Mynah

Mynah sees immediately on stepping through the door the difference Phoebe had described between Tenebrae’s stable and the stables she toured at the start of the season as anthem singer for the first race. The room seems vast, empty and incomplete. Soot, settled neatly on the floor at the far end, looks small.

She feels at her back the battery of cameras on which her manager has just closed the door. Against them, her outfit is her armour. Someone – not her – has paid hundreds of Royals for this creamy-white t-shirt and white jeans, chosen to look as if they came from a supermarket’s clothing line, but chosen also for a colour that will offset Phoebe's dark flight suit.

The rider comes up to meet them, smiling distractedly, attended by an even shorter girl, pink-haired and wearing a perfectly-pressed, adorable one-piece. Mynah shakes her hand and smiles graciously as she is introduced as the team’s manager, Petunia Platt. The way Petunia's face sharpens as she greets Mynah's manager tells Mynah not to be fooled by her size or youth.

Mynah lets herself be led over to Soot. His diminutive size is not all an illusion created by the room, she sees; even if this stable were as well-equipped and staffed as the Royal Hermeia and Temisia stables, there would still be more room to move around him. He makes up for it by being more animated than the larger dragons she’s met, head lifting to her eye level as she approaches. There’s something pensive in it, she guesses.

Another tiny woman, barely taller than Mynah would be without her stilt-like heels, is introduced as the head vet for the team. She’s trembling and stammering, and Mynah can recognise a fan when she sees one. A pretty hardcore fan, from the age and wear on the old CD case she is eventually coaxed to produce for an autograph. There are tears rolling down her cheeks when she takes the case back, hands shaking.

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That seems to agitate Soot, who interposes his head between Mynah and the vet. More than anything, it’s that gesture that endears him to Mynah, and the laughter with which Phoebe coaxes him back to restfulness. She strokes the dragon’s face gently, and Mynah feels a pang of something not quite like chill despite the heated floor and the warmth of Soot’s body.

Then it is Mynah’s turn to greet him, properly this time. She follows Phoebe’s instructions, noting that behind the rider’s casual demeanour is a fantastic attention to detail and a sharp instinct for what instructions are actually necessary. This is what she cares about, then: dragons understanding humans, or maybe the other way round.

Soot's tongue tickles as it flickers across her palm, leaving less moisture in its trail than she expected. He lets her stroke his jaw but quickly gets bored and leans back towards his rider, who embraces him. Then there are apologies for the tight time-frame of the visit, and the need to talk quickly about some Serious Business between Phoebe and Mynah’s manager before the qualifying session gets underway. In theory the pass Mynah has been given entitles her to stay in the stable to watch the session but it’s clear there isn’t really any arrangement in place to accommodate that, and besides, she needs to be Seen out on the concourse again.

She talks to the vet a little more, but the poor girl is still overwhelmed and Mynah can’t do much to calm her down. The team manager is more collected but only makes a few pleasantries. There’s no way they’ll lure Selen out of the stable for a photo op, so at the end of the visit it’s Petunia who holds the door for Mynah, smiling and thanking her for her interest.

As the cameras start to flicker at her face again, Mynah looks down for a moment, searching for a smile that usually comes as a matter of reflex. How many photos have been taken in that instant of confusion? The question slips from her mind as she rises to meet the spotlight; it will be for her management to spin the next day once the photos are out in print.