Title: Future Waiting
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Two young racers on the tracks, at the beginning. One shot.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Concrit: Please.
A/N: Canon quibbling: So did Word/Zulay happen in their early twenties as per creator Q-and-A or early thirties as per Word's and Moordryd's official ages? In any case, this is only a snapshot of a possible beginning, and it's up to you what sort of exciting things happened in the middle.
Written for
DemonicFury. Parallels intentional. ;)
--
She was beautiful, and raced like the tail of the dark side of a comet. He had watched her win the last competition. She hadn't seen him in the corner of the stands.
"Kid, you all right there?"
"I'm
racing."
"The junior tracks are that way, off past the second stand and follow the sign, you can't miss them. Though I didn't know there was a first-level on today…"
"There's not. I'm racing
here." If only the ground would just swallow him and his barely-hatched dragon up. "The…Lyssan Run. I checked it." So often his personal copy had started to tear and darken.
Her sharp eyebrows bristled. "If you're sure."
"I'm
fourteen." He said it in a whine. "I'm
supposed to race here." He had hacked into the system.
"Okay."
--
They all lined up to start. He patted the dragon nervously. His growth pod had worked, but the dragon was immature. That couldn't be helped right now. The ground blinked green. The race began.
She stayed behind the pack, although he had seen her go much faster. Waiting for an opportunity.
"Kid!" she called to him. "When you make it to the corner—"
—
jump, he'd worked out from his study of the course, because of possible pileups. If the dragon could make it that high.
"—There's a shortcut if your dragon fits on the edge. Use the air currents to skip to the next section—like this!"
She and her dragon pulled back, and then in his air currents leapt over him, running up the walls and fast ahead. It was a better strategy than the ones he had thought of.
She came first. He came sixth. Four dragons were out of the race in the pileups. He liked it.
--
She gave him racing tips and smiled at him. She smiled at a
lot of people, and hung out at the junior races to tutor the young ones. It wasn't in the least fair.
"Kid, hot racing tip for today: speedburst and glider in the middle section."
"A balance tool and wing-adaptation work just as well for thirty percent less energy."
He used a speedburst and glider anyway. He came fourth. She was going to make it into the Academy, said everyone.
"Nice mag-jumping, kid. Here's today's tip: don't use the third parallel bar, the real course is a little bit different."
He came third. She broke the record.
"Kid, look out behind you!"
He beat down the opponent with his blocking staff. He came second.
"So I guess I'm trying your suggestion this time, kid…"
A balance tool and wing-adaptation didn't work well after all. He came first. She came second.
"You can adjust your saddle and the energy frequencies, and a tail hammer to balance your dragon and hit anyone from behind. That…calibrates it to your racing method."
She tried it.
"That's pretty smart, kid. And congratulations."
"Thanks."
"What's your name?" he said then, but she had already left.
--
The draconium treatments he used on Abandonn were going well. They were both becoming very powerful. Which was what he really wanted all dragons to be someday.
He sold three ancient-based gear designs he didn't need any more to Reptilico and Saurcom in between races. They gave him a lot of money and two job offers, and then he spent half of it in Sun City to buy a thin dark necklace carved from ivory and sapphires that looked like the one she wore all the time and turned down the offers.
Black gear. Like Abandonn. Like the sleek dragon who carried her and her wind-whipped shock of hair that flew about her as she raced. Like what felt like was inside
him. The mag-energy excited him almost as much as she did.
The tutorial sessions were
stupid. He didn’t get why she hung around with all those snot-nose brats. But she smiled at him every time he turned up to carry things at the youth league events, and eventually he had the courage to talk to her.
"Hey, kid. Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I don't actually know your name, and I should have put it on the registry ages ago."
"Word. What is yours?"
"Zulay."
He stuck out a hand. "I'm pleased to meet you, Zulay."
--
"I bought you this," he finally managed to say. Saurcom had made him another job offer for three times the drakkals. He sold independently to Down City Crews and was starting to build his reputation. Besides on the tracks as a really good rookie. Two Crews had asked him already to join them; she was not the only person who had noticed him.
"Oh—" He saw her gasp. Her lips looked beautiful all pursed up and crinkled. "This—this looks really expensive. Word, I'm really not sure about—"
"It's fake. It was from the Down City Markets," he lied. "Five drakkals."
"Well. Thank you." She looked happier.
"You can wear it instead of your old one," he said. He reached for it and drew it out of her shirt.
"No, I wear it because—"
He saw the symbol hanging from it. It was the first time he had hated something black. She hated him after all.
"You helped me and you saw me win." He was angry. Saying it felt like the Red gear he was building. "But you still don't want me for your Crew."
"My Crew sucks! Word,
listen to me. I'm only a member because my mother was. Lyssa is the worst leader ever. I wouldn't want you to join, because you deserve better than that."
He clenched his fists. Maybe she was telling the truth. "I see," he said. He left.
--
He had created five new gear-types with three variations each and rented factory room to produce them in large enough numbers to sell to the Crew-leaders for a profit that could technically be considered theft. Not including the Dragon Eyes. He and Abandonn won the Vortex using even newer designs he had custom-made. She wasn't competing in it.
He finally looked up her record by hacking into the Crew database. At least she was telling the truth about her mother. He contacted Lyssa about gear. She seemed to be uninteresting and petty. Then he raced against the leader of the Dragon Eyes in the Shadow Race and saw her using draconium-sharpened spurs.
He had a few ideas from what he'd seen.
--
"It's your birthday. I gave you a present."
A scroll of paper.
"Now I'm gonna have to give you one. You have to tell me when yours is. I'm glad you're not angry at me anymore, kid."
She hugged him, and then looked at the scroll. He was very glad indeed.
She went pale. "The…Dragon Eyes. You did—this is a joke, right? You
didn't—"
"I fought Lyssa."
"But she's the best jouster in the Council! You couldn't have—"
"I know a few things." The useless priests had been good for
something. He had plumbed most of their secrets before they had betrayed him.
"Oh Drakkus. You
lead the Dragon Eyes? You're—"
"I'm fifteen now," he said.
"This is—"
--
He made her co-leader of the Dragon Eyes. He got the rest of the Crew in shape to produce his gear for him while she raced. Everyone was using his gear now, but nobody had a surer hand for it than her. (Other than him. And sometimes even he wasn't sure.) She flew like a bird with Aero gear. Once the four of them—dragons and humans—kept pace with a flock of crow-drags for nearly a dragomile.
"Today's my birthday," he said as they panted atop a Sun City spire.
"Happy birthday, kid. Let me think of something nice—"
"This is what I wanted," he said. He reached across to squeeze her hand, and they watched the sun set together while the crow-drags flew far into the night.
--
It was nearing the end of Academy season. She was still volunteering with those wretched children despite his advice to her to maintain her place at the top. He had accompanied her this time, though, because he was seeing so little of her.
"Thanks for coming along, Word. You were a big help." She dried up the last plate from the children's meal and replaced it in the cupboard.
"I like helping
you." They went to get their coats, and she let out a scream as she slipped hers on.
"What—"
Something leaped out of her coat pocket. He dived at it to destroy it. She held him back.
"It's just a newt, Word, stop!"
He let the creature get away.
"It must've been Khanah. He's such a practical joker." She shook her head ruefully, and laughed. "Poor little yellow-bellied newt."
"They're pests. I would have disposed of it for you."
"Not necessary." She let him hold her hand as they returned to the Crew compound, walking the short distance; Abandonn and Diana were roaming Old City. "Sometimes I worry about you, you know."
"I worry about you." They stopped on Utan Bridge, looking at the view of the Down City lights. "You are an extraordinary racer. But you spend all your spare time with—with orphans who can't fasten their boots without tripping over!"
"I think everyone is extraordinary." He saw the light of passion in her bright eyes. They had experienced similar…disagreements before. He liked the way she felt things so strongly, although not everything she chose to feel about. "Don't you?"
"No. Not everyone is extraordinary." Connor Penn, for instance. Drakkus only knew what the priests had him do now. "It is implied by the definition of the word."
"They
are. They're special individuals in their
own way," she said. The glint in her eyes was very familiar now. "Don't you like children at all?"
"I like…some," he said. "You seem to."
"I love children. Sometimes I think what I most want is a family of my own someday," she said. "I know you'll think I'm sounding crazy, I do love racing, but I still want that as well. I
want to…to have children of my own, and look after them and teach them to race too. In time. I think I've always wanted that."
"You want to get into the Academy."
"Yes. So do you." Her smile was generous. As irresistible as ripe strawberries on a bed of snow. "I don't mind if you get in. You can spend time there—and I'll look after the Crew, you work them too hard anyway."
He hadn't told her yet that he was already in the Academy, masked as Drakkus; he competed in the gladiatorial events with ancient armour he had found in Old City ruins. He was planning to confess as soon as he had achieved something worth confiding. "I will take you with me," he said. "And I'll marry you, as soon as I'm of legal age, and we'll have as many children as you want."
She smothered a laugh. "Kid," she said, "isn't that a little soo—"
She was only three years older than he was, and his growth spurt had finally hit, as he knew from marking his height on his door at least once every two days. He was only a head shorter than her now.
He grabbed her shoulders and kissed her. He relaxed his grip so she could easily step away, because it wasn't like the romance-vidds he had watched for research purposes implied, but she was kissing him back after all. Word Paynn wanted a lot of things for himself, and a lot of things for dragons, but right now all he wanted was here with him.
fin