"One adult, all day?"
"That would be it. Um...do you have a trail map?"
"Right here, sir." Demyx nodded and counted out the money for the lift pass, then took one of the trail maps and started looking it over while the cashier counted out his change. "Here you go, sir."
"Thanks...one more thing." Demyx hesitated over this next bit, but figured it was better to embarrass himself mildly now than embarrass himself hugely later. "What...trails would you recommend for a fairly good snowboarder who's been out of practice for a while?"
Thankfully, the cashier acted like he got that question all the time. "I don't snowboard myself; I'm a skier, but I can tell you that if you used to go on the intermediate trails, for the most part, the Cedars is the toughest easy trail, and Roadhouse and Castle Rock are the easiest intermediate trails. You'd probably want to start on one of those until you got back into it."
"Right. Thanks." Demyx took another look at the map, looking for the trails mentioned, and winced a little. "I dunno. Castle Rock doesn't look that easy, for an intermediate trail."
"Trust me, it is. It's not quite as easy as Roadhouse, but it's not half as bad as it looks on the map."
"All right, I'll take your word for it..." With a sigh, Demyx folded the map up and tucked it in his pocket, then headed for the nearest lift. This wasn't a particularly large resort; all three lifts had pretty much equal access to all the trails. The Cedars was his first destination - he hadn't touched his snowboard in nearly a year; he'd almost forgotten he owned one. He hadn't even had the chance to go surfing all summer, for reasons he didn't want to dwell on right now. But that didn't matter much right now - it would have been a crying shame if he'd had this whole week of winter vacation and never took even one day for snowboarding. Despite the fact that he'd forgotten to bring along so much as a CD or DVD player, he had somehow found and remembered to bring all his gear. It was high time he put it to good use.
Here's hoping I haven't lost my touch.
As the ski lift inched its sedate way up the slope, Demyx silently watched the scenery go by, his eyes half-closed as if he was dozing off where he sat. His mind was already on the slope below him, watching everything rush past in an exhilarating high-speed blur. It was also losing its traction, flipping out of control, and running into one of those cedars the trail was named after. Stop that, he admonished his brain, but it kept throwing mental images at him, of broken legs and broken backs and broken skulls, and once, for variety, having a seizure somewhere out of the way and freezing to death before anyone found him. By the time he reached the top of the hill, he was in a cold sweat, wondering what in Kingdom Hearts's name he'd been thinking when he decided to come up here.
No, he told himself fiercely as he strapped his feet onto the board and put his helmet on. You're going to be just fine, you twit. You know what you're doing. Back when you were still doing this once every week or two, you would never have done a trail like this because it was too easy for you. Your body still knows the moves, no matter what it's been through.
His body was unconvinced, his brain even less so. He was standing at the top of the hill, all geared up and someplace to go, but unable to make himself move. Part of him wanted to rip the board off and run, run for the parking lot, run for the cabin, run for home - part of him was saying it will be all right, just go. The end result was, he was stuck, unable to move forward or back. He was just...stuck, the conflicting parts of his mind leaving him at a dead standstill.
...Someone's going to run over you if you don't get your ass in gear, you know.
It didn't matter. He was still paralyzed.
Come on, you idiot, come on. You can't stand up here all day making a fool of yourself. You have to get moving sometime, in one direction or the other, before you die of hypothermia.
He couldn't move. All he could do was stand there, staring down the hill, as visions of disaster danced in his head.
Come on. You know what you're doing. You've charged into situations ten times more dangerous without thinking about it.
Yes, but none of those situation involved snowboarding. They generally involved attacking Heartless or something.
Come on. You survived everything Malenisa could do to you and then some. You dragged your battered, half-dead ass through - I think Lexaeus said it was almost twelve miles of pitch-dark cave with nothing to follow but a faint breeze, and found the way out by yourself. Nothing this mountain could possibly throw at you could ever be as bad as that. Take a deep breath - yes. That's it. Breathe deeply. Calm down. Calm. Calm. Everything will be just fine. All right. Deep breath - and - go.
And - away he went.
He was gliding downhill, almost like he was flying, faster and faster, out of control - but not out of control; no matter how much his head had been panicking a second ago, his body still knew exactly what it was doing. Shift weight left, shift weight right, don't scare the skiers, oh look, a downed tree without many branches sticking up, perfect jib - and before his brain had a chance to go Stop! What are you thinking?, he was riding right over that tree like he did this every day. He even finished off with a jump, landed perfectly, and continued on his way, skimming over the snow with the wind in his face and the cold on his skin and the world his oyster. His body was in total, perfect control of the snowboard, and his panicky brain was just along for the ride.
He didn't really start thinking again until he was in the process of stopping at the bottom of the hill. He just had to stop, and catch his breath, and actually think about what had just happened and what he'd just done, and realize - that had gone beautifully. Just as awesome as he remembered.
"That," he breathed to himself, "was too easy." Then he started to laugh out loud.
The more he thought about the run, the more he laughed. That had been too easy. He'd taken the whole run without even thinking about it; his body had just taken over and done everything. Done everything right. No matter how out-of-practice he was, the skills were still there, the balance, the reactions - he was still in shape, he still trained regularly, and his body, at least, knew what it was doing.
All right. We've officially established - you can still do this.
There was a terrain park on the far side of the hill. It was marked as black diamond, but still, it captured his imagination. And he'd handled that tree all right...
He laughed again as he headed for the lift. This wasn't the time to get cocky - he wouldn't have tried that on when he was still snowboarding fairly regularly. But one thing was for sure - he was done with the bunny trails. Time to see how bad Castle Rock really was.
AN: Number 42, Standing Still.
Yes, Demyx is more than just a surfer. He's a skateboarder and snowboarder too. At least, when he finds time.