Work Text:
"You've always been a doubter, Mick. Can Tatsuki do it today?"
"I tell you what, Tom. If she does it today – and I mean if, it's a tough field and I still think she's too green – if she wins today, then I'll believe she can do it."
"Hah. You won't believe it even when her hands are on the trophy."
"See if she doesn't throw it in the air and drop it like a fool. I don't want to see a dent on that beautiful trophy."
"Well, there you have it folks. It's easy for us to talk, but the time for talking is over. It's time for the final race of this season, here under the beautiful sunset skies of…"
Wind tore at Selen's crownfeathers as Spark tipped into a dive through the seventeenth ring. Between her legs, she could feel the dragon's powerful shoulders relax under folded wings, even as the rush of acceleration pressed her goggles hard into her face. The next ring was low, followed by a sharp slalom that, this late in the race, could wrench a tired wing and ruin everything, and then it was the gruelling climb back to stadium airspace and the final flat-out plunge to the finish.
She didn't let herself think beyond that. The sky ahead was clear, the plastic rings fired out of the purpling sky by the last of the direct sunlight. The communication between Selen and her mount was at the level of instinct; the dragon didn't need her to know how to fly, only occasional reminders to pace himself. Selen's task was to watch the competition.
But for the roar of the dive, she'd have been able to hear them. Harper was too close, and had been since Spark had slipped under Song's wing and claimed the lead the previous lap. They'd left the overtake as late as they dared, hoping the larger Song and her champion rider would tire, or strain something in the twisty cliffside section. Harper was too good for that though, and Song's wells ran deep.
Hounded every stroke of the way since, it had taken all of Spark's agility to keep them in front and-
Darkness slammed overhead with near-physical force. Despite herself, Selen flinched, ducking closer to Spark's neck as Song slid past. The racing sky ripped the shout of despair from her mouth and a sensation like sobbing weakness flooded her limbs. Below, the eighteenth ring was rising to meet them, but Harper was going to get there first and it was all over.
How-? Song looked more like a fish than a dragon, as Selen peered up through eyes suddenly bitter-tired from her goggles. It had to be the tightest dive she'd ever done. How was she going to-
Instinct caught up, just in time. Selen reared upright, pulling back as much as she dared. Spark sensed the motion, and she felt his shock in the desperate hanging moment before there he chose to trust her and then it was deceleration like an uppercut to her belly as he slid his wings open, Selen pressing flat against the curve of his neck and hugging it frantically to keep from sliding off to the side.
It gave her the perfect view of Harper's trick. Song's wings opened, sharply enough to be dangerous, to their full span. Selen winced as the shock yanked the golden dragon and the dark figure of her rider upwards, blocking the ring altogether. If she hadn't twigged what was happening when she did, the swerve Spark would have needed to pull to avoid collision would have pitched them out of the ring altogether.
Now, though… Song would be extra sluggish through the chicane as she mastered that combination of speed and fresh drag. Staying flat against Spark's neck, Selen urged her dragon through the top part of the eighteenth ring – at its widest it was twenty metres, wide enough for any wingspan, but Song took up so much room that Selen almost felt she might bump her head on the white stripe above her.
Spark swung left, and Selen laughed, throat hoarse and dry. Through the nineteenth ring, it was as if the air hardened into a wall for them to push themselves off, springing back rightward towards the twentieth. Below, Song slipped out wide, and though human eyes would never tell from the sinuous curve of her back, Selen could see the strain and scrabbling effort it was taking her to make the turn.
Settling back into her stance, Selen leaned with Spark's banking, thinking the lightest thoughts she could as the dragon braced for the climb. The twenty-first ring was eight hundred metres away by land, closer to nine hundred in the air when accounting for the change in altitude. Searchlights from the stadium below it cut the horizon into segments, the sky now almost as dark as Spark's hide.
They would lose ground here, no two ways about it. Selen stole a glance back towards Song between the hard sweeps of Spark's wings, and the golden elder seemed to fill her vision. She shook her head to clear that trick of her mind. Harper was gaining, Song scooping great heaps of air like a treasure hoard out of myth, but they still had a few lengths' advantage.
Behind, down in the rapidly-receding chicane, sunset flickered over iridescent scales as the pack began to wriggle through. Selen thought it might be Mitchie and Queen leading them, but the failing light made it hard to tell. Harper's shenanigans in the dive had cost them both a lot of time, but not so much that the pack would threaten. It would be a two-dragon race from here.
Selen could feel every fibre of Spark's effort. The rasp of her own breathing in the icy air was the fire in his lungs. She focussed on her foot positions, keeping her boots carefully poised on the hard ridges where his wings met his neck, and the hot-thread tension in her tendons was the tearing burn of his shoulder muscles. In quieter phases of the race she could have let her legs slack, but here and now she would bear any pain for even a fractional reduction in her partner's burden.
It wouldn't be enough. By the time the black stripe of the river curved by underneath them, Song was alongside. Selen didn't look. Harper wouldn't be looking at her, wouldn't be laughing any more than she was, but it felt as if he was. She let herself screw her eyes shut for a moment, feeling her pulse on the inside of her forehead. For as long as the season had been, as brutal the competition, for it to slip away here…
Song's wing-tips were a metre ahead of Spark's, then two. Teeth gritted, Selen put everything she had into keeping her legs stiff. Spark wasn't faltering, wasn't flagging. The least she could do was make sure she didn't hurt him. She had to fight herself not to over-tense. Everything hurt, it even felt as if Spark's hide under her hands was burning.
She felt a change in the stroke of Spark's wing and for a moment her head spun – was this it? another last-minute injury that would spiral them out of the race, like last year? – and then she realised that the shadow of the ring was sliding over Song's belly above her and Spark was preparing to follow the gold into the final dive.
It was so close.
And Spark…
Spark was his master's dragon. Selen had joked about this with her ground crew and they'd collectively screamed at her not to dare. But when she'd wandered sleeplessly back to Spark's barn last night, huddled in the crook of his forelimbs and whispered to him, she hadn't been joking. And now, even with her eyes stinging and the too-familiar roil of last-minute failure in her gut, he wasn't about to let her chicken out.
Song's wings clapped closed with enough of a downdraft that Selen felt it on her cheeks. As the elder arched over into her dive, Spark swept his wings back, and Selen let herself sag with the motion. It got them just over the bottom of the ring; she could feel Spark straining to lift his tail clear of stinging contact.
And then they dropped into Song's wake. The final dive was dangerously steep, and the hole the bigger dragon cut in the air would be fast, but unpredictably turbulent. You could not 'safely' follow another dragon this closely in these conditions, especially with spectators below to fall on. But there was no rule against it, and they only handed out penalties for collisions.
Objectively, it wasn't any worse an idea than what Harper and Song had done at the eighteenth ring, maybe even a little less dirty. But this would be in front of the biggest audience of the year. If it worked, they'd forgive her.
She could already hear their roars, and the hopeless PA shouting of the announcer. Searchlights struck dazzling reflections from Song's scales, but Selen could see Spark's shadow creeping along the curve of the gold's belly. It was working.
Whirling air tugged at her wrists and ankles. Spark ducked a shoulder, sharply, slewed sideways and lost half a metre and Selen's stomach went with it, but the recovery was just as wrenching the other way. The stadium was a pool of light surrounded by acres of gridded parking and backlot.
The final ring rose out of the blur, still small enough that it looked like she could reach out a hand and slip it onto her finger. Above, Harper must have realised where she was, because Song lifted, trying to cast her wake away, but it was too late. The centre of the stadium was a deep pool, just in case, marked out with safety lights, and Selen grinned. Even if they were only neck-and-neck now, Spark could pull up faster and safer than Song, could hit the final ring and still make it where Harper would have to brake early.
Just above the rooftops of the stadium, Spark unfurled, and Selen rose in her stance atop his back, one fist in the air. The ring flashed past, plunging them into howls of welcome, a churning sea of liquid noise, the trumpeting calls of the retired champion dragons lining the upper gallery. For a moment, the rush of air through Selen's clothes felt like she had wings of her own, and she opened her crownfeathers to match the set of Spark's.
Never one to let her rest easy, ever his master's dragon, Spark swung low, way lower than he needed to. Craning down, he plunged his neck into the pool, slaking his thirst and sending gouts of water back up and over Selen. Drenched, she held firm, threw her head back, and laughed. A dozen massive screens around the arena threw her face back at her, and a fresh wave of sound rose from the stands.
Spark beat a weary lap around the embrace of the stadium's roofline, but nobody expected more heroics from him, least of all Selen. They glided down together to the podium, where her ground crew were already flooding out to greet them.
The landing, more than anything, betrayed Spark's fatigue. Dragons never look dignified landing, but he almost stumbled, close to overshooting. Selen hopped down, surprised when her own feet barely held her, and turned to wrap his chest in the biggest hug she could. His neck curled around her, his wings a wall that pointedly kept the team at bay for a precious second.
His scales were soft and warm and already dry from their dip. She could feel his pulse thundering under her cheek, every pound of a heart that was larger than her head. Where her hands rested behind his shoulders, she skritched, oh-so-gently, with her fingertips, about all she dared before he'd been checked by the docs. She didn't need to say 'thank you', Spark would feel it in the way she touched him.
Then it was time to face the music. She straightened and turned, and as Spark folded his wings back the roar of the crowd struck her in full for the first time. It had an almost tangible force, and even that was nothing to the embrace that picked her fully up off her feet, twirling her around as nothing in the race had.
To her surprise, it was Harper, his short-cropped hair spiky with sweat, his eyes ringed red with goggle-marks. "You crazy fucking bitch! I can't believe you did it, oh my god!"
She met his laugh with her own, trying not to throw up in the process. When he finally let her down, she staggered, cameramen swooping in to catch the moment even as her crew swarmed her. They were an incoherent mess of shouting, remonstrance for her final dive tangling with cheers in their mouths, and again she was lifted off her feet, bounced above the crowd.
"Selen! Selen! How are you feeling?" Adam, the interviewer, somehow cut through it all, like she'd seen him do on the TV since she was a child. Like she'd seen him push past her to do to Harper last year.
Now it was her shoulder his hand landed on. He had oddly hairy knuckles, she noticed, right up this close. Whatever witchcraft he wielded, despite the press of bodies, they had a small circle where he could lean his head in over his red-topped microphone and make himself heard.
"Selen, you're the champion! How do you feel?"
"Everything," she laughed. "I feel everything right now, I don't even know. Spark's the best, my guy, my crew's the best, it's been-" she cut off, barking with laughter again, "It's been an incredible year, it's been so hard, a great race, you know, shoutouts to Harper, to Song, everyone."
"We thought you'd had it at that eighteenth on the last lap."
Selen let laughter tear out of her raw throat again. "Never count me out. Never count me out again. I'm the champion now."
"Congratulations!" Adam let himself be buffeted away by the press of well-wishers.
Selen wriggled her way back to Spark, reached up to stroke his head as he endured the fussing of the team. Then she squeezed past to stand before Song, proud and immaculate on the second step of the podium. There were rumours that the gold would be retiring from competition soon, and Selen could see the hardening of her crests that denoted full maturity, but apart from that, she looked every bit the champion still. She'd earned it.
The noble wedge of her head rose above her own crowd of attendants and craned to look at Selen. Her eyes were black jewels, lit violet from somewhere deep within. Selen dipped low in a bow, as low as she dared with her legs so unsteady. Let the cameras see that; she meant every bit of it.
Hot, damp breath fell across her shoulders and she almost stumbled in shock. Pushing upright, she found herself nose-to-snout with Song. The dragon had reached all the way down to her – the stretch had to hurt. Selen did her best to meet her burning gaze, to hold the extraordinary honour. Around her, the stadium drew a collective breath at the image.
Then it was another whirling round of congratulations and cheers and the stewards corralling her back to stand by Spark as the crowds and crews withdrew. A table holding the trophies and wreaths appeared at the corner of her vision, and then a row of robed dignitaries. She knew, roughly, who they were, but the announcements ringing out over the PA rolled into the waves of crowd chatter and she didn't try to track it.
There were cheers for Mitchie and Queen, whose third place was probably enough for a career-best fourth in the championship. Selen threw Mitchie a wave as Queen bellowed, then laughed as the diminutive rider blew her a kiss in return.
Harper greeted the presenting official like an old friend, grinning and to all appearances exchanging a joke, though how either of them could hear anything over the roar as the second-place trophy changed hands was beyond Selen. She spotted someone in the throng aiming a camera at her and pointed emphatically at Song.
And then it was Selen's turn. She'd forgotten what kind of Minister the old guy in the crimson robes was, but she didn't need to know that to shake his huge paw of a hand and then accept the trophy. It was a sort of stylised wing, thin strips of some high-chromed metal fanning out from a shared root at the weighty base. If she dropped it, it really would dent pretty badly.
On the other hand, it was easy to hold at the stem, fitting comfortably in her fist as she thrust it aloft, to a fresh crash of cheers. Above her, two stewards in formal jackets rather than safety hi-vis stretched to lift the wreath over Spark's head and down his neck. The trophy wasn't terribly heavy, though she could tell from the way it hung in her hand that it would be awkward to balance.
She scanned the crowd. It didn't take her long to spot the camera she was looking for, with the stark red DNN logo. She brought the trophy down and pantomimed hefting it thoughtfully, then glared down the DNN camera and pointed in their direction with her free hand. The commentator's words rang in her ears, '…drop it like a fool'. She had to be better than he believed she was.
With a heave, she launched the trophy upwards. The gasp of the crowd landed like the pause before a beat drop. The trophy flashed and flickered under the stadium's myriad lights, tricking at her eyes as she tried to trace its trajectory. She hadn't thrown it that high, but the sky above the stadium was so dark and vast that it seemed to swallow the trophy up.
Gravity began to tell, the weight of the trophy's base leading it a shuttlecock dive. Selen fixed her eyes on the black felt oval on its underside, trusting her arms and legs to move her the way she trusted Spark in the race. Dimly she felt the stadium's held breath.
The trophy struck the heel of her upraised hand, hard enough to sting, and for an instant she flinched, but instinct took over and she was able to curl it into her chest and hold the catch, the longest flange of metal digging into her cheek. Around her the stadium erupted again, oblivious to how long she stayed hunched and gasping before she was able to straighten up.
Selen pushed open the door to the cottage and stepped inside. The night was mild, but the warmth inside her was more the legacy of the stinging-hot shower she'd taken before leaving the stadium, and the weariness of the joints she'd taken it to try to salve. She'd left almost everything with the team and Spark, bringing only her purse and backpack back with her.
The cottage had been her idea. They were going to have to be in town for at least a couple of weeks, with all the prep for the week and the inevitable festivities afterward, even if she hadn't won. Why not book an extra week and make a rare holiday of it? The cottage was on a gated site, with its own private beach and park, and best of all, allowed pets.
Ember hop-scampered out of the front room to greet her as she carefully hung up her bag. He huffed petulantly at her ankle until, laughing, she reached down to skritch his crown. "Hey Ember, heyyy. Have you been good today?"
Selen looked up to Finana, shuffling in to lean against the doorframe. She was wearing pyjamas and Selen's outsize blue dressing gown, bundled up like it was the middle of winter. Her smile looked shy, as she so often did when Selen came home from a race.
Extracting herself from Ember's fussing, Selen crossed to stand in front of the mermaid, reaching out to take her hands through the thick cloth of her sleeves. "Hey."
"Hey." Finana didn't quite meet her eyes. "Sorry I wasn't, um, there."
"It's ok." Selen meant it, though she still wasn't sure if Finana believed her. The mermaid could barely stand visiting a mall sometimes, there had been no question of letting her stand under the stadium lights, the cameras, seventy thousand spectators and everything else besides. Leaning forward, Selen kissed her gently on the forehead. "Did I look good, on the TV?"
"I was so scared," Finana said, swallowing. "Y'know, when I saw you diving like that. It was really cool, but…"
Selen laughed. "Trust Spark, he wouldn't let me down."
At her ankle, Ember huffed again, maybe recognising his sire's name. Selen started to reach down, not looking away from Finana, but Ember leapt one of his awkward fledgling leaps, and then for a moment it was all scrabbling claws and tumbled balance until he got stable on Selen's shoulder.
Chuckling, Selen scratched his belly. "Did you hear, Ember? Your daddy's a world champion now. Your daddy's a world champion, and what did you do today? Chew the furniture? Throw up on the carpet? Did you chase the neighbour's dog? Terrorise the staff?" She shot Finana an inquiring look.
"Nah, he was good today. We mostly just stayed inside, I didn't want to miss anything."
"How was the show?" Selen let Finana lead her into the lounge. The TV was still on, five feet of blaring wall-mounted screen, but the sound was down really low on what looked like a news broadcast.
"The commentators talk too much," the mermaid answered, and Selen let the faint note of bitterness in her voice lie. She felt it too, but that couldn't hurt them now, not with the trophy standing in Spark's stable tonight. Finana went on, "And the crowds… I didn't realise it would be… was it bigger this year?"
"Naw, it just felt that way because I'm bigger this year," Selen laughed again, snatching the remote and turning the TV off in one smooth motion. Without its glare, the lounge was dark, only one dim-stand-lamp in the corner providing a muted sketch of the marigold wall.
"I don't know how you do it," Finana said, tugging gently at Selen's sleeve as she hesitated.
"I'm the champion, Finana, that's what champions do." Selen laughed. "Gotta be able to stand in front of a crowd if you’re the champion."
Finana tilted her head to one side, and Selen tensed under her suddenly sharpened regard. The mermaid lifted a hand to Selen's cheek, sleeve falling back from her tiny, delicate fingers. Somehow her fingertips were cold, shooting a shiver out around Selen's neck and shoulders. Ember sensed the change in mood, pressing his face to Selen's ear.
"What-?" She began, but Finana gave a faint shake of her head.
"It's ok to cry, too," the mermaid said, voice barely above a whisper. "You can let it out now."
Selen opened her mouth to protest, but her throat seized as she did so. She felt the world fold in around the corners of her vision, her chest and shoulders dropping. In her mind's eye, the trophy sparkled again in the air as it turned over and began to drop back towards her. Her breath stepped and halted, suddenly loud in her nose.
She started to bend forward, diaphragm tightening as it sucked her whole body in. Her eyes were prickling. She felt Ember's weight leave her shoulder, heard the awkward flumph of his half-hop to the sofa. As Selen sank to her knees, Finana's hands closed around her neck and head, pulling her into her chest.
The mermaid smelled of a dry, woody soap, and her robe – Selen's robe – was warm, and soft, and soaked up Selen's tears before the salt could sting her face. For a moment, she tried to fight it, baffled at her own response, but it was hopeless. Sobs stripped her throat raw.
Finana held her while she shook and tried not to think of how easily the trophy might have slipped through her grasp. Tried not to think of what Mick and Tom might have said as Song pulled level with Spark on the final climb. Tried not to remember Harper lifting the trophy last year, while she watched on the screen in the vet ward as the doctors scrambled to save Spark's right supracoracoideus muscle.
By the time she was able to stand again, Finana's robe was soaked through like a used bath towel.