Qualifying
Heat flooded through Phoebe despite the stinging chill of the squall blowing in off the sea outside. She looked down, then back at Thessaly. Suddenly she felt unsteady on her feet, though the mermaid wasn’t holding her arm very hard. She suppressed a tremor that might have run down from her shoulder to her wrist if she’d let it.
Soot sensed her stiffness, pulling back a foot or so and peering at her along his snout. Thessaly didn’t let go. Instead, voice barely above a whisper, she said, “Is this ok?”
Phoebe nodded, struggling to speak. It wasn’t the first time they’d touched. Back before Aletsch Gorge, when the team had looked doomed and Phoebe was contemplating life on the run from Angelo Castelloro's collectors, she’d taken Thessaly for milkshakes and the idol had taken her hand then. Had she touched her since? She couldn’t remember if they might have touched that day at the beach last week.
Clearing her throat and accidentally letting out a sound like a dropped sack of gravel, Phoebe lifted her arm, trying to reciprocate Thessaly's contact. The mermaid moved, and Phoebe found herself with tiny, delicate fingers resting on her own. She stared at them, then flinched, just catching herself short of looking over at Thessaly's manager. There couldn’t be tabloid photos of this, could there? Surely?
Dizzily, she met Thessaly's eyes. She was smiling the smile she always seemed to smile when she felt she understood Phoebe better than Phoebe did herself. It was hard to look at her, the shine of her purple irises, the faint glitter of her makeup, the soft curves of her cheeks and the shimmering turquoise of her ear-fins.
The team was going to have to get ready for qualifying very soon. It wasn’t fair. The air was cold and salty and wet even with Soot's body breaking the worst of the wind where they stood. Technically, Thessaly's pass allowed her to be in the stable through quali.
Speaking like she was rolling a large boulder up a mountain, Phoebe said, “Hey, you’re really good at reading this weather, right? How’d you like to stick around and be my personal weather forecaster for qualifying? It’s really important we get it right if there’s a break in the rain.”
“Well, we’re forty minutes into the qualifying hour and only five out of nineteen riders have set times. If you’re just joining us, folks – and if you are, welcome, it’s lovely to have you – the weather’s been bad all week here, it looked like it was going to settle a bit so race control let the session go ahead, and then a fresh squall front rolled in a few minutes later.”
“Yeah, we’re in a commentator’s box that’s basically been fitted in to the old lighthouse overlooking the start-finish straight and the race stables - stunning views normally, but now you can probably hear the rain on the windows, it’s horrible out there.”
“It is, let’s just run down the order again. Gerald Ipemas went out early, presumably sent out there on basically a scouter for teammate Feran Andoal, but that let him post a time of one minute, fifty-three seconds, the only competitive time so far. Arden Markwe and Marca Calwehr both have times under two minutes, just, and Temer Otts and Sam Muiko are on two minutes three and two minutes five. Apart from that, everyone else who even got out of the stables aborted before completing a hot lap – Feran, Phoebe Tenryuu, both Lautern riders, Queru Idcoulh, they all got out there, got soaking wet, and had to come back in without posting a time, and it looks like they still might not.”
“Might be a break in the weather yet, twenty minutes still to go.”
“There is, but do you see any sign of one?”
“I’m not a weather forecaster. They have some excellent people here, if there’s even a hint of clearing up the teams will be told.”
“Phoebe, you should get going now.” Thessaly's voice carried well despite the wind and rain as she turned from the open mouth of the stable and walked over towards Soot. She was soaked, her dress clinging to her figure, but it didn’t seem to bother her.
Phoebe tried not to stare, watching instead the sparkling of her makeup among the droplets of water lingering on her cheeks. She’d taken the request to act as weather caller seriously, and had stood sentinel looking out to sea for most of the session. Phoebe couldn’t tell if she was angry or just dedicated to helping.
“You’re sure?” It was a wall of grey out there, the horizon invisible, and even the crests of the choppy waves below muted by rain.
Thessaly took her arm and pointed out at the weather, her ear-fin brushing Phoebe's neck as she leaned close. “Yeah, this bar of the squall is going to break in like a minute or two, can you see the sky’s a bit brighter? You should have maybe like three minutes that’s like it was an hour ago before the next one comes in.”
Phoebe couldn’t see any sign that the sky was brighter. She looked at the mermaid again, immediately fascinated by her violet eyes. There was no reason not to trust Thessaly and every advantage to be gained. She took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”
It was going to be absolutely wretched flying out into the teeth of the wind, and dangerous too. Phoebe called for the team to ready up, and mercifully no-one objected. She got Soot to stand and turn round, then clambered up to sit astride. Stefan checked and double-checked her stirrups, then went over the harness fastenings.
Soot shuffled a couple of steps towards the perch, then his head swung around all the way to look at Phoebe. It wasn’t comfortable for him to bend his neck that far, and it wasn’t hard for Phoebe to read his mood in the gesture. She patted his spine, trying to encourage him, but the angle of his head didn’t change.
Looking out at the sea again, Phoebe shared her dragon’s feelings. Thessaly was watching them both, her face impassive. Phoebe leapt down again, featherfalling for safety because there might be patches of slippery damp on the floor even this far inside the stable. She walked round to a place where Soot could look at her without craning so badly.
Stroking his jaw where he liked to be scratched when feeling playful, she looked up into the fathomless jewels of his eyes. “Hey, big guy, can you trust me on this one? Please?”
Hot air washed over Phoebe's hand as the dragon huffed gently. He wasn’t completely against the idea, just grumpy about it.
Phoebe took a half-step back and bent her neck, opening her crownfeathers and being careful to get her head below the line of Soot's snout. When she looked up again, it was just in time to catch his tongue flickering over her goggles and exposed lower face. His breath stank like it always did, but he was already turning again to face the weather.
Phoebe threw Thessaly a wave as she leapt back astride, holding Soot back only long enough to let Stefan check the stirrups again – no way she was skipping that step in these conditions. As the dragon lumbered forwards, the temperature noticeably dropped, and Phoebe found spray already stinging at her chin and cheeks.
She couldn’t afford to flinch now. If Thessaly was right, there was barely enough time to get out, do the required warm-up lap, and still have the gap in the weather for the pace lap. Soot stepped onto the perch and gathered himself. Now she had to repay his trust. She leaned forward.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“That’s not Phoebe going out is it?”
“Is it? Can’t be, she’d have to be-“
“My god, I think it is! Yes, look, the cameras have her now, it’s a miracle we can see her at all.”
“That’s stupid and dangerous, there’s no justification for taking a dragon out to race in these conditions, it’s unlike her to be so risky.”
“Well, as you say, she’s usually overly cautious with Soot's well-being. That means either she thinks she knows something we don’t, or she does know something we don’t and she’s about to steal a march on everyone.”
“What could she know? If it was from the weather forecasts, other teams would have moved.”
“Wait, I see movement, who’s that… gold, is that Queru Idcoulh for Augir?”
“I don’t like this, Sam, it’s bad enough for Phoebe to go out, but if other riders follow because they think she might be on to something we could see a whole slew of injuries or falls.”
Phoebe's lips had passed beyond cold into tingling numbness. Her shoulders and hips felt stiff, too chilled to give as much as she should with Soot's stroke, especially with the crosswinds battering him. Ahead, the lighthouse was a muted stack of black and white squares, even as it rushed towards her at somewhere approaching sixty miles an hour.
This wasn’t even qualifying pace yet, just the coldest warmup lap ever. It was hard to believe that any kind of gap in the weather would arrive in time. The final corner, around the lighthouse and down over the cliff to the stables, was steep and awkward, especially with the wind trying to pitch you against the rock face, and if she wanted to actually try a fast lap, she had to commit from there.
As the lighthouse approached, the tenth ring emerged from behind it, the plastic thin enough to be hard to see, low on the edge of the clifftop. For a moment, the body of the building broke the wind, and Soot stole one powerful, steady stroke of his wings before tipping forward, into the dive. Phoebe leaned with him. She had to trust Thessaly.
Drab off-white rock rose to her left as Soot turned into the full fury of the squall. Rain drilled into Phoebe's hair like shotgun pellets, battering her crownfeathers, but she held steady. Slowly, painfully, the wind shifted to her right cheek, and there was a brief moment of shelter as Soot's wing rose to sweep them round the promontory towards the eleventh ring.
Then, as Soot righted himself, he lurched out from the cliff. Tension shot through Phoebe, fire filling her veins. She remembered Olympia slewing out of flight with his injury under the bridge in Gadeira. Was there anything she could do with her stance?
But Soot beat his wings again, stronger and steadier, neck straight, and Phoebe reevaluated. The next gust came, but it was definitely less of a kick out of the sky. Soot's slip had been compensating for a wind that had just dropped.
“Adelie, temp check. Green?” The throat mics were standard-issue and extremely tough. Even this weather couldn’t mess with them too much.
“Green.” The vet didn’t hesitate, and for a mercy Stefan didn’t try to interrupt.
Soot drove another powerful rearward stroke, pushing them through the eleventh ring and along the front of the near-empty grandstands. Phoebe set her gloved hands carefully forward on his neck to take her full-pace stance. It was easy to over-interpret in moments like this, but she thought she could feel the dragon respond.
“Well I’ll be- look at this, through from the forecasters just as Tenryuu goes through the second ring on her hot lap. Four minutes of reduced wind, that’ll be with the teams right now.”
“Scrambling in the stables. There goes Coro – ze must have been waiting.”
“Ze put a lot of faith in Phoebe, then.”
“Not as much as Idcoulh, she’s the biggest winner here besides Tenryuu herself. There goes Feran, Arden, one of the Phaestias.”
“Soot looks very steady going round the complex up to five, the lull must be pretty genuine. Do the others have time to – there’s Lyonne Ertku, Jenny Arlofis – do those taking off now have time to exploit this gap?”
“They’ve got to try. Probably two minutes ten, two twenty for a warmup, they’re not going to get all the way round before it closes back in.”
“It could be pretty nasty, then, if there are a lot of dragons in the last part of the lap when the wind gets up again, it’s treacherous after ten.”
“It really is. These are skilled riders and very sensible, but it’s pretty desperate.”
This time as Phoebe approached the lighthouse, she leaned back a little to hold Soot high of the tenth ring. Her face still stung and the collar of her flight suit felt damp, but Soot wasn’t weaving in flight now. He felt her shift and lunged for the ring and the dive.
Below, white breakers thrashed at the rocky beach. Phoebe kept her head low and her crownfeathers closed, but nothing could stop the rain tearing at her cheeks. It slammed hard on her goggles as they came head-on to the wind, making the bridge of her nose ache.
Soot started to lift his right wing and Phoebe stretched her leg in her left stirrup – still not quite set right – to push him a few feet wider. Tempting as it was to hug the cliff, it would be better for a stray gust to give them some extra pace than throw them into the rock. The wide sweep of the start-finish straight opened before them, studded with rings that were actually visible for the first time in half an hour, even over half a mile away.
There was no-one cheering for them as they levelled out through the eleventh ring. The grandstands were exposed on the cliff, facing the worst of the weather and the few figures there had their waterproofs set up like military tents. A sharp gust caught Soot mid-stroke and he lurched toward the cliff-face before recovering.
Phoebe clenched her teeth, keeping her lips tight despite the stinging rain and the wild urge to grin. If that was the first edge of the weather closing back in then she’d timed this perfectly. She loosened her knees a little, ready to react in case the wind bit again.
Soot slacked off the second they passed the first ring, showing none of his usual eagerness to hold qualifying pace. Phoebe sympathised, but urged him on. They did have to complete the cooldown lap, even in these wretched conditions, not only to warm his muscles down but also because the rules required it.
“Tenryuu comes through and it’s a minute fifty point nine, that’s still four seconds behind a dry qualifying lap.”
“Good enough for provisional pole position.”
“It is, but there are a lot of strong dragons on hot laps behind her.”
“If the weather allows.”
“True. Here comes Queru Idcoulh and- wow, fifty-two point six, that beats Ipemas’ one fifty-three point four from earlier, she made the right call following Phoebe.”
“Might hold – look at Soot going round the cape, I think the wind’s getting up again.”
“We’ll see, Coro and Andoal are on the back straight, if it hits them it’ll be as they pass beneath us round the lighthouse.”
“It’ll be touch and go, hope their teams are on the radio to them.”
“Incandesia’s a strong dragon under Niki, and Feran’s very experienced- yow, look at that slew as Niki turned into the tenth, that’s the weather alright, almost tumbled Incandesia out of the air but Niki’s rolling with it, they’re coming round the cliff.”
“Feran’s taking a wider line, that’ll cost him time.”
“Much safer, though, he must just want to get some sort of time on the board.”
“Behind them it’s Arden Markwe, then Idrin Felvan, they might still get some advantage out of this, Ertku behind them might be out of luck.”
“Indeed, Coro already looks like ze’s struggling along past the stables, coming through the first with a time of… one fifty-eight, that’s already not good enough, what’s Feran got?”
“Coming over the line now… one fifty-eight eight, just behind Coro.”
“Looks like Phoebe's got it, then.”
Soot flapped up to the stable perch as delicately as the clumsy motion allowed. A gust of tailwind struck him just after his claws caught the bars and for a second Phoebe's gut clenched, fearing for his ankles. The dragon rolled with it, though, probably glad of the helping hand to stagger from the perch onto solid ground.
Phoebe leapt clear as soon as she could, her featherfall just enough to keep her from slipping as her boots hit the floor. The stable shutter was already rattling closed, Tamra standing over by the opening with their thumb firmly planted on the button. Where normally they would have presented Soot with the nozzle of his drinking hose first, Stefan and Adelie instead crowded in with their thermometers and probes. The drake didn’t seem to mind, settling quickly on the heated area of the floor.
Petunia approached with a towel for Phoebe as she pulled off her goggles. Her hair was sodden, probably beyond helping, and she could taste more than a little salt in the runoff from her bangs. Her crownfeathers were stiff, unsettled against one another. Plunging her face into the towel felt great.
When she lifted her head again, she found Thessaly standing next to Petunia, smiling and a little wide-eyed, still drenched. Somehow her makeup was mostly intact. Her eyes caught the low stable light, little orange flecks dancing in the purple. She said, “They’re saying you took pole position.”
Phoebe ran the towel over her hair again. “Sounds like we owe you big time. The wind really got bad again that quickly?”
There was a slight pause, Thessaly giving her another one of those looks she couldn’t quite read, and then Petunia hurriedly said, “Niki and Feran almost got round full laps, but not enough to get close to us.” She turned to the mermaid, “You might have won us the race.”
Thessaly nodded, not taking her eyes off Phoebe. Feeling a trickle of heat between her shoulderblades that was anything but welcome despite her soaked overalls, she looked away, back at Soot. Adelie was poking meticulously at the dragon’s wing joint, up on tip-toes and leaning on his flank to even reach.
Phoebe took a breath, feeling the weight of Thessaly's gaze. What was the mermaid waiting for? Eventually, she settled on meeting her eyes again and saying the most heartfelt “Thank you” she could, but it still felt like she was missing something.