go near that stallion again. It just so happened that a farrier was passing by and heard the conversation. He asked Cody which horse it was and where he was, and followed Cody when he showed the older man the stallion. Cody’s mother contacted the owner of the stallion, a good friend of her family’s, and followed her son. When she found him, he was stroking the stallion’s nose as the farrier worked on putting the right shoes on the horse. Amazed that her son was right, Natalie went through the rest of the day in a haze. Once they got home, however, she consulted her family and called the Hammel Institute to enroll her son; little did Cody and Harrison know, Natalie's family had some members who could talk to horses like Cody could. She and Cody moved to a small farm that her family owned in Vermont, living with Natalie’s sister Katie, one of the members who could talk to horses, and her husband Max and their child Abby raising horses.
Cody entered Hammel with a bright smile and a mind to learn, ready to take on his growing power and use it for good, like he did with his aunt and uncle’s horses. However, when he went through his classes, he grew frustrated because he couldn’t hear any of the other animals that the teacher brought in. His frustration was taken out on chores and riding Whistle, listening to the stories of the other horses his gelding told while they rode or did chores. One night, a trainer came to Cody’s home and asked if she could see what his power was. When he agreed, she took a random horse from the stables and walked the horse to a random location on the farm property. When she came back, she asked Cody to find the horse, and she followed him until he did. They did this every month for the next two years; she would come over, take a random horse or two, ask Cody which ones were missing, and have him find them. This training helped him isolate the voices and extend his range to finding who he was looking for.
When Cody was eighteen, he graduated from Hammel with his abilities in check and went back to Montana for college, studying and getting a bachelor’s degree in animal sciences and working with the horses there. He stayed at his old family ranch, helping his father and working on controlling his powers there. While in college, his gelding Whistle passed away and Cody was given a new horse, a colt that showed promising bloodlines and potential in any block of horse events Cody could put him through. He named the dark bay colt Troy and raised the colt on his father’s ranch up until news of his uncle’s death reached him. He drove back to Vermont with Troy in tow and attended the funeral, helping his aunt and cousin through the ordeal of losing Max. In the will, however, Max had left his share of the ranch to Cody, whom he knew would help his wife and daughter continue on with their lives and help with the horses. Natalie tried to help Katie and Abby with the loss, but they eventually turned the farm to Cody and moved back to Kentucky with the rest of the family, while Natalie and Cody stayed behind. Cody still manages the farm, raising and training horses and cows, while his mother lives in town and manages affairs for the family in Pilot Ridge.Behind the M A S K . . .Name: Mandi
Age: twenty
RP Experience: Six years…woah.
How did you find us?: My powers of awesome led me to this wonderful place.Show your S K I L L S . . .
Summer was usually hot, and this summer was no different. The sun rose over the small farm and outlined the forms of man and dog as they walked to the mare barns. The dog was a blue merle Australian Shepherd named Jackie who pranced at her owner’s side with her tongue lolling, eyes bright and excited for chores to begin. The man was six feet three inches of broad-shouldered, solidly muscled cowboy, a faded brown Stetson on his tousled dirty blonde hair, Montana sky-blue eyes set over a handsome face with the shadow of a beard on his strong jaw. He wore an open flannel shirt over a white wife beater and jeans tucked into boots, large hands pulling on gloves before he opened the doors, grinning when he heard the welcomes from the horses inside.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said in a smoky drawl, making the mares whinny louder as he walked the stalls. Jackie barked once and the mares quieted as he measured out their breakfasts. He smiled as he patted the last mare before opening the other set of doors and heading down to the stud barn. The stallions, geldings, and yearling colts gave him warm welcomes as he fed them also, saving his favorite for last. Tall, darkly handsome, Troy was Cody’s pride and joy, waiting for him at the end of the aisle for his breakfast. Cody entered the stall and fed his stallion, stroking the horse’s flank as Troy fed. “Any trouble in the barns tonight, boy?”
The bay stallion lifted his head and pressed his nose into Cody’s chest. “Not last night, boss,” the horse replied in a quiet whicker. “The boys can smell the mares in heat though, and so can I.”
Cody grinned and stroked his horse’s nose. “Don’t worry, ya’ll will have a turn with the lovely ladies. It seems that Bella took well to the last time you two met. She’s expecting.”
Troy whinnied quietly and went back to his breakfast, letting Cody exit the stall and get to work on his chores. Bella, Charlene, and Missy were let out in the small pasture today, since they were the three who were in foal, while the other three mares and the lone filly went into the bigger pasture with the geldings. The three yearling colts were put by themselves into one of the side fields and the stallions, three in all including Troy, were put into separate paddocks on opposite sides of the farm. After all the stalls were clean and the tack was mended, the water tower looked at and the fences mended, Cody sat on the front step of the farmhouse with Jackie at his side and sighed happily. This was the life he wanted.
Now all he had to do was tend the cattle. He sighed again, this time the sound weary. Cattle were so complicated.
