Promptober Day 7: Fly
Rating: Teen
Tags: TomoTaki, AU
Your name is Shiina Taki.
You are the latest in a long line of nobles, renowned for their bravery and esteemed for their grace.
Even now, as horses of flesh, blood and sinew have long since given way to war machines of metal, hydraulic fluid and engine oil, your family continues the knightly traditions of old, feuding with the other houses over land rights and other petty politics in the imperial court.
You come in when a dispute becomes irreconcilable. On your metal steed, you bend the very air to your will, engaging in a dangerous dance in the skies with your foe until one of you tumbles earthwards in a brilliant fireball.
But that’s not really you.
You’re just a girl born into this strange life, struggling hard to find meaning outside of what you were apparently born to do. Flying is in your blood, but you loathe it so very much.
From the tender age of sixteen, you were thrust into flying lessons with your father. You hated it, he had always been cold to you, but flying with you seemed to bring out a whole new layer of him. He did not once hesitate to scream at you for even the slightest lapse.
“Rudder, rudder, rudder!” He would yell, striking your shoulder in exasperation as you made another barely uncoordinated turn. He expected nothing short of perfection.
Meanwhile, your older sister seemed to have absorbed the basics like a sponge, judging by how much your father insisted that you fixed your attitude and acted more like her. You naively thought that you could catch up to her one day.
As your teenage years gave way to adulthood, you graduated from ‘casual’ flying in the old beat up prop to the more martial art of air combat in the hotrod that was a jet trainer. The beatings he would give you in the cockpit gave way to intense back-to-back sorties which stretched your stamina to the limit as you strained against the g-forces, all while he yelled at you from the backseat.
Again, your older sister seemed to have you beat. You backseated with her once, and could barely stay conscious as she went toe to toe with your father in another jet, keeping up with his every move. How could such talent be possible at that age?
You thought you would live your whole life miserable and bitter, unable to escape the shadow of your family. You hated the life of noblesse oblige you were forced into. You hated your parents, and soon began to resent your sister; the only one who would ever be nice to you. Most of all, you hated yourself. You couldn’t do anything right. Your greatest feats were easily bested by others. You knew nothing of bravery and grace. Why were you even alive?
…
You walk the short distance down the sheltered flightline towards your jet. Your flightsuit feels much more scratchy than usual, and you can’t stop your body from trembling head to toe.
You eye your opponent just ahead of you in the adjacent slot. She’s a girl just as young and scared as you are. You shook her hand just half an hour ago; it was a strangely polite meeting for two people who were about to try killing each other.
It’s your big day, your first ever live joust. An entire lifetime of flying has not adequately prepared you for this. You’re so nervous overthinking the possibilities that you almost bump into the ashen haired girl weakly waving at you.
When you miraculously achieved knighthood, you were granted the privilege of a squire. Her name is Tomori. Takamatsu Tomori. She does many things for you: preflighting, refueling, rinsing the canopy, charging the tires, servicing the engine oil… You’d like to know more about what she does, but she rarely talks about work with you.
She’s a very strange girl, delightfully so. She has peculiar hobbies, like collecting the strangest items one would never think of picking up, or scribbling in her notebook. Her odd scribbles strangely resonated with you, and you learned over time that she was just as lonely as you were. The two of you weren’t that far off.
You didn’t like her at first, but the more time you spent with her, the more fond you grew of her.
“M-My la- sorry… Taki,” she stammers.
“Tomori…”
Tomori wordlessly hands you a binder—the maintenance logbook. You give it a once over, it’s all good. Without second thought, you take the pen she passes you and sign off on it. The jet is now yours.
“Mm… l-let’s do the walkaround.” She stows the binder in her toolbox and hands you a flashlight. Her tone is dreary—almost funerary.
You can’t help but notice how sweaty she is; her overalls are stained with salt. It’s obvious how hard she’s working for you, and you can’t help but feel guilty about it.
Worse are the tears she’s barely holding back, welling up in her eyes. She must think she’s prepared your coffin. You try not to look too much at her.
You lead her towards the jet, perhaps for the final time.
It’s one of your family’s two prized fighters—a sleek single-engined design seconded from the Imperial Air Forces. Its glossy white and red livery is extraordinarily gaudy, you were never a fan of it.
Your equally garish heraldry stands proud on both vertical stabilisers with the tail number marked in a bold black below. Your sister’s name is stenciled on the similarly black frame of the canopy—or rather was. In its place, your name has been hastily scribbled in white over where it was messily blacked out.
Your heart flutters. The jet must already be enough of a pain to keep this anally clean with that paint scheme, yet she still went the extra mile for you.
You unwisely look back at her as you finish your walkaround. She manages a melancholic smile at you. For the first time since arriving, you wonder if this was all a giant mistake. She’s the only one you live for, and you just barely dare to think that she lives for you too. You think about how you could take her hand right now and run off into the distance, leaving this life behind once and for all.
Unfortunately, there is more cowardice in your heart than bravery. You hand her back the flashlight and begin clipping your gear on. You climb up the ladder, up and away towards eternity. It’s your destined fate, after all.
You see the cockpit has been diligently prepared for you—the egress pins are removed and stowed, your intricately painted helmet is placed on the longeron, and your charts have been neatly placed upon the seat. You climb in and get settled. Tomori climbs up and helps you strap in.
Her face is so close… you could pull her in and kiss her goodbye, but you don’t. You’re nothing but a coward after all. She doesn’t deserve this cruel gesture. Still, you find it within yourself to pat her head and ruffle her hair, matted with sweat.
You care not for the country. You care not for the imperial family. You care not for your own family. You care not for all the court politicking and backstabbing that your house is engaged in.
You care for her.
Her head is so pretty, but it’s missing something—a crown. You would gladly strip yourself of your titles to bestow a laurel wreath on her head. She is your princess, and you would give up the world just for her. But she doesn’t know this, you can’t let her know this, you’ll never get to let her know this.
“T-Taki,” she breaks into your thoughts. “P-Please come back…”
A lump forms in your throat. The guilt pools in your stomach and makes you sick. It’s still not too late to turn back-
Your farewell is interrupted by the deafening whine and subsequent roar of your opponent’s jet fuel starter. It’s time to go. You can only manage a nod in affirmation before she scrambles down the ladder. You signal hands clear and she pulls it away.
Everything is a well rehearsed performance from here. You put in your earplugs, wear your gloves, don your skullcap and helmet, hook up the anti-g and oxygen hoses, clip your mask on, and flip your visor down. Annunciator lights and gauges come online as you power it on.
You look off to the side, she’s in place, headset on and plugged in.
“Tomori, how do you read?”
“Loud and clear.”
You hear her voice over the comms as she walks aft.
“Chocks in, forward clear, aft rear, um- ready for start.”
The canopy motor whirrs as you hit the switch, and it comes down with a clunk. You double check your switches and tell her you’re starting it up.
The jet comes to life, the turbine whine grows higher in pitch as it begins to spool up under the power of the jet fuel starter. You bring the throttle from cutoff to idle at the specified RPM. The engine lights off shortly after, vibrating the airframe with a deep bass as it passes through its harmonic frequencies. Soon, it settles at idle power.
Tomori does her various checks as you do yours, you both stop for a few minutes to do the flight control checks.
“Speedbrakes open… speedbrakes closed. Nose up, nose down, roll left, roll right, rudder left, rudder right, neutral. Taki, your flight controls are good.”
Even over the crackling comms, her voice has this pleasantly dreamy quality to it, as if she were whispering into your ear. You wonder if you’ll ever get to hear it again.
Soon, everything’s ready. She asks if she’s clear to pull the comms and you say yes. Before her disembodied voice disappears for good, she says her parting words to you.
“Taki, you can do this. Please don’t die.”
Annoyingly, your sister’s own parting words to you echo in your head. Shame is infinitely more reversible than death.
“I won’t,” you reply with false confidence in your voice.
“Thank you… hands clear for pins out.”
The crackling goes away as you take your hands away from the throttle and stick. She shows up to the side shortly after, showing you a red streamer. The gun is now armed.
She stows the pin in her thigh pocket and waits for your command.
You signal for her to remove the chocks, the second last step before you leave her behind.
As she does, you stare into the ghostly green glow of your heads up display. Airspeed, altitude, heading… These are numbers you live and soon will die by, and for what? A dispute over holdings which you’ll never have control of?
It’s clear they’re just trying to get rid of you, you’re nothing but an embarrassment to the family. Your father said it himself. So be it then.
You swear to yourself: If you miraculously survive this engagement, you really will run off with Tomori to find a better life together. You can’t keep making her sad like this.
You nearly jump out of your seat when you see her waving for your attention. Your opponent has long since taxied out, and it’s your turn to go. Chocks out good, she signals.
You sigh to yourself and gesture to request spin up. She checks left and right.
She points at you and rapidly flicks her other pointer finger back and forth.
You apply power, and roll out towards your fate.
The last you see of her is her saluting you.
You salute back.
…
The jet is just like an extension of your body, as if you were born in the cockpit. It flies however you will it to.
You’ve long since turned down the volume of the comms, nothing but a haughty presiding noble prattling out nonsense about honor and glory there.
You gently turn in, and you see the checkered spectator stands approaching down below. Green, red, and a flashing white marks your opponent in the distance. In the blink of an eye, she shoots right by as you both merge.
Fight’s on.
There’s no room in your head for anxiety anymore. What starts as a calculated game of energy management akin to a slow dance quickly turns into a desperate battle of attrition.
You gun the throttle into full afterburner and you can only hope you aren’t burning through what precious little fuel you have too fast. The airframe buffets as you pull hard on the stick. You crane your head until your neck hurts to keep eyes on your foe. The edges of your vision are a fuzzy black as you strain your hardest to avoid blacking out.
Neither of you are winning or losing, but you are both wearing each other down.
You’re so exhausted that you want to give up, like your sister hinted you to do. You almost do; your finger hovers over the push to talk. Yet, you can’t bring yourself to do it. It’d ruin you, and you’d be separated from Tomori. You’d rather die than give up.
But as much as you think you would, you promised her that you wouldn’t die.
So you pray. You pray hard, to every deity that you know of. You pray for a malfunction to happen to your jet or your opponent’s. An easy way out of this.
Your prayers are answered, but not in the way you hoped.
Your opponent makes the most rookie of mistakes: she reverses her turn. You waste no time punishing her for it, soon you are on her tail and the radar has a firing solution. You find the opportune moment to pull her into your gunsight, and right as the pipper is about to pass over, you squeeze the trigger.
The autocannon is like a violent buzzsaw. It rattles your skull, fragmenting your mind into a million pieces, and the next thing you know, your opponent is going down.
But you don’t celebrate. Everything goes quiet as you level out and watch the descent of the flaming wreck. You don’t see a chute.
It dawns on you as it impacts the ground in a fireball.
You’ve just killed someone.
You feel a pit form in your gut as a different type of guilt floods your mind. The fact is simple, you’re a murderer. You’re never washing this blood off your hands.
That other girl looked so scared when you met her too, she might’ve been just like you, wishing she hadn’t been born into this life.
You instinctively reach for the sickbag and rip off your mask.
…
You throw your helmet out of the cockpit as soon as the canopy is open, it lands on the concrete with a deafening crack. You unstrap yourself and clamber down the ladder as soon as it’s fixed in place.
The lack of awaiting fanfare tells you all you need to know. Only Tomori is there.
You can’t even look her in the eye as she waits for you to come over. She shouldn’t associate with a murderer like you. You walk past her, going nowhere in particular as your mind hazes over with nothing but negative thoughts.
You don’t notice that she’s following you, until she grabs onto your arm like her life depends on it.
“Thank you for coming back…” She whispers.
She’s warm, too much so. It’s hot out, you’re sweating buckets. Yet, you selfishly crave for her presence; like the coward you are, you’ve lost the will to protest it.
You don’t know where she’s leading you, but as long as it’s not back towards your ghoulish family, you follow along.