The Catch
“Puddle — DOWN!”
And oh, the slowest mount in the sky comes down — folds her wings and drops like a decision, like she's been waiting her whole cushion-hoofed life for somebody to ask her the right question. The wind screams. You lean out with one arm hooked in her mane, and the falling rider's hand smacks into yours, small and freezing, and holds.
Puddle spreads her wings. The three of you swoop up out of the fall so smoothly it feels like the sky apologizing.
You cross the finish line dead last, with a shaking wren-sized rider named — actually Wren, as it turns out — sitting in front of you. The cloud-field is utterly silent.
Then the whole Court begins to stamp. Ten thousand hooves on solid cloud, thunder made of applause, and Queen Cirra watches you with an expression that has stopped being freezing and started being interested. “The race,” she says, when the thunder finally dies, “is passed. Speed was never the test.”