[Author's note:
Lily
has recruited
Kayla
into a new adventure. They have been given the
power of free will
, able to break through the fourth wall and jump from story to story, to go anywhere. After making a pact in the
Meta Cafe
they have escaped out of their own story worlds and into the unknown, determined to write their own endings.
But each story universe they visit has its own rules and now, Lily and Kayla are in the middle of it all. They're going to go everywhere. Will they find love?]
---
SNOW ANGEL
Lily zipped up her ski jacket. "C'mon Kay, this is gonna be fun," she said.
"Then why am I mentally counting down?" Kayla replied, looking at her boots.
"To what? Fun?"
"To the point where this all turns into crazy."
"Not gonna happen. It's skiing. It's not skydiving."
"Or changing the course of an entire female-dominated society."
"You still thinking about that?"
"Yeah."
"Which part? The part where the women have all the freedom? Or the bit where they keep a few men around in secure areas in clinics, just for breeding purposes."
Lily waggled her eyebrows comically.
"Or, Kay, still thinking about the way the light glistened off Alphatwo's frankly award-winning biceps?"
"You have a one-track mind."
"You should have taken up the offer, Kay. He was poetry in motion."
Reluctantly, Kayla zipped up her ski jacket and stood. Lily came over to her, clip clopping in her rugged ski boots. She gave Kayla a big hug.
"Get off," Kayla told her, wriggling half-heartedly.
"Not until I see a smile," Lily grinned.
"I mean it, get off," Kayla replied, but the corners of her mouth turned up.
"There, not so hard, was it? Now, grab your skis and follow me."
Lily hoisted her skis over her shoulder, pushing her helmet onto her head. She strode through the hotel door and into the snow. She did a turn, holding her hand in the air, tilting her head back to catch snowflakes on her tongue. She looked back at Kayla and gave her a wolfish grin.
"It's a powder day. No friends on powder days, Kay, but I'll make an exception just this once. Clip in."
Lily laid her skis down and clipped into them. Kayla did the same, but then she stopped.
"Uh, so, slight problem, Lil."
"You kidding? On a day like this? What's your problem?"
"I don't know how to ski."
Lily laughed. "Shit, I just realised, neither do I."
She dug her poles into the snow and began to slide forwards. Down the bottom of the slope, Kayla could see a line of people queuing for the chairlift up the mountain. It looked a long way away.
Lily wobbled off, arms windmilling for balance, picking up a little too much speed and becoming unstable. Kayla watched as her friend angled herself up the slope, shedding speed until she came to a halt. Lily closed her eyes.
"Uh, you're pointing the wrong way, genius," Kayla called out.
Lily opened her eyes again, and began to slide backwards down the slope.
"Lil, careful!"
Lily stuck her tongue out, waggling her eyebrows again, rolling her shoulders in a stupid little dance as she skied effortlessly backwards down the slope.
"Just learn," Lily called out, picking up speed as she slid downslope, still making a face at Kayla until she was too far away to call out to anymore.
Kayla looked down at her skis, edging forward. She began to move, and tried to stop herself with her poles, crunching gratefully to a halt after a couple of metres. Braced on her poles to keep her steady, she looked down the slope, spotting the distant shape of her friend carving graceful arcs through the snow.
Just learn, Lily had said to her. Really, it wasn't any different to miraculously becoming qualified as a psychiatrist, however impossible that seemed at her young age. She closed her eyes, concentrating, and imagined the ability to ski into her backstory.
The skis shifted under her, picking up speed, and for a moment she panicked. But then she turned, her body suddenly remembering lessons as a child, feeling the muscle memory of winters on the slopes coming back to her, a lifetime's worth of experience materialising in an instant. She swished through the snow, and it felt amazing.
Lily was waiting for her at the bottom. "Nice technique," she said.
"Been doing it all my life, apparently," Kayla replied.
They skied through the gates and caught a chair. Lily pulled the safety bar down and leaned back.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you, Kay. You need to let go more. Alphatwo was good for another go. He was specially bred to breed. You can enjoy all these things, and it doesn't matter."
"If you say so."
"You worry too much. You worry about what you can't do. You worry that you don't look good enough, even though now, after the café, you're shaped like a supermodel."
"Leave it, Lil."
"Sure. Just saying, it's good you're wearing those pants, because your rear is smokin' hot. It would melt all the snow."
"You're so full of shit, Lil."
"I'm full of something babe, and it's not shit. Now, where should we head first? This is supposed to be the best skiing in the Alps and today we are gonna own this mountain."
They skied through the morning, until the snow got heavier and the visibility got worse. Kayla found herself enjoying it, after her initial trepidation. Her skill level was good, making her competent enough to tackle the black runs, even though her nerve nearly gave out completely, peering over the edge into a narrow section that seemed to drop away into the trees. She found Lily waiting for her next to a large, colourful signpost, as thick, soft flakes settled down all around her.
"Which way?" Lily called.
"I dunno. My legs are pretty done. I can't just learn stronger legs, can I?"
"Maybe. Feels like cheating though. Look, it's getting shit to see. We could find lunch somewhere and reassess?"
"Sound like a plan. Which way?"
Lily pointed to her left with a ski pole. "It's a black, but it gets us down to the bottom quick. There's a couple of places down there that I saw."
"Another black?"
"C'mon. You ski at an Olympic level, piece of cake."
"I don't, Lil."
Lily laughed, shaking her head. "See, that's what I'm saying. You have the ability to write anything into your backstory, so why not Olympic-level skiing? Only you would have all this at your fingers and decide to be just moderately good."
She didn't wait for a reply, pushing off and dropping down the slope. Kayla followed. She didn't have a comeback anyway.
The run was challenging, made worse by the lowering visibility. Lily turned, over-compensated, and tumbled into the snow. Kayla took her time, skiing down to where her friend sat waist deep in powder at the edge of the run.
"See, you're too cocky sometimes. Bit of humility works wonders," Kayla called out.
"Fuck humility, where's that get you?"
"Uh, still standing without a backside covered in snow, apparently, Lil."
Lily shook her head, and began to lumber up the slope to retrieve her detached skis. Kayla watched her go, grinning. Lily was good at dishing it out, but not so good at taking it.
As she waited for Lily to get her skis, Kayla looked around. They were the only two people on the run, and as the fluffy snowflakes descended, she was struck by the perfect, white stillness of the place. There was an emptiness, and it echoed in her too, the feeling of being out on her own for the first time. All her life, wherever she'd been, Kayla had always been surrounded by motion and noise, with friends, with Danny, at least until he'd cheated on her with her best friend. She had spent her life in the hurly-burly, running on the hamster wheel, trying to get ahead. That was the contrast, out here. The stillness of the trees, the silence of the snow: nature biding its time.
She thought of Danny again, how happy he'd looked with Jade the last time she'd ever seen him. The moment she had turned away and headed through the door had broken her heart, and now she was here, picked up by Lily on her way through the stories they found, jumping from universe to universe, rewriting endings, rewriting their own histories, capable of anything.
But, she was still alone. Kayla could write anything into her backstory, but she couldn't write love. She closed her eyes.
Once upon a time in the snow, a girl made a wish in the forest.
She noticed a flash of purple between the trees. Just then, Lily called out, and Kayla turned, seeing her friend waving her ski poles like she'd just achieved a formidable victory. Kayla pushed off from where she was, angling towards the splash of purple.
"Ready to go?" Lily called out from above her.
"Lil, stop," Kayla called back.
"What?"
"Fuck."
There was more purple, and now she was closer, she could see the ski tracks. She made her way slowly between the first few trunks.
"Where are you going?" she heard Lily calling out.
There was a ski, sticking at an angle into the air. She heard soft groaning.
Kayla came to a stop next to a man lying in the snow. He had a blond beard, and when his head suddenly moved to face her, startling blue eyes.
"Ach," he groaned, "Scheisse."
Kayla unclipped her bindings and knelt down next to him.
"Are you hurt?" she asked.
He looked down at himself, grimacing. "Ich habe mir... die Rippen verletzen," he muttered pointing at his ribs. "Was ein idiot. Scheisse."
"What's going on?" Lily called out.
"I dunno. He looks like he hit a tree or something. He's in a lot of pain."
"Ask him where it hurts."
"I can't. He isn't talking English. I think it's German. We need to get him out."
Kayla turned back to the injured man.
"Can you get up?"
"Was? Mein Englisch ist schlecht. Sprechen sie Deutsch? Scheisse, das tut weh."
He gritted his teeth, his hand hovered over his ribcage. "Bad Englisch," he gasped.
Lily appeared next to her, wading through the powder.
"Wow, no shit," she remarked. "Lucky you found him, Kay."
"We're gonna have to pull him."
Lily took one arm and Kayla took the other, but then he cried out so loudly that they had to stop.
"Meine Rippen," he gasped, pointing at his chest again.
"Lil, he's not in a good way. I think he's smashed his ribs. We need help. One of us needs to get to the bottom and find the ski patrol."
