Matthias wandered through the lower floors of the Edmonton Blizzard arena, his eyes a little bleary after a night spent training - he was ready - so incredibly ready, to join the team in his fullest capacity, it was actually draining him, just how excited he was. And yet, for the moment, at least, he was still… just a prospect - that particular talent of his that had, to some extent, been unlocked in the IIHF still eluded him here. Two more seasons, and he’d finally be there.

… fuck, it was time for a break.

“Roi? Is that you, in the equipment locker? What’s - what’re you doing in there?”

He calls out, laughing as he looks his distinctively irish prospect up and down - he’d been overjoyed when they’d picked her up just a few weeks ago, it was a real shame that they’d let her talent slip through their fingers back in St. Louis.

“Oh I was just finishing up a bit of training before heading home for the evening. What are you doing here though Matthias? I thought you and the rest of the team had gone home already.” Roisin said, looking over her teammate to be.

“I’ve just been thinking - things are gonna change in a big way here, soon - I mean, you just finished your rookie year, Alexa is still a year away from joining up, herself - it feels like the calm before the storm, and I’m not sure if it’s a good or a bad thing, really - but there’s bound to be lots of change around here - that’s for sure.”

He frowns, and his hands find a latch into an attic-like storage space - he didn’t know that was there!

“Woah - snowboards? When did - when did we get these? They look like pretty good quality, too!”

He checks his watch. 11:39pm. The park was definitely closed - and if they got caught, they could both get in a fair bit of trouble, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut…

“Roisin? You seeing what I’m seeing?”

He grins

“Opportunity!”

“Obviously….” Roisin laughed, taking two of the snowboards as she grinned. With a little wink, she remarked, “We be having a golden opportunity to have not only a little fun, but break the rules a little while we’re at it. It be killing two birds with one stone!”

She hefted the snowboards over her shoulder, beckoning for Matthias to follow her, “That is unless ye be scared….”

He winks, and scoops up the boots, tossing them into his pack, and slips out his phone.

“Lemme see now - Rabbit Hill is probably closed and empty, and they’ve got some decent slopes - and if we can sneak in, we’ll have the whole place to ourselves!”

He walks over to the vending machine, giving it a firm shove, and collecting the protein shake, two protein bars, Powerade, and pikachu plush that fell to the ground.

“Unless you know a better place?”

He asks, his eyebrow raising, not sure just how much of this stuff Roisin had done before!

“Rabbit Hill should work fine, provided you don’t mind a bit of climbing over the gates.” Roisin said nodding, raising an eye at the Pikachu plush, “Or failing that, we could always try Sunridge or Snow Valley.”

“Oh shit, is Sunridge back open? I love that place, they’ve got the crazy embankment - hell yeah, let’s head there!!”

He laughs, and zips up his pack, tossing it over his shoulder, and opening the door for Roisin

“You driving, or am I?”

“Yep! Anyways, why don’t you drive? I’m not really that familiar with the roads around here, especially this late.” Roisin laughed, holding the door open for Mattias.

He smiles, and steps though, his extremely tiny Nissan Cube buzzing with heat - it’s comical, seeing the enormous man fold himself into the itty bitty automobile - looking almost like the scene out of the Incredibles with Bob stuffed into his tiny car. And then, when Roisin opens it up, it’s remarkable - just how spacious it actually is, fitting in all of their equipment with plenty of room left over!

“Hop in! It’s super fuel efficient, too”

He says, giving a thumbs up and a wink.

“Mattias…..you accepted an endorsement deal from Nissan, didn’t you?” Roisin said, smirking as she stuffed the boards into the back and carefully arranging it. She took the powerades, and shut the trunk as she rounded the car. Opening the door to the front seat, she smiled, “Well, shall we go?”



“It’s not my fault, and I’ve always wanted a job in media - c’mon, we can make it there before 1 am if we’re quick about it!”

He revs the engine. That… that was not… that was not the sound of the stock engine. No way. With a sly grin, he peels out of the arena, and starts to head for the snowy hills of Sunridge Ski Resort - kicking up clouds of slush and wind-blown snow as they bounced along the trail.

Roisin laughed as she buckled her seatbelt, settling in as she watched her teammate floor it out of the parking lot. She turned to him, her lips curving into a smirk as she joked, “Mattias, I know you’re excited and all, but let’s try to drive a little more carefully? I mean that’s unless you want to explain to Nissan why you wrecked the car they just got you.”

He lifts his finger in the air and says in a distinct, snooty tone

“As you can see from this durability test, even under adverse conditions, the Nissan Cube holds up remarkably well - protecting the driver even through dangerous and sub-optimal road factors!”

He snickers, and pats Roisin on the head, before hitting the gas even harder, barrelling down the open roads, and ripping across Yellowhead Highway, and only slowing down when the intersection finally comes, the radio blaring out hits as the two drive along!

“You really should have gone into advertising, Matty. You got a helluva knack for it.” Roisin laughed, banging her head to the tunes. As they drove along, she occasionally felt herself knocked against the door or back into her seat with Matthias’s acceleration, “Either that or you should have been a racer!”

“You know, I really loved racing snowmobiles as a kid - did you know that even the base model ones can hit well over 190 klicks? But the ones these search and rescue guys were bringing… and I was… repossessing… could push it waaaaaaay faster than that, up to, like, four hundred kilometers per hour. It was great, you could basically be gone in the blink of an eye!”

He scoots on up ahead, and the small mountain of extremely bright points of white rising up ahead of them showed that they’d reached their destination, and the enormous, sharp slopes of - Black Diamond F was calling his name. He pulls over on the edge of the road, and checks his watch - 11:45. He’d been even faster than he’d thought. Fifteen minutes until the place closes down its lights…

It would be worth the wait.

He peels open a protein bar, and passes a shake, as well as the pikachu, over to Roisin.

“How about you, then? What are some of your ‘almost could’ve been a’ stories? You’re a curious type and get out a lot, there’s got to be something.”

“Well…” Roisin said, setting the protein bar and pikachu beside her, soon twisting the top off the shake. She took a small swig, wiping a bit off her mouth before remarking, “I’ve got two. The first was probably the opportunity I turned down to coach in Warsaw for a minor league team there. Great team, great pay, but I was worried I couldn’t hack it, so I stayed in Derry. Second, I guess was when I met this fine young fellow out of Glasgow while I was attending university….we dated for the better part of a year and a half, got real close and then he popped the question…. But….well needless to say I panicked…”

He turned to look at her, incredulously.

“Well come on, you can’t just start a story like that and not finish it!!”

He asks, his eyes matching his words as he desperately wished to know more.

“C’mon! And - look, I’m sorry it didn’t work out in Warsaw, but I NEED TO KNOW - you left some poor Derry boy what, on one knee? That must’ve been one hell of a panic!”

He turns back and sips at his shake, the warmth radiating from the car starting to make the front of their faces tight with heat - not too long left, now…

“Alright, alright……well he wanted to end up settling down in Scotland after we both graduated to pursue a practice there. I was deep in the Eire league at that time and….how do the yanks say it? Freaked out over how fast things were moving and I didn’t quite want to give up on freedom so, I…well left him at the altar. My parents were right pissed about it…”  Roisin laughed nervously, downing another swig from the shake.

“I can’t imagine why - I mean, you made the choice that was best for you, right?”

He shrugs

“I mean c’mon, how expensive can a wedding really be anyways?”

He asks, incredulously

“What - like, a few grand? We’ve got hockey sticks that are more expensive than that!”

He pauses, and looks at Roisin intently, before the clock hits twelve, and the lights all around them go out, leaving the just cloud-covered stars overhead to light the scene below.

“Do you… regret that choice?”

“A little if I’m being honest….and it wasn’t about the money, but rather the look it gave me and my family. It…it gave us quite a black eye in the local council and the parish. Needless to say there be a reason I didn’t go back to Derry after that.” Roisin said, sighing as she looked up to the stars above.

Thwack.

“You forgot your pikachu among all the reminiscing, Roi.”

He laughs a little under his breath, and pops open the driver-side door, stepping out onto the cold crunch of snow on an Edmonton winter’s night.

“I didn’t even see what you snagged for yourself - skis or board for the day?”

He asks, bluntly and obviously trying his best to avoid the prior topic, since it clearly made Roisin uncomfortable.

“I went ahead and grabbed a board….I’m better with it anyways.” Roisin said, forcing a laugh as she grabbed the board from the back of the car. She set it against the car, grabbing a bottle of water as her mood seemed to perk up a bit, “Matthias….you know you don’t have to drop the topic if you don’t want to. It’s not like it’s still a fresh wound…”

“I mean - Roi, how old are you, anyways?”

He unpacks his own board, and stands in the gently falling snow, looking up at the park - there’s a brief moment of hesitation, a “maybe going down black Diamond slopes in the dark is a bad idea after all…” before he smiles to himself, and shoulders the board and boots. What’s life without some risk, anyways?

“Look - I know it’s rude to ask a lady that, but I’ve seen your hip-check. It’s not the most ladylike thing in the world!”

He winks, and the car chirps as he locks it up.

“But we’ve got a decent hike up to the peak - let’s hear it, then. I’ve never much understood this whole… ‘how other people look at you’ thing - pretty weird concept, all things considered.”

“It is rude to ask a lady that!” Roisin said, chuckling as she hefted the board over her shoulder. She gave Matthias a playful punch in the left arm, remarking quietly as he could see the steam from her breath fill the air, “But to answer your question, I’m twenty five.”

He did a double take - the rookie was older than he was?

“You - um - you carry yourself like someone a fair bit younger, especially having been through all that.”

He lowers the board, and straps himself into it, leaning against a tree as he adjusts his goggles. The frigid night air tire through his jacket, and as he stood up, his silhouette was cut in stark black against the soft, moonlit snow around them - and he swallowed, and returned to the talk he was worried about having most.

“How long ago was all that, then? Have your parents and Derry neighbours really not looked past it, yet?”

“Well, I suppose you could say I am trying to make up for all that time I missed….” Roisin said quietly, muttering, “About 5 years ago now….almost six.”

“Hold on, that would make you - eighteen? Nineteen?”

His head tilts to the side. So many people living so differently. He’d barely even met a woman by that age, and here Roisin had been expected to dedicate herself to a man at the same time? Maybe people weren’t all as similar as he’d thought.

“So if all that’s true, when did you turn into the type that breaks into ski parks at night with strange men?”

He asks with a laugh, before covering his mouth. Couldn’t be too careful with that noise!

“When I learned that life is better with a little rebellion and the occasional breaking of the law.” Roisin laughed, clipping the board onto her feet as she added, “I know it must be strange to you, but back home that’s just the way it worked. Very traditional and lots of expectations. Needless to say, it felt good letting them down.”

“I… I wouldn’t know,”

He said, straightening up, and checking his watch. Time for at least two or three trips, he figured, but maybe one really good one, if he took his time.

“Edmonton is a new place - new blood, new vision - things will be different there.”

He says, his words halfway between a promise and a wish.

“C’mon - we’ve got all night to talk, but only an hour or two to snowboard!”

“New blood, new battles….” Roisin chuckled as she followed Matthias. Offering her hand, she led Matthias up the hill and towards the tops of the slopes, “That they will be!”

“You know,”

He paused, and considered his words carefully

“You know, you’re leaving behind something you might have wanted, back there. I’m luckier - I didn’t have a thing to lose, but everything to gain.”

He took her hand, and stepped up further, matching her stride.

“What is it like, to have so much that to gain more requires loss?”

“I mean….. To have something so valuable, that a single mistake harms more than just what you have. What might it entail? What might one have to give up?”

“There’s an old saying back home, Matthias:  “D'ainneoin ár dtuirse leanfam an tslí
Thar chnoic is thar ghleannta Go deireadh na scríbi” Roisin said quietly as the duo reached the summit of the course, looking down at the powdery slopes below. Looking to him, she added softly, “Despite our weariness, we will follow the road over the hills and valleys to the end of the journey. I made my choice back then and I will follow the road I took to its conclusion, even if it’s rough. That’s part of living with the choices you made. Now, come on? Enough philosophizing, let’s hit the slopes!”

Please pay @Ara the whole amount per @Atheist_Caliph 's request.

Wander my friends, wander with me. Like the mist on the green mountain, moving eternally.
Despite our weariness, we'll follow the road over hill and valleys, to the end of the journey

Le monde n'est qu'une scène. Il vaut mieux rire que pleurer, car le rire est le propre de l'homme.
Riez de tout cela, ne vous inquiétez pas. Profitons d'aujourd'hui

Look at the shenanigans here lol

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. ... There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.”





Rurik Markov| C | SMJHL Prospect | Future Madison Valkyries
Birthplace: Visby, Sweden
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Sad to see this, this will end up being Caliph's final article :(

Sad to see this, this will end up being Caliph's final article :(

I wish it wasn't but....such is life.

Wander my friends, wander with me. Like the mist on the green mountain, moving eternally.
Despite our weariness, we'll follow the road over hill and valleys, to the end of the journey

Le monde n'est qu'une scène. Il vaut mieux rire que pleurer, car le rire est le propre de l'homme.
Riez de tout cela, ne vous inquiétez pas. Profitons d'aujourd'hui