A stiff wind blew at Lightning Dust’s back, teasing the feathers of her good wing. She kept herself from slipping down the long, deep mountainside ahead of her, and asked one simple question.
“How the hay did you talk me into this?”
She felt clumsy, packed weirdly tight, in her black, padded bodysuit. Between that and her fur-lined weather team jacket, it kept the freezing winds from doing much more than tickle the back of Lightning Dust’s head. A helmet and scarf protected the rest of her fiery mane.
Glancing over to her side, she spotted Fiddlesticks, her wife, who smiled back at her. She wore a similar bodysuit, coloured bright, fluorescent green and a white helmet. She sideways shuffled over the pristine white snow, the two long, narrow skis leaving divots and scrapes in the powdered surface.
“It’ll be fun,” Fiddlesticks said, giving Lightning Dust a gentle bump with a hoof. “I tried this years ago and been itchin’ to give it another go. Loved every second of it.”
Lightning blew a raspberry, and turned her head to face back down the mountain. “Never took you for an adrenaline junkie. I thought that was meant to be my thing.”
“’Xactly! Besides, everypony’s got her vices.”
Lightning Dust curled her ankles around the ski poles attached to her gloves. It took her a little time to get used to using them just for moving around, and she wasn’t too sure about using them for what was staring back up at her.
“Are you having second thoughts, darling?” asked Fiddlesticks. A little more shuffling and crunching, and their flanks were touching. “We can take the lift back down if you want. Ain’t no shame there.”
With a sigh, Lightning Dust shook her head. “No, I… I want to do this.” She looked back at Fiddlesticks. “You’re excited, and I want you to be happy. I’ll be fine.” She threw a hoof out, and a stick wobbled in the air below it. “I’ve free-falled bigger distances than this. I’ll be fine.”
Though hard to see through the dark goggles, Lightning Dust was sure Fiddlesticks was squinting at her. “You sure?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“If you say so.” Fiddlesticks then shuffled back on the relatively flat shelf they found themselves on. “Here’s how we’ll do this: I’ll set off first, then you follow me. We’ll stop where the hill gets steeper. Fer now, we’ll go slow. Holler at me if you want to go faster. Understand?”
Lightning Dust nodded, and gave her a brief salute with her wing. “Understood.”
Fiddlesticks grinned and pushed forward. She made the brief slalom over to Lightning look effortless, and she was surprised by the quick kiss on the lips.
Then she was off down the hill, and Lightning Dust followed, slipping her goggles down with her wing.
The start of their journey ran down a shallower incline, starting them off slow. Lightning knew how to stop herself quickly if she needed to, but for the first leg of their trip, she reckoned she could just plunge her sticks into the snow and stop herself dead with ease.
Sticking out of the snow every few dozen yards, there were bright red poles with triangular flags flapping in the wind. There the snow often levelled out, or they marked some long, sweeping turn. Each time, gravity and friction worked in tandem to slow both ponies down, though Lightning was fairly sure Fiddlesticks was consciously slowing herself more than she needed. In just the first few checkpoints, she wasn’t more than a few yards to the head and one side or another, letting Lightning see the turns up ahead.
It took Lightning more than a few turns to loosen herself up. Eventually, she was taking them at speed, slowing herself down enough so that she didn’t overshoot the bend and go face-first into a snow berm or tree, or slide right over the red lines occasionally sprayed onto the snow’s surface.
She also noticed that Fiddlesticks was letting herself loose, too. It took Lightning just as many turns to notice that her wife had been putting on the brakes quite a lot.
Tucking her legs in and crouching down, Lightning came up beside Fiddlesticks on one of the last straights before their second leg, a steeper hill.
She turned her head and smiled at Fiddlesticks, who responded with a stuck-out tongue and a push to keep herself in the lead.
“So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh?” Lightning called out cheerfully.
Fiddlesticks spun around, and Lightning flared her wing and crossed her skis to slow herself down.
Fiddlesticks continued barrelling along backwards, her tongue still stuck out and a hoof tugging down her cheek.
“Show off!”
With a few quick and rough jabs in the ground, Lightning shoved herself back up to speed and tried to close the gap between them again.
Years of experience flying through the skies taught Lightning Dust plenty about aerodynamics. She crouched tight, ducked low, and pulled her forelegs in. While she couldn’t generate her own thrust, gravity did all that work for her. As Fiddlesticks only kept herself in a light crouch, catching up to her was a cinch.
Up ahead was another pair of flags, triangular as before but black instead of red. Fiddlesticks was near to them, but Lightning wasn’t going to let her wife get the better of her in speed now. With another quick series of shoves, she brought her head so low she had to crane her neck a little to see where she was going.
A braking fiddlesticks was all that Lightning saw as she flew past the flags, and over a small lip. The distant cry of her name barely registered as Lightning’s stomach dropped, and then so did the rest of her.
Fortunately, she landed skis first and kept on going. Lightning flailed and straightened herself up, staring at the route ahead of her wide-eyed.
The steepness of the hill in front of her made her heart pulse rapidly in her chest and roar in her ears. There were far more straights ahead of her, fewer turns. Maybe that meant plenty of space to break, to slow down, but…
Her name carried over on the wind behind her, and all Lightning wanted to do, did do, was call back, “Catch me if you can!”
The trim of her scarf whipped and cracked behind her as she picked up more speed, more inertia. The wide turns and open routes between the trees and mounds let her maintain it, to enjoy the feeling of practically flying down the face of a mountain.
The thudding in her ears wasn’t fear, it was pure, unfiltered joy. It was a response to the blissful weightlessness she was born for, that she had missed so dearly for years and years.
Hitting another straight, Lightning saw something other than white snow and dark green trees in the corner of her vision creep up alongside her. She glanced at it, then turned her whole, crud-eating grin at it.
Fiddlesticks gestured something back.
“Go faster?” Lightning yelled through the roaring wind.
The glare aimed back at her was more felt than heard. She laughed and turned back to the route ahead of her. Just in time, too, as she caught sight of a turn and skidded through it like she was a professional.
She didn’t see the branch leaning over more than it should at the outside edge.
Or the bush she tumbled through after being thrown flank-over-teakettle.
She definitely saw the snow she rolled through, eventually coming to a complete stop.
And the stars that swam in her vision.
“…Ow.”
One would think after a lifetime of danger, daring-do, and death-defying, Lightning Dust would be used to being wrapped up in casts and bandages.
All having one leg wrapped in a bandage and a splint and a bandage around her head reminded her of how useless she felt whenever things went terribly, terribly wrong.
A doctor had ordered her to remain in bed and stay awake for a few hours more than she wanted. She understood why, of course, and would be a good little filly, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
At the very least she was in the bedroom they’d rented out in the lodge near the base of the mountain.
It was cosy, covered with landscape paintings depicting the mountain range throughout the year hanging on the log walls. The bed was big and soft with plenty of blankets which Lightning had long since thrown off herself, save for one thin one. They lucked out with their room and had a fireplace of their own, which crackled and lit up the space.
There was also a window to Lightning’s side, showing the mountain that bested her in all its glory. She watched colourful dots slide down the white surfaces, filtering through the routes between the trees like marbles in a plastic race set. There were plenty more of them going down earlier when Lightning was brought in, but they’d trickled away as the bright daylight gave way to an orange glow.
Lighting had been searching for where she fell for a while. She knew she’d left a remarkable scar in the snow as she tipped over, serving as a good marker for Fiddlesticks to find her, and for some unfortunately rough emergency responders to pull her out.
She didn’t look away when the door opened and shut, but she did shrug and offer a, “Hey.”
She heard shuffling and something being put down on the end table next to her, and then the bed creaked and jostled as Fiddlesticks settled her front onto the bed in front of Lightning’s hooves. She was out of her skiing gear, and even her usual hat—there wasn’t much need for it when it was expected to be overcast so often.
“Trust you to not slow down when I tell ya,” Fiddlesticks said, sporting a lopsided smile. “How’s your head?”
Lightning finally looked away from the mountain and to Fiddlesticks. Her jaw, previously set and firm, relaxed, and she smiled back at her wife earnestly. “Still throbbing a little, but I’ll live. Not like I can get any stupider, huh?”
Her outstretched legs received a swat. “No talking about yerself that way!”
“Ow! No hitting the patient!”
“Oh, those legs’re fine.”
Lightning laughed loudly, and she kicked out one leg at Fiddlesticks though carefully enough not to strike or even brush her. “My pride’s all over, that’s the important part. Wherever you hit me, you hit my pride.”
With a tut, Fiddlesticks shook her head and closed her eyes. Lightning chuckled a little more, then looked to the end table. There were two mugs, both steaming hot and covered with a layer of nearly opaque brown bubbles and little white marshmallows. Without a word, Lightning took one with her good leg and held the mug to her chest.
When she looked back at Fiddlesticks, the frown made her throat tight.
“I’m fine, Fiddly. Doc says it’s hairline and the concussion’s mild. I only forgot what day of the week it is.” With a snicker, she lifted the mug to her lips and sipped the sweet, hot cocoa.
“I feel like I made a mistake takin’ you out there.”
Lightning stopped herself from filling her mouth and swallowed what she had drunk already. “How do you mean?” she asked.
“What I mean is, well… You wouldn’t of got hurt if we weren’t on that mountain. I hate seeing you hurt.”
“Ah.” Lightning took another swig of her cocoa, then put it aside. It was sweet and creamy and had a little cinnamon tickle to it. She’d have to see if they’d add a little something else with a little kick to it if she asked, but she was sure Fiddlesticks and the doctors would disapprove. “Well, for your information, I had a blast right until that last ten seconds, and I’d do it all over again now that I know what not to do.”
“That’s part of why I’m worried. You’ll try again, and you might get hurt again.” Fiddlesticks looked down at the bed, a hoof trailing circles in the fabric. While unnoticed before, Lightning did then see some of the frayed hair in the brilliant evening light coming loose from the rest of Fiddlesticks’ mane. “I saw a fire in your eyes that got me excited, but when you blew past me I also saw somethin’ else.”
The first words on Lightning’s lips were to ask what Fiddlesticks meant by that, but she clicked her mouth shut the moment she inhaled.
She knew what Fiddlesticks meant. That fire was inside her again, a small ember reignited by the spark of excitement she felt earlier that day. It was exhilarating, it was everything she wanted.
And it could also be everything she hated, too.
“Oh. Oh no, babe, come here.” Lightning shuffled forward, and she pulled the hesitant but reciprocative mare up against her. She was careful not to move her bandaged front leg too much and laid it against Fiddlestick’s side. The good leg stroked Fiddlestick’s mane, and she let their legs tangle together.
“You’re right, I should have slowed down when you tried to tell me. I definitely got a little too into it there. Just a tiny bit.”
“Tiny, really?”
Lightning shoved her hoof to Fiddlesticks’ lips. “Okay, a bit more than that. But. Butbutbut, I promise I won’t let it go too far. I’m glad you taught me how to ski. I want to do it again and again.” Lightning’s smile then thinned while her ears planed out, flattened at the sides of her head. “I’m also glad that I got hurt just enough to remind me not to be a dumbass.”
Using a hoof to lift Fiddlesticks’ head by the chin, Lightning looked her directly in the eyes with their noses pressed together.
“So no getting sad that you made me happy. When I’m happy, sometimes I hurt myself, and that’s okay. Okay?”
Fiddlesticks sighed, and she nodded, rubbing their noses together. “Fine. Okay. Just promise me one more thing.”
“Whatever you want, Fiddly,” Lightning purred.
“Yer not going back up there for the rest of this trip. That leg ain’t gonna be better in time anyhow.”
Lightning snorted. “Try and stop me.”
One of Fiddlesticks’ hooves lightly swatted her cheek for her joke, and the two were sent into a fit of giggles.
