White Veil

Spike practiced on his own for the rest of the week. When Saturday rolled around, he received a message from Carolyn.

"About to cruise around the park. Wanna' come? I'll show you some moves."

"On my way."

"Sorry to keep you waiting," the dragon apologized.

"No worries. To tell you the truth, I wasn't expecting you to show up at all."

"Why?"

"You seemed really anxious the other day."

"It was my first time out in a while. I was kind of a hermit for a few years."

"Anxiety. Gotcha'."

"What'd you want to show me?"

"I noticed you like to do a lot of lip and small air tricks. You've got a balanced style between street and vert. Your biggest hindrance is your limited arsenal. For example, you can spin the board around pretty good, but you're only using basic kick flips and heel flips. You should try mixing the angle of the board up a bit more."

"How?"

"Watch me."

Carolyn moved to the other side of the road. She mounted her board and pushed forward before jumping down the hill's decline into the grass. As she did so, she kicked the back of the board, flipping it backwards at a diagonal angle before landing in perfect sync with the object.

"See? It's pretty easy, but it already opens up a ton of ways to mix stuff around. Give it a try."

Spike successfully landed the trick, though his landing was noticeably sloppier.

"You'll get better the more you keep at it. We'll try a lip trick next. Follow me."

Carolyn led Spike to a set of train tracks on an upward slope.

"This ties in to what I said before about changing the angle. Instead of keeping the board straight, you can use your weight to shift it horizontally."

Carolyn built her momentum before stopping on the right side of the tracks. She pulled her hips to the side, changing the board's direction ninety degrees before meeting Spike back at her original position.

"Any trick can be broken down into steps. You can add more based on your position and the position of the board. It's better to be careful not to add too many until you've had time to practice, otherwise you'll be bailing - hard."

"Thankfully, cracking bones isn't really my forte."

"Yeah, 'cause you're covered in scales, you lucky fuck."

Spike couldn't help but laugh at the casual employment of profanity.

Spike and Carolyn practiced for three more hours. Spike in particular felt he learned a lot from the experience.

"Hey, have you eaten anything yet," Carolyn asked.

"Not since this morning."

"I know a killer pizza joint in town. It's on me."

"I'm game."

"Awesome."

"So you're from a few towns over?"

"Yeah. I live on the outskirts."

"With your sister and her boyfriend, right?"

"Yeah."

"What do you guys do?"

"Twilight's an engineering major and mathematician. Flash was a soldier in the guard, but he left after they started dating."

"Twilight...The name sounds familiar."

"She published the universal equivalency theory five years ago."

"Twilight Sparkle...!?"

"That's her."

"Her formula completely changed the way we understand the universe! That's so crazy!"

"Definitely."

"What about you?"

"I'm a big mooch."

"No kidding?"

"I've been thinking about getting into skating professionally, though."

"You're gonna' need some serious street cred and a lot of skills."

"I know, but I have nothing but time on my hands. May as well try to be productive. What you showed me today will help a lot."

"How long have you been skating?"

"Three months. You?"

"I started two years ago. I looked into some of the more well-known skaters and thought it'd be interesting to try."

"I did the same thing. I was interested in the punk and metal culture surrounding it. Dragons have a predilection for that kind of stuff."

"Let me guess - some of your favorite bands are Bullet For My Valentine, His Infernal Majesty, Lamb of God, Heaven Shall Burn, and Children of Bodom."

"How'd you know?"

"They're on every skater's playlist."

"Yours, too?"

"Duh."

"I actually got into them before I was interested in skating."

"Okay, hipster. What took you so long to get with the program?"

"The whole drug thing, mostly. Back in the day, everybody was getting hooked on heroin, cocaine, and meth. I didn't really wanna' deal with it. Figured it'd be best to wait until they started getting clean, ya' know?"

"I can see that."

"So what about you? I'm curious about the life of Ms. Grand Champion."

"Not much to tell. Grew up in the suburbs like everybody else. Learned how to weld from my dad. After I started skating, I designed custom decks for the vets around the area. Between competing, welding, and graphic design, I've built up some cash reserves of my own."

"That sounds pretty neat. Think you could show me the ropes sometime?"

"If you're up for it."

"By this point, I'm pretty sure Twilight's sick of having me around the house."

"Is she one of those uptight types?"

"Nah. She's usually cool, but she has her days."

"We all do."

"Anyway, thanks for today. I should probably get back before she starts getting worried."

"Hit me up later."

"You got it."