JW2P3: Ice Skating

"It's easy, Aelita. You just have to find your balance, that's all." Jeremie soothed while helping Aelita onto the icy surface of the frozen pond. Ever since freeing her from the supercomputer a few months ago, Jeremie tried as hard as he could to let her experience Earth as much as possible, in between the time he usually spent trying to find the anti-virus for her.

The sun was now setting, making the sky look as if it were on fire with color combinations of red, oranges and yellow. Aelita's eyes widened and her hold on Jeremie increased, trying to balance her skates on the ice. Jeremie gently smiled, having learned to ice skate by his parents' urgings that he must find a hobby that he liked and didn't involve computers or programming. Jeremie slid onto the ice; Aelita holding onto one of his hands as he slowly skated, leading her to an emptier part of the frozen pond for her to practice. Jeremie held both of her hands in his as he taught her how to balance herself on the frozen surface- a slightly difficult task given her unfamiliarity with ice skating and having not been in the real world for a long time.

Finished making sure the straps were securely fastened down for his ice skates, Jeremie gracefully slid across the ice, motioning for Aelita to do so. With a bit of hesitation, Aelita stumbled on her skates momentarily before slowly being able to skate an extremely small distance towards Jeremie. Her confidence growing, Aelita pushed herself towards Jeremie little by little, slowly exerting more force with each push.

"Jeremie, I'm doing it, I'm doing- oof!" Aelita had accidentally given herself too much of a push-off and had plowed into Jeremie, earning an appreciative laugh from him.
"Keep trying Aelita." Jeremie chuckled, gently holding her hands again and teaching her how to stop.

An hour of training later, and Aelita was happily skating alongside Jeremie, freely interweaving between students and faculty alike. It had taken many tries before she was able to skate without toppling over or become nervous at her weight being solely focused on two thin pieces of metal on the bottom of the skates.

"You know, Jeremie, I often had wondered how those figure skaters I see on television a lot now had managed to skate and hardly make any mistakes, especially when they were performing those tricks in front of the audience and the judges."
"It takes a lot of practice Aelita. I'm not surprised if they had a few years of training under their belts, so to speak."
"Hey, Jeremie, I bet you can't catch me!" Aelita gave a short laugh before pushing herself in the direction towards the student body.

"Aelita!" Jeremie nearly shouted before taking off after her in a wild goose chase.

Aelita leisurely skated in between students, camouflaged by the sheer number of students who had decided to use the frozen pond for recreation after being trapped inside due to the cold winter. Jeremie waded through the mob of students, able to instantly recognize the pink sweatshirt anywhere. Aelita turned around and caught sight of him just as he was a few meters away and took off again, coyly skating fast enough so he couldn't catch her, but was careful to slow herself down once in a while so he could keep track of where she was. Jeremie pushed himself harder, ducking under a student's arm and inching closer towards Aelita, who didn't seem to be aware of his presence at the time.

Suddenly, Aelita sharply turned, making Jeremie instantly lose sight of where she was. Digging his skates into the ice and slowly skidding to a halt, Jeremie worriedly looked around him, unsure of where she could have run, or in this case, skated off to. Nervously biting one gloved hand, he was unaware of a familiar face coming closer until she whispered in his ear.

"Catch me if you can."

Jeremie whirled around only to see a blur of pink skating nearby, waiting until he gave chase to skate away again. Jeremie gave a sly grin and darted towards her, who squealed in surprise and skated away with Jeremie following in what resembled the dance of fireflies in the night.