Author Notes: So, I admit it. I have been awfully neglectful of my poor little fanfic for which I have so much love. There are no appropriate excuses. So instead, I think I will tell a major lie and say I was… hit by a car? Yes and in a coma for months. And when I woke up, I had amnesia. So uhm, you can see, I'm a survivor, not to be confused with a slacker? (I'm a horrible, awful person)
(side note- I realized I accidentally gave two characters the same last name! And one of them was completely unrelated to the story besides his initial burst of fame. If I gave any of you the impression I was being craftier than I really was, I apologize. If you didn't notice, good, because I changed it already and now you'll never know. Mwahahaha!)
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"If you don't turn those headphones down so help me, Mac!" Elise was beyond infuriated. Behind her brand name sunglasses, she was hung-over. Not that any of the other boarders probably had any idea. She was still looking just as polished and well groomed as always. An early jump on the morning to board the first class section of the airplane had not helped her mood, however.
"Let Buddha give you strength to overcome your surroundings," spoke a calming deep voice from the seat behind Elise.
What, should I light incense and start humming to myself as well? Elise speculated as she scoffed in frustration and launched herself into the aisle. Brodi, the smooth spoken handsome Zen master had been an utter disappointment upon joining the league. One win in the competition on the part of Mac in the show-off division had been enough to impress on the Buddhist to join. Unfortunately, Elise had failed to capture the medal in the racing division in the end. That had gone to the hostile, punkish boarder named Payne. The league had convinced her to join just before the final heat where she had won her medal, so the league now technically had two golds to their name.
Elise peered around the unbearable chattering line to the ladies toilet in the back. Sighing in misery, she leaned against the wall, rubbing her temples in an attempt to stop the pounding.
"So why did you join the league? I mean, two wins… that's not precisely a fame grabbing record for a league."
"Fame? I'm not interested in fame. You and the other members of the league give off good stable vibes. A chance to be around such members and a chance to be one with nature on the snow is all I ask for."
"Right…"
"Miss? Miss, are you in line?"
Elise's eyes snapped open as she looked at the middle-aged woman with the poorly dyed hair clutching her handbag at her side.
"No, I'm standing here for the marvelous view. Of course I'm in line!" Elise snapped less than charitably as she swerved to her other side to find the line had moved quite a bit.
Ignoring the indignant chatter of the woman behind her, she focused on the scene her mind had been circling on. An evening spent trying to chat up Brodi only to find just what an intolerable blowhard he was. The shots she had consumed to keep herself amused were the reason for her misery this morning.
Well, she didn't really think so little of him. It was more than a little tainted by her current distress. But he certainly was not a prospect for someone to keep her entertained during her traveling in the league. Pity. She found one night stands so tacky. You could never predict if the perfectly well balanced guy you picked up the night before might turn out to really be a sentimental needy clinger once the night was over. It was always better to have someone with a well-established relationship to go to. Well, a relationship in the sense that they were available for "entertainment" with no strings attached.
Pushing open the door savagely she walked back down the aisle, noting the woman who had been so offended by Elise's outburst had made it back to her seat and was already settled, chattering away like an angry bird to the woman seated beside her. The woman looked up at Elise's approach and her expression turned to one of a mixture of shame and shock as her words died on her lips. It didn't take much of Elise's remaining faculties to figure out that most likely the woman had been badmouthing Elise to her companion. So Elise took great pleasure in saying to her in passing "Just as a bit of friendly advice, I'd pay the extra twenty or so to get that done professionally," as she gestured at the woman's hair. The angry flush that spread across the woman's face as Elise continued on was enough to put her in a good enough mood to ignore Mac's incessant rap on his headphones as she resumed her seat.
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"So, here we are in Japan!" Karen said excitedly as the bus lurched forward on the way to the hotel. "Now, since we're in Tokyo, you shouldn't have too much trouble finding people who can speak English. However, I would advise you to avoid going out into the city alone since you could get lost or end up in a bad part of the city and-"
"Are you our mother or what?" Mac asked, annoyed, earning a chastising smack in the back of the head from Eddie.
Karen tried to laugh it off good-naturedly. "I admit, I have a tendency to baby people I'm in charge of, but the fact remains that what I said was true. You can't depend on everyone in a foreign city to speak your language, and since I doubt any of you speak Japanese-" she paused here to look almost questioningly at Brodi, but when he made no comment, she pressed on "it would be best if there was someone else to help."
"Oh no worries, I always have a friend with me," Elise began with a grin.
"See, that's very smart of you, Eli-"
"It's called a cell phone," Elise said smugly, waving her little silver flip phone where Karen could see it.
Karen sighed and threw her hands up in the air as she sat down in her seat on the bus, muttering.
"What'd you have to go and do that for?" Eddie asked Elise, annoyed.
"Oh please, it was just a little joke, and if she couldn't take it-" Elise stopped mid-retort as a grin spread across her face. "Why the concern? Does little Eddie have a crush on pretty Karen?"
Eddie scoffed at her in disbelief. "Just because I care about someone besides myself doesn't mean I have to have a crush on them. It just means I have common decency. But I guess you don't work that way, huh?"
Elise gave a sour smile and turned to look out her window. She was doomed. Absolutely no prospects in the entire lot of them.
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Zoe stretched from side to side, twisting her short frame and relishing the pops she received from her spine in return. She didn't want to fuck up on this jump, since Snowdream from what she saw only had the one good one. It may only be a practice run, but that didn't mean she felt like having a dull run down the mountain with nothing but boring 360's or maybe 450's the whole way down. She bent her neck over to her shoulder, closing her eyes as she wrinkled her nose in an expression of her opinion of the peppy music that was playing over the loudspeakers. When nothing happened, she sighed, took her head in her hands and forced it down a little farther until she heard another pop.
Satisfied, Zoe went back to stretches that didn't bother the tall blonde behind her who was expressing her distaste in her finely arched eyebrow. On the other side of the warm-up area, unbeknownst to Zoe, someone was watching her pre-run ritual with fascination. Moby had never seen a girl who he wanted to have a drink with more, and at the same time, thought he had absolutely no chance with.
"This is what I get for coming to the states," he muttered to himself. Looking back over his shoulder, he began making a show of stretching out his leg so the little twat Mac would stop giving Moby an obnoxious grin while making obscene gestures at the young punk border across the snow. "Get lazy since my accent does most of the work, when the girls worth any effort aren't impressed by that sort of thing," he continued mumbling.
Finally he moved forward, ready to start his run down the mountain. He glanced one last time over to where the girl had been stretching, only to realize she had already left while he had been busy pretending not to look at her. Guess I did a better job at pretending than I thought, he laughed to himself as he jumped a little to get himself going.
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Elise sped down the slope and towards the jump. Belatedly she noticed Moby was just behind her to the right. He better not run into me at all she thought bitterly. Her hangover was still not completely gone, although the cool wind and the meds she had taken as soon as they had landed had helped.
Luckily though, Moby seemed just as intent on avoiding Elise on the mountain as she was to avoid him. Though the two of them were never out of view of one another, they both acted as though the other wasn't even there. All in all, it was also turning out to be one of her better runs. I wish it was that prick Wachowski instead of Jones, so he could get an idea of how impossible it would be for a klutz like him to beat me. Or better yet, that bitch Delgado. Her eyes narrowed and she crouched a little closer to the ground as she got angry thinking about the day in Harrison's office.
I never did learn that other boarder's name, she thought distractedly, thinking of the tall blonde Frenchman. And suddenly she pulled up short, her eyes wide behind her designer frames in disbelief as there before her was the blonde boarder, with a smug smile on his face, arguing with the boarder Payne. From the vast amount of powder that covered Payne's back and her angry shouts, she could guess what had happened.
"Eh, knock it off!" Payne screamed as Elise noticed Moby pulling up short nearby. "I could have run into the rocks!"
"Well then maybe you should learn to keep your hands to yourself while you're racing," the Frenchman responded.
"Are you talking about Garibaldi?"
Elise vaguely remembered something about one of the boarders having been close to passing Payne towards the end of the course in the final heat when they had been shouldered out of the way. Sizing the two of them up, Elise would never have guessed the short girl could have pushed the tall boarder over.
"Ah yes, you Americans are intelligent ones, aren't you?"
"Oh sod off, you great girly git," Moby snapped.
The two boarders looked up, having noticed their audience for the first time. Payne seemed indifferent, but the blonde changed instantly, giving a great big white smile. "Ah, Ms. Riggs, is it? I don't believe we truly met at the last course. I am JP Arsenault." He slid forward with his one free foot in order to shake her hand, blowing right past the disgruntled Payne.
"Yes, that's right," Elise responded, offering her hand in return. "Elise Riggs."
The girl, realizing it was pointless to continue her spat, merely pushed off and headed down the hill, hitting snow off her back. Moby almost immediately pushed off and sped after.
"I hope my quarrel with Ms. Payne did not offend you?" He asked, again flashing her his white grin.
What a stupid question. He must associate with some real money, Elise thought as she responded, "Not at all."
"Well then perhaps you'd care to finish your run with me and allow me to buy you a cup of coffee to insure no harm done?"
"I don't see anything wrong with that," Elise replied with a smile that JP readily returned. Together the two pushed off down the mountain as Elise gave a satisfied smile. Perhaps I have some prospects after all.
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Author Notes: Wahoo! I finished something! Yippee!
I actually have a lot written besides this. I wrote quite a bit after being liberated from exams this week (I actually have one left, but it's music theory. I think I'm safe.) The only problem being my mind doesn't work in nice orderly fashion. So the large part I have written are a bunch of jumpy scenes that will get placed in the appropriate places of my story line once the OTHER appropriate parts have been written. So that really doesn't leave me much better off than before My mind rarely seems to follow coherency or even the natural flow of time. Because, you know, that's boring. What really helped organize me despite my spaz-ness following exams was reading all my old reviews that are still lying around. Each and every one makes me feel oh so fuzzly and special. Please leave any comments, including ones that tell me how I'm an awful writer and I should be ashamed, because I like honesty.