Chapter Text
It was a severe breach of decorum for a trainee to raise her voice and rebuke her trainer.
Then again, it was also a severe breach to argue with your trainee. Yet, the social contract and her convictions both reinforced Symboli Rudolf's determination to weather the storm. They both were convinced they were in the right.
She had picked this trainer, a mousy and disciplined career woman from a long family line, because the human's years of schooling and intense schedules looked promising. Symboli Rudolf was a prodigy and so was a magnet for trainers that want to have their own names carried along by umamusume into history more than anything else. This trainer was likely the same kind of cynical sort, but Rudolf had told herself it didn't matter-- if she could deliver the test she thought she must endure, then she'd come out stronger. Simple as that. Besides, it wasn't as if this trainer had proven herself inept and in fact far from it.
Yet her win at the Satsuki Sho seemed to only make her trainer even more rigid and uncompromising. In spite of the fact she felt they both contributed to that victory, now her trainer seemed convinced only she knew how Rudolf should run to win the Derby. Even the Derby even being declared already her victory, something that Rudolf herself had mixed feelings about, did little to loosen her up. In fact, it just seemed to just make her even more obsessed. Rudolf felt as if her input had been repeatedly discarded. After all, her job was supposed to be running.
They'd argued about strategy back and forth enough and they'd both had it. Her trainer had just begun going over her plan on the whiteboard again. Thankfully, the din from outside provided a little bit of white noise for her to ignore her trainer and visualize her own strategy. Given how many runners had dropped out, the strategy needed constant adjustments given the brackets. She lost a considerable amount of sleep re-adjusting her plans to try and correlate on a plan with her, but her trainer was just infuriated at the notion. Perhaps she was threatened.
"... and you will keep the pace behind the lead and then overtake her. The weather's gone and soiled the turf a bit, so we're going to need to use more power in your strides compared to others we've run or else we aren't going to be able to get across the straight in enough time if you trail in the back."
We, she says. Symboli Rudolf fails to suppress a scoff. Her patience was already wearing thin a week ago and was nearly threadbare, as pained as she was to admit it.
"Trainer, please. Have I not proven to you that I have more than enough--"
"I have told you," the woman goes on, a hand to her chest, "I! Have told you. That it is your job to run, to train, and to do what I say. That is how we won the Satsuki Sho and that is how we will win the Derby and the Kikuka Sho!"
Rudolf scowled a little but suppressed the worst of it. She felt more hurt than anything-- Were they not a team? "The circumstances have changed, trainer. There are less runners on the field, so I can safely--"
Hands slamming upon the desk made Rudolf start, her body tense and her ears flat. Evidently, her trainer was also stressed out; the woman had heavy bags under her eyes and clear needed more sleep than she was letting herself get. Sitting there, Symboli Rudolf had a moment that she had many times before and would have many times since: a moment where she imagined an umamusume.
An umamusume who sat in the same place as she but was not she; perhaps she was younger or perhaps older, larger or smaller, but this uma, because she was not Symboli Rudolf, was afraid of her trainer.
Corporal punishment against trainees was against formal URA regulation and outlawed in much of the world where it was also outlawed against humans. Sadly, once an idea has cemented itself within the culture it can prove hard to extricate even if those ideas are dangerous and harmful; there were plenty of practices that were illegal or frowned upon that were still performed even though they were provably detrimental to a racer's life because they benefited her career, or worse, that of someone else, or any other excuse someone might come up with to justify hurting another. An uma might of any age might be able to physically overpower a human in pure strength and speed, even with a severe disadvantage in stature, but that did nothing against other forms of control or, heaven forbid, violence. The past was never as far away as it seemed to be.
That fact sickened Symboli Rudolf to her core and made her veins burn. Thankfully she was well practised in both suppressing nausea and avoiding outbursts. She'd paid too much time and attention in her social studies lessons to let herself be distracted by seething. That wretched, vicarious anger was easily metabolized into indignation.
She wasn't overly forceful, she thought, but the chair behind her nonetheless squealed on the floor when she stood.
"No. You will listen to me. I told you that there needed to be--"
"We've practised on these exact track conditions, Rudolf, and we had the best time when you kept pace to overtake them on the last leg, if we change things now--"
"Would you please stop interrupting me?! I've been trying to--"
Her trainer rounded the desk and stomped over, but froze as soon as her trainee turned to face her. She was a tiny thing that Symboli Rudolf had no doubt she could make quick work of, but that fact sickened her; she abhorred violence. Thankfully for everyone, her trainer stopped in her tracks as soon as her trainee whipped around to face her.
One of many great injustices of this universe is that are some of them that seem to have a certain power, a certain gravitas that others do not. Her trainer had never found Rudolf particularly intense, stubborn sure, but now she supposed she understood a little what those people meant.
When she'd expressed interest in scouting Symboli Rudolf she'd heard her described, by other humans and uma alike, as "intense". Other trainers had shirked away before her and that always attracted a certain type of trainer that lends itself well to being a competitive racing trainer: a desire to rise to a challenge and overcome it.
After some thought, she'd later more describe the aura that filled the room that day as oppressive.
Rudolf stood tall as she glared, wrathful and white-hot, at the human. Before her was a creature the trainer did not recognize, something out of a nightmare. There was a tiny, lucid part that realized she hadn't noticed just how unnatural, how otherworldly, Rudolf's eyes looked. She realized then that she'd never seen Rudolf angry until now, and now it felt as if she was feeling the anger, the pain, of so many more than just one umamusume push down upon her, as if to crush her. She felt as if she were small, getting smaller, and sinking into the ground beneath her feet. Hopefully if she became small enough then she would be invisible.
"You will listen and you will not interrupt me again. Do you understand?"
The trainer felt small because she'd fallen to the ground at some point. Rudolf made to offer her a hand to help her up, but when her trainer flinched she stopped in her tracks. Guilt and anger fought for control of her executive function.
"...you're convinced that yours is the only way, correct? That I'm going to lose if I don't follow your plan?"
"Y-Yes Rudolf, but you--"
"Quiet. Please."
The trainer, who had tried to wave her papers at her trainee again, clammed up. Rudolf winced silently and tasted disgust in her own mouth; what was said had been said and she vowed to avoid that taste henceforth. She redoubled her efforts to keep a placid, even tone and stood her ground.
"I am going to follow my own strategy, Trainer. I have confidence in my own abilities. It is I on the turf; my feet, my racing intuition, and my victory, first and foremost, not yours. ...I fear I have outgrown you, Trainer. I am going to follow my own strategy and I am going to win, and when I win our contract will be terminated. If I lose then onward shall I defer to your knowledge and expertise so we can achieve further victories and reclaim our glory-- and our relationship --that I have so brazenly soiled with my arrogance. I will even go about trying to negotiate a raise for you." She did not, in fact, have the influence to do that at this time. Not that it mattered. It wasn't a lie-- she would try, but in vain. "Am I understood?"
Rudolf was aware of how people described her. She didn't really know what it meant when people told her she was "intense", but she knew that "intense" Rudolf was useful against the kinds of people who would not understand anything but power and volume. ... she wishes intense Rudolf wasn't so useful, because she was not good at making friends. She'd rather make friends.
Her trainer nodded, trembling, as she straightened out her coat. "Y-Yes ...I apologize for failing to give a satisfactory performance." The words were bitter, and stung. Her apology and the appropriate gestures were as formal as she on the first day they'd met. It didn't matter that Rudolf waved her off. She was acutely aware of how her own stiff posture and formalities had a way of making people over conscious of their own. It wasn't their fault she'd been taught to stand up straight out of the womb.
Rudolf opened her mouth but realized there wasn't really anything good that could be said. Couldn't take any of last few minutes back.
"...you can still have a future at this academy," she added, as if that were any consolation. "I am going to go get ready. I will see you after the race." Losing her composure would serve no purpose, and she had no difficulty calming down, but the interaction left a lingering sting. Unfortunately, she was still learning the hard way that what she viewed as retaining composure could be seen as anything but.
Symboli Rudolf would not see her trainer after the race. Her trainer would be too afraid to see her.