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Elena is not on any of the Aorangi Park courts. She should be; Qinwen checked the practice roster in the morning and definitely saw Elena's name printed in the 10AM session above the last free slot in the schedule. Qinwen had shown up to her session early for a leisurely warmup which Albert would no doubt scold her for performing without supervision once he arrived, but she'd spent long enough not moving how she wanted to that even sweating through her shirt in the premature midmorning heat felt worth it. And maybe she'd catch Elena at the end of her set. See what she's working on. Say a few words.
"Hey," Qinwen says to Jovic, who is waiting for Sonmez to finish up with her coach at the neighbouring court. She's fixing a barrette in her hair, racquet clamped between her knees; it's identical to Elena's, or at least looks that way, Yonex strings, red frame bruising to navy towards the grip. Focus expanding: visor, high braided ponytail, close but not quite. Jovic blinks her disconcertingly pale eyes twice and glances to the side as if Qinwen might be addressing an invisible entity standing next to her, before her gaze sidles back to Qinwen. "Do you know where Rybakina is?"
"Rybakina? I haven't seen her today," Jovic says. "Check the locker room?"
Elena is not in the locker room either. Nobody is in the locker room. There is, however, a racquet bag emblazoned with E. RYBAKINA lying askew by the bench. And perched atop a crumpled heap of white fabric next to Elena's racquet bag: some kind of small woodland creature.
The animal regards Qinwen with an uncanny calm. Long and lithe and otterlike, gleam of unexpectedly long claws snagged in what must be Elena's unseasonal jersey, black-tipped tail bristling. Its coat is the same shade of dark red as Elena's racquet.
Qinwen allows the door to click shut behind her. She says, "Rybakina?"
The animal does something with its elongated neck which is, quite distinctly, a miniaturised iteration of the precise exasperated slump of Elena's torso when she has shanked the ball straight into the net or sent it careening high towards the stands, that rare visible externalisation of feeling. Passion on Elena is muted but recognisable enough if you know how to look for it. The most immediate pull: Madrid, third round, Elena in hawthorn berry red across the net throwing her hands up, disbelief compressed into fury. Here in London that could have transmuted into something else.
Strange things happen at Wimbledon sometimes. In moments of great emotional upheaval on the grass players might find themselves undergoing transformation on more than just a spiritual level. She's never managed to stick around long enough to see it happen in person but it's not an uncommon occurrence, though thankfully temporary. Of course there was 2025, which she had seen first on the TV in the orthopaedic clinic waiting room and then reposted from seventy different angles all over XHS for weeks afterwards: Sinner at the net hunched over his racquet in exhausted exhilarated relief so fervent that for about ten seconds he was a startled red fox with a racquet clattering to the grass beside him; when he changed back the shock lingered on his face for a few seconds longer before the delayed elation kicked in. At the Nike event in Beijing later that year she'd asked what it felt like and he told her it hadn't felt like anything and she thought about lying supine on the operating table as the total absence of sensation crept glacially out from her elbow. Then he paused and gravely corrected himself that actually the sudden drop in visual perspective had made him a bit nauseous and he was glad he hadn't thrown up.
There was also the 2023 semifinals, Jabeur's serve on match point hurtling past what was one moment Aryna Sabalenka and the next a tiger at the baseline, glint of diamonds in the ears pinned flat back in displeasure. 2018, the wolf stalking triumphant across the court in that definitional two-day men's semifinals epic. And the first ever transformation Qinwen remembers seeing: the bull and the leopard at the 2009 trophy ceremony in the stunning denouement of a match they must have already known would pass into myth.
It's the grand occasions, the titans clashing, that can turn Centre Court into a menagerie. Qinwen can't imagine what kind of emotional upheaval could come on the heels of an ordinary practice session. Then again she can't imagine much of what might be in Elena's head, ever. She wonders about it sometimes. The locked-away jewel of Elena's mind, faceted and glittering. Red as her racquet, or no; clear and impenetrable like diamond. You had to mine it out.
Qinwen crouches down and holds out a hand as if enticing a cat to approach. Small furred animals probably operate on similar principles. With great dignity Elena extricates herself from her jersey and trots closer. She moves almost as soundlessly as she does in human form, betrayed only by her claws tapping against the floor. When she's within striking distance of Qinwen's knee she settles upright on her hind legs, alert and poised, like she's readying herself to launch a return.
"You are not a fish," Qinwen observes. Elena gives her a flat stare, inasmuch as a small furred animal can be said to stare flatly. "I thought maybe you will be a rabbit, or a bird. I don't know what is this animal."
A shifting movement of the front limbs, up and down. Maybe a shrug.
"You don't know either?" Another shrug-adjacent movement. "You are still pretty," Qinwen assures her. "A very pretty… weasel… or something."
She thinks Elena looks aggrieved, but it's hard to tell.
"For me, I will probably become a hawk," Qinwen says. "Like a big golden hunter. But then I have no hands so I might struggle to play tennis, so that's no good." She's also yet to progress far enough at Wimbledon to reach the threshold where the magic would take notice, though the proof that the threshold is much lower than she'd thought is right in front of her. "I guess you can't hold a racquet like this either. No way to grip."
Elena extends an oversized paw and flexes the claws.
"Too small," Qinwen says. "They are big for your body but not for tennis."
A cascade of quiet chirping sounds and Elena goes still, seeming surprised at herself. It's the first vocalisation she's made. Qinwen smiles. Something in Elena's posture seems to ease. She chirps again. Qinwen is struck by the absurd impulse to stroke a hand down her lustrous crimson back.
Probably that's too familiar considering the number of times they've met on the court can be counted on two hands, plus a couple more hands' worth of practices and locker-room greetings and the occasional smile exchanged from across the gym which felt like a small victory every time. Reaching Elena in the draw is a blessing with teeth; the numbers are, she knows, against her, though not fatally so. Still, always a delight to play Elena, the graceful brutality of her serve, the flat shots off both wings missiling straight through any defence. When she thinks of Elena it is first as force and second as control. An artillery tower targeting a blade of grass. During her time off after the surgery Qinwen kept up with the top of the tour because she liked expertise and it wasn't like there was much else for her to do: Swiatek capping Wimbledon off with Cincinnati, Alcaraz and Sinner cruising to the inevitable US Open shootout, Sabalenka finally triumphant on blue. And Elena, for the simple pleasure of seeing her tennis, which held the same core beauty even when it failed her. That was the untarnishable shine of power.
"So you aren't feeling well?" Elena bares an impressive set of fangs, which is as clear an answer as any. "Okay, I don't ask. I think usually it doesn't last very long… I can go and find one of your team if—" Tension bristles down the length of Elena's body. The canines stay on display. It's just so animal. Simplified and amplified, again the kind of pure visible expressiveness Qinwen associates with the refining furnace of a match and it feels disquietingly unearned outside the court, this legibility. "Okay. No team, I got it. Then I will stay, but if you aren't back by the end of practice I have to get someone, at least a staff from here. Deal?"
Elena appears to consider this for a moment. Her jaws close neatly; she inclines her head. This possibly ranks in the top five longest conversations Qinwen has ever had with Elena and Elena has literally been unable to say a single word to her. It's not really what she'd imagined when she thought she'd catch Elena before practice and talk to Elena about—anything. The weather. How she manages her health. What she does when her tennis collapses because her body cannot keep up. Her dog. Her back routine. If she's still working on her netplay or if she's decided to focus on the weapons she already has. Easy enough to conjure up the tenor of Elena's voice in her mind, light and solemn and clear, but not at all what Elena might say in response.
"We were closer than this before," Qinwen says. She shifts her weight backwards until she's seated and butterflies her legs, not a real stretch but enough of one that she could at any time transition into it with the application of a little more effort. The ceramic tile is chill and unyielding against her calves. Elena watches her, unmoving, unblinking. "Our rankings, I mean. Now we always meet so early in the draw. I always like to play you but I wish it was later, you know?"
The distance between how Qinwen's body is performing and what she knows her body to be capable of spans light years. Her level is not good enough. There is nothing physically wrong with her anymore; her doctor and her physio talked her through all the soft tissue scans, the shrinking glow of inflammation. Rehab was cautious and incremental. Longevity was the name of the game. One more day off now for an entire year of play down the track. The mathematics was logical and almost unbearable but if she could bear the pain long enough to push herself to Wimbledon last year, before her elbow gave way altogether, she could bear its absence too.
And now her elbow is painless but clings stubbornly onto the memory of fragility. It's ridiculous. She's never flinched from the real thing, the good clean burn of muscle and tendon and breath straining at maximum, but her hindbrain shies away preemptively from the imagined version as if she's already reached the cumulative limit and it's done with the bearing for a lifetime but she cannot be done, this cannot be all her body has to give with only her gold from two years ago to show for it. You are only as good as your last match. The slope stretches upwards, so much steeper than she'd expected when she came back to the tour. For one blank heartbeat during which she feels absolutely nothing the skin on her forearms seems to shimmer gold and feathery, but her vision resolves itself between blinks. Not yet for her, the magic of grass. Perhaps it's just that it remembers Elena. Touched whatever it was Elena felt and recognised the delayed claim, the title that was eternal and would never give way beneath her no matter how much it was made to bear.
"I wonder," Qinwen says, "do you still see me," as competition, is how she means to finish, but the rest of the question seems superfluous. She closes her eyes. As usual, when it comes to Elena, her imagination fails her.
The muted click of claws on tile, a little louder. Then silence.
And then. Light, solemn. Clear as struck crystal. "I see you," Elena says.