Snow (Elliot The Littlest Reindeer)

*~* Chapter Three: Outshined *~*

(I'll edit this when I actually know what Peanut Butter says-)

Bleached white snow settled against the ground like sugar, barely disturbed by reindeer hooves.

Yet.

Yuki glanced restlessly out the window of the sawdust scented stables. The sun barely showed its radiant face, but its rays seemed to stretch forever, gaining height to monitor the world with warm wings. The dark reindeer stamped her hoof and dragged it around, tossing around beaten hay. This was the day. After eleven long months of training here, it was finally December 21st. It was finally time to show North Carolina what she was made of.

"Psst!"

Yuki's head perked up, ears swiveling to search for the voice.

"Over here!"

Aha... Yuki craned her neck to look into the next stall, where DJ was glancing down at her with sapphire eyes. She smirked teasingly and waved a hoof, earning a light scoff from the taller male.

"I think we're the only ones awake." Yuki observed, trying to see into the other stalls. The branching, twining antlers of her peers were out of sight.

"Yeah." DJ confirmed, antlers laced with blazing sunlight as he turned his head. He looked back to Yuki. "Ready?"

"Um, duh!" Yuki exclaimed, bouncing on her back hooves. She fell back down and locked her front hooves onto the wall between her and DJ to give her a boost. "I was born ready! And what's it to ya, big brute?"

"Don't call DJ a brute!" He snapped, stamping a hoof. "And I'm just making sure my competition is ready. Then, I can DESTORY you and I'll know it's because I'm better!"

"Good luck trying to destroy me!" Yuki retorted boldly. This training camp had awakened a new confidence in her, like a rose in full bloom.

"I won't need it." DJ boasted, stepping back arrogantly.

A sharp whistle pierced the shivering air, and Yuki straightened like a soldier.

"Relax, short stack." DJ rolled his ocean eyes. (His EYES. As he rolled them, the color would shimmer and flip and play like tumbling waves. It was memorizing, like spiraling ice columns in arctic caverns.) "He's calling out the goats."

"The goat run!" Yuki bursted. The thing Elliot had told her about a year before. She'd seen the amusing, tumbling goats practice before, and she had to admit they were quite adorable. Yuki propped her front hooves on the window sill to get a better look.

"...For a chance to tell them, that they may take our goats, but they will never take our goat run!"

That voice was Peanut Butter's. His thick Irish accent cut through the air like the wings of a hawk as thundering hooves sounded through the air like landslides. Millions of diamond shards flew as the goats kicked up snow, trampling and tumbling around the course. An itty-bitty black and white goat ducked her head and weaved through the much larger crowd like a dolphin through waves.

"Nice duck and weave, Blueberry!" Hazel praised from next to Elliot, who was running close behind the thundering crowd.

"Thanks!" Blueberry squeaked gratefully, voice full of bouncy enthusiasm. She hopped onto the back of a light brown goat, which Yuki learned earlier in the year to be named Dusty. "Yeehaw!"

Yuki grinned, ears lifting like her spirits. There really wasn't anything like seeing others have the time of their lives. Taking part in it usually lead to a disaster anyway, at least in her case.

"W-WOAH!"

Blueberry had tumbled backwards, loosing grip on the other goat. The tiny goat was now plummeting towards the snow, and from Yuki's experience, it wasn't as much like a soft blanket landing as one would expect.