Mynah

Sometimes, she feels like a spy inserted into her own life in disguise. Her media manager has given her an instruction for this gala: "Mynah, we're inviting a new prospective client, a dragon racer. Be seen talking to her." She does not experience this as a child adding joy to her chores by pretending they are an adventure, only the deceit and the sleaze of it.

When, that is, she feels anything at all.

The party is all shiny surfaces – marble floor, chromed furniture frames, glittering jewellery, polished, smiling teeth. Her own voice comes and goes over the music system amid a playlist of fellow stars. The staff wear immaculate formal wear; management types fade into the background in drab suits; talent are a parade of peacocks. Her own outfit tonight is a cream trouser suit, with a dark, ruffle-fronted shirt done up all the way to her throat. The silk linings of her sleeves feel kind on her skin.

She moves through the room, chatting breezily with familiar faces, laughing on cue, taking the smallest possible sips from her glass of champagne. Her management will not care how much she drinks, but her dietician and personal trainer would disapprove. One drink is a professional necessity. Two would be seen as indulgence.

It takes a while to find her target. Then she catches a glimpse of purple crownfeathers folded tight around purple hair on a head just a little too low to be seen over most of the crowd, in a corner near an open window. She drifts in that direction, still smiling and chatting, glancing over every now and then to see Phoebe Tenryuu keeping her spot, sometimes nodding awkwardly as someone tries to talk to her, more often alone.

She lets the natural drift of the crowds bring her round to Tenryuu, as automatically as any other part of her performance. The other woman wears an elegant white dress with a motif of forget-me-knots that neatly complements her hair. Pigtails tied with small bows make her look girlish, and Mynah realises she must, in fact, still be very young. Nineteen?

The dragon rider looks up stiffly as Mynah separates herself from the crowd. The smile she receives is fixed, conscious, wary. She answers it with perfect training, letting the shape of her cheeks rise to the corners of her eyes, a smile from a magazine cover. When she speaks, she lowers her tongue a little in her mouth, for a richer sound, a hint of motherishness. "Hi there. You're Phoebe Tenryuu, right?"

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Purple feathers flinch around Tenryuu's head, halfway to an awkward nod, but then she catches herself and, offering her hand, says, "That's me."

The handshake is a kind of parry, Mynah thinks. Two girls who shake hands don't look friendly. But it's reflex only; the dragon rider is new to this, and Mynah is a veteran. As she shakes Tenryuu's hand, she holds a fraction of a second longer than is natural, tilting her wrist slightly so Tenryuu's fingers are caught under her thumb. "Nice to meet you, I'm Mynah." She lets Tenryuu pull her hand back, but presses on verbally. "How are you enjoying all this?"

Tenryuu's eyes follow the gesture Mynah makes with her wine glass, encompassing the room. The dragon rider isn't drinking. She gives a hunched shrug.

"A bit different to dragon racer parties?" Mynah moves closer to the wall, turning to place Tenryuu to her side. That will evoke more casual kinds of conversation for Tenryuu. It will also make it easier for the photographers.

The dragon rider doesn't relax. Her shoulders are raised, and Mynah is a little surprised to see how much muscle there is there. Eventually, Tenryuu nods. "I guess."

Not a partier at all, then. Mynah reassesses her tone, brighter and a little higher. She won't succeed by taking Tenryuu under her wing here. "What do you do to celebrate, when you win?"

"I don't usually have time to celebrate," Tenryuu answers, and for a moment Mynah thinks she's parrying again, but something in the dragon rider's voice hints otherwise. "I gotta look after Soot, make sure he gets home and checked out and fed and rests and stuff."

Mynah takes a guess. "Soot… your dragon?"

"Yeah." There's a distant but unmistakable smile on Tenryuu's face. "Dragons take a lot of looking after."

"It's cool that you look after him yourself, though," Mynah flatters. "Don't most riders leave that to their teams?"

"I guess most of them do, it depends a bit on the rider." Finally, Tenryuu's stance softens a little, and she raises one hand to wave as she talks. "But most teams, legally it's the team that owns the dragon, right, not the rider. Soot is mine, though, we're partners, so it's a bit different."

"Is he a good dragon?"

That actually gets a chuckle out of the rider. "What do you think I'm gonna say, Mynah? Of course I think he's the best, I race with him."

Mynah responds with a carefully-practiced shy giggle. "I guess it's a bit like asking someone how much they like their pets, huh?"

"He's a bit more than a pet, Mynah, dragons are more than just pets. I don't own him, we're partners." There's real animation in Tenryuu's body language now. Her full attention is on Mynah as she asks, "What about you, do you have any pets?"

"No, I'm too busy." That summarises so many things – the lack of privacy at the flat where she lives, the fitness and training regime, the long tours.

Tenryuu's head tilts slightly. "Wanna come and meet Soot sometime? I promise he's friendly."

It's the perfect opening, exactly the sort of thing that her managers would want her to accept. Just for a second, though, she stumbles over her words, finding the lie she’s obliged to tell and the truth of what she wants unexpectedly in alignment. "I- I'd like that."