Yuuri watched the warmup ring in awe. Victoria Nikiforov didn't seem to be listening to her trainer, a gruff old man in the middle of the ring, while she did her warmups. Instead, she seemed to be focused entirely on her pony, eyes running over his withers and neck as if trying to memorize the way the muscles moved.
Yuuri was jealous for a moment, not only did Victoria seem a total natural but she had short hair. It looked boyish on her angled and sharply defined face but it meant she didn't have to tuck any of her silvery, platinum hair in a hairnet under her helmet.
A fasten seatbelt sign ringing startled Yuuri awake. She'd almost landed in Japan, home. She hadn't been back, not really for extended periods, for four years. This last year, though, was easily the worst. She consciously realized that the dream she had was related to her last run-in with Victoria. The older woman had grown her hair out now, it cascaded down her back in that same platinum colour that was so startlingly different from Yuuri's own dark brown-black. The Russian had called out to her, asking if she wanted a picture despite being so evidently in the middle of a celebration with the other riders from her stables.
Victoria had the right to celebrate, she'd placed the top at the finals this year again. She had placed in WEG and the last Olympics easy. Yuuri was experiencing the total opposite.
Her last show was a train wreck. The horse she had been riding, a glorified school horse offered by her school, went mysteriously lame and she had to pull out. As it were, she was already behind in the season anyhow.
So she came home. If Dima, her partner for her last four seasons, was retiring then Yuuri might as well, too. She knew her family didn't have the money to buy and after two seasons like the ones she'd had (though she qualified for the big events fine) meant few sponsors willing to put so much money into her. Her trainer was struggling to find her a mount.
Best to end it.
"I'm so sorry about Vicchan." The first words out of her mother's mouth when she hugged her at the airport. It was true, she had lost her childhood pony in the past year. Two years ago, he'd foundered and been brought into retirement in-barn rather than in a pasture. He'd had to be put down after further health issues persisted. Yuri couldn't say she hadn't been waiting for the day she received the phone call at some odd hour that Vicchan couldn't get back up, but it was still a shock like ice water after a hot spring.
"The triplets were with him. They loved him so much, too." She could remember, her childhood friend had been the one to call her. When it was apparent that Vicchan wasn't going to be ok that time. She wasn't on WiFi, couldn't watch it happen, but listened while choking back tears while the girls and Yuuko talked her through what was happening.
Should have been here.
It was irrational, a 16 hour flight couldn't be made in the time it took a vet to get to the stables she'd grown up at.
"I know," Yuri nodded, giving her mother a small smile. "Walk, Trot, and Canter made sure to send me all their pictures of him." They were nicknames, but not much better than their real names. Yuri had threatened Yuuko when she'd said she wanted to name her children Capriole, Courbette, and Levade. There was no reason to name them such outlandish terms. In the end, it was fine. Most of the stables had started to affectionately refer to them as Walk, Trot, and Canter but she was under the impression the outside world called them things like "Carrie," "Bette" or "Betty", and "Levy." They weren't traditional, they surely weren't Japanese, but they were better than what they'd been given at birth.
"Such sweethearts, you should pay them a visit soon. They're huge fans."
Yuri somehow doubted that.
The rest of the ride home was silent, eerily silent. She didn't want to talk about why she'd left so soon after graduation or why her last season had been a flop of magnificent proportions. Her mother didn't push it, either, just let her stare out the window as she decided what to tell Yuuko when she saw her.
"Yuri!" Oh…she'd forgotten her sister was still living at home. Sometimes the way her older sibling talked, she just assumed she was gone. The crap she got into, it was a surprise she was allowed home. "Has mom already told you that you look sick? What happened to your face? You're so—" Her eyes widened and Yuri groaned. "You need to at least work out. I know you were out most of the season, but seriously? Take those clothes off—OFF! Christ, you look like a chicken."
That's what every girl wants to hear, no doubt.
"Don't misunderstand me, thin is in, but your legs…you don't have any muscle left at all, do you?"
"It's not like I didn't put any effort in, Mari." She grumbled, shrugging her coat back on now that her sister was done ripping her clothes off. "I go running sometimes. It's just not the same muscle—"
"They have machines for that, Yuri! We need to get you fed and whipped back into shape. You look like you couldn't even sit on a horse, let alone make it go anywhere."
"I'm just going to drop my stuff off and go for a run…" Yuri hugged her father briefly and grabbed her suitcase. Hopefully, the rest of her things would arrive in a few days time.
She heard whispering behind her and knew her mother was scolding Mari from the tone of voice. Things like "you've made her self conscious" and "she was always tiny, why did you bring it up?" She heeded it not.
The room was as she'd left it. Ribbons hanging everywhere interspersed with toy horses and bits of tack that meant something at some point in time. She noticed with watery eyes that a little gift bag had been placed on her mattress, dead center next to an old plaque that had certainly seen better days.
"Fumito," Her voice cracked a little. Vicchan's registered name wasn't remotely related to the name she'd called him by. Her thumb rubbed at the bits that needed polishing and he tore her eyes away to search the bag with her other hand. His halter came first. It had been polished, certainly. The nameplate looked brand new, but she knew it was the same one she'd paid for herself before she left. "Fumito - 3rd Level Champion 2009." When she was still registered with the JEF.
She put her hand back in and retrieved a bracelet, brand new and leather. She'd seen them more frequently in the United States. It's plate mirrored the one on the old leather halter she'd just set down and a braided bracelet of hair that was familiar to the touch.
Her eyes watered.
"Where are you going?"
"Run." She tried to keep her voice steady while she fled through the door, back of her wrist at her nose because she was an ugly crier and she knew it.
It only took thirty minutes, but she listened to her footsteps echo in along the stable aisle when she entered. It was dark, no one keeps lights on at eight because she suspected feeding was long over.
"Yuri?" A shocked gasp. "Yuri! Oh my God!" There she was. Yuri, eyes still red but tears long gone, laughed a little at the sudden weight of Yuuko crushing her to the ground. "I knew you'd come straight here! When did you land? How are you? How is your elbow? What about Dima? Is he retired? Still doing ok? Why don't you buy him and fly him back, if we can use him for lessons even his board will be so much less expensive!"
Yuuko was lucky, she had inherited the property from her parents. Currently she was owner and manager, though Yuri had a sneaking suspicion her husband was in charge of finances.
"Did you get the bracelet?"
"It was beautiful," Yuri nodded her head. "Thank you."
"The girls thought of it, and I know how hard it was to see my own pony go a few years ago. I had to agree with them when they asked for help organizing it."
Yuri offered a smile.
"You want to ride?" Yuuko gestured to a room off to the far side while walking a few steps forward. Suddenly, the aisle lights were on. "I have someone right here. Come meet him."
Following her down to the stall across from the door she'd gestured to before, Yuri stopped. A big, strong, bay face was inspecting her closely. Yuuko slid the door open and stepped inside to slip a halter over the horse's face.
"Yuri, meet Alchemy." She smiled, beckoning the other woman forward. "Imported from Germany. He never really went 'pro' per-se but he was Grand Prix in his heyday. He's retired now, soundness issues. He tends to get thrush when we turn him out so he stays in. His owner is crazy rich, but she boards him here for nearly free because we can use him in lessons. The problem is, no one can ride him right. Not even I ride him, and Minako is retired after that terrible back injury—"
"Grand Prix like dressage?" Yuri stopped her, inspecting the horse's face carefully. Yuuko nodded frantically. That explains why no one rode him, only Minako rode and trained dressage and if she was retired, there was no one.
"Take him out, please, I want to see what he can do! Yuri!"
Yuri bit her lip and hesitated, thinking what could possibly happen.
"I have clothes you can borrow in the tack room, they're my emergency pair in case someone splashes water on me or something—you know, bathing them and stuff—but they should fit. They're nothing nice, that doesn't matter. You can use my tack and my boots too…". She was rambling but Yuri let her clip Alchemy to the crosstie and push her into the tackroom to change.
It took half an hour to be ready.
"I haven't done a test in a long while," She warned, taking a deep breath. "And nothing Grand Prix level."
You know that one musical freestyle by heart. Her mind was nagging at her. She did, she had seen one particular freestyle several times on youtube in every which position but she'd never tried it.
"Can you hook this up to your speaker?" She handed her cellphone over, before she backed out, youtube open to the song she needed. "Thanks."
Yuuko smiled and leaned over the bottom half of the door to the indoor.
X, halt, salute.
"Victoria, the weirdest thing just got posted online." Victoria paused from taking her helmet off. The stable yard was cold this time of year so most of the team that was supervised by Yakov and/or Lilia had relocated to the national stables. It meant that it was far too hot to keep a helmet on after an intense ride in the indoor, even in the dead of winter, and her hair was sticking to her head in the worst ways.
"Ow, Pobenka, knock it off." She chuckled when the mare rubbed her muzzle over Victoria's head. "You're going to scar me so I don't grow hair there, stop!"
"Victoria, seriously, come see this." Mila, a show jumper, motioned her over again, more frantically. "Someone did a cover," It came out like a question, "Of your and Pobenka's freestyle from your qualifier season." The redhead passed her phone over to the blonde, confused expression clouding her face.
"What?" Victoria frowned, holding the reins of a lightly agitated dressage horse. "Oh…". The music was familiar, most of the components were, too, though the girl in the video didn't do her changes right and her horse seemed stiff in his front right leg. Her passage needed a little work, but it was there. The elements were all there. "Oh." She blinked in surprise when the video automatically exited fullscreen and she saw the name of the rider in the title.
"Oh, I know her." Mila nodded, just now bothering to read the identity of the rider. "She flunked out of show jumpers last year on Dime A Dozen, you know, that really nice Dutch horse? I hear he went lame, she brought him down before retiring him altogether."
"Who is she riding this season?" Victoria asked, eyes focused on every little movement when she rewatched the video, this time on her own phone.
"She's not." The simple, bored tone of voice made Victoria's head snap up in surprise. "I don't recognize that horse. She's not competing, I've not seen her come up in any points records anywhere, to my knowledge. Not in the US at least, and that's where she was training. I don't follow the JEF—Vikenka, what the hell?"
She left her mare, reins over her head, in the middle of the aisle and took off down it herself.
"Vika!" She shouted again, but she and the horse beside her were left to watch her form disappear around a corner. "Jesus, where does she think she's going?"
A/N - HI HI! This is cross-posted on AO3 under wunkind! I just thought I'd post it here!
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