The time between writing the last chapter and this one was way too long. I just finished revamping Kai's first arc and was in a Selfie mood.

Winter Wonderland: Part Three

They brought one toboggan but found two more at the bottom of the hill. Before they borrowed them, they looked around to see if any kids or families left them behind. When there are no claimants, they take them up the hill. They're not going to steal them. All they want is to have a team toboggan race. Who knows if anyone's coming back for them?

First was explaining tobogganing to Cinder and Winter. It wasn't hard. It's sliding down snow on a flat surface.

"We had something like this back home!" Winter exclaims, pulling out her phone to find something.

Cinder nods. "During the summers whenever there'd be a freak storm, we'd do this on mud hills and inflatable tubes."

Out of everything the others have learned about Artemisia, that activity was something they wished they knew about. It would've been a breath of fresh air between the horrors they've learned. And when Winter and Cinder pull out their phones to show them a series of muddy photos and videos, it becomes an activity on their to-do list. It made for some good memories but would've been tougher to deal with since mud doesn't melt off, unlike snow. There's no way in the stars that Levana would've let them near the house all muddy like that.

"We always had to wash off in the yard," Cinder says, "or in the rain on the way home."

"No need for hoses today," Kai adds.

-o-

They're lucky they have the hill to themselves because it'll get chaotic and they didn't want any small children getting hurt or run over. They're also lucky that some kids left behind their toboggans so they'll have more to borrow. They have three which made dividing themselves at the top of the hill for their race challenging. By default, they could choose couples but then Winter would be someone's third wheel. They end up keeping that but switching some parts around.

The Lunar Babes consisting of Cress, Winter, and Cinder took one sled. Scarlet pretended to be hurt for being excluded from the girl team since she was French and Wolf exaggerated his offence since he's a Lunar babe. With that in mind, they became their own team for another toboggan, Wolflet, as Cress cleverly named. That left Kai and Thorne on the last toboggan called Two Snaccs. They offered Wolf a spot but he deemed himself a full meal. Scarlet and the other girls seconded it at once (especially since he took off his jacket and rolled up his sweatshirt's sleeves, keeping his gloves on, the moment they decided to do a toboggan race. Kai and Thorne were too cold to flex like that.)

The three toboggans line up at the top as each team decides the order they're sitting in. Losing teams have to buy hot chocolates for everyone.

Scarlet and Wolf didn't even discuss. They automatically went with her in the front and him behind her. Either way would've worked since they could either give a hug or receive one.

"Can I put my hands in your pockets?" Wolf asks, leaning in close beside Scarlet's head, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"Why?" Scarlet asks. "You chose to ditch your jacket and have gloves."

"I like your pockets better."

"They're the same as yours."

"They're not."

"How so?"

Wolf slips his hands into her chest pockets and Scarlet's brows rise when he grips tighter for a moment. She realizes she does have different pockets.

Kai and Thorne watch them from their toboggan, thinking about how smooth that move was. First Wolf was flexing with the sleeve rolling and now that? He was right. He is the full meal.

"You're not doing that to me," Thorne tells Kai. Thorne was sitting in the front because he's Captain Thorne.

Kai is offended Thorne would say that to him. "You don't have to worry. You have nothing to hold on to."

Now Thorne's offended, even more so since Kai's laughing. "Now's not the time to body-shame."

"Shut your spades and win this."

While listening to the Two Snaccs bicker, the Lunar Babes had trouble deciding who sits where. They all have the potential to drive a toboggan down to victory but Cress has seen Wolf's driving skills and it's worrisome, even with Scarlet in the front since the strings were long enough for him to control. Despite that, it didn't matter. All the Lunar Babes had to do was not finish last.

Cress was in the front, Winter in the middle, and Cinder in the back. If there was anyone even close to being a match for Wolf's driving, it was someone who was there to witness it and take her part on the freeway.

At the count of three, they were racing down the hill.

For the first seconds, they were tied and the race could be anyone's.

Wolflet pulls ahead, swerving to avoid an ice patch because that would've either sped them up or made them slip. They didn't risk it. Their toboggan nearly cuts off Two Snaccs and Thorne instinctively tries to honk a horn that isn't there. He's too used to driving a car! That part didn't surprise them. Scarlet controlling the toboggan and Wolf pelting them with snowballs catches them off-guard.

"Sabotage!" Thorne yells. "That's unfair!"

"We had no rules!" Scarlet screams back. Their only guideline for the toboggan race was losers have to buy hot chocolate.

"Kai, get them!"

Kai starts making snowballs by gathering snow on the way down and pelting them at Wolf or even Scarlet. He wasn't sure how Wolf made snowballs so fast and threw them with wicked accuracy but he doesn't have that skill.

"We're losing!" Cress yells to her toboggan.

"Like spades I'm losing to Carswell," Cinder grumbles.

"What are you thinking?" Winter asks.

Without thinking, Cinder puts all her weight on her toes and launches herself off their toboggan. Cress screams because she can't turn around and see what happened. Winter turns and sees Cinder rolling from disorientation. She sacrificed herself to lighten their load but it came with consequences. Because of the sudden weight displacement changes, their toboggan took a sharp turn. Cress pulls the strings back, trying to turn them back the right way to go straight. Winter helps by sticking her hands in the snow to try and mimic a boat's motor system.

They're happy the other two toboggans are preoccupied with each other so no snowballs go their way, and they don't notice them gaining a lead.

"Come on, Kai!" Thorne yells.

"What am I supposed to do?!" Kai yells back.

"Hold this."

Thorne tosses the toboggan's strings over his shoulder unexpectedly. Kai struggles to catch them and Thorne somehow gets tangled in them. They scream as Scarlet and Wolf speed ahead. The moment Kai and Thorne regain control, their string breaks and they scream, especially when the Lunar Babes zip in front of them and finish the race just behind Wolflet.

"Crescent Moon, you cut me off!" Thorne yells as they stop at the bottom.

Cress stands from her toboggan, smiling and shaking from the adrenaline rush. She didn't expect to cut off Thorne without a collision but they narrowly missed them.

"We did it, babe!" Wolf exclaims, pulling her up and into his arms.

"I hate them," Thorne grumbles. First, he gets defeated by Wolflet and then his girlfriend almost ran him over. Today isn't a good day for Captain Thorne.

"This wasn't fair, we had nothing to flex," Kai whispers to Thorne.

Before Thorne could respond, all their eyes turn to the hill where Cinder finishes rolling down. It looks like she couldn't regain Cress and Winter run over, helping her up. Cinder is covered in snow, brushing herself off. The other two toboggans don't know what happened to her but Wolf throws his jacket over her shoulders.

"Someone call my phone," Cinder says. "It's somewhere on the hill."

-o-

Everyone took turns calling her phone but it was on vibrate so they had to retrace their toboggan's path and Cinder's path once she started rolling. They poked around silently, hoping to hear it vibrate against the ground below. Turns out it was right where she jumped off. They only reason they know that is because their toboggan's path swerved and another path started the other way. Cinder was relieved to find it and that it worked. She would've hated the snow even more if it ruined her phone, despite Thorne telling her they could put it in rice.

They left the two toboggans they borrowed and took their one to the Rampion, tying it outside on the unused bike rack. Everyone sits in a booth, waiting for Thorne and Kai to come back with their hot chocolates.

"I love being a customer here," Scarlet says as the boys return.

Since Scarlet and Wolf won, they got the largest size possible with extra whipped cream. Winter, Cinder, and Cress got medium while Kai and Thorne got small.

"Do you think we'll get a snow day?" Kai asks. "We could have a rematch then."

"When has Lunar Academy ever had a snow day?" Wolf questions, knowing the answer is never. "There has to be a blizzard and they'll consider cancelling class."

"Let's pray to the stars."

"Let's not."

Those are just some cute winter snippets I enjoyed writing. The next chapter onwards will be my actual plot for this arc (and there will be a rematch).

(Wolflet won because I had a website pick randomly. It's a coincidence that I happened just to finish revamping Wolf's first arc. Same method applied when picking who lost.) That AN was written so long ago. The AN at the start is more recent.