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CONTROL.
The crows leave Jaylen alone for the most part. They show up at games, but they sit at her feet. Not even at her feet - ringed around the mound, ignoring her. She gets a lot of weird looks, but it’s not more than normal and she can’t be certain that that’s because of the birds and not because she’s Jaylen Hotdogfingers.
The crows are different for everyone. For Wheerer they’re an aid, helping to support his arms when his shoulders give out, hurrying along innings when needed. For Alvarado they’re a storm controlled with a flick of a hand. Trombone uses them as weapons and Picklestein fills the stands and Jaylen—
— has lost enough of herself without becoming a bird-psychic. She would’ve been just as happy dead for the rest of her life, martyred and never really knowing it. She would’ve been happier pitching in the Hall than she is here.
The birds are settling on the grass, slowly filling the infield, spreading out on the grass. The Shoe Thieves are used to it by now, stepping neatly around the birds without a second look. The Steaks, on the other hand, move awkwardly, fearfully, looking between Jaylen and the crows.
The guy at bat, something Ross, is watching her with narrowed eyes. She can’t tell if it’s malicious or afraid, but she doesn’t like it. A couple of the birds around the mound shift restlessly. Ross gulps — afraid, then — and tries to move, but a crow takes flight, and then another, and he flails and his bat swings too close to a bird’s head and—
“No,” Jaylen says.
The swarm appears out of nowhere. It’s not even the birds on the field: it’s another dark cloud of crows descending on Ross. She hears the bat thud to the grass. She hears footsteps retreating. The cloud clears and home plate is empty.
The bird closest to her squawks. It almost sounds like a laugh. Absently, she reaches down and pats its head. “Good job,” she murmurs. She almost feels like laughing too.
COLD.
At first she thinks it’s the flu. Or more accurately, Esme thinks it’s the flu — Vela has had the flu before, and she knows that it’s not this. It isn’t chills, it’s just cold. She starts wearing layers under her jersey, and it helps until it doesn’t, so she starts wearing leggings under her pants to every game.
She hears about fire eaters, how could she not? But at Shoe Thieves games the umps don’t try to incinerate them. Instead it’s a lot of blood, a lot of blood, and not a lot of fire.
Vela watches videos of other fire eaters. Nava and Nava, Mcdaniel, Spoon. Everyone oohs and ahhs over the bravery, the speed with which they step in front of the umpires. Velasquez is the only one who sees the rest: the way that afterwards they sigh in relief, the way that their hands aren’t shaking anymore.
She’s up to a tank top and a long-sleeve shirt layered under her jersey, sometimes with a fleece on days that aren’t eclipses, and leggings and long socks. Esme stops saying it’s the flu a couple weeks into the season, but the eclipse games are still frustratingly benign. No incinerations, attempted or otherwise. No chances for her.
Until.
She knows from the wind-up what’s about to happen. She doesn’t even know who the target is, and she doesn’t care. She starts running and nobody tries to stop her.
The fire lights up. It smells horrible. It stings her throat and she coughs, hiccups out a couple jets of flame, ignores it. Everything fades and the umpire is still standing there, looking at her.
Velasquez rolls up her sleeves and lets out a sigh. Her breath is warm enough that it comes out as steam.
CERTAINTY.
Dead Weight: Shed it. Incinerate the Worst Player on Your Team.
Dix can say it in his sleep. He remembers staring down the barrel of it, looking at the whims of fans. He told everyone he wasn’t afraid. Everyone except Cornelius, of course, because their speaking terms were tenuous at best, and because the last thing Dix needed was to be called on their lie.
Dead Weight: Shed it.
He traces the contours of the grappling hook. He spends most of his time with it these days. Sleeps with it in his bed. Esme made a joke once about them cutting themself on the edge and they’d just stared blankly. It hadn’t even occurred to them that that was an option.
Incinerate the Worst Player on Your Team.
They were so close. They were at the cusp of death. They won a championship, finally, after one second-place finish all those years ago, and then they promptly got ground into the dirt by a god. And that could’ve been the last thing they ever did. They could’ve died then, humiliated, incomplete.
Shed it.
Vela and Hotdogfingers, they’re both acting like they’re concerned. Like they don’t know what it means to be chosen. Dix doesn’t have time for that. It’s pretty straightforward. Siphon. He knows what that means. He knows what he’s being asked to do.
Dead Weight.
He’s going to keep himself alive. One way or another.