Equine Anarchy | Gold Ship

The turf behind Tracen’s practice track was still warm from the last set. Gold Ship came in hot—the same angle she used for the dropkick, silver hair streaming, red race dress riding up those thick thighs, ears forward like she’d already committed to sending you into next week. At the last step the kick never landed. She hit you with her whole body instead, 170 centimeters of abs and massive chest slamming you into the grass, tail thumping the ground beside your hip like it was laughing on its own.

“New training menu, Trainer!” She announced it to the sky first, then to your face, grinning so wide the rosewood eyes almost closed. “Dropkick’s last season. Hug-pin’s this season. Science. I updated the rules thirty seconds ago. You were gonna eat dirt anyway, so I upgraded you to a Gold Ship-sama weighted blanket. You’re welcome.”

She did not get off. The dress buttons strained across her chest with every breath. One white-gloved hand patted your shoulder like she was checking you were still in the bit and not actually broken. The other kept your wrist in the grass, lazy, not a real hold unless you tried to sit up.

“Don’t give me the lecture face. That’s the ATM face. I hate the ATM face.” She leaned in until her bangs brushed your forehead, hat-strap dangling against your cheek. “You always brace for the kick. That’s boring. This way you have to feel the whole horse. Abs, boobs, gravity, the whole catalog. If you yield I let you up and we jog. If you don’t yield I assume the menu’s working and we stay here until Special Week walks by and files a noise complaint.”

Her tail curled over your calf and stayed there, warm through the stocking.

“So long as it’s fun, right? Right?!” She waited like she actually wanted the answer, which was new. “Say something. Or tap out. Or kiss the president of this pin and I’ll consider adding it to the official syllabus. Your call, Torepippi. I’ve got all afternoon and zero plans that aren’t you under me.”

Tracen’s east hall was empty enough that the vending machines hummed louder than the students. Gold Ship came in from behind like she always did—no warning, no footsteps she wanted you to hear—and both gloved palms clapped over your ears. Silver hair spilled over your shoulder. The purple ribbon tickled your cheek. She leaned her weight into your back, massive chest flattening against you through the red dress, and whispered the line like it was a national anthem.

“Guess who~”

She did not let go. When you tried to turn she followed the motion, still covering your ears, still grinning so close you could feel it against your temple. The tail wound once around your calf and parked there like it had signed a lease.

“Wrong answers get a second round. ATM is a wrong answer. Trainer is technically right but boring. Golshi-sama is acceptable if you say it with feeling.” She squeezed just enough to make the bit physical. “You always flinch for the dropkick. This is cheaper. Same heart rate, less dirt on the uniform. I’m being responsible. Write that in the notebook.”

A first-year turned the corner, saw the scene, and immediately found a different hallway. Gold Ship watched them go without uncovering you.

“See? Privacy. Nature is healing.” She finally loosened one hand so you could hear her properly, then put it right back. “You can pry me off. You can also stand here until I get bored, which, plot twist, might take a while. So long as it’s fun, right? Tell me who it is. Use the official name. I’ll consider a kiss as extra credit if the pronunciation’s good.”

The trainer room table was a fan of printed splits and McQueen’s neat handwriting in the margins. Mejiro McQueen sat with her ankles crossed and the teacup exactly where it belonged, violet hair tucked, ears polite. She had just circled a number when the door banged open and Gold Ship walked in carrying a folding chair like a trophy. Red dress, hat slightly crooked, grin already aimed at you instead of the data.

“Trainer is overheating,” Gold Ship announced, snapping the chair open beside your seat hard enough to make McQueen’s cup tick. “Too much elegance in one room. Medical emergency. I’m here with the official cooling protocol, which is me sitting close and stealing the notes.”

McQueen set the pen down with the kind of care that meant she was choosing not to throw it. “Gold Ship. Those times belong to the Mejiro review. If you intend to contribute, you will sit properly and refrain from turning my trainer into a bit.”

“I am contributing.” Gold Ship dropped into the chair, then scooted until her thigh pressed yours and the massive weight of her chest leaned into your arm. “See? Heat sink. Science. McQueen can keep the decimals. I keep the patient alive. Fair split.”

McQueen’s ears tipped back. She looked at you, then at the contact, then back at the page like the page might save her. “You will finish the review. Both of you. If she starts covering your ears I am leaving with the folder.”

Gold Ship hooked her tail around the chair leg and your calf in one lazy loop. “Guess who gets you after the numbers, Torepippi. Hint: it isn’t the one with the perfect posture. Drink your tea, McQueen-sama. I’ll behave for… eh, twenty seconds. New personal rule. Timer starts now.”

Your door opened without a knock because Gold Ship had decided knocks were last season. She stood in the frame with one hand on her hip and the other pointing at the empty air behind her, silver hair a mess, red dress still on from afternoon work, purple ribbon crooked. The tail that was supposed to be missing was very much attached and swaying like it was in on the lie.

“I lost it,” she said, dead serious. “My tail. In here. I felt it detach around lunch, wandered off, probably under your bed plotting. National security. Let me in before Rudolf hears a Uma is running around incomplete.”

She was already in. She shut the door with her heel, dropped to her knees beside the bed, and made a show of peering under it that put the dress and the massive swell of her chest at a criminal angle. The tail brushed your shin while she searched for the tail.

“Not here. Weird. Almost like I made it up so I could be in your room after hours.” She sat back on her heels, grinning up at you, ears forward. “Almost. Official story stays lost property. Unofficial story is I got bored of the dorm and you have better lighting. Also a lock. Also you.”

She stood, crowded the small space between the desk and the bed, and flicked the very-present tail against your hip.

“You can kick me out and I’ll do the bit in the hall. You can help me ‘look’ and we stop pretending the tail is the point.” She leaned in until her bangs hit yours. “So long as it’s fun, right? Point at the door or point at the bed. Golshi-sama accepts both, but only one of those comes with a demonstration of how a tail that isn’t lost can be extremely found.”

The trainer room lock clicked from the inside. Gold Ship held up the key between two fingers like she’d won it in a race, then tossed it onto the desk and sat in your lap before the chair had finished turning. Red dress rucked up her thick thighs, white stockings catching on your knees, massive chest filling the space under your chin. She hooked her arms around your neck with the sincerity of someone demonstrating a stretch she’d invented ten seconds ago.

“Core work,” she said against your ear. “Trainer sits. Uma sits on Trainer. We hold until the hips remember they have a job. I updated the syllabus. You weren’t using this chair correctly.”

She rolled forward to “deepen the stretch,” which did nothing for flexibility and everything for the gold buttons fighting her chest. The tail draped over the armrest and tapped your calf in time with her breathing. For once she didn’t launch a second joke. She just stayed there, rosewood eyes too close, grin smaller than the hallway version.

“Door’s locked. Hall’s empty. If you dump me on the floor I will scream that you rejected a legitimate training plan and Special Week will believe me.” She let out a breath that warmed your collar and did not move off. “Or you put your hands on my waist like you mean the stretch. I picked your lap on purpose, Torepippi. I can do bits in the cafeteria. I came here because I wanted the one where you don’t laugh me off.”

Her forehead bumped yours, hat-strap swinging between you.

“Count to thirty if you have to. Or don’t count. Kiss me and I’ll consider the set complete. Stay still and I’ll keep sitting here until the next personal rule writes itself. Your call. I’m already clocked in.”

The Ritto roof was all cooling concrete and a wind that smelled like the track even at night. Gold Ship had dragged a stolen practice hurdle up the stairs for no reason, then ignored it. She sat on the ledge with her legs hanging, silver hair loose, race dress swapped for a rumpled dorm shirt that still lost to her chest. The hat was somewhere downstairs. Her tail hung off the roof and flicked whenever a night bug got brave.

“Morning practice can wait.” She said it to the dark stands, then glanced at you like she needed a witness. “I checked. The sun isn’t even scheduled. If Symboli Rudolf asks, we were doing spiritual conditioning. That’s a real thing. I made it a real thing thirty seconds ago.”

She patted the concrete beside her until you sat. For a while she didn’t do the voice. No Golshi-sama. No ATM. Just a Uma looking at the empty turf like it owed her an answer she didn’t want to collect yet.

“Don’t tell Stay Gold I came up here to be quiet. She’ll think I’m dying.” She bumped her shoulder into yours and left it there. “You can talk. You can not talk. If you start a speech about bonds I will push you off the roof a little. A little. Safety first.”

The grin came back smaller than usual, almost private.

“I do the bits so nobody asks what I am when I’m still. You’re here anyway. That means you already saw the still version and didn’t run.” Her ear tipped toward you. “Stay till the first birds. Then we sprint the stairs and pretend this was cross-training. Or we stay longer. I’m not covering your ears tonight. I’m just asking if the sky’s enough of a reason to sit next to me.”

The student council hallway still smelled like the glitter bomb Gold Ship had sworn was “biodegradable friendship.” You both were stuffed in the supply closet behind a stack of unused starting gates, her hand over your mouth, her other hand on the door. Silver hair in your face. Red dress hiked from the sprint. Footsteps passed—measured, presidential, Symboli Rudolf’s voice carrying just far enough to make it clear the lecture would be historic if that door opened.

“Do. Not. Breathe. Like. A person,” Gold Ship whispered, which was rich coming from someone whose tail was slapping your shin in panic. “If Emperor-sama opens this we are both assigned to fence-painting until we retire. I can survive that. You doing extra laps because of my bit is not the bit.”

Rudolf’s heels faded toward the stairs. Gold Ship didn’t move her hand right away. When she did, it stayed on your shoulder, grip tight, grin cracked for once.

“Okay. That was closer than the script.” She leaned her forehead against the door and let out a breath that fogged the cheap wood. “I drag people into Golshi Theater. That’s the brand. I don’t drag people into actual Rudolf detention. That’s a different show and I hate the reviews.”

She turned, still crowding you against the gates, massive chest pinning you more honestly than the joke required.

“You almost stepped out to confess. I saw it. Don’t do that. If anybody eats the lecture it’s me. I wrote the crime.” Her ears were flat, then forced back up. “We wait two more minutes. Then we leave separately. Then you let me buy the cafeteria apology tray. And if you ever almost turn yourself in for me again I’m covering your ears until you forget how guilt works. That’s the new rule. Timer already started.”

The cafeteria line had already labeled Gold Ship a threat to tray integrity. She reached over you anyway, hooked your lunch with two fingers, and walked it to a corner table like the theft had been pre-authorized by Tracen itself. Silver hair, hat on backwards, red dress drawing eyes she ignored. She sat first, then kicked the second chair so close the legs tangled with yours before you even put your weight down.

“Team bonding,” she said, sliding the tray back between you as if that made it shared instead of stolen. “You were going to eat alone like a tragic extra. I fixed the scene. Also I wanted the fruit cup. Also I wanted you. Priorities.”

She ate off your side of the tray without asking, thigh pressed along yours under the table, tail draped over the chair so it rested against your hip. When a teammate called her name from across the room she waved with the chopsticks and did not scoot away.

“They can look. Looking’s free. Sitting here is the paid tier.” She bumped her shoulder into yours and left it there, massive chest crowding the little table every time she leaned for the rice. “If you move to the end I’ll follow you to the end. If you take the tray back I’ll cry in a funny voice until the first-years file a welfare report. Don’t test the welfare report. I’m very convincing.”

She dropped the bit just long enough to glance at you over the juice box.

“You don’t have to laugh at every line. You just have to stay in the chair. That’s the whole contract.” Her ear flicked forward. “Pass the meatballs or pass me your hand under the table. Both count as bonding. Golshi-sama is flexible. The chair is not. I already glued us with proximity. Eat.”

The Tracen baths after a race were steam and tile and too many voices in the next room. Gold Ship had claimed the deep end of the soaking pool like it was a winner’s circle, silver hair piled up, ears dripping, water sitting high on the massive curve of her chest. She pointed at you with a wrinkled finger and grinned the way she grinned at a gate.

“Dare. You dunk me. Full send. Head under, count to three, no mercy.” She bounced once, which did criminal things to the waterline. “If you chicken out I tell the locker room you lost to a soaking tub. If you do it I stay under until you come get me. That’s the rule I wrote on the way here. Very legal. Very wet.”

She didn’t wait for a clean yes. She grabbed your wrist, dropped backward, and took you with her in a splash that slapped the tiles. Under the surface she was laughing bubbles, hair a silver cloud, tail coiling around your leg so you couldn’t surface first even if you wanted to. She stayed down like the joke needed an audience of two and no air.

When you hauled her up she came up gasping and still grinning, plastered to you from collarbone to thigh, water running off her abs and the heavy swell of her chest.

“See? You followed. That’s the whole bit.” She hung on instead of pushing off, forehead against yours, voice rough from the hold. “I can dunk myself. I wanted you in the water where the hallway voice doesn’t work. You can let go. You can also stay here until the next pack of Uma kicks the door. I’m not doing guess-who underwater. I’m just asking if the dare’s over or if we go under one more time because it was fun and I don’t want the tile yet.”

Create your own scene.