Chapter Text
Paris, France. 8 years ago.
What made someone strong?
Their muscles? How much they could lift? Their lower-body power? Their core strength?
El Condor Pasa was often taught to quantify strength along those measures. Her trainer could give her any metric in the world to gauge her skill and ability. To put her along a continuum that ranked her high above the average person. Numbers that told her compared to a human, and even compared to other Umamusume, she was strong.
But that was all an empty lie.
Because, as her father often told her, strength came from within. Inner strength was just as important as outer muscle: a strong warrior needed both to be victorious in the ring.
That was why despite all her talk, despite all her bravado and fanfare and words and actions, El Condor Pasa was weak.
Too weak to seize what she wanted. Too weak to say how she felt. Too weak to win. Too weak to find grace in her loss. Too weak for anything.
That left the question: was she too weak for this?
El sat in the darkness of her hotel room, sitting cross-legged on her bed. The television screen in front of her was an indecipherable mess of static. White noise in an empty room. El stared down at her lap, at the wet spots staining her skirt from her tears.
Her mask stared back at her.
She ran her hand along the front of it, feeling the fabric beneath her fingers. El heaved a heavy breath, hands shaking as she set it down on her lap. She reached over to her right, taking the pair of scissors she had bought from the store downstairs.
For a moment, El glanced over to her cellphone, which was sitting on the bed beside her. She waited, wondering if it would ring. Wondering if someone on the other line would be begging her to stop. She counted to ten in her head.
The phone stayed silent.
El took the scissors and placed her mask between them. With another choked, pathetic sob, she cut her mask in two.
XXX
El Monte, California. Now.
“So. This is it.”
El stared up at the modest two-story house that seemed to loom over her. Her tail swished anxiously behind her. She put a hand on the rusty metal gate and pushed it open, wincing as it creaked loudly.
“La casa.”
“Their home?” asked King Halo from beside her, chin resting on her hand. “It’s quaint.”
El snorted. “Viejo, you mean? Si. Not the fancy hotels you’re used to, I’m sure.”
“I didn’t say that,” King countered. “First-rate doesn’t mean fancy. In fact… I quite like it. It has charm.”
El glanced up at the chipped paint and damaged walls and snorted. “Charm. Sure. Well… I hope Mama at least cleaned up a bit.”
King reached over and squeezed El’s hand. “Are you nervous, dear?”
“ … Maybe a little,” El admitted. “I haven’t been back in a long time.”
“Your parents sound wonderful from everything you’ve told me about them,” King reassured, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m excited to finally meet them. Now, shall we? Or would you prefer to stay out here in the street?”
El rolled her eyes, helping King gather the pile of suitcases she had brought along with her and stepped through the gate. They made their way through the slightly-overgrown lawn, down the concrete path that wound through the shifting grass where ants scurried in between the cracks. They passed the weather-scarred garden gnome sitting halfway down the path with a hole in its back. They climbed the creaky wooden steps up the porch, where two rocking chairs sat at angles facing the road.
Together, they paused at the large white door, chipped and faded but still standing tall. El took a shaky breath. King squeezed her hand. “We don’t have to tell them if you don’t want to.”
“Too late for second thoughts,” El replied. She lifted her other hand and formed a fist, rapping her knuckles against the door.
A flock of birds flew overhead in the cloud-marred sky. The sun hung high above them, and a warm wind blew over their shoulders. A car passed by on the road behind them.
There were a set of footsteps inside. The screen door unlatched, then the front door creaked open. And then…
“¡Bienvenido a casa!!” someone bellowed as El was swiftly wrapped up in a hug.
“Ack! ¡Hola, papi!”
Her father roared with laughter, peppering El’s face with kisses. “Ah, ¡mi hermoso pájaro! ¿Cuánto tiempo ha pasado?”
“Erasmo!” shouted another voice from inside. “¿Están aquí? ⌈Let her in! And close the door!⌉”
“⌈Yes, yes!⌉” Her father released her and smiled broadly at King. “⌈And you must be the very famous King Halo, no?⌉”
King managed a smile, her rudimentary knowledge of English conveying enough of the message. “ ⌈Yes. I am King Halo⌉,” she responded.
“Bueno! Come in, come in!” Stepping out, he grabbed as many of the suitcases sitting at their feet as he could carry before lumbering off into the house.
King giggled, jabbing El in the ribs lightly. “I see where you got your energy from,” she joked.
“Mierde,” El groaned, practically shoving King inside.
They found themselves in the small hallway leading to the rest of the house. The entryway was narrow, leaving barely any space for the coatrack mounted against the wall and the small end table filled with trinkets and keychains.
“It’s a bit tight,” El said half-apologetically as she pulled off her shoes, slipping on a battered pair of house sandals.
“El, it’s fine,” King insisted.
El shrugged, taking a brand new pair and handing them to King. “These are probably for you.”
They were interrupted by two sharp barks, as a black mass of fur came darting around the corner followed by a brown one. “Ah, ¡hola, hola!” El said with a laugh as the dogs eagerly hopped up and pawed at her knees. “Cuchillo, you little devil, are you still causing trouble?”
The chihuahua responded by flopping onto its back and presenting its tummy. El rolled her eyes and obliged, rubbing it with a hand while holding out her other one for the second dog to sniff. “These are mi papi’s dogs. The brown one is Cuchillo, the black one here is Tenedor, and Cuchara is… Probably lazing on the couch again.”
Tenedor the beagle eyed King curiously before cautiously approaching.
“Oh my, they seem like such sweethearts,” King cooed, extending a hand for Tenedor to sniff.
“Sure. Cuchillo here is a little devil though,” El said, mock-scolding the dog. “This one loves destroying your shoes if you wrong her.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
There was a clatter from deeper within the house, and Cuchillo immediately went alert, sprinting off down the hall towards the noise. Tenedor glanced back at El before following the other dog. El stood, brushing her hands on the back of her jeans and gave King a smile. “Mami and Papi got a bit lonely. They adopted Cuchara first a few years ago. Then they worried she was lonely so they picked up these two.”
“They seem quite lively,” King said, giving El a hug. “Your parents are waiting, aren’t they?”
“Mm.” El led the way down the hall, past the many framed photos lining every surface of the hall. Her father was in many of them, often dressed in his luchadora gear and hefting up massive belts or trophies. But every now and then there was a picture of him acting the only way El ever knew him: as a father. A man with a mischievous grin hidden beneath a thick black beard, and bright brown eyes that seemed to twinkle even in the dark.
El took the first right in the hallway, passing briefly through the living room. “There she is,” El said with the click of her tongue as she spotted the black labrador lounging on the couch, watching the television and clearly not understanding any of it. “Hola, Cuchara, miss me?”
The dog hesitantly hopped off the couch, tail wagging, and approached to sniff the two as they entered.
“Yeah, didn’t think so. Cuchara always did like mom the best.”
They continued through the living room, navigating their way past the sofa, coffee table, and piles of boxes sitting in the corner. The living room connected immediately to the dining room, where six sets of plates and utensils had been set up. “You hungry yet, mi rey?”
“A bit peckish.”
“Get ready to eat a lot, mi mami does not hold back.”
“El!” called a voice from the kitchen. A short Umamusume scurried out, dressed in an embroidered apron with a wooden spoon in her hand, and swept El up in a big hug. “⌈Ah, welcome back! How was the flight?⌉”
“⌈Bueno, the delay wasn’t too long! We had to wait for King’s bags to get through security, though,⌉” El replied in English, knowing full well King wouldn’t understand the barb.
El’s mother released her and approached King. “⌈King Halo! It is so nice to meet you. El has said so much about you!⌉” She cooed, gently taking King’s cheeks in her hand and planting a kiss on either one.
El chuckled as King blushed a bit. “Mi rey, this is my mother, King Mambo. And you’ve already met my father, Erasmo.”
King Mambo smiled warmly at her. “⌈Welcome to our home! We promise to take good care of you!⌉”
“Um…” King smiled back and glanced at El for help.
“She says she’s glad you’re here and she’ll take good care of you,” El replied, translating the English to Japanese.
“Ah! Thank you!” King said with a bow.
“⌈So polite,⌉” King Mambo said with a smile. “⌈You found a good one, El!⌉”
They were interrupted as Erasmo entered from the opposite door, cans of soda in his hands as Cuchillo ran around his legs. “¿Qué quieren beber?”
El selected two cans at random and passed one to King.
“⌈I set you girls up in the guest room upstairs,⌉” Erasmo said with a wink.
“⌈Yes, please feel free to get settled,⌉” King Mambo said, squeezing El with another tight hug. “⌈Lunch will be ready soon, so you can relax until then⌉, ¿Sí?”
“Bueno.” El turned to King with a shrug. “Lunch will be ready soon. I can show you the room we’ll be staying in.”
“Alright.” King followed El back through the dining room, then into the living room where Cuchara perked her head up to look at them as they passed. They climbed the stairs in the main hall, El glancing at the numerous photos hanging from the wall. They were arranged at random, and filled with dozens of faces that El recognized and dozens more she didn’t. “You have quite the extensive family,” King mused.
“I guess. You met most of them when we were in Kentucky,” El replied as she reached the top of the stairs. “Only my parents moved out here. For the most part, mis tíos y tías stayed there.”
They walked down the narrow hall, El vaguely recalling the house layout from when she had last come here a few years ago. “This is it,” she said, pushing open the door leading to the guest bedroom.
The room contained a set of dressers and a large queen-sized bed, adorned with pillows and a set of matching blankets. To the right was a closet, and to the left was a small desk and an office chair. The right side of the room also contained the attached bathroom. Their luggage was set in the middle of the room in a neat pile, clearly the work of her father.
King strode into the room and plopped down on the bed with a sigh as El set the cans of soda on the desk. “Ooo… So soft,” King said happily, ears wiggling.
El chuckled, crossing her arms in amusement. “You say that about almost every bed.”
“It’s true!” King insisted. “I don’t know where Goodbye bought her mattresses, but she insisted on changing them out so often that I felt I had a new one every week. It was incredibly wasteful, and I blame that for rarely sleeping well.”
El sat down beside her. She absently ran a finger over the right side of her mask. “Huh. I only had one growing up. Your mom was definitely a weirdo.”
“She still is,” King replied, folding her hands over her chest as she stared up at the ceiling.
The two fell quite for a bit, listening as noise from the television quietly slipped in from down stairs. They could hear some pots clinking in the kitchen, and if El truly listened carefully she could hear the soft voice of her mother as she sang in English. “I hope you like tacos, fajitas, and enchiladas,” El said. “Mi madre cooks them like it’s her job.”
“That sounds lovely.” King paused, shifting her eyes to El. “El… You have such a wonderful family.”
“I guess so,” El said awkwardly.
King gently tugged on El’s tail. El complied, laying down besides King to stare up at the ceiling. She wrapped her arms around El’s side, planting a kiss on her cheek. “What’s worrying you, El?” she whispered.
“No sé,” El replied. “I just… It’s weird being here, I guess. Somehow weirder than being back at my actual home.”
King sighed, brushing El’s hair. “You’re worried about telling them,” she guessed.
“ … Sí,” El muttered in response. “Thinking about Paris… It makes me think of Grass, too.” She winced, glancing at King nervously. “You’re not mad at me about that, are you?”
“El, I could never be mad at you for that,” King said, kissing her again. “I love you no matter what. That’s what I told you then, and that’s what I’ll always say until the day I die.”
El exhaled slowly. Cuchillo began barking from downstairs. A car drove by on the road outside. Sunlight flowed in through the windows, outlining the specks of dust drifting lazily in the air.
El turned on her side, hugging King tightly as King buried her chest into her. She closed her eyes for a second, letting her mind wander to happier thoughts of happier times.
“So,” King eventually said with a smirk. “Your mother’s name is King Mambo?”
“ … And?”
“You named your bird after her, and now you’re dating another girl named King.” King poked El in the ribs, earning a squeak out of her. “Are you a mama’s girl, El Condor Pasa?”
El huffed at that. “Oh, cállate, you.”
King laughed brightly at that.
XXX
Tracen Academy, Tokyo. Eight Years Ago.
The common room was empty and quiet. Most students were out enjoying their weekend, wandering the town or sleeping in or doing some light exercise.
King Halo stared down at the tea cup in her hands. It had long since gone cold, but she lacked the strength to continue drinking it. She furrowed her brow, staring down at the murky reflection of herself in the cup.
“King? Are you alright?”
“Ah.” King set her cup down and smoothed out her skirt. “I’m… A bit worried,” she admitted.
Grass Wonder sighed quietly. “Me too,” she said.
“I still haven’t heard from her,” King continued, glancing at the phone laying on the table beside her cup. “Neither has Sky or Spe-chan or Tsurumaru…”
Grass was quiet for a second. “She hasn’t spoken to me if that is what you’re asking,” she said sadly. “I haven’t heard from her since she last called us.”
King rubbed her eyes. “Grass…”
“It’s only been a few days, King,” Grass offered. “I know she is taking this hard. But she has her trainer with her. I am hoping that that is enough.”
King couldn’t take her eyes off the phone. “I just feel that something awful is about to happen.”
Grass sighed. “I know,” she admitted. “But I’m just not certain there is much more we could do.”
The phone stared back at King, still and silent. Despite her silent prayers, it didn’t ring. “Well, shouldn’t we call her? Let her know that we are here for her?” ventured King.
Grass considered this. “In all my years knowing her, she has always reached out when’s needed it,” Grass replied calmly. “I’m certain she knows that we are here for her. When she returns, we can see if she would like to talk about it.”
King flinched. Her instincts screamed at her to disagree. To insist on something else. But Grass was right, wasn’t she? They were thousands of miles away in a different country, in a different time zone. What if she was sleeping? Wouldn’t a call be far too intrusive?
“King,” Grass said, taking King’s attention off of her cell phone. She smiled at her. “El is going to be okay,” Grass said. “I promise.”