Mag Paget, Shotgun Knight (clippedwing) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-04-15 12:23:00 |
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A week before, Mag had had no intentions of participating in the hoverbike race. She had not owned one for many years, and rented hoverbikes had no chance against the well-maintained racing machines most contestants would ride. However, when one such contestant, a fellow Knight named Phil, had broken his leg a few days before the race―in a training accident whose particulars he had preferred not to disclose for the sake of his dignity―and given Mag the keys to his bike Nora with the look of a man handing over custody of his only child with his last breath, Mag had had no choice but to promise she would win in his stead. The only person standing between that herself and that promise now was one Cian Wilde. He had shaken off every other rider early in the race, and now Mag was the only one who still remained lapping at his heels―close, but not close enough. She was gaining on him little by little, but the finish line was within sight; she had to overtake him now, or she would lose. “Come on, Nora,” she whispered to her bike, cranking up the throttle as far as it would go, “we girls got to stick together. Just a little more.” The redhead had been unexpected. Actually, a whole lot of this race had gone the way of the unexpected. A few assumed front-runners had wiped out spectacularly early on (Cian had to assume a particular pint-sized machinist had had something to do with it), and this woman -- this stranger -- was very nearly keeping pace with him. He’d seen the bike before, but it belonged to a fellow who was a bit cautious on turns; its current rider hugged them like she’d been born to fly. He’d have been impressed if she wasn’t so -- fucking -- close. The finish line was so close he could taste it, but with a roar of her engine (boosters, there had to be boosters in there, why hadn’t the asshole who usually rode the bike ever bothered showing his competitors the fucking boosters) she inched forward just a hair, just enough. They crossed the finish line so close that he honestly couldn’t tell who’d made it first -- aside from that dull, empty feeling at the back of his mind, like the dice had fallen, and not in his favor. Before the judges could even make it down there to call the race (in her favor, he knew, and damn, but that was going to be a nice chunk of change he’d lost to this -- not to mention Fee, who might not let him live it down for a week or more) he relaxed his scowl and shook his head in something like respect. “You fly like a fucking maniac,” he told her. As her helmet came off and he recognized the face, he barked out a brief, surprised laugh. “A hell of a lot better than you dice,” he added. Mag laughed and inclined her head, theatrical recognition of the compliment. “That’s a low bar, but yes.” She held out a hand for him to shake. “And you’re almost as good at flying as you are at dice. You’re a little unfair, you know that?” “Even better at other things,” he said, the offhanded comment easy (he wasn’t blind, and she was a looker), but then he said, “Guess today almost didn’t cut it. I’ll have to look out for you in the future.” Try a different tactic, hedge, find some way to leave her behind (but not, unlike some of these poor idiots, sabotage; he won clean when he won, and he lost clean, too). As someone from the judges’ box finally made her way down through the crowd, he thought of one particular warning he’d received earlier and couldn’t help grinning. One silver lining to this failure, at any rate. “Yeah, yeah,” he said to the judge before she could open her mouth, “heard it all before, better luck next time. That’s all right.” He looked around at the crowd (many of whom, he noted, had papers in hand) and pitching his voice a bit louder, added, “She’s all yours.” As the scavenger hunters descended like a plague of fucking locusts ignoring the barriers that blocked off the race route, he chuckled and went on his way. |