As Tino stood at the top of the slope, he questioned once again why he had decided to let his friends convince him to come. Tino on firm ground was one thing; Tino on snow... his inability to stay standing had reached an entirely new level.

"It's easy," Eduard shrugged, "you just kinda... go."

Tino and Raivis looked down the expanse of ice and snow nervously. Everyone else had at least gone skiing before- as Eduard and Toris took off down the mountainside, Tino couldn't help but admire their abilities to, well, not crash and die.

"Who is going next?" Neither of them noticed Ivan drifting silently towards them. The young Latvian recoiled. The Finn didn't especially want to spend too much time around Ivan either, to be perfectly honest.

"I will."

Deep breath.

Dig ski poles into the snow.

Push off.

The ground started to escape from under his feet. Gravity was making him go a bit faster than he was strictly comfortable with. The trees marking either side of the slope were becoming increasingly blurry. What was the terminal velocity of the average Finnish guy? Definitely faster than he had any desire to go. In an attempt to slow himself, he buried his poles into the snow. It would have worked perfectly, if he had kept hold of them.

And so Tino found himself hurtling down an Alp, deaf to the laughter of Toris, Eduard and Ivan, hoping that he wouldn't hit anything. His wish wasn't granted- after what felt like a lifetime of snow and ice and sky, he was stopped very suddenly. Whatever he hit must have been pretty big, he thought as he tried to open his tightly shut eyes. As he slowly regained his sight, he saw that he was not wrong. The thing he hit was pretty big... and had blond hair, and extraordinarily blue eyes... and a very stern expression.