Work Text:
The Takarazuka Kinen loomed, and Sweep Tosho would cast her racing magic there and dazzle them all. The roaring crowd, and the reporters who wrote their stupid articles. Her familiar, and her fellow uma. And Zenno Rob Roy.
She welcomed the challenge, and a rival she could respect. Rob Roy had her own fanciful dreams, and it was nice to see her embracing them instead of shying away.
Like a great Hero, I'll slay the Witch!
How dare she say something like that, though?! That was just a step too far! It was so... violent, and sort of dominating, and just all the wrong parts of the attitude that those on the Triple Crown circuit tended to have. Thinking they were better...
Familiar had been totally useless too, even more than usual! So much for her rank-up magic, but sometimes people were just too hopeless for even a spell to help.
"Do your best!"
"I know you've got this tomorrow!"
"Then you'll just have to slay Rob Roy first, cast a spell that-"
Every one of her trainer's attempts to encourage her and calm her anxious irritation towards Rob Roy proved useless, met with a rapid "Wrong!" or, of course, a shrill "Yada!", culminating in her storming off to be by herself until race day.
It was late at night in her dormroom, unable to sleep, that she'd hatched her grand plan. Sure enough, Rob Roy was restless and unable to sleep as well, and had replied to her message almost instantly.
There were preparations to be taken care of, though. Sweep spritzed herself with the essence of powerful flowers, until she was satisfied that she smelled truly magical. She patted twinkly magic dust into her cheeks until they glittered. She drank several cups of herbal tea to try to calm herself down fully recharge her mana. Only then did she set off for the bit of Tracen gardens where Rob Roy had agreed to meet her.
And probably now been waiting almost ten minutes.
The bespectacled girl was in her pyjamas, looking a bit too sleepy, and dressed a bit too comfortable for the outside of a bed. The moment she saw Sweep she perked up though, eyes shining like the tapestry of stars above. The cloudless night was just perfect, Sweep could borrow some of the power twinkling away above her.
"Wow, Sweep..."
"Hmm?" The little witch moved over to sit beside her silver-haired friend turned rival on the bench where the other horsegirl had been waiting.
"Just... even off the racetrack, you're so dazzling."
Sweep tried not to let it show that she'd been hoping to hear something like that, but a little pink crept onto her cheeks beneath the moonlight. "Well, any hero who thinks she could possibly slay a witch should have some ability to sense her magical aura."
Rob Roy noticed immediately that her friend's tone was especially huffy and pointedly sour, and sort of shivered in the spot she was sitting. "Ahh, when I said that... did it bother you?"
Sweep folded her arms in front of her chest next to her, and looked away, with a quiet little, "Hmph."
"I knew it." Rob Roy fell apart quickly. "I was just... I was fired up, and I knew I had to say something special for the media, and after watching how you'd been racing, I..."
Sweep could feel those big blue eyes burning a pair of holes into the back of her neck, and her cheeks began to burn brighter too.
"I shouldn't have said it. I'm sincerely sorry, Sweep." There was a waver to Rob Roy's voice that Sweep found she didn't like. Hadn't her racing magic brought the girl out of her shell, to show everyone a new side of Zenno Rob Roy? A strangely thrilling, and compelling new side? Only for her to now fold in on herself again at the first sign of resistance...
"Shaddap! You dummy! I didn't call you out here to apologise to me!"
Sweep stood up, hands on hips as she moved around to stand in front of Rob Roy. The sitting girl's eyes stared up at her, still enthralled by her magical aura. They were perfect, an example of how everybody should look at her, would look at her after the Takarazuka Kinen.
"You're here so I can cast a spell on you! You've fallen into the witch's trap!"
"Uh...?"
"With a charm spell on you, you'll never beat me!" Sweep raised up her index finger, swirling it dramatically through the air with a few elegant spins of her wrist before pointing it right at Rob Roy. "Agapantha!"
For a moment, nothing happened. Then Sweep Tosho moved like lightning, fast as any of her end-race rushes, and Rob Roy found her cheeks suddenly held captive by the bratty, beautiful girl's palms. They were warm, and soft, and wonderful, and their magic jolted instantly through her sitting body, up to the tips of her ears and down to the tip of her tail. A fierce warmth blossomed in its wake.
The witch's spell wasn't done, though. Sweep leaned in closer, Rob Roy's eyes widening in confusion as their faces drew nearer and nearer. Was it her new-found bravery, or was it the charm spell just cast on her, that prompted her to move her own head forwards to meet her friend and rival's?
The two girls' lips connected beneath the moonlight, their hearts thundering in their chests like their cleats would against the turf tomorrow. It was held for only a few mere seconds, without a hint of tongue, and yet in the moment it was more important than any G1.
Sweep broke it, even as her heart longed for more, stepping backwards awkwardly and lowering her hands to her sides. Rob Roy looked up at her hopefully, lips longing for more, those pretty blue eyes so desperate...
...how perfect! The girl was completely smitten! There was no way she would dare crush the dreams of the one she'd just fallen irreversibly in love with, now!
"Ha ha ha! Enjoy second place, 'Hero'!" declared Sweep, before racing off into the night, and back to her dorm to bury her bright-red face in her pillow.
Sure enough, the next day on the racetrack, Rob Roy couldn't bear to be in front of her for too long. As soon as they came to the final spurt, Rob Roy's speed went lacking, her energy drained to send Sweep barreling forwards across the finish line in a close first place to Rob Roy's third. She was in rare form after the race, her attitude on full display for the interviewers and cameras, and her familiar, even in victory. Apparently proving herself to everyone, showing them that it didn't matter she was from the Tiara circuit, just meant more license to act up in her usual bratty ways.
Sweep kept glancing over at a certain other uma though, their eyes meeting frequently, full of unsaid things on both sides. She'd cast her racing magic upon everyone today, and it had been wonderful... but perhaps it was the spell she'd cast the night before that mattered most of all.