Ice Skating

Amelie dons a fuzzy brown hat and a puffy pink coat! They button it to the top.

"Such beauty. When the outdoors is covered in snow, everything looks so… clean!"

And this could only mean…

Well, obviously it means…

You see…

It…

Obviously…


"What am I supposed to be doing?"

Amelie seeks Parish for an answer. Or a messy kitchen. Then they needn’t even ask…

~•~

To avoid making a drippy mess, Amelie walks around the B&B, admiring their evenly space footprints in the snow!

Once outside the kitchen, they rap on the window.

Parish is wearing a long scarf. His coat is a hand-knit tunic designed to be reminiscent of his old knight's armour, but instead gives the unfortunate impression of a gray bathrobe. Worried about the cold, he has stuffed his large hands into mittens that were not made for frog hands and leave his long fingers bunched uncomfortably - but it's better than frostbite!

"Alas, a knight must endure some discomfort for the good of the realm," he mutters to himself, psyching himself up for the exertion to come. "Or a frog for the good of his fingers!"

Amelie is surprised by Parish’s outfit. "Are you manning the outdoor grill, or it is possible…"

Amelie recalls how Hey Kid likes to do the cooking sometimes.

The robo-maid’s eyes flicker in surprise. Or perhaps delight? Anticipation? A craving!

"Is it possible that you and I have the day off?"

Gertrude is wearing a brightly colored puffy coat as she walks out into the snow, on a shoulder are a pair of ice skates. It's been awhile since she's seen snow or even had a chance to play in it. She remembers a time before the Bed and Breakfast a time that somehow hurts her heart but, there's also a memory of skating on ice as graceful as a ballerina. She wants to feel that again and so she plans to go to the forzen over pond. Before she can move anywhere though, the bright white reflects the sun so brightly that she pulls out a pair of cool shades. Now she's perfectly prepared to be out here in this lovely day.

She steps further out and is just in time to hear that Amelie and Parish have the day off. Maybe they might like to be her friends too? So, she comes closer to them and says carefully. "There's a pond close by. It's probably frozen over if you two want to go ice skating with me?"

Viv is already by the frozen pond. She is dressed in a baggy, oversized black hoodie that could hold two of her. Her jeans are already damp and slick with water though come to think of it, her jeans are always damp and slick with water. She has a comically overlong scarf wrapped around her. Oh wait. A second look reveals it to be her hair, bound in spots with brightly colored hair-ties, and wrapped around her like a scarf.

Viv crouches down and places her hand on the frozen surface of the pond. It feels so weird to see the ice below her instead of above.

Sal skates past Viv, giving her a grin as he passes. The cold air of the beautiful winter’s day fills the night porter with chill vibes, and he breathes deeply, delighting in the feel of the crisp air in his lungs. He is dressed in a thick flannel shirt and snow pants, the wind teasing his thick hair about.

"My fingers will go numb if I try to play my guitar out here, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find my groove!" Sal says with a chuckle. "Plus, I’ll take any excuse to slack off from my daily duties. Not that they’re too strenuous, though. In fact, I don’t do a lot of work most days. But, anyway, it’s the principle of the matter!"

Seeing some of the other residents huddling by the B&B’s kitchen, he gives them a wave and invites them over!

Amelie looks at Gertrude, then at Parish, then over to the pond where Sal is waving and Viv is on her water instead of in it!

They again turn to Gertrude.

—and they think the command phrase: Skates on!

"Very well, Gertrude. I will gladly ska… oh, error."

Amelie looks down at their feet. There are bright pinkish-orangey wheels.

ICE skates on!

The wheels retract. Blades emerge.

"Ice skating mode functionality confirmed," the maid-bot says with what would be a smile if they could contort their mouth to form one.

Viv feels the faint vibrations in the ice as Sal glides their way along it. She takes in the change from wheels to blades of Amelie and notes similar the similar footwear carried or worn by the others. Viv kicks off her shoes and steps onto the ice, slowly gliding along as the water beneath her feet does as it needs to keep her moving.

Amelie sees Viv appearing to struggle. But why would she not. Ice skates cannot emerge from her feet.

The maid-bot attempts to give Viv a hand, but as soon as they hit the ice, they realize that they have never actually used this kind of skate.They step out on the ice
and
immediately
face-plant
!

Nonfatal Error.
Query: what is this body even good for?
Command: get up
Command: get up

The robo-maid slowly slides mere inches across the ice.

Exclamation: get up❗️

They rise.

Sal can't help but chuckle as Amelie falls face-first onto the ice. He knows her metallic body won't suffer any real damage from a face-plant like that. He skates backwards past Viv to get to the robot's side. "You alright down there? The first time on the ice is always rough. Just keep at it, and pretty soon you can do stuff like this!"

Sal skates away at a fast pace then leaps into the air! He spins twice, performing a double axle before landing back on one skate and gracefully circling back around. "See? Nothing to it!" He grins before waving at Gertrude and Parish. "Come on, guys! The more, the merrier!"

Gertrude is feeling graceful.

She has skated before and knows she's pretty good at it. Instead of showing off in front of those who can't skate as well as she can she skates over to Amelie and takes one of her robotic hands. "Like this Amelie, you have to stay on your center of balance and then push off to the sides in order to move forward. Push...glide...push...glide"

Amelie accepts Gertrude’s hand and follows her advice.

Balance Status: 49.32% left, 50.68% right.
Command: lean slightly That_Way; where "slightly" = 0.68%

Their feet kick and zig-zag and throw off balance WAY more than 0.68%! But each errant move is quickly corrected, and the next is less severe, until Amelie’s balance is writhin a +/-3.1% margin of—

Exclamation: whoah❗️

…make that a +/-3.4% margin of error.

"Thank you, Gertrude. Your advice is more than sufficient. It is demonstrably essential."

Parish sits down on a snow bank to put his skates on. He struggles to cram his long, webbed toes into skates made for human feet.

"Forsooth! Yon ice skate shall not defeat me!" he declares as, at last, his foot slides in with a wet squelch.

He slowly stands, tottering on the thin blades. "A blade on the foot is worth 10 in the hand," he mutters to himself. "Now, ice and easy does it."

He slides one foot forward. Then the other, getting into a steady rhythm and... not going anywhere. "What am I supposed to be doing?" he asks, perplexed. Perhaps another angle?

WHUMP.

Parish falls flat on his back. "Alas, this is not the correct angle," he declares. He shakily dusts himself off and stands back up. "This ice shall not be my downfall! ...again."

Sal applauds as Amelie starts moving gracefully across the ice. "There you go! Now you've got it!" He skates over to Parish and grins at the little frog. "And you, Parish! As Nirvana said, Take your time. Hurry up. Choice is yours, don't be late! But seriously, man, no rush, no rush. Become one with the ice. Find your grooOOoove, baby!"

Sal chuckles merrily as he skates back out into the middle of the lake. Such a wonderful day!

She moves to Parish thinking about helping him to get the hang of things as well. She helps the frog up onto his feet and says, "Don't listen to Sal they aren't being helpful. I think your issue might be that you have flippers instead of regular feet. So, hmm...maybe if we try it like this..."

Gertrude is not, in any way, and expert of frogs or frog ice skating. "Okay, now push and slide and WOAHHH!" The two of them get tangled up and crash in a tangled pile of arms and legs.

Viv glides over to where Gertrude and Parish lay sprawled on the ice still somehow skating without skates. She peers down at Parish but her eyes focus beyond him. "Your legs remember the weight of your armor and wonder why they hold the blades which by right belong to your arms." She intones. "In times of old, your brothers would beseech my aid. I much prefer you asking me what I want to eat."

Parish feels his energy flagging. What was he thinking? A quest before lunch? This is a problem of energy reserves, not talent!

"Fear not, for I shall return!"

Parish inches his body off of the rink like an overgrown worm, then dashes into the kitchen, his skates sinking deep into the snow. At the door, he carefully wraps his blades in this scarf and totters to the stove. He heats a big pot of milk, then whisks in chocolate and just a hint of cinnamon. He pours the hot chocolate into a large carafe, grabs a canister of whipped cream and a bit stack of mugs, then races back to the pond.

"Would anyone care for a hot chocolate? 'Tis the fuel of champions!"

Parish pours himself a steaming mug, gulps it down, and discards the scarf covering his blades (it wasn't working for him anyways). With that, he is ready to get back to it! He glides onto the ice, and this time he stays vertical! Maybe it's okay to use this body for things he's good at, like making the perfect beverage for a cold day!

"Sweet! Thanks for the choco, my man," Sal says with a grin. He sits on the shore of the frozen pond, ignoring how the snow immediately makes his pants wet, and sips from the offered mug.

Amelie is happy to take a break, despite being a robo-maid who’s designed to Not Get Tired. But taking a break when others are is a great way to fit in.

They even try a hot chocolate.

"This is very likely more delicious than it is nutritious, but the physicality of skating probably compensates for any excess calorie intake…"

It occurs to Amelie that when socializing, people never talk about the drink.

So what do guests talk about? they wonder. Then… they remember!

"So," they start, "I was cleaning the crumbs of many potato- and corn-based snacks whilst guests ogled the television screen in the common room. A uniformed athlete moved a ball from the northeast sector of a field to its southwest end. The guests were of differing opinions as to whether this act was just. Three said ‘yay,’ four said ‘boo,’ and one abstained.

"I still have not formed an opinion, but I think skating is preferable. None of you judged me with ‘boos,’ nor do I feel pressured to elicit a ‘yay.’" They turn to Gertrude. "Skating was an excellent idea. I will attempt self-improvement through repetition."