#ariane senna

[tsleggings]

Ariane Senna

Ariane Senna

Ariane Senna

[tsmacacao]

Ariane Senna

Ariane Senna

Ariane Senna

[prosenna]

[prosenna]

Ariane Senna da Silva -- Vogue 1993

[prosenna]

{genderbent prosenna alternate universe -- ‘the ill-made woman’}

Ariane Senna da Silva || b. 21st of March 1960, Sao Paulo, Brazil || first female World Champion in the history of Formula One || Queen of Motorsport

{’Remember what they do to women who dare become too successful’, Hellé had whispered from her death-bed in those final, harrowing days and Ariane always carried the words with her -- burned them in bold, scarlet letters behind her hopes and dreams, just as she inscribed her mother’s sweet, gentle lies about modern women now having it all.}

[prosenna]

POV \o/

He’s asked her this question only once before — ‘this is love, isn’t it?’ They had been in Faro, on the runway, preparing to take off for Nice, when he had seen how impatiently Ariane had tapped her fingers on the armrest, the phone nestled in the crook of her shoulder, no answer on the other end of the line. He had asked her if maybe this thing that made her eyes light up and got her to pacing the length of the plane was love and she had given him a quick glance, answering only with a soft ‘mhmmm.’ 

That hadn’t been nearly enough for O’Mahony, either then or now, so he asks again, watching Ariane as she moves between hallways and main room, carrying stacks of clothes and depositing them nearly into her travel case. She turns toward him at the question, fingers still folding a shirt — a blue-and-white man’s shirt, slightly discolored around the collar — and smiles a small, intimate, secretive, woman’s smile, one made for few people, that crinkles the corners of her eyes and deepens the faint crow’s feet there, making her look soft like an oil panting with its colors flowing out of their contours.

“Yes.” No hesitation there, eyes shining, something like heat visible in her cheeks. “Yes, it is. Are you going to say again that I’d do much better with an older man, Mahny?”

She always mangles his name, but does it in such a gentle, earnest way that O’Mahony can never bring himself to properly chastise her for it.     

“No.” He’s trying to be stern and failing rather pointedly at it. “I just want you to be careful, lass. Far too many people want a piece of you these days.”

Ariane laughs at that, just as he knew that she would — the sound high and clear and, just for one moment, free of tension and worry and the strange, muted grief that has descended over this entire place, like a funeral shroud. She’s still laughing as she leans over the trunk and smooths out the shirt next to her own clothes, fingers careful and precise, tolerating no creases in the fabric.

“It’s past the time for me to be called ‘lass’, isn’t it?” Almost anyone else and she would have been bristling at being patronized, the old Captain knows this all to well. With him, however, Ariane still smiles, the deep shadows of this unlucky place banished for now. “You don’t hear the Italians calling me ‘signorina’ anymore!”

“More’s the pity.”

O’Mahony has good enough reflexes that he can easily catch the bunched-up pair of socks that she tosses right at him.

“Don’t start!” Ariane is laughing, in spite of the mock-stern tone, grabbing the socks when he dutifully throws them back over the freshly-made bed. “Weren’t you saying something about me settling down one of these days?”

Memory like a steel trap, O’Mahony thinks, remembering how she had once made him go through all of his professional duties in exhaustive and exhausting detail, after he had forgotten to handle something important for her.

“I said that this man of yours would do well to make an honest woman of you, while he’s at it, that’s all,” he answers mildly. They’ve had this discussion before as well — during a long flight to London, him sitting in the co-pilot’s chair, Ariane at the main controls. She had looked troubled, deep creases in the skin between her brows, as if worry and uncertainty had dug out a nest for themselves in her skin, the gray light making her seem almost ghostly. All of that is gone or buried deep now, but she’s oddly wistful, even with her smile — as if gazing at some distant future that she can’t properly fathom.

“We will see,” is all Ariane offers, her grin softer around the edges, hands busying themselves with a few other small articles of clothing. Back then, on that flight above the rainclouds, she hadn’t answered at all, preoccupied with much more than the dashboard readings, thoughts far from his ken. “We will see, won’t we?”

He knows her, oh yes, he does — knows what this bright, ferocious, shrewd firebrand of a woman is capable of and heaven help anyone who decides that standing in her way is a good idea. He’s worked with Ariane Senna long enough to recognize the spark of almost inhuman determination that always sets her on a course which no living being can hope to change — not even her own family, as loved and cherished as they are. 

“Far from me to try dissuading you, lass.” Far from him indeed. So many of his rich, haughty clients, all of them so disconnected from everything all around, aren’t worth even a second of his time outside the plane, but she is… something else indeed. Has been quite something else since that first moment she set foot in the pilot’s cabin, shaking his hand firmly and asking him if he might tolerate her complete inability to pronounce Irish names. “If you want, I’ll have a talk with your brother. Just so you two can take a few days only for yourselves.”

O’Mahony is in no way deluded enough to think that he will be ferrying just one person to the Algarve — not after yesterday and what happened down at the track, Ariane on the verge of tears even over the phone, when she had asked him to have the jet refueled and ready for takeoff almost immediately after the race. There are no tears in these dark eyes now and he’s far too grateful for that, because merely the emotion in them, too difficult to define in words, is enough to do a number on him and his old-fashioned sensibilities.

“Thank you, Mahny.”

Ariane looks almost girlish, with her gentle smile and her gaze so luminous — like those creatures of light and whimsy he’d hoped to encounter as a child, straight out of the storybooks. She abandons the now-filled trunk and walks over to the former RAF Captain, settling a warm hand on his right shoulder, leaning her weight slightly against him. “But you don’t need to do that. Leonardo is my responsibility entirely. He’ll come around, don’t worry about it.”

‘They all will’, her willful eyes seem to say and O’Mahony wants to believe this, because he’s heard too many sharp words and far too many recriminations in the past few weeks and over…. what? A man who, as far as he’s concerned, has failed to make his intentions clear? Still, he says none of these things, because he knows her as he would know his own daughter and will not willingly undermine her judgements. The old pilot’s fingers squeeze hers for a second and Ariane leans forward, pressing a kiss over his cheek. 

Only when he sits in a terribly uncomfortable chair in the airport at Forli — and watches her car strike the concrete wall with gruesome, seemingly bone-shattering force, her form limp and inert — will Owen O’Mahony start to think that making of Ariane Senna far more than a client might have been his greatest mistake.