Speedy's note: Based on a conversation (argument, rather) Sonic and Knuckles had about ski jumping in Best Intentions. The image kind of stayed in my head, and I decided to write it down. You don't need to read it to read this one, though. Works fine on its own, I think. :)
Some inspiration and plot bunnies gathered from Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics, too. It's mad game for sure.
Don't come looking for plot, either. Here is none.
Flying and Soaring
It had been Sonic's idea, naturally. Apparently, being out in the snow was an incomplete experience without ski jumping.
Or something like that.
Knuckles didn't know what to think of it yet. They had spent an hour piling up snow for the ramp and compressing it properly so it was firm and stable. Now, it curved slightly up into the air at its end, and Sonic had already enthusiastically claimed it was perfect.
Knuckles would just take his word for it this time.
He stood and watched the others go down the hill from a designated spot they'd prepared, gathering speed quickly with the steep slope, to fly out over the end of the ramp up into thin air.
By the time Tails was over the edge, Sonic was already coming back up to where Knuckles was watching, smiling and leaving a trail of upset snow in his wake as he ran back uphill.
"Come on, try it out, it's awesome!" He was shouting in his excitement.
Knuckles had never really actually ski jumped before, but it didn't look hard, and it did look like it could be not too bad, too.
The echidna put on his skis and set off downhill, aiming for the ramp and bending down in the knees as he tried to gather momentum as he went.
He shot over the edge with a good deal of speed that carried him up and out over the field of snow. Leaning into the wind as he'd seen Sonic do it, he angled his body until it was almost horizontal in the air. It was a position, even with the skis on his feet and those flimsy seeming sticks he'd been given to steer in his hands, that so much resembled stretching out in the air for gliding that his spines flared almost on instinct, catching the breeze and carrying him on, out a long way without losing much altitude.
Sonic was right. This was fun.
Knuckles smiled, privately to himself, by now gently descending back down to the ground.
Landing with the long skis attached to his feet needed some further concentration, but he managed to touch down relatively softly, sliding on along with the slope until it curved back uphill and his ride came to a stop.
Knuckles leaned down to unhook the skis from his shoes, picked them and the sticks up -he still had no idea what they were called - and trudged back up the hill with the bundle resting over his shoulder.
The other two were waiting for him when he arrived, Tails wearing a broad grin, but Sonic was scowling.
"You," he pointed an accusing finger at Knuckles, "are totally disqualified!"
The red echidna stared. "Disqualified?! I didn't even know there were rules!" Or that it was a competition at all, for that matter.
Sonic obviously thought differently about it. "We don't even need to specifically set up rules; it should be clear it's not allowed to cheat!"
As much as he sometimes thought a shouting match with Sonic was sort of refreshing and good to let off steam, he liked to know what they were arguing about. "Then tell me at least what I did wrong!"
Sonic's arms folded across his chest and he levelled a glare right at Knuckles, but before he could say something, Tails piped up from the side.
"You glided."
Knuckles tore his eyes away from the staring contest with Sonic to blink disbelievingly at the little fox. "That's what I do."
A grin flashed over Tails' face. He obviously struggled not to show his amusement to Sonic, though. "Well, yes. But, you see, ever since we started these things, it's been a rule that unfair use of unique skills is not allowed."
Knuckles didn't think he could decide how to unfairly use a skill you had, and it apparently showed on his face, too, because Tails smiled at him, and even Sonic was beginning to stop looking mad.
Instead, the hedgehog waved an arm at Tails. "You see, ever since he's been working on the Tornado, we've had races for fun. And because it's both unfair and no fun racing without a competition, I haven't been allowed to boost or otherwise rely on rings, unless he's testing an afterburner."
Tails was lightly twirling his double namesakes. "When we go to the giant pinball machines for a match for points, I'm not allowed to use my tails for steering on the board, and Sonic is not allowed to use a homing attack on anything."
He was beginning to see the point of it, although it seemed difficult to prove one had been cheating if it was actually challenged...
"And for things like ski ramps," Sonic gestured to their ramp off the side, "I am not allowed to charge up extra speed by having a run-up or by spinning, and Tails doesn't use his tails to fly and increase his distance that way."
Knuckles frowned. Now that he thought about it, he was sure even leaving out flying, gliding and super speed abilities would not end in equal chances for distance going off this ramp, if this was what it was apparently about.
Sonic was heavier than Tails, his quills streamlined and smooth, as obviously adapted to high speeds as the rest of him; he would gather more speed with his weight going downhill and experience less drag than Tails' thicker fur would naturally cause. The fox's double tails might be great for balance in the air, though, even if he didn't spin them to fly. If they added Knuckles into the problem, he was even heavier than Sonic, and as a natural glider he would always fall more slowly than the others, even if he didn't actually start a glide. It wasn't that he could just take off his gliding spines and leave them up here. Sure, he could tuck them in, as he would when he wanted to fall fast, but that worked a lot better when facing down, or at least keeping an upright position as he dropped, not when lying in a horizontal position in the air that was almost perfect for gliding all on its own.
Sonic's arms were still folded, but he too was beginning to look amused now. "I don't think he gets it," he said to Tails.
Knuckles shook his head. "I fail to see how even not using 'special skills' as you called them, it would be much fairer. We're all not the same weight, or height, or even shape; we will never get the same results."
"It's not about the same results, after all there's technique, too, and random things you can't influence, like wind and stuff." Tails smiled.
The wind would be something to use in your favour, yes, and Knuckles supposed all three of them knew how to judge the winds good enough to make it a relatively fair game.
Sonic ended the discussion by picking up his skis and starting to put them on again. "How about we just try it, huh?"
Knuckles raised his eyebrows at him. "I recall being disqualified."
The blue hedgehog ran a hand through his spines. "Well, the committee has decided to allow the newbie one transgression."
At Knuckles' side, Tails laughed, and the echidna felt a grin spread on his own face, too.
The next hour proved that they actually did seem to work on fair grounds. Sonic's streamlined spikes made him less easily upset by crosswinds while in the air, a thing that was a real problem for Knuckles, even if the echidna had the upper hand without them, because the prevailing headwinds would naturally carry him along. In the middle of their 'competition', the winds picked up to rather unpredictable gusts, and funnily it was Tails who dealt with those best.
Still, while both the jumping itself and the little contest they had were fun indeed, that didn't make up for the fact that this first jump that had sent him soaring high and far had been something else entirely.
"What's up?" Sonic stopped next to where Knuckles was looking at Tails shoot past on his skis.
"I was thinking, maybe we could, have a round with special skills allowed? If everyone uses them, isn't that fair, too?"
"You miss gliding," Sonic noticed. It wasn't a question.
Knuckles nodded a little. "It was..."
"Fun?" Sonic's prompt came along with a bright grin.
Knuckles shot him a glare, and Sonic laughed in return. Together, they stood and waited for Tails to make it back uphill.
"You up for a change of rules, little bro?" Sonic smiled.
Tails shrugged, ears perking in curiosity. "Sure, why not?"
"Okay, we're ending today's Ski Jumping Event of Unparalleled Awesome with a special round!" Sonic was near shouting now, one fisted hand held near his mouth to mimic a microphone. "All unfair skills you can think of allowed! Give it your best shot!"
"All skills we can think of?" Tails grinned.
Sonic seemed to think about it for a second. "No planes and other machines," he exclaimed then, pointing at Tails, then he rounded on Knuckles. "And no Master Emerald magic or something!"
"And no light dashes and stuff!" Tails was pointing right back at Sonic, distracting all of them enough to spare Knuckles the trouble to consider if he should inform Sonic he'd never use the sacred Master Emerald, Balance Among Chaos, to cheat in a ski jumping game.
"Okay, everyone, bring it on!" Sonic enthusiastically made for their starting point, where he proceeded to place his skis on the ground, still grinning broadly.
Knuckles watched the obviously gleeful preparation with an arched eyebrow. "May I ask what you're up to? We still have to wear skis, right?"
Sonic looked up, green eyes twinkling along with his grin. "Why of course, it's not a ski jumping event anymore if we don't wear skis!"
Knuckles pointed at the hedgehog's gear, lined up in the snow and clearly not on his feet. "You're not wearing them."
The hedgehog laughed, waving his arms around. "I'm gonna jump on'em, of course!"
"Of course," Knuckles echoed, silently wondering how he was planning to actually fasten them there, but it didn't seem worth asking. If the idiot hedgehog fell on his face, that was clearly not Knuckles' problem.
"Okay then." Next to them, Tails was already set up to go.
"After you." Sonic gestured at the fox in a wide sweep of arm complete with a small bow that would have maybe looked regal on someone who wasn't covered in snow ears to toes and who wasn't grinning like an idiot along with the gesture.
Tails grinned back, before facing downhill, and at once his double tails started spinning, propelling him forwards, speeding the glide of skis on snow along into mad acceleration. His tails didn't stop spinning as he shot over the end of the ramp, instead carrying him out high.
"Your turn," Sonic noticed.
Knuckles smirked. "Think you'll catch up anyway?"
"Naturally." Sonic laughed, and Knuckles pushed off on his skis, lowering his head into the wind to gather speed.
He crossed the edge of the ramp at an admittedly much slower speed than Tails, but it didn't matter. The winds were calming with the later afternoon hour, now a steady breeze in his face, and he dropped into it, catching it and sailing along on it, riding it out high and far across the snowy mountains below.
Up ahead, the sun was beginning to set between the distant summits, painting the formerly bluish whites of winter in soft orange and purple. The sharp peaks threw long shadows across the fields of snow, and the soft red haze lingering at the horizon spoke of more snowfall in the upcoming night.
Sonic shot past slightly below Knuckles, near a blur to his eyes because he was so fast. He'd obviously managed to fix the skis to his feet after all. The additional speed really was no bad match for Knuckles' gliding, but after a moment gravity won and the hedgehog was going down.
"Hey, Sonic!'' From up ahead and slightly to the side, Tails sweeped down, twin tails spinning with a whirring noise on his back.
Sonic turned to look, Knuckles could see the grin on his face, and Tails lined up from above and their hands locked in the precision practiced over years and countless bottomless pit experiences, never bothered by skis being somewhat in the way.
Carrying Sonic, Tails was rapidly losing the extra momentum he'd had over Knuckles, and soon the echidna was next to his friends. All of them were losing altitude now, but down below the ground was sloping away under them, too, and it hardly mattered for the moment.
For now, all of them could fly, high and far and effortlessly. Knuckles smiled into the wind on his face, feeling the force of it tug on his quills, and just let it carry him along as it wished.