Zelda felt like she was just about ready to throw her laptop through her office window. It was an urge she had been holding back for the last several hours, barely restrained by a waning sense of self control. Plus there were countless important documents on the computer. Destroying the offensive machine would be a significant setback to say the least.
But Hylia would it feel great.
It was not the laptop's fault, she was still reasonable enough to understand that. Rather it was the information on the screen that was the source of her frustration. On the display was shown the variety of financial documents, bank statements, expense reports, invoices and ledgers that she had spent hours double checking and adding up. She had come in early to get to work on this particular puzzle and now it was almost dusk. Her desk displayed the evidence of her busy and as to now fruitless day, a single plate with a half eaten sandwich on it was surrounded by empty cups of coffee and tea.
With her frustration reaching yet another peak Zelda took a deep breath and pushed her chair away from the desk. He hand went to the bridge of her nose and her eyes closed if only to rest for a mere moment. Feeling her limbs ache from their hours of inactivity she stood from her chair and took a long stretch. That act alone helped her mood but she did not yet feel up to returning to the tedious task at hand.
Walking over to the office window she looked out at the cause for which she had been struggling all day. Below her was her race shop or at least what she charitably called a race shop. She knew her competitor's facilities made her own look like little more than a glorified garage. But still she had put her entire life the past few years into building this place to what it was today. It may not have been much but she was proud of it.
Which only served to make her current predicament all the more heartbreaking and stressful.
When she had started Silent Princess Engineering she had dreams of leading it to success. She had envisioned spending her days in a wind tunnel fine tuning the body parts of her cars, coming up with clever tricks and revolutionary new ways of manipulating physics to create speed on the track, and running out of room to store all the trophies her cars had won.
But that was close to five years ago and in that time she felt that she had only learned one thing. And that was that money made cars go around the track more than fuel did. Without the funds she needed there was no wind tunnel to fine tune her cars, there was no way to fund or test her ideas, and there were little if any trophies to show off her accomplishments. Now her inadequate funds weren't just eating up her team's potential, it was eating up her time.
Her head turned and wearily carried her sight back to the laptop on her desks and the countless spreadsheets and reports displayed on the screen. She had never thought so much of her time running the team would be taken up managing money. Even now she could hardly believe it the irony of so much of her time being consumed over such a small amount of money.
She let out a heavy sigh, resigned to going back to the migraine inducing task at hand when she heard the door to her office swing open. In walked a tall dark skinned gerudo woman with a binder full of notes and documents tucked under her arm. She wasted no time in dropping the binder onto the desk with a loud thud before bringing her hands up to her temples to nurse her own headache.
"I take it that you don't have much in the way of good news to share Urbosa." Zelda said with a sigh. Despite the long stressful day she couldn't help but crack a small smile at how much her friend's state mirrored her own.
"I just got off the phone with Guardian Auto Parts." She gave Zelda a tired look, one which Zelda could sympathize well with. Phone calls with their sponsor was not a responsibility she relished as of late. When their partnership with the car parts company had begun they hadn't seemed to mind that Silent Princess Engineering was a new team nor did they seem to care that race results were nothing much to write home about. They had simply seemed thrilled to have their company name and colors on Zelda's cars. However over the past year the phone calls had grown less excited and far more tense. The conversations had become frustratingly predictable.
"Let me guess, they love the partnership but want to cut back on what their spending and think we should keep doing what we have been for less." Zelda rolled her eyes as she sarcastically recounted what had been the gist of her last conversation with one of company representatives. Urbosa let out a wry chuckle.
"If I had known you were listening in on the call I wouldn't have bothered coming up here to give you the update." Urbosa replied to Zelda's sarcasm with her own. Zelda meanwhile was busy plopping back down into her office chair and sliding down the back until she sat in a slouch.
"So it was the same conversation as usual then?" She brought her hand up to her forehead, desperate to calm the dull throbbing that had been slowly intensifying all afternoon. "Is there actually anything new to report?"
Urbossa flipped the binder open to find a particular page as she spoke, "They actually opened their tight fists a little bit, although I wouldn't call them generous over this either." When she had found the correct page she spun the binder around and slid it over for Zelda to look. "They're giving us this much to run the Hateno 500. I know it's not much but they made it clear that this is all that they're going to give us."
It was not a surprise that the company wanted them to run at Hateno. The race had been an annual tradition for more than a hundred years. It was one of if not the biggest events in the motorsports world. Teams, drivers, and sponsors from all over wanted to be a part of the spectacle and it wasn't the first time Guardian Auto Parts had wanted their colors and logo on a car for race.
Zelda looked at the numbers Urbosa was pointing to on the page before closing her eyes in thought. She didn't need to refer back to the financial statements she had been looking over, she had looked over them enough over the past hours to put together a rough idea on her own. Her quick mental summation left her with a sense of relief.
"You're right, it's not great. But it should be enough for us to at least get a car on track and try and be decently competitive." She looked to Urbosa who only gave a sad shake of her head.
"It's enough to fund one car. Unfortunately they only gave the money on the condition that we enter two."
Zelda stared in disbelief and exasperation before almost shouting, "And how do they expect us to pay for the second car, selling precious gems or something?"
Urbosa gave a tired sigh, "Your guess is as good as mine. It was a struggle just to get that much out of them." She left the reason for the difficulty unsaid. It didn't need to be stated out loud. Both Zelda and Urbosa knew that the team lacked the achievements necessary for the kind of leverage and trust they needed. For every win in a lower category or decent finish in a premier one there were at least half a dozen DNFs and DNQs.
The diminishing faith that Guardian Auto Parts had in this sponsorship had been painfully evident for a while. And unfortunately that had only compounded to create even worse results as Zelda had been forced to spend less time working on the cars and more time negotiating for less money.
Standing back up from her chair Zelda walked back over to the window and resumed her sorrowful inspection of the garage. Urbosa meanwhile continued to relay information from the call.
"They say they want big results for this one. They're tired of having their cars finish last and they say they want a win at a big prestigious race to have something to show for their money." Zelda's stomach began to sink and her headache worsened as she came to an unsettling realization.
"They don't actually expect us to succeed." She turned back to Urbosa who shared the same defeated look. "They're cutting us short on what we need and raising the expectations beyond what we can reasonably do." She threw her arms out in frustration before continuing, "I mean winning Hateno is hard enough. It wouldn't be such a big deal if it was easy. And now they want us to do it with barely enough money to pay a pit crew and prepare the car. I mean how the hell are we going to pay our drivers with what's left over?"
It was Urbosa who answered, bristling with anger. "They don't actually expect or want us to. As much as they like to play ignorant about the costs of running a race team they know damn well what they're asking us to do. We'll be lucky to get both cars in the field, much less have them run well."
"And then when we fail they have all the excuse they need to pull their sponsorship." Zelda finished Urbosa's thought.
"They wouldn't just do something like this out of nowhere. There must be something…" Urbosa paused and gave Zelda a foreboding look, "or somebody pressuring them."
Zelda shuddered. She knew who the Gerudo woman was alluding to and did not want to utter the name of that foul man in her office. Still there was no way around it. If they were to come up with a plan they needed to discuss the situation.
"They've gotten so much more demanding over the last couple of months. I'll be the first to admit we've had our struggles as a team but they used to be so understanding and patient with the lackluster results. It's no coincidence that they only started to pressure us after we turned down Gannondorf Dragmire's offer to buy the team."
Urbosa crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair. Her muscles twitched and her teeth grinded as she seethed in anger. "I'm glad that you see that snake of a man's involvement. This whole situation has the slime of his meddling all over it." Zelda felt the same frustration but was far too tired to actually show it.
Gannondorf Dragmire had quite an impressive string of achievements. His grandfather had founded Dragmire Motor Group and he himself had taken over the company from his father. He had pushed its motorsports division to become the envy of the garage in series around the world. All the trophies Zelda had tried and failed to claim Gannondorf had won. And the automotive world had taken notice of his success. The last few years had seen the name Dragmire had become synonymous with performance and as a result the company had flourished.
But it seemed that the goal he seemed most focused on at the moment was being a Goron sized pain in the ass to Zelda and her team. And unfortunately it was a task he was as successful at as he was at winning races. Every race Silent Princess Engineering had entered had seen Dragmire Motors added to the entry list not long after. Drivers and staff were poached away from Zelda's team over to his, draining the already struggling team of the ability to effectively compete. Ant that wasn't even mentioning the multiple occasions of his cars pushing hers off track and costing them time.
At first Zelda and Urborsa wrote it off as mere coincidence or a team that was pushing hard to be the best. But Dragmire had gotten less and less subtle in their attempts to undermine their team and it wasn't long before frustration grew to suspicion. When he had offered to purchase the team outright it had only served as confirmation of what Zelda and Urbosa had long believed.
They had rejected the offer out of hand. As long as Zelda could keep building cars there wasn't a price that was worth selling the team for. But it seemed that instead of putting an end to Dragmire's scheming it had only driven him to a new tactic. With his prestige and resources it wasn't hard to imagine him finding a way to pull strings at Guardian Auto Parts.
It seemed he would not rest until he had acquired Zelda's team and all it's assets. Although what such a wealthy man wanted from Zelda's small company was beyond her.
"So what's our next move?" Zelda asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over the small office with a voice that could not hide her resignation and weariness.
"We prepare for the race." Urbosa answered without a second's hesitation. "What choice do we even have?"
"Urbosa that's hardly an option at all!" Zelda threw up her hands in frustration and incredulity. Her voice was strained and once again raised to a near shout. "We barely have enough money to put one car on track. Just the added expense of fuel, tires, and a pit crew for a second car alone would push us near the breaking point! And that's not even mentioning the costs for any repairs or replacement parts that might come up!"
She stormed back over to the desk and plopped down in her seat, although this time her elbows came to rest on the desk and her head did the same in her hands. She had spent all day trying to cut costs and find extra money. And now that financial burden had practically doubled. She was on the edge of frustrated and angry tears.
"Little Bird, listen to me." Urbosa spoke again, this time with a voice that was soft and calm. Zelda looked up to face her and saw the Gerudo woman reaching over to place a comforting hand on Zelda's shoulder. "Times are dire, that much is undeniable. But I've never known you to back out of a challenge and I know you're not about to start now. And if this is going to be our last race as a team then we're going to go down fighting. We're going to run until the tank is empty."
"Until the tank is empty." Zelda repeated the often used rallying call around the shop. She closed her eyes and took a deep shuddering breath. She took a moment and cleared her head, pushing out all the stress that the long day had spent building up. As the aching in her head began to subside the was finally able to focus on the task that was laid out in front of her. Urbosa was right. Running this team had been her life's dream since she was a child and she was not just going to give up now. If she was going to end up going home in defeat then it would not be from a lack of trying on her part.
"Okay… Thank you Urbosa." Zelda opened her eyes and gave her friend and business partner a heartfelt smile. Running through the shop's inventory in her head she began to make a checklist of what would need to be done in order to get the second car on track.
"Luckily we already have an extra chassis, and we can use the backup engine from the first car to power it. Things will be tight but as long as neither engine has a catastrophic failure we should be fine. We'll also need to hire some people to work on and pit the car and scrounge together every spare part we have to cover any potential failures." Her hands went to the laptop on her desk and she began to take notes, her fingers flying over the keyboard as fast as they could form words.
Urbosa chuckled at the flurry of new activity but was excited nonetheless by the change in mood. She began to help, adding to the list of requirements and offering solutions when she had them. One by one they began to work down the short list and cross off problems as they were figured out. Before long a plan was actually beginning to take shape. By the time the sun had set and evening had fallen over the small racing shop they both felt well on their way to tackling the challenge of getting another car to the race. However the hurdle of being competitive in one of or both cars would be a whole new level of difficulty and it was a problem they would simply have to face when they got to the track.
It was not until Zelda's growling stomach grew as loud as Urbosa's that they finally decided to call it a day. As they made their way out of the shop discussing their plans and the tasks that would need to be tackled the next day It was Urbosa who interrupted the discussion by slapping her forehead and letting out a deep laugh.
"We're forgetting one important thing Little bird. If we're going to run another car then we'll need somebody to drive it."
Thank you so much for reading and a special thanks to those who reviewed and commented on the first one. Your encouraging words are helping keep me motivated in writing this. I hope you've enjoyed this chapter as much as the first one.
Glad to have another chapter up. Hope to keep up a weekly upload schedule and post on Sunday afternoon as long as I can. Not sure how long I'll actually be able to keep it up but I'll try. And speaking of Sundays this chapter was originally posted on the 8th of March, 2020. If you're reading at time of posting next week will be the season debut for both Formula One with the Australian Grand Prix and Indycar with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Those are two types of racing that may prove relevant to later chapters and I would recommend you watch them anyways. If I can make just a few new racing fans out of this fic then I'll be a very happy fan.