It was lucky that Sam’s interactions with her parents so far had involved sharing things about herself that could impress them. They were so complimentary, too! Kady and Penny had never made Sam feel self-conscious, not any more than normal teenage insecurity. This, though, was outright gushing, and it was coming from more than just them. It made her heart so warm.
Of course, Sam was human, and there were plenty of things she was terrible at. Ice skating, as it turned out, was one of those things. She was very awkward on her feet, her body way stiffer than it truly needed to be to be anything less than mediocre at it, and she was sure she’d be sore.
However, there was a lot of enthusiasm and joy on the ice from the others around them, and that only fed into her own amusement. She was laughing as she came to a slow, stumbling halt at her mother’s side, hands outstretched for some kind of stability. “I feel like a newborn deer.”
Of all the unbelievable things that had populated Kady’s life this was, by far, the greatest. It fucked with her mind a little, still, even after she and Penny had had a talk that had pacified her a lot. It was the whole timeline thing, a ’tamale time-loop’ and how getting to know one’s adult daughter before she was even a thought would definitely influence every single future interaction with her… It was the kind of cosmic shit Kady, even as a Magician, usually couldn’t be fucked to tangle with. She was trying really hard to just be. To not worry about it, leave future issues to Future Kady and enjoy Sam for the amazing miracle she was. A miracle she still thought she didn’t deserve, but even Kady was tired of hearing her own self-loathing out loud, so she had stopped voicing it.
Less simple was to stay upright on these stupid skates. Kady had jumped on it like a holiday-appropriate, physical activity that normal parents did with their kids, but she had forgotten that nothing (not even bike riding) was like riding a bike and she hadn’t gone ice skating in years. She had put so much tension on her back to keep upright that it was beginning to hurt, but when Sam struggled to come up beside her Kady held out her arms for Sam to hold onto, feet at a weird angle in the name of “stability.” “It’s way less cute on a human, the whole wobbly leg thing.” Kady said between laughs. “I… don’t got this as much as I thought I did.”
Sam knew that there was a definite resounding series of questions to do with the impact this visit would have on timelines. She’d had the thoughts herself, of course. In reality, though, she figured this was much like anything in Atlantis -- like stepping through a portal. It’d have impacts, sure, but there was nothing to say that any of it would ultimately change the future. She couldn’t concern herself with that. She was mostly just enjoying herself, and revelling in the fact that she could bring some peace and security to her parents at this time in their lives when she knew, from stories, that there was a lot still up in the air and difficult to grasp.
She grabbed Kady’s hands when they were offered, using them to create new tension that could help keep them both upright. Of course, this had the effect of making her wobble a little extra as she came to a stop, which brought more laughter from her. “I’d bet money that Dad is graceful as fuck on skates. I can picture him sailing along, open shirt fluttering in the wind.”
Although she wanted to shrug Kady decided not to move too much, but she did laugh at the mental image Sam had conjured up in her mind. Kady couldn’t help but smile a little dreamily. “You know, I have no idea if he’s good at this, but the whole shirt open, fluttering in the wind, spotlight on him thing? Nailed it.”
She wondered if there were spells she could apply to this, to at least make them more stable. And in the meantime, she had forgotten how to stop. Sighing, Kady pulled one hand away from Sam to check her phone. “Okay I’m gonna search for stopping moves because I kinda don’t know how to stop without physics deciding I can or skating into the railing and my knees are fucked.” After a moment she narrowed her eyes. “None of these sound easy, what the fuck?”
Sam grinned at the look on her mother’s face, because there was very little in the world she loved more than watching her parents when they thought about or spoke about each other. It was adorable when they were together, of course, but there was something even more special about it when they were apart and still gushing.
Sam looked at Kady’s phone as well, her brow furrowing at the screen. “Ugh,” she said, shaking her head. She looked around then, which was a little tricky given the movement and the ice and how utterly shitty she was skating altogether. “Okay, so. Options. We run into someone else and hope that they can stop us. Or we let ourselves go and go and go until we fall into that big snow bank. Or… I don’t know, magic? Maybe? I don’t know any spells for this.”
Stopping with rollerskates was way, way easier, which was probably why Kady hadn’t really seen this coming. She ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it back as she often did when she was about to think really hard on the solution to a problem. And when she felt impatient, anxious, uncomfortably warm, annoyed…
“Snow is harder than it looks, people think it’s like a fluffy pile of rabbits but it hurts, man. We can use telekinesis, though when we normally push, we can try to pull the air to work against us. Or pull each other outright. Though I guess that’s more natural magic than physical, right, using the air?” Kady looked down at her skates, then did a bunch of gestures with her hands and fingers that amounted to pulling something onto her - and she did. Suddenly she felt hit by a wall of air, but it soon became apparent that it wasn’t a wall rather than a gust of wind that didn’t just blocked her, it pushed her backwards. With how shitty her balance was, Kady ended up sliding on one blade, raising her other leg and falling back. She didn’t fall on her actual ass by the skin of her teeth; that would have hurt more. Although her back kind of hurt now. “FUCK. Ahh. Needs work.”
“Oh shit,” Sam breathed when the spell backfired a bit, and she reached out to help Kady stabilize, something that really wasn’t aided by the continued forward motion. She winced a little, empathetically, because she could feel both the annoyance and the bit of pain from her mother. “Alright, let’s do this the stubborn but reckless way,” she said. Hands still in Kady’s, she tried shifting a foot altogether, using what she knew of skiing to try to apply it to skating. The result was a stuttering stop… but one that definitely put Sam on the ice, hip and thigh first.
Kady chuckled a little weakly, getting up onto her elbows. “Don’t we always?”
Before she could get up Sam was eating shit right along with her, and Kady let out a number of expletives as she scooted on her ass to reach her daughter that she had just probably caused injuries to, albeit indirectly. She reached for Sam’s back carefully, grimacing. “Oh shit, oh fuck, Sam, you okay?”
She settled more firmly on her ass to relieve her hip where she’d fallen, wincing as she grabbed for her mother’s forearm. “It’s a good thing purple’s one of my colors -- I suspect I’ll be a few dozen shades of it,” she half-laughed. She was still all smiles, even with the aching. “Mama, I hate to say it, but I think we’ve definitely found something we are fucking terrible at,” she said. “I vote we tell no one.”
“Oh, man. I’m so sorry.” Kady said, genuinely bummed out and a little bit guilty. As far as she was concerned any bruise on Sam’s body was her fault since she had suggested they do this. And she wasn’t even going to think about how to get back up on their feet just yet. Sam’s seemingly natural state of relative chill was in itself calming, and though Kady still felt guilty she laughed softly. “I’ll keep my mouth shut if you do. I feel like we deserve a… hot tub and some snacks now. My ass is frozen, too.”
Kady let out a sigh and looked around. “Man I think we need to get on our feet but stay low and reach the wall otherwise we’ll never get back up. I don’t wanna risk you falling again.” Suddenly, something obvious came to mind and Kady gasped. “We could have gotten low! If we’d crouched we could have stopped more easily without falling so bad! I’m an idiot.”
“It’s not your fault!” Sam responded, smiling. It definitely hurt, but she was perfectly fine otherwise and she’d really enjoyed herself anyway -- she didn’t want Kady second-guessing herself. “We absolutely do, oh god. I’d fucking love a hot tub and snacks.”
At the realization, she laughed. “Oh my god, that makes sense. Okay, so next time, we really will be rockstars,” she said, looking back over the ice with a frown. “Okay, let’s try to get up. You go first and then you can help me and we’ll stay low.”
“I just feel bad, man, I suggested we do this, and you could have gotten really hurt.” Kady gave Sam a grin and nodded. “We can go hunt down a hot tub after. I don’t think there’s anything missing from this place, so there’s definitely one of those. And delivery. Or conjuring up snacks. Oh! Or we can ask da- Penny to travel us some.”
With a look of determination, Kady started in on getting one blade straight on the ice, righting her leg while she supported her weight on her (thankfully) gloved fists. It took a while, and she was wobbly as hell, but Kady kept from overthinking it by chatting a little. “Next time needs to be a couple days from now, you’re gonna be sore as hell in a little while and don’t need to make it worse. Okay, come on. Now you.”
“Not your fault! It was a blast,” she said, grinning back. “Ooooh, good idea. We’ll find a way!”
She let Kady get to her feet, working to start putting hers beneath her in the meantime. She felt some definite pain as she pulled herself to her feet, but didn’t display it widely -- she didn’t want to make her mother feel worse -- offering a triumphant nod when she was upright again. “Okay. It’s go time. Let’s get to the wall; lead the way.”
Nodding, Kady smiled proudly and with remaining determination as Sam gave her the go-ahead to move to the next step. Kady made a sound of effort as soon as she started to move, calves and thighs throbbing with more physical strain than she had put on them the entire time she had been here.
“Jesus Christ I need to do weight training for my legs.” she huffed. It wasn’t pretty, or quick, and her skate’s blade gave out from under her a couple of times but eventually Kady reached the wall and grabbed onto it with one arm, sighing triumphantly. She turned to Sam and leaned as far away from the wall as she could with her arm outstretched. “Done. Okay. I’ll take your hand the rest of the way.”
Sam followed her mother’s lead, reaching for her hand when it was offered to let herself be pulled to the safety of the wall. Once there, she pretty quickly pulled herself up and over, planting herself in the snow and pulling her skates off, flexing her toes in her socks and wincing a little.
“We are the world’s greatest athletes.”
Once Sam was safe on the other side, Kady finally flopped over the wall herself, plopping down onto the snow with the intent to regain her breath before attempting to pull her skates off. Sam’s comment made her laugh while she tried to rotate her ankles unsuccessfully. “We went harder than anyone out there.”
Finally semi-rested, Kady got up to removing her skates and flexed her toes as well. They’d had fun, all in all, but this wasn’t something she was looking forward to doing again for a long time. She massaged her feet to bring some circulation back to them before putting her boots on, glancing over at Sam. When she had asked what Kady wanted to do, she quickly realized she had no idea what to do for fun outside of being with Penny (with or without having sex) or drinking. That she had no idea how to be a normal person, and nothing in her vast wealth of passable knowledge was good for a hobby. Something else she needed to get on top of; at least ice skating was off the list.
“Kay so we’ve earned a hot tub and snacks afternoon, right? Want me to call Penny?”
“Yes please! I’m very ready for the lazier part of the day,” Sam responded, grinning. Her bruises would be happy for it too, especially the hot tub. “Let’s go!”