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“Welcome back! We’re here at the Grand Palais for the latter stages of the Fencing – the gold medal bout in Women’s Team Foil coming up next, between the ever-dominant Team Hungary, and the home heroes and underdogs, Team France!”
“A good medal haul at the Games so far for this feisty French outfit, but this Hungarian team are very solid, very powerful, and will be hard to break down. Either way, we’re expecting a great match.”
A staple of the Games at this point, Champs Elisee lilts from the speakers hung from the roof of the gorgeous palace, and the French crowd strikes into chorus. The lights turn down to herald the entrance of the athletes into the centre of the venue.
“Here come the teams onto the piste now, Team France first, led out by their captain, Ermine Damanescu!”
The three ladies begin their walkout, Ermine stern and confident, striding ahead of her teammates. Madelaine and Maria follow behind in formation, both animatedly blowing kisses, waving their arms and smiling, drinking in the raucous atmosphere of the home crowd.
All three women are clad in spotless white kit, underlayers of plastic and fabric covered by a long-sleeved, collared jacket with a full-length zip running up along the outside of the breast of their non-dominant side. Over the top of that is the lamé, a grey, sleeveless electrified jacket that seems far more agitated than the rest of their kit.
Tight breeches cover most of their legs, made of the same material as the jacket and stopping below the knee, where long socks take over, then lead into specialist trainers. French flag decals flow down the flanks of their legs, and each electrified jacket has the surnames of the fencer printed across the upper back, and ‘FRA’ inscribed beneath. DAMANESCU, D’ARTOIS and JOSEFINA.
Behind them, a rather mismatched pair of volunteer assistants carry their bags, one large and muscular, and the other small and lithe, her shock-white pigtails striking despite the lights mainly focusing on the athletes.
They approach the left edge of the raised piste, the long metal strip haloed in the middle of the arena by dancing lights as the trio begin to unpack the rest of their kit.
“And now, the fencers representing Hungary!”
A less rapturous, but still sizeable applause meets the other team, and the French team flick glances at them while they attach body wires and hydrate.
Three women of similar stature and attitude stride through the venue, coaches and bags in tow. Their jackets read SZILÁGYI, NAGY, and GULÁSCI, ‘HUN’ printed below each name on their backs. In comparison to the first trio, they are far more collected and steeled as they make their way across to the other end of the piste.
“God, they couldn’t even wave or anything? Boring.” Madelaine sighs as she ties her crimson hair back.
Maria casually slides an arm around Madelaine’s side. “Patience mon amour – It’ll just make it even more satisfying when we crush them!” She balls her other hand into a fist for emphasis as Madelaine chuckles.
Ermine doesn’t add to the comments, instead fiddling with the padding inside her helmet to stay ‘in the zone’. A piece of paper sits next to her with the plans for which order the three of them will fence in, the most senior member and captain of the team having spent hours plotting the optimal strategy after their opponents were confirmed.
“Hey, Madame Capitaine, are we still sure that’s the best order?” Maria asks, languidly bending over to practically lie her chin on Ermine’s shoulder.
“You touch that paper and your butt becomes target practice for the Sabreurs when we get back.”
“Ooh la la Ermine, you’re meant to make me not want to touch it~”
Ermine furrows her brow in an attempt to make her slight blush at the thought of Maria in that situation less obvious. “Okay! Everyone shut up and get ready. Madelaine, you’re up first.”
Madelaine gives a playful wink to Maria as she unsheathes her foil from her bag. The grey, flexible blade has a thin wire running along its top, with a flat, buttoned tip at one end, and a metal-guarded pistol-like grip at the other. Madelaine takes the grip in her now-gloved right hand, slinging her helmet under her other arm and making her way to the centre of the piste. A long wire begins to stretch itself from the spool on the ground after she attaches it to her lamé, activating the electrical circuit from her foil to the scoring box.
[ Hello! It’s me, the author here to explain how a fencing team relay event works while Madelaine gets ready, because all of these people do, but you probably don’t.
There are three fencers on each team, and they each fence each other once.
They go in a pre-determined order set by the captain before the bout.
The first round is to 5 points, but each one after that just adds onto that score, all the way to 45 points.
For example, round one ends 5-3. The next round only ends when either the left team get another five points, or the right team get 8 more to make up the deficit.
For this fic I think that’s everything you need to know! If you’re still confused, don’t worry there’s still yuri and you don’t need to understand the format for that ;) ]
The steps along the strip of metal start to make the tension of the situation sink in, despite Madelaine’s breezy attitude previously. She can feel her heart beating faster as she exchanges pleasantries and checks weapons with her first opponent, Peppa Gulácsi.
Saluting her opponent, the referee, and then the crowd, she sneaks a final glance to her seated teammates before putting her helmet on. Ermine’s face is taught, her stoic expression calming Madelaine slightly. Maria on the other hand is anything but collected, and Madelaine feels her desire to put on a show grow for them, the thousands of fans in the Palais, and the millions watching the broadcast.
Her vision darkens as the black grill of the helmet slides over her face.
She takes a deep breath and goes en garde. The referee begins the countdown as tense silence falls.
“En Garde!”
“Pret!”
“Allez!”
Madelaine springs off the line, practiced and sleek footwork closing the distance to her opponent quickly. But Peppa is ready, and as Madelaine dives into a stretching lunge her blade is deftly parried, the Hungarian then jumping up and perfectly landing the tip of her foil right between Madelaine’s shoulder blades with a flick.
0-1
The crowd gasps at the flamboyant technique paying off, a quiet “Merde…” falling from Maria’s lips in surprise. Madelaine silently curses herself as she walks back to her line.
The rest of the fight is relatively close, Madelaine alternating points with Peppa, but that first moment of surprise means the round ends 4-5, France now in a point deficit. The crowd clap the pair off, no shock that Hungary are ahead.
Madelaine detaches herself from the piste, and makes her way back to the technical area with a pout.
Ermine passes her as she returns, giving her a silent high-five as she makes her way up to start the next leg.
“Fuck… that was so annoying! I could’ve won if I didn’t let her fucking… rrgh!”. Madelaine flops into her chair, pressing a water bottle between her lips and taking a swig.
“Don’t worry – that’s Ermine’s by the way – it’s not a big loss, we’ll make it back”
Madelaine’s eyebrows raise briefly but she keeps drinking regardless.
“God, you’re a freak.” Maria chides.
“And you love it.”
“It’s true, it’s true…” she sighs. “Meen’s up.”
The crowd begins to bray once more as Ermine finishes her preparation and checks weapons with Kamilla Nagy, the similarly eldest member of the opposing team. The two ready themselves with the schooled calmness years of competition brings. The referee starts them off again.
“En Garde!”
“Pret!”
“Allez!”
It’s a much slower, more probing match, both fencers feeling each other out with feints, lunges and parries before any proper decisive action happens. But when either woman finds an opening the piste shakes with their powerful action, a flurry of parries and beats ending often in the referee calling ‘Halt!’ when they almost run into each other without hitting or being hit.
Eventually, Kamilla finds the deciding point, dropping the French team slightly further into the deficit, now down 8 to 10.
Returning from the piste, Ermine just grumbles as Maria gathers herself and her extra kit for her first round, taking the younger woman’s seat and drying her sweaty face and neck off with a towel. Madelaine pretends not to be watching her do so.
“You could’ve got her in that last one if you—”
“Were on target, I know that, Madelaine. It’s literally my job.”
Ermine reaches for her bottle and raises an eyebrow at its unexpected lightness.
“Who the fuck… Guess we’re sharing now then.”
Madelaine laughs quietly as Ermine sips from Maria’s bottle, then flushes and turns away as Ermine finishes drinking – a momentarily visible trail of spit between her lips and the bottle makes the younger woman’s head spin. Not very helpful for her focus.
Round 3 begins, Maria Josefina vs Andrea Szilágyi seemingly getting off to a good start for the French as Maria bursts forward and hits the target, the red glow from the scoring box met with cheers from the crowd. Unfortunately, Andrea was ready to spoil the party, five rapid, heartbreaking points arriving from the Hungarian to crush the mini swing of momentum.
“Halt, attack is yes, point right, game Szilágyi.”
Maria drops to her knees on the piste, crushed knowing the difficult task she now leaves the team with for the rest of the bout. Her previous bravado visibly takes a hit as she returns to her team, silent. Ermine just gives her a small nod as the pass each other.
The technical area is silent before the next bout. Maria sits and covers her face with a towel until Ermine’s round begins. Madelaine looks guilty. The score sits at 9-15.
On the piste, Ermine knows what she needs to do to claw back some hope. A score above 5 would be passable, keeping them at the same point deficit, but any more than that could re-light their confidence for the rest of the bout. Her opponent is the same as Madelaine’s first round, and she knows that patience seems to counteract her main gameplan. Hopefully.
“En Garde!”
“Pret!”
“Allez!”
Ermine is proven correct rather quickly, the pair falling into a near-stalemate for the first few points as Peppa struggles to exploit her attacks in the same way she did to Madelaine. The previously quietened crowd regains some of its earlier hype as Ermine begins to lead, gradually reducing the point gap with meticulous movements and ripostes.
3-2. Then 4-2. 4-3. 5-3. 6-3. She’s making it back. It’s exhausting. 7-3. 8-3. The crowd roar as the eighth point is given left. Ermine knows she’s hitting the wall. 8-4. 8-5. The round ends as Hungary make it to 20, and Ermine’s face drips with sweat at she shakes hands with Peppa and turns back to her ecstatic team, Maria practically bouncing while Madelaine claps reverently. Only three points now separate the teams.
The red-haired woman hugs Ermine tightly as she walks up to replace her, feeling the older fencer relax the tension of her round.
“Keep it up.” Ermine tells Madelaine as she passes by, a smiling nod returned in reply.
As soon as she steps down from the piste, Maria bows down to Ermine in apology. “I’m so sorry Ermine for dropping those points Ermine I’ll do better in the next one Ermine please don’t hate me Ermine you did so well in that round Ermine!”
A brief exhale comes from Ermine at the display. “It’s okay, Maria. We’ll still beat them but we need you at your best to do that, so get off the floor. It’s scuffing the kit.”
“Oops.”
Madelaine faces down her next opponent – Andrea, their captain and ace who decimated Maria earlier. Nothing except scoring more points than her matters in Madelaine’s mind. She locks her fiery red eyes with Andrea’s – deep green and calm. She imagines the tears she wants filling them instead as they stand en garde.
As soon as the referee calls “Allez!” Madelaine is all over her. She saw each fluid motion she made to flummox Maria, and calls her out, finding her weak point at every opportunity to steal the first point. She shouts loudly when she gets the point, and the crowd match her energy with whoops and shouts of support.
In a sort of reversal of her first match, Madelaine is able to trade points with Andrea pretty comfortably, and eventually to the applause of the audience and her team she also breaches the 5 point target, the final score of their round 6 for Madelaine and 5 for Andrea. 23-25. Almost level now.
Madelaine grips Maria’s face as the changeover happens, and presses their foreheads together. “Get us in front. I trust you.”
She stutters slightly at the contact. “Uh- I will!”
“Good. Get up there!”
“God, you two are so cheesy it’s painful.” Ermine chides as Madelaine takes a seat next to her.
“I can do the same with you if you want, ‘Meen~”
The older woman takes a swig from her own bottle and shrugs as the lights focus back onto the piste for the next round.
‘You need 7. You need 7. Then it’s okay.’ Maria repeats to herself in her head as she centres herself and gets en garde. Kamilla across from her is just like ‘Meen. She beats her all the time! Just get some quick hits, it’s easy. The crowd goes quiet again as the referee begins.
“En Garde!”
“Pret!”
“Allez!”
Surprisingly, it is actually ‘easy’ – one point, then two, then three, then four without any reply. France lead for the first time. The noise from the crowd grows and grows so much that the referee has to tell them to go quiet before each point.
It can’t all be perfect however, and four points against her with only one more in response make her slightly more tense. Just one more for Kamilla and the round will end, and they’ll still be in a deficit. She digs deep.
A speedy lunge onto Kamilla’s shoulder. 5-4.
A dramatic series of parries and ripostes. Maria jumps and connects beautifully. 6-4. The teams are equal again now. Next point ends the round.
Kamilla comes forward, and her lunge is impressively quick and covers lots of ground, but instead of hitting the lamé, only air reaches the foil. Maria dips low, and spears the tip of her foil into her chest. 7-4. France lead 30-29 with three rounds to go.
Maria roars with the fans, and the change of fencers on the Hungarian side is notably dour and quiet. Ermine, next up, uncharacteristically pumps her fists with happiness as she crosses paths with Maria.
“Great job.”
“Hahhh… thanks ‘Meen. Now don’t lose it.”
“I can’t promise that…” She sighs, quietly feeling a burn in her thighs greater than she has before in a competition, still slightly reeling from how much she gave in her second round.
Madelaine has to practically restrain herself from peppering Maria with kisses as she recovers, given that she’s back on after Ermine. Still, she dotes on her teammate while she sits with a towel and water bottle basically attached to her face.
“You were so good then amour”
Maria makes a heart with her hands as she leans her head back.
Now into the final rounds for each fencer, Ermine prepares herself for the worst. Captain to captain, Andrea holds all the attributes of someone Ermine hates to fence – powerful, sleek, and worst of all, left-handed. The pang in her thighs isn’t relenting either.
The round begins, and confirms to Ermine that she’s probably going to be struggling to keep up here, Andrea blitzing through her guard and scoring easy, sloppy points left and right. Ermine can only hit twice. It feels like her legs are about to explode when Andrea lunges forward one last time to swing the lead back to Hungary, 32-35.
Wordless, she walks back to the technical area before any signs of emotion can form, employing a similar tactic to Maria when she arrives there by covering her face with a towel, however Madelaine now also holds her hand from the seat next to her in addition.
Maria takes her place and the tension in the Palais is painfully thick. All eyes are now fixed to the piste, everyone knowing the match could be practically won or lost based on the result of this round.
She hates that she’s the one in this spot – not where Ermine was, setting the pace and target for these last rounds, and also not where Madelaine will be soon, either cleaning up a lead, or making a dramatic comeback. She’s just… in the middle of the end. The worst bit. Doubt grows as she considers her last performances – getting soundly beaten to create such a gap first, then dropping some unnecessary points with her win in her second. She doesn’t know what to expect. But maybe neither does Peppa.
“En Garde!”
“Pret!”
“Allez!”
1-0. Maria dives low and catches Peppa’s left flank.
2-0. This time high, around her right shoulder.
2-1. A beautiful series of blade clashes leaves Maria open and hit.
3-1. The same, but the other way.
3-2. Maria curses loudly as she all but walks onto Peppa’s tip.
3-3. Too hastily Maria tries the same move again, and another sloppy point goes Peppa’s way.
3-4. She shouts angrily as a contentious point is given against her by the referee.
4-4. The crowd get behind her again after a perfect jumping flick.
5-4. Bare minimum done, Maria grits her teeth as a similar cramp to Ermine’s arrives at the worst possible moment.
5-5. The round ends. None of it mattered, at least to Maria, as the gap stays the same going into the final round:
France 37 – 40 Hungary.
“Merde!! So fucking pointless!” Maria shouts as she sits back down next to Ermine, foot tapping as she starts removing her lamé and body wires.
Ermine pats her on the back, before looping her arm around the younger woman as they turn to watch Madelaine’s final round with an agonising mixture of hope and uncertainty. She’s the team’s prodigy. If anyone can claw this back, it should be Madelaine d’Artois.
Up on the piste, Madelaine is calm. She doesn’t know why. It’s an Olympic final and her team is three points behind, and yet she feels unusually placid. As she tests weapons with Kamilla she looks into the other woman’s visage, and can tell she feels the same way.
A deep breath, an exhale, and Madelaine slips her helmet on for the last time. The crowd are silenced by the referee.
“En Garde!”
8 points for France to win it. 5 against to lose.
“Pret!”
Anything less is not worth considering.
“Allez!”
The squeak of trainers and the taps of foils against each other are the only noises audible as the two set off gradually. Madelaine takes the initiative first.
Speed and agility let Madelaine catch Kamilla off guard, nearly disarming her with a beat attack before finishing cleanly.
1-0.
They set off again, and Madelaine again slides beautifully into a lunge that lands on Kamilla’s right shoulder.
2-0.
One more to draw level. She finds it. Ermine and Maria shake against each other with anxiety.
3-0.
Madelaine questions herself mid-lunge and withdraws her arm too soon, and Kamilla deftly punishes her for it.
3-1.
Arm out, feint then lunge.
4-1.
Same again.
5-1.
The audience scream and Maria begins to watch from behind her fingers as the tension ratchets up somehow even further. Madelaine loses focus.
5-2.
5-3.
She looks to her teammates between points. She’s doing it for them. For the whole country. Refocus.
6-3.
The jubilance returns from the French fans, but the bout still hangs in the balance. Two points for either team seals it. Madelaine exploits Kamilla’s caution again, the Hungarian overcommitting and paying the price with a touch to her torso.
7-3.
Match point for France, and Madelaine’s heart nearly beats out of her chest now, the previous calm mostly burnt away for passion instead. A stunning tangle of attacks, counterattacks, ripostes, flicks and lunges fire the pair up and down the piste until Kamilla finds her mark just too soon for Madelaine to reply.
7-4.
No one breathes. Madelaine begins her footwork, speeding up into a stunning, feinting lunge aimed square and true towards the conductive neckline of Kamilla’s helmet.
BEEP!
“Attack is yes, point left, game France.”
8-4. 45-44.
The Palais erupts as the final point is given to Madelaine, and she pulls her helmet off with a shout of relief and happiness. Maria and Ermine rush onto the piste to hug her, the former smothering Madelaine’s face with a combination of kisses and screams.
“MADELAINE!! Iloveyousomuchmwahmwahmwah!”
Ermine laughs. “Same here” she says without much thought, processing it only when the other two snap their heads around to look at her, though still smiling.
The fervent kisses from the younger pair that cover her cheeks can probably just be explained as French affection, right?
After the initial exhilaration dies down, both teams shake hands, cool down, and discuss the match casually as the preparation for the next final begins.
The medal presentation isn’t for a while, and the French trio are still firmly riding the buzz of victory back to their designated changing and recuperation area in the Palais.
“Hey Ermine, guess what?” Maria asks, the same question she keeps repeating ever since they left the Hungarians to themselves.
“What, Maria?” She replies with a smirk, already knowing the answer.
“We won the fucking god-damn Olympics~!”
“Wait, what?” Madelaine feigns surprise. “Little old us? No way.”
“It’s true! You were actually the one who did the most brilliant moves – it would’ve been such a boring event without you making that incredible comeback, mon amour”
“Ooh, merci, merci! But you actually got us in the lead first, amour~ Don’t let me take all of the credit!” The pair giggle giddily in each other’s gaze, before Madelaine flicks her eyes sideways to the other team member, prompting Maria to follow her.
“But really, we owe it to Madame Capitaine over here – even though her legs may be evil and tried to sabotage our victory, we would probably just be sitting in the crowd without her.” Madelaine espoused, her voice lilting and reverent. Maria nodded along, her face plastered with that scheming, ‘I know something you don’t’ expression that Ermine knows to dread when she is the target of it.
“Um- Thank you, Madelaine. You both were… incredible, and I’m so happy to have been… on this…” Ermine’s voice falters as the other two only grin more. “team with you, and win this event.” She still takes a moment, then sighs affectionately as she realises what they’re waiting for her to say.
“I love you tw—”
They pounce before Ermine can even finish her sentence, their combined power knocking the older woman onto the sofa she previously sat upright on as her face yet again is covered in kisses, though this time the required chastity of live broadcast does not give Ermine the ability to stop their dual assault. But to be fair, she wouldn’t want that anyway.
Ermine just prays that the Team France jackets they’ve been given are modest enough to hide whatever scandalous affection may be about to occur when they take the podium. Hopefully the gold medals are a good enough trophy that HR never finds out about this…
[ Hi again, I edited a scoresheet for this if you want a visual guide for the actual sport bit (I do not own this design, copyright is at the bottom) ]
