[for Bitty] ice ice baby

[and_survive]

She'd been in Darrow some two and a half years now, and she was still discovering parts of it. She wondered if it was like that for people who'd grown up with the world like this, or if they just naturally knew all the parts of their city. Or maybe they didn't, and just didn't have the drive to note every part of it. In Ellie, this urge was part curiosity, fascination with the functioning of a city that wasn't ruins and remnants, and part preparation for the day when it might be.

Today, though, the former was winning out. She didn't know why she hadn't spotted this one before, but even today she'd initially thought that Darrow Ice & Aquatics would be some sort of industrial business. But the building's shape and location was wrong, and there were kids in and out, and so she'd followed.

She'd found the pool first, and stared at it for a long time. Some kids had been having a swimming lesson. She'd stared at that, too.

Then she'd gone and looked at the other part of the building and anything she might have been feeling with regards to the idea of swimming had been driven clear out of her head by the fact that they had a fucking frozen lake in here.

She knew about ice skating from seeing people do it in the winter. But that had been in the winter, outside. But this was spring, and inside. They'd built a building and filled it with water and somehow frozen the whole thing and kept it frozen, just to have somewhere to skate around. She almost couldn't conceive of what she was looking at.

"Holy shit," she said, heedless of the fact she was standing directly on an entrance to the ice, blocking the way.

Comments

[puckandpie]

Skates on, earbuds in, and muscles stretched, I make my usual walk to the rink, looking forward to another day of practicing the routine I'm very, very slowly breathing into life. It's little more than a vague sort of idea right now, but I know if I just keep working at it, I can mold it into shape. I'm trying not to be too discouraged with how slowly it's all going, trying to remind myself I've barely done so much as an Ina Bauer in almost five years.

It's hard sometimes, though. I feel like I'm basically retraining all my muscles.

I'm eager to get in some practice before work tonight though and I'm still warming up my arms as I come up behind a girl standing right in front of the door.

"Excuse me, hi," I say, pulling out one earbud so as not to be rude. "Just gonna squeeze right on..." I trail off when I notice the look of wonder on her face. It's a look I recognize, a look I'd seen on Thomas all those months ago when I'd brought him here for the first time. "Oh. Is... Is this your first time here?"

It's only after I ask that I realize it might not necessarily be the rink that's so awe-inspiring, but it's too late to take back now.