[ME] icy what you did there

Theea

and let the words fall out

"Damien !" It pops out of me before I can rein it in, bright as sunlight off fresh snow. I grin so wide my cheeks ache and my hands forget their rhythm, a half-formed snowball cradled between my mittens. I duck again behind my little fortress and peek over the curve, narrowing my eyes in the most fearsome way a five-foot-four menace can manage. Under my breath with a smile: "You're going down, Ulfsen."

I settle into the work, packing a few more snowballs with quick, neat motions. The excitement makes me wiggle in place like a wind-up toy; I have to clamp my lips together to keep from giggling. Focus, Theea. Professional snow warfare. I track him the way he’d track prints in fresh powder—measured steps, shoulders loose, eyes taking in every angle. Deimos dings him with a small shot and Damien calls back something casual enough to turn my grin soft for a heartbeat. It’s a good look on him, that easy play.

He veers toward a nearby fort, shouting out to a man with a mountain-of-a-name — Iskra, I commit to memory — and a cocoa mug, and he starts to duck behind a fort—

I pop up smooth as a fox from a drift and let fly, a perfect, palm-packed sphere arcing for the back of his head. Hitting it's mark or not, I drop right back down behind my wall, biting back a grin as I try to feign innocence.

honestly, i want to see you be brave