Sundance

II: Icicle Town

Yuffie grinned as she went sliding down the slopes. Icicle Town had loads of good ideas about fun things to do. On one of the other slopes, Cloud, Cid and Barrett were racing each other on snowboards. Night boarding had gotten immensely popular, apparently. Or maybe Cloud, Cid and Barrett (especially Cid and Barrett, the resident father-figure-types of AVALANCHE) just wanted to make sure that nothing funky happened to her, like some ride worker feeling her up or something.

Not that it was likely to happen, seeing as she'd shown up with Vincent, of all people.

She wiggled her fingers inside her mittens, grasping onto the rope handles as tightly as she could.

That rushing sensation as she went headlong down the not what you called gentle slopes, whizzing along tracks of ice and snow. She skidded and she slid and the damn thing did 360 degree turns. It actually jumped, at one point. It was awesome. It tore a scream from her lips.

"YEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!"

She knew that Vincent was at the top of the slope, watching parents and children and friends and lovers slide down on their bellies attached to a rubber tube. Of course, he was probably lurking in the shadows somewhere, saying nothing. Just watching.

Why did he even bother buying a pass? Yuffie wondered.

And then, with one last leap and jolt and skid across the snow, she reached the bottom of the slope. She had gone down one of the "expert tuber" slopes. Those who didn't have the balance or the balls to go down the longer, steeper slopes went down the "bunny tuber" slopes. Vincent was probably watching parents tube down alongside their children.

A resident of Icicle Town hooked her tube up to the lift thingie, flirting shamelessly with her as the lift pulled her tube back up towards the top of the slope. She giggled and flirted back, ignoring the dirty looks a bunch of other teenaged girls sent her.

She arrived back at the top, still laughing. Vincent appeared out of the shadows and helped her up. She hefted her tube and strode over to a pile of them. "Pick one," she said.

"What?"

He'd never sounded so confused before.

"I said pick one. Vincent, you can't come out here and just stand there... You've gotta at least have a little fun, you know?"

Vincent sighed.

"Please, Vinnie? It's really fun. And I promise I won't tell anybody that you did it, if you don't want me to."

He sighed again, then picked a tube. Yuffie squealed and hugged him. "VINNIE'S GOING TO DO SOMETHING FUN, OHMYGAWD! WHOO-HOO!"

The same group of girls who'd glared at her before glared at her again. "Slut," one of them murmured. "Just take all the cute ones for yourself, why doncha?"

Yuffie blinked. Wha?

But she got over it, dragging Vincent over to the "bunny tuber" slope. "Okay, here's how we do this. We put our tubes down, and get on 'em. But instead of just holding onto our own tubes, we each hold onto each other's. Got it?"

Vincent nodded and pulled his tube to her tube's left.

"Oh. Right. Okay, you ready?"

He nodded. And then they were going down, down, down. Vincent's right hand gripped her strap so tightly that his knuckles turned even whiter than normal— she could see that much through the random holes in his gloves. She gripped his strap hard, too, screaming at the fun of it.

"Pull up your legs, stupid!" She shouted. "Stop trying to brake."

He stopped trying to brake, and they went whizzing down the hillside. Yuffie could have sworn she saw his lips turn up into a smile.