Eighth Race

Mynah

Backstage areas at arenas more than justify all the jokes about bands getting lost on the way to the stage. They are cramped and bleakly utilitarian, the antithesis of the glamour that Mynah is here to project from the stage. At tonight's venue, the ready room looks like a school classroom set up for school fair day, with all the cheap tables pushed to the sides and covered in paper tablecloths.

The spread is opulent: sandwiches on plastic trays, various drinks in value-pack packaging, a whole lot of cellophane wrapping and paper plates. Mynah picks at a plate of salad, watching her mood in the reluctance of her own hands. She will need the calories for the show, but before going on stage there is another performance she needs to muster more than just energy for.

She sets down her plate and fills a flimsy plastic cup with fruit juice. Her hand is steady as she lifts it, but she takes a drink anyway, lowering the level in the cup to reduce the risk of spilling in case someone bumps into her. Most of the people here are on her staff – her personal trainer, PA and manager, stylists, the tour manager, the dancers and band popping in and out – and she's spoken to most of the guests.

That just leaves one.

Holding her drink, she weaves through to the corner where purple pigtails droop from under a black cap. Phoebe Tenryuu is wearing a plain black t-shirt and jeans, but Mynah sees clearly – as she has since Phoebe arrived – that she feels anything but inconspicuous. She hasn't touched the food, hasn't spoken to anyone that Mynah has seen, hasn't even fiddled much with her phone.

Mynah chooses her voice carefully, pitching for kindness and reassurance. She does not have specific instructions this evening, like she did the first time they met, but they aren't needed. "Are you ok?"

The brim of Phoebe's cap rises, and under it her eyes are tense, haunted. "Just trying to stay out of the way."

Mynah laughs very gently, very quietly, aiming for only Phoebe to hear. "You've never been backstage at a show before?"

The dragon rider shakes her head.

"Relax, you're not going to get in anyone's way in here. Have you eaten?"

Phoebe starts to shake her head, then turns it into a nod. "Before I came out."

"Oh, well," Mynah gives a more deliberate chuckle, "I'd tell you to get some anyway because it's good, but that would be a lie."

That at least gets Phoebe to smile and look around a bit. They're standing in the corner of the room together, and Mynah can see the dragon rider relax as she sees no-one's paying any attention. It's still a far cry from the Phoebe Mynah saw with her dragon in Galicia.

Mynah says, "You know, most people who come backstage want all the photos they can get. They want selfies with me, the dancers, on-stage, anyone. People come here to be seen."

Phoebe shrugs and looks down again. "What will people say if there's another photo of us together?" She peeks up at Mynah and Mynah's training and experience fail her; she can't read the expression. Phoebe says, "I don't want to get hate for a relationship I'm not even in."

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Of course. Now that Phoebe has signed with a management company, there's an address for her fans to send mail to. It's also a place for Mynah's hardcore parasocial fans to vent their envy. Mynah takes a step and turns, leaning on the wall next to Phoebe, her shoulder to the room. A posture that will give the impression of privacy, and genuinely will make it difficult to get good photos, but also one that just might be misperceived as more intimate if one of the other guests in the room chooses to spread rumours. Bitterly aware of the compromise in it, Mynah says, "You should ask Cy to filter that stuff for you. There's no reason for you to see it."

Phoebe shrugs and puts a hand in her pocket. Mynah makes a mental note to get her own manager to speak to Cy about insulating Phoebe from whatever social media she's still operating personally from her private phone. It's the least she can do to cushion this for Phoebe. In the meantime, she says, "Are you in a relationship?"

The dragon rider snorts, a sour sort of chuckle, and for a moment, Mynah wishes powerfully, strongly, that she would laugh instead. "It's complicated. Probably would be less if I didn't come here."

"Why did you come?" The words slip out quicker than Mynah can think them over, and then they hover in the air between them.

Phoebe looks up, and her expression is completely transformed. She meets Enna's gaze steadily, eyes deep pools of colour. "You invited me, didn't you?" Her voice was different, too, and it took a moment for Mynah to register that she remembered it from the other woman speaking to Soot. "You're cool, I know you work really hard and I wanted to see you do what you love." Then she laughs – not loudly, not like Mynah has seen her laugh occasionally in interviews, but still bubbling out of her like spring water – and finishes, "Sorry, I've been dragging the mood down. You should go and get ready, I'll be watching."

Mynah spins on her heel and finishes with one hand stretching up above her head – the 'apple-picking pose', her choreographer calls it – as the music and the lights drop on the penultimate song of the set. She doesn't need a timer to mark the precise moment she has to turn again to face the audience as the next spotlight falls on her.

The crowd stretches away into the cavernous, dark space of the arena, blocks of humanity like a tray cake cut into squares by the fenced aisles, glittering with glowsticks. For all their cheering and waving, without the beat of a song to unify them, they blur into stillness for Mynah. It's like looking at a field of grass on a windy day.

"Porta!" She yells, for the umpteenth time this evening. The crowd roar on cue. "Have ya had a good night?" Roar. "How are you doing, Darlings?" Roar. She starts to walk towards stage left, leaning forward to wave to some faces in the front row. She's waved to them before. They roar anyway.

She straightens up, pointing to the upper tier of seating around the back of the hall. Roar. "Are you ready for one more?" Louder roar. Struts across the front of the stage, waving to the distance. "Got something a bit special for y'all tonight." Roar as she points and waves to fans in the right terraces.

The spotlight leads her back to the centre of the stage. Behind her are the dimly-perceived shapes of her dancers taking their starting poses. She sets her feet and looks up again. "Not often we do this in the middle of a tour." There's a sudden rustling hush from the audience as they start to guess what she's talking about. She remembers how exciting that kind of hush used to be, and for a second Phoebe's words come back to her. I wanted to see you do what you love.

Inwardly, she winces for what she's about to do, and it takes an extra breath to steady her. She says, "How about a new song?"

This time the roar is longer, louder and more ferocious. She waits for it to settle all the way down, so she can deliver this quietly, feather-soft. "This is called Dragon's Feather. Thank you, Porta."

Purple feathers begin to drift down the back-projection – real feathers would have been an inhalation risk – as the first notes of the song rise. The song isn't actually that good, she knows, but it's also not the worst she's had to close out a set with. She begins to dance, paying off the training she's worked so hard at.