"Aurora," the older deer began, and the reindeer didn't need a crystal ball to guess what she was going to say next but she already felt her heart falling.

"...we're in the middle of June, Speed Week is in August, you need upwards of a year to prepare for these sort of competitions; worse yet, the bigger the competition, the more time you need to prepare for it and Speed Week is a big competition. This is not a fairy tale where an unprepared amateur can compete with pros and come out on top, and that's not to mention how expensive flights to Spontoon are right now, seeing that it's tourist season.
I'm surprised you got Leslie to go along with this..."

That was...even worse than she had anticipated. Mrs. Rackham was on point today, all of Aurora's counter arguments yielded- well O.K, "yielded" was being too kind- evaporated under the absolute barrage of logic levied against her. She had to say something, anything but everything she thought of sounded frustratingly childish, in fact; she felt as if she was back in high school facing the principal over...how many years ago was that incident? It felt as though she didn't grow at all. She was still a fawn making stupid decisions. She found herself wishing she hadn't hyped up Lugs and the others about Speed Week in the first place. Before they had gone drinking after work yesterday, she was quite content to dream about the Mason Motors crew competing in Spontoon Island. Mrs. Rackham was correct after all, she could take this loss and prepare for next year.

"Take the loss".

And in her minds eye, Aurora snorted in disgust. It is said that deer are stubborn, but her parents had always said that she had often taken it to new levels, she remembered moving out over the argument she had with them when she had declared that she wanted to be a mechanic instead of going into the family business. It had taken five years for them to reconcile and her father still hadn't accepted her decision (but at least they were on speaking terms). So yes, the plan was last minute, but Lugs and Clover had come up with a design for the kart last night after consulting the racing website and were going to start construction after some much needed input from their driver, Trixie; Ilsa had drafted Henny to help her modify the electric engine this morning (they still won't tell her how they'd gotten ahold of one, but she will find out sooner or later), and at the rate they were going, they'd be ready for a test run in a little more than two weeks.

She was forced to admit that she did not have a plan to deal with the cost to fly out to the Spontoons but she was not too worried; that's what Boss Roland was for. The overweight skunk always seemed to know just about everyone in the right places. Surely he could negotiate a discount flight. But even if he wasn't able to, there was always Mrs. Tali, who definitely knew everyone (judging from what she'd heard about the turnout of her annual pool party). The reindeer was also forced to admit that she had gotten a little miffed at Mrs. Rackham's opening salvo. Clearly she had forgotten that they were the Mason Motors crew. Mrs Rackham might have been new so she wouldn't have known that tight deadlines like this were normal. That Emerson Sommersville job they had just completed was one such instance (actually he was such a dislikable sod that they went out of their way to finish the job as quickly as possible).

Aurora took a deep breath of air, slowly exhaled and was about to argue her point when a loud voice in the adjoining office interrupted her. Both pairs of cervine ears dropped when they realized it was Boss Roland and he sounded pissed. The skunk seemed to be talking to somefur on the phone, and while the conversation itself did not carry into Mrs. Rackham's office, his deep tone certainly did. At length they heard the phone slam and Boss Roland muttering to himself. Mrs. Rackham shot Aurora an apologetic look and made to go into the adjoining office.

"I'd better go see what Roland is upset about now. Can you wait here for a bit, Aurora?"

"No problem, Mrs. Rackham."

The other deer disappeared into Boss Roland's office, but Aurora realized she hadn't closed the door. She perked her ears to listen in. Whatever had gotten the skunk vexed seemed very serious.

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Characters ©  Major Matt Mason and  EOCostello

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I'm not a writer, but this would've taken even longer if it were a comic. That said, this was technically ready for upload two weeks ago, but I needed to draw something for the thumbnail and wow, that took too long (and in between that I got two wisdom teeth pulled out which wasn't fun either). I was able to start the pic yesterday and finished it not too long ago.