He pushed harder and harder, doing everything within his physical capabilities to catch up with the demon skating the path ahead of him. It wasn't fair! She had a physical advantage - his skates were screwed up and she had all of those powers and....and those would be nothing more than excuses when this was over. Hands balling into fists at his sides, Sam launched forward with a particularly heavy shove. The struggle at his feet suddenly lifted, almost as though someone had magically cured whatever the problem was with a snap of their fingers, and the weight of his efforts to get ahead only proceeded to leave Sam with very unsatisfying results. It was like he had been running with a string attached to his waist and someone had taken a pair of scissors to the end tied down and cut it, thus leaving him with nothing more to do than fall flat on his face.
A chorus of laughter erupted from a trio of children who skated past him, each pointing and grinning at him in a manner that suggested he was very well the stupidest person they had ever seen in their lives. Sam rolled his eyes and ignored them, hands pressing down against the ice as he slowly staggered up onto his feet.
Crap. He'd lost.
...or had he? Sam tilted his head a bit, looking on at a group ahead. Ruby was - she was down? Sam probably shouldn't have felt so relieved and pleased all at the same time over seeing Ruby fall over, but he couldn't help it. He was covered in frost, there were children laughing at him, yet he felt a grin coming on as he skated over to her and raised his eyebrows suggestively. Perhaps she hadn't seen him fall. He could pretend that he hadn't. "That was graceful."
[ooc: The smug is the cause of many awesome losses. Ah, well. xD]