Chapter Text
An ant can carry ten times its own body weight.
Nice Nature recalled the grade-school fun fact as she watched one crawl across the wooden bench she was sitting on, moving this way and that as it struggled to hold onto a leaf. She wondered if it was true, or if she was even remembering the saying correctly. Logically, she she knew it probably depended on the ant. There were too many kinds for one phrase to apply to them all. Then again, she supposed it didn't really matter for this ant, clearly having met its match. It would have to give up eventually.
Didn't it understand that there were other ways to bring the leaf wherever it was that it needed to go? It could tear the leaf up into smaller pieces and take multiple trips, for instance. Or, it could leave and come back with its little ant buddies, and they could carry the leaf together. Instead, it chose the hardest way - the impossible way. There was no winning to be done. It would have to give up eventually, and the sooner, the better, if it wanted to conserve its strength and have anything left. Still, it marched on unsteadily, only to be blown back by a sudden gust of wind.
All of that hard work, and it amounted to nothing.
Idly, she ran her thumb along the edge of her hiking journal, flipping it open to an empty page before letting it fall shut again. Her fingers drummed against the cover as she thought about drawing the ant. It was just the kind of thing the other girls would eat up during their group discussions. She could picture it now: Look at me, I thought about the benefits of being a quitter, hooray! (Wow, Nice Nature, you're so cool!)
A dragonfly zipped past her, drawing her attention as it flew away into the foliage further down on the other side of the trail. Its path had crossed beneath a giant spiderweb hanging between the branches of two trees, likely home to a just-as-giant spider. A spider she'd been trying not to think about ever since she spotted the web when she sat down. Nature couldn't stop the shudder. Instead, she quickly returned her attention to the book laying in her lap. She stared down at the blank page. To draw or not to draw? It would be an easy way to win cheap praise, and isn't that what she was always chasing after?
She didn't want the ant to give up, though. Sure, logically, it made the most sense, but screw logic. Maybe it was strong enough. Maybe its dogged insistence would prove to be good for something. She huffed, exasperated. She was following a line of thinking that never got her anywhere. It was riding these trains of thought that kept her stuck right where she was, never able to move forward. It was why she was attending all of those meetings with their group discussions, trying to quit running, while making sure her trainer had booked them extra time to practice on the turf.
She leaned back with a sigh as another cool breeze washed over her. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched patches of shade dance across the ground. It must be nice to be a leaf. At least, it would be until you ended up in the mandibles of an ant. Her gaze shifted upward, finding the cool green canopy above. It was more vibrant than before. The harsh sunlight filtering through made her squint, and she brought a hand up to block out what the brim of her ball-cap didn't. A bead of sweat slid down her spine before coming to rest in the small of her back. The cusp of summer was upon them.
Classes would end soon, and the high-school students would leave for Tracen's annual summer camp. The Kokura Kinen would be coming up, too, once August arrived. It wasn't the most prestigious race, but Nature found herself looking forward to it every year ever since her win during her Classics - and she knew plenty of people in the nearby shopping district loved watching her run it. She needed to sit down with her trainer, figure out Canopus's plans for the summer, and iron out her race schedule for the season.
A frog screamed somewhere off in the distance, reminding Nature of where she was. She frowned. Racing was the last thing she was supposed to be thinking about. She'd been sitting there for far too long if that was where her mind was wandering. Teio had to be close to catching up by now.
It was funny. For so long, that was all Nature had dreamed about - being faster than the invincible Tokai Teio - and now that she had it, it seemed useless.
To be fair, they weren't racing. To be fair, Teio's pace was lagging due to the cast around her leg and the crutches in her hands. To be fair, if she hadn't re-broken the bone, again, Nature had no doubt she would've been left in the dust a long time ago.
Her ears quirked towards the sound of movement at the bottom of the hill. It was Teio, of course; they hadn't passed by too many other people on their hike so far, and besides that, Teio stood out among them. Nature closed her eyes as she listened to the squeaking tell of crutches accompany Teio's journey up the path's incline. The sounds of rocks and dirt shifting grew steadily more erratic the longer she struggled to find purchase for the instruments of her torture, as she fondly referred to them. Nature smiled. Teio never made an effort to hide her feelings, her annoyance clear as day. She'd get over herself as soon as she made it to the top. Even so, it was nice to know that even someone who shone as bright as Teio could be reduced to the mediocrity the rest of them endured daily - regardless of if it was only temporary.
She made the mistake of glancing over.
All that was visible was the top of Teio's head, her ears pointed in frustration and her bangs plastered to her forehead. They mostly were, anyway. The white stripe of hair that cut through them was still curled perfectly, bouncing with every step. Nature knew if she asked, Teio would claim it happened naturally; she also knew that was complete bullshit from the way her own bangs clung to her sticky skin, stripe and all.
Then again, who was she to shackle Teio to the possibilities that existed within mortal bounds? Maybe her hair really was just stupidly perfect like that. Maybe it was a divine gift from the Three Goddesses, and she was destined to always look cute, no matter what.
Would that curl still look perfect on a corpse?
Nature looked away before she could be compelled to say something stupid. Why was she so stupid? At least the mental image her brain concocted had stopped her from thinking about Teio being cute. Except, being grateful for the distraction from Teio's cuteness brought said cuteness back to the forefront of Nature's thoughts. She wanted to scream.
Instead, she let her head drop, and she stared down at her knees. Knees were better than hair, and, wow, she was really bad at the whole not-thinking-about-Teio thing. Her eyes burned. Was she seriously about to start crying? Over Teio's stupidly perfect hair? She scrubbed at her face furiously. Now was not the time to deal with those emotions; they could be postponed until later, when she wasn't literal seconds away from being in direct view of the uma causing them.
What was she even doing there? Besides the obvious of embarrassing herself, that was. It was a dumb question. She could see her binoculars from where they were hanging around her neck. She was there to see birds. That was it, the only reason.
Nature stretched her back as she sat up again. She really had been sitting there too long, a fact that only became more evident when her neck twinged as she rolled it. Something darted across the trees, just on the edge of her field of vision.
It felt like she was hit with a sudden surge of energy as she nearly launched herself off of the bench in her haste to turn around and scan the treeline - aches and pains momentarily forgotten. Nothing stuck out against the same blues and greens and browns she'd been looking at all morning. With a huff, she reached for the binoculars that hung around her neck and looked again. A sign of life was all she needed - a flash of color or another hint of movement. They'd been hearing birds on and off since they started their trek, and she wasn't going home until she managed to spot at least one.
"Do you see anything"
She flinched violently, nearly dropping her binoculars. Her heart was beating so hard it was threatening to rip a hole through her chest, and she felt like the main character of a horror game who had looked away, only for the scary thing to move impossibly fast. Because Teio had just been at the bottom of the hill. She'd forgotten that was Teio's new thing: scaring people with unnerving quietness. If she was honest, Nature still didn't understand how she managed to do it with her crutches, or why she wanted to. Usually, she loved drawing attention to herself - but that was why it worked so well, after all.
Teio wasn't laughing at her, though. Not like she usually would. Instead, Nature felt a warm weight settle on top of her shoulder. She didn't have to look to know Teio was resting her head there like it was where she belonged. A hum, apologetic and soothing, reverberated throughout her, starting at the area of impact. It burned. She shifted down sharply before jabbing her elbow into Teio's side.
"Shhh."
It knocked her off balance and off of Nature's shoulder. Listening to Teio scramble to hold onto her crutches shouldn't have been as satisfying as it was. She stayed upright, obviously; Nature hadn't pushed her with the intent to make her fall. That didn't mean she hadn't wanted to. It wasn't that she wanted to hurt her, and that only made her feelings more confusing.
As racers, falling was the one thing they were supposed to avoid at all costs: it was the fastest way to end careers, even lives. It hadn't ended Teio's. No, instead, Teio had pulled off her miracle run at the Arima Kinen before psuedo-retiring - it semed like everyone had accepted that she was done running, except for her. She really didn't know when to quit, did she? Then again, maybe she had known, and the problem had been that no one had listened. And it had led them here, two horsegirls who both needed to stop running, on a hike to look for birds.
Wait, birds? Birds. Birds!
The bird, she couldn't lose track of the bird! She swung her attention back to the treetops as fast as she could move, but she already knew it was pointless. She'd lost it the moment Teio had begun to speak. All of the branches looked the same now, and she couldn't tell if she was looking in the right direction, or if she had gotten turned around at some point. Nature hated it. She hated every time she got too close to Teio and racing to separate them. It always led them to similar conditions; it always meant someone had to lose. Losing the bird, it almost felt like penance.
She hadn't wronged it, though. No, the aggrieved party was standing to her right, quietly spouting tales of injury and woe, and there was nothing she could ever do that would begin to pay off her crimes. What do you even say in that situation?
"Hey, Teio. Sorry I thought about pushing you to the ground. I wanted to recreate that time you fell and almost lost the ability to run forever. No, I don't really know why. It just felt right in the moment, you understand.
"Teio, whenever we talk about racing, I dream of you dying."
Somehow, she didn't really think Teio would be all too receptive to either of those options.
"Teio, I want to kiss you. Every time I imagine it, you turn into a corpse. You're still beautiful. It's terrifying."
What even was that? Who said things like that? Even if she took out the glaring issue of there being absolutely no way Teio would ever want to kiss her back, friends don't go around telling friends that they often picture their dead body. It was better to say nothing at all. So really, there was no reason to worry about it. Why cry over what she couldn't change? It would be easier for everyone if she just went about her life pretending she wasn't committing such a grave offense.
Her grip on her binoculars tightened. She was going to see that damn bird. She just had to be patient and wait for it to call again. It had better call again.
Snap. Rustle. There.
Nature turned sharply to her left as she tried to pinpoint where the birdsong was coming from. Beside her, Teio fumbled with her own pair of binoculars, attempting to get them set up while hugging her crutches to her sides. A better friend might have helped her. Nature didn't give a fuck if Teio was able to see the bird or not. If she missed it, well, that was poor planning on her part. Nature would be able to spot it. She just needed to look a little harder, then she would find it. If she just stared at the unchanging green a little better, surely the bird would appear in her sight. Was it further to the left, or had she passed it up?
The tittering song ended abruptly, replaced with the flap of wings that quickly grew into a distant noise. Nature let the binoculars fall against her chest in disappointment. If only she had been a little faster.
"Guess we missed it. Oh well, let's keep going."
Oh well? Oh well? All of the emotions Nature had been pushing down welled up inside of her, ready to bubble over. It didn't bother her. Missing the bird didn't bother her. Teio was the one who wanted to come out here in the first place - with the express intent of seeing birds - and she was just walking away from failure like it had never happened. Nature mentally willed herself to take a deep breath.
It was just a nature walk. There was no winning or losing, no purpose except to enjoy herself and write down at least three things she saw. It was okay to miss the bird.
"Woah, check out this huge banana spider!" Teio called, snapping Nature out of her thoughts. She cringed. It looked like that web had been hosting a spider in it after all. Teio turned back when she didn't offer a response. "Are you coming? Or are we stopping to journal?"
Nature blinked. Her stuff still laid discarded across the bench from where she'd thrown it off her lap in her hurry. She grabbed her journal and tucked it swiftly into her bag, blatantly avoiding even a glance at the side of the bench where the ant had been and, likely, still was. She shook her head. "I'm good."
She started walking again.
