A/N: Clair de Lune and ice skating ASMR videos on YT overlapped made the perfect soundtrack for my writing of this chapter. I'm looking to continue this next week because of how much I enjoyed writing this and I really hope you do too! It'll be split into two parts and then I'll get back to the main story hehe.
This was supposed to be Leroy's birthday special but then again, I am terribly late so... ALSO Chip's birthday was a few days ago too, although this chapter doesn't exactly feature him. Some of you wished him a happy birthday on Instagram and for those who did, I'M HONORED THAT YOU REMEMBER!! ;v;
And finally, I suppose Vanilla's birthday is coming up too in a month or so, so... hehe. Damn so many birthdays. Sorry this is an hour late and only about 2.5k words /.\ I was spending a lot of this week with surprise visits from friends and family, which was unexpected and very heartwarming hehe.
Enjoy!
(holy bananas LEROY AND VANILLA ARE SO HOT TOGETHER WHAT?)
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It is far easier to be alone on ice than it is to have company.
A sole skater cruising the rink could hear—amongst many other things in an arena so large and spectacular—the whisper of blades against ice forming a rhythm of its own, cutting through the surface in lines and shaving off its gentle surface in powdery frost with a shiver in its wake. These, condensed in a singular moment, allowed for a space so personal that it removed all unnecessary matter present in the external world to leave one solely in the company of ice and none, for that was the magic of winter.
Or so some would like to believe.
Because to have company was to converse. Whispers going at a different rhythm would have reason to differ with the wind and every path crossed was a fear; a fear of collision. Of blight and pain. After all, a partner who naturally skated at a rhythm and pace that matched oneself was rare and for them to read each other in an instant—rarer. Trading solitude and peace for possible chaos and plain difference was unwise, and to some skaters... even a little foolish.
But therein lies the catch.
Should one opt for some discord, risk a little of the peace and comfort they so love for a moment of company, a conclusive deduction could be made of said person. Either they are willing to take their chances at an ideal partner, or they had already, for all intents and purposes, found the trade fair and favorable.
To favor the foolish at times was to hear a sound. They say that about the people who skate on frozen lakes and thin ice, silly enough to make a decision so perilous and yet, so rewarding and worthwhile. In cases like these, the lake was a person and the skater, its partner. To trust the ice was to know it well, and to read each other was to make that sound.
They say a lone skater on a frozen lake was not really alone because of it. The sound would differ depending on its perceiver, though many often describe it as an ethereal pitch of a bird from another world, accompanied by an occasional creak of the ice as it cracks every now and then.
But to the lake, the sound was fire. Warm and gentle in its embrace, gripping in every playful wake but firm in its understanding of the ice and its depths that ran deep—far down below, where the sound would settle and nest in the heart of the lake. And only to this lake, was the sound made known.
The strike of a match; the crackle of a flame.
YOU ARE READING
Wax
Romance[Sequel to Vanilla] Seven years later, childhood sweethearts Vanilla Julian White and Leroy Cox reunite in the City of London for an unlikely reason. The latter-once a burning flame unfazed by the wind-had, since a couple of years ago, left the heat...
