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Curse all the stars above and the faded moon too, she had been gorgeous.
Sandy. His supposed human mate that hadn’t said a word to him, but whose looks spoke volumes, had been everything a male could dream of. Beautiful and confident and unmoved. She looked at him like a bug under her shoe.
As she should, for the things he said to her.
But it worked. Right? It had to have worked,
Rane made sure not to shower since he’d been warned she was coming, except maybe to bathe in booze. He had been acting up, ensuring that every paparazzi he could find got pics and vids of him debauching himself like there was a trophy promised at the end. There hadn’t been any females – how could he possibly have gotten hard when he was as terrified as he was? But the pictures of him hanging off them certainly made it seem like there had been.
And that was enough.
It had to be enough.
Because that prim, perfect little female that he found in his mother’s office didn’t look like the kind who would tolerate any of that. She just had to do one search of his name, and she would see what a massive screwup her ‘mate’ was.
And maybe she could still get out of here.
He could probably blame the distraction of his own thoughts for how badly he was performing in practice, but he knew it wasn’t true. In a way, he craved the pain. Trikball was a violent sport, and getting punched full in the face wasn’t unusual. But he had seen the blow coming. He hadn’t tried to move. He hadn’t dreaded being hit.
It felt right to suffer for what he was doing. It felt like the pain was necessary.
Sal seemed to think otherwise as he grabbed Rane by the wrist and dragged him down and out of the sphere court – the artificial zero-g atmosphere making it easy to cart him around like cargo to the exit tubes.
He tossed Rane down first and gravity caught him, yanking him to the ground with a painful thud that he embraced like his due. Sal came after, landing neatly beside him, turning off his thruster boots and gauntlets to stare down at Rane with a scowl.
Sal was a male with a hint of brown to his golden complexion, and his crest feathers were a deep blue instead of bright like his own. It was funny to Rane that they shared coloration, and the irony that Rane was brighter than him when he was clearly in Sal’s shadow also wasn’t unappreciated.
“What is wrong with you?” Sal asked, irritated. “You’ve always been reckless and dumb, but at least in the sphere you were hard working. You’re letting your personal issues bleed into the game and it’s causing sloppy accidents like this!”
He gestured down to Rane’s bleeding nose, that continued to drip steadily onto his chest as he sat up, wiping it off his mouth, smearing pink blood all over his forearm.
“Answer me!” Sal snapped. “What is happening with you, huh?!”
“Nothing,” Rane mumbled.
Sal growled in annoyance. “Seriously? Rane, things like this are exactly why the tribunals won’t mark you as an adult. You won’t grow up! You act like a child; you can’t be surprised when everyone treats you like one!”
Rane didn’t respond. Shame and humiliation ate at his belly. How could he explain that he had been set up? That he was like this because he had been made this way? That he only continued to act this way because he had nothing else? That if he tried, his mother always found some way to drag him back down? Why try when he knew he would fail?
“It’s not my fault…” He mumbled, so softly it might not have been heard.
But it was. And Sal let out a groan of annoyance and disappointment. “This is exactly what I mean, Rane. You can’t expect be given responsibility. You have to take it. And it starts with taking responsibility for the stupid things you do!”
Rane couldn’t argue with him. There was no point. So, he said nothing as Sal lectured him about being an adult and that, if nothing else, he owed it to the team to work hard.
Only once he finished did Sal dismiss him to go to the medical room of the stadium to get his nose fixed. On game days, there were teams that were there on the sidelines to fix them immediately so they could restart play, but this was only practice, so he had to go to the one who was paid to stand by.
Rane did as instructed, getting some quick healing to reset his nose and fuse the bones back together by the unfeeling healer. The emotionless female had been hired by his mother, and her lack of empathy was probably one of the key factors in picking her.
His team, the Eliviers, had claimed this stadium as their home a few years ago – taking it from the then reigning champs in a challenge match. Since then, they had been the champions of their planet, the best trikball team on Levtiram. They won the solar championships already and were now in the middle of the Coalition wide championships.
Rane had always wanted to be a trikball player. The fact that his dream came at the price of losing everything else seemed like a cruel twist of fate. He couldn’t even enjoy it anymore. He was the best telfay player currently in the leagues. Even when he was fucking up, he still won games. That was the only reason anyone tolerated him.
But now, he was starting to wonder if it was even worth hanging onto this dream. Trikball used to be the only thing that gave him joy, but even that was fading. If he just quit, could his mother even do anything about it?
Maybe that’s what it would take to finally free him.
And maybe then he wouldn’t have to hurt and disrespect such a pretty female.
