[Trade] Emotional Race

All three tapejaras stood on the starting line, marked by a coloured stripe painted on one of the white planes. The tension had been palpable for quite some time.

Three - Troubador looked at Typhoon with a hint of uncertainty. The male was completely indifferent.

Two - Dion nervously flapped his wings, feeling a shiver run through his whole body. He didn't want to wait any longer.

One!

The sound of the start signal cut the air like a whip. The three tapejaras plunged down, jumping off the roof of the plane suspended above the ceiling. After a second of dangerous gliding towards the floor, each of them caught the wind in their wings and stabilised their flight.

Typhoon took the lead, skilfully dodging his two opponents at an alarmingly close distance - he almost caught his own leader with the red, thorny spikes on his wings, and then leaped into the first hoop on the track. He cleared it without any problems.

The other two were close behind, clearing the first checkpoint almost immediately after him. Dion once again demonstrated his incredible agility, flying sideways into the inside of the hoop. Troubadour did not anticipate this - the manoeuvre of the second male unexpectedly rocked the circle suspended from the ceiling. Troubadour nicked the plastic with the patterned crest on his head.

Then they faced a sharp turn, in the corner between two walls and the ceiling. Each of them knew that despite their small size, they were unable to manoeuvre so precisely at their current speed. They slowed down abruptly, meeting for a brief moment at practically the same point. If it weren't for the complex and close relationships between them, it would have been the perfect moment to sneakily dethrone the competition.

This unplanned encounter led to a reshuffling of the order of the competitors. Grey, the most experienced male, surprisingly fell behind, struggling in flight, fighting against a strange vortex of air he had fallen into. For a moment, Troubadour and Typhoon were neck and neck, but with each passing second, this excessive closeness became more and more dangerous - Typhoon, despite the adrenaline constantly buzzing in his veins, let go. Troubadour, surprisingly, took the lead.

Ahead of them was a longer, mostly straight road - a section of the route that was supposed to test their endurance and speed on straight sections. The differences in their skills did not particularly affect these categories. Each of the three tapejaras, despite the regular training that two of them underwent, was able to develop more or less similar speeds. The order of the competitors remained the same throughout this part of the race.

The excited cheers of the audience, which for some reason had only now reached the ears of the race participants, grew louder. Everyone on the sidelines watched with bated breath as the tapejaras approached the most difficult obstacle of this course - the tangle.

The tangle was created by at least a dozen small model aeroplanes suspended at various heights from the ceiling. This was not a museum exhibition - the race was taking place in a warehouse where various exhibits that were no longer intended for visitors' eyes were stored. Now this structure had become a treacherous trap.

Troubadour, though he tried to push the thought out of his mind, knew he wasn't agile enough to overcome this obstacle unscathed. He was right – his lack of experience in flying in difficult conditions showed painfully. He approached the tangle at too high a speed. He managed to avoid the first and second planes, but the third, located at a completely different altitude, took him by surprise. The tips of the brown male's wings hit the cables supporting the museum model. Troubadour plummeted down, landing on the roof of the model that had defeated him – it took him a while to get himself together after that fall.

Typhoon, who until then had been keeping pace with the male in front of him and had overcome the initial section of the tangle with great determination (and slightly lesser skill), suddenly slowed down sharply and began to flail chaotically in the air. His first instinct was to land on the roof of the aircraft to check on Troubadour – perhaps he was injured?

Dion, who for some time (to the surprise of everyone who knew him) had been at the very back of the pack, saw this as the perfect opportunity to finally take the lead. Not that he needed this minor accident to do so – the head of the flock's guard was the most experienced and skilled flyer. The tangle, which for most was an insurmountable obstacle, appeared to him as a mere inconvenience, exactly the kind he had overcome countless times in training.

The grey male nimbly bypassed the commotion that had arisen around the third model, then slalomed through the rest of the tangle. He did not choose the easiest route – he preferred to weave between the models of human machines, sometimes avoiding collisions with them by mere centimetres. He was showing off. Among the audience were several members of his flock, including those who served as warriors. They needed to know that their leader was in excellent shape.

The rest of the way was trivial – just another hundred metres or so and only one wide hoop decorated with red ribbons separating the competitors from the finish line. Dion accelerated immediately after clearing the tangle, focusing on his breathing and trying to control his racing heart. He didn't want to look too tired when he finished the race.

With one last smooth and graceful movement, he cleared the hoop and then, accompanied by cheers, crossed the finish line. He had won. No one was surprised.

Typhoon was stopped by an unforeseen accident for just a few seconds, but that, combined with the fact that he could barely keep up with the higher-ranking male, was enough to prevent him from even thinking about winning. He realised this when he finally made it through the dangerous thicket of aeroplanes - the grey male's back was already looming in the distance. Typhoon screeched with frustration, waving his spiked wings angrily. Despite his obvious defeat, he completed the last leg of the route with elegance and charisma. His blood was practically boiling with rage. He had lost, again, but he was not going to let anyone ridicule him. He had to keep his pride.

After his accident, Troubadour lost all hope of emerging from this clash with his honour intact. He didn't even try to rehabilitate himself – he flew at normal speed for the rest of the route. He no longer intended to reach breakneck speeds. The only good thing about this race was that Typhoon immediately took an interest in his fate, squandering his chance to beat Dion. Despite all the misfortunes that had befallen him today, the brown male couldn't help but smile secretly. Typhoon clearly cared about him.

Before the last of the males had even crossed the finish line, Dion saw an opportunity to confront Typhoon. The male was inconsolable and extremely irritated by his subordinate's behaviour. He had always thought that a decisive, somewhat aggressive male would not act in such a stupid, naive way. He was wrong.

‘NEVER do that again!’ Dion exploded, making sure that the audience was no longer paying much attention to them. ‘This time it was an innocent mistake, but someday something like this could kill us all!’

‘Or worse... doom the mission to failure,’ thought the agitated male. He didn't dare say it out loud - in those words, he would admit that nothing was more important to him than correctly completing the task entrusted to him.

No further words were needed. Typhoon was well aware of the source of the conflict — Troubadour. More precisely, Typhoon's reaction to his accident.

During their training, the fighters of the pack were often told that the most important thing was to achieve the goal entrusted to them. If someone was unable to do so and fell in battle, that was just the way it was. In such situations, there was no time for sentimentality or hesitation. Typhoon, as the second highest-ranking warrior, should have been able to recite this rule even if someone woke him up in the middle of the night. That is why his breaking of this rule was doubly reprehensible. He could not allow his feelings to cloud his common sense.

Dion stared intently at his subordinate, his eyes shining with a hidden but painfully present fury. Typhoon could no longer bear the tension - he knew that if he remained in this situation for even a moment longer, blood might be shed. The male took flight and headed for the broken window in the warehouse roof, then disappeared behind its frame.

Only then did Troubadour, who had been gathering his strength after the exhausting race, realise that some kind of argument had broken out between the two remaining males. Dion gave him a disapproving look. The brown male sighed heavily. The look immediately made him understand what had caused the dispute.

Both of them lost the desire to continue the carnival festivities. Troubadour left the building almost immediately, taking the same route as Typhoon had taken a moment earlier, hoping to find him.

Dion closed his eyes for a few seconds, trying to calm down. He had to return to the flock below and act as if nothing bad had happened. He couldn't sow even a seed of doubt in his warriors.