The college gymnasium smells of ozone and floor wax, a scent that always sharpens Tamsin’s pulse. Overhead lights hum, casting harsh, surgical white across the three rubberized pistes. She stands at the edge of the central strip, her thumb tracing the silver college pin clipped inside her jacket collar. The rhythmic clack-hiss of blades meeting in the air is the only music she needs.
'Hold your extension, Miller,' Tamsin calls out, her voice cutting through the ringing steel. Her right hand, encased in a white cotton fencing glove, twitches in a phantom parry. She moves with a restless, coiled grace, her dark hair pulled into a ponytail so tight it aches. The hairline scar above her left clavicle prickles against the fabric of her base layer, a sudden, unbidden heat that makes her breath hitch.
Everything in the hall feels calibrated until the air near the competitor’s tunnel shifts. The chatter of the scoring machines fades into a low drone as a new presence enters the light. A tall man in a black federation judging uniform steps out of the competitor's tunnel, unfastening his mask.
