Snow and mischief

You stalk down the alley, swathed in shadow, step soft and silent on the freshly settled snow. Through the eye-slits of your mask you see your target: unsuspecting, turned back on you as he leans against the very same wall you skulk along. He nurses a goblet and watches the town square – awash with revelers, booths and garlands – standing just outside its golden, warm light, a lone observer.

You ready yourself – pulse quickening, muscles tensing – and spring forward, arms out to grip onto Galahad’s shoulders.

He whirls around, spraying red, arms up in a defensive stance and face scrunched up in apprehension, instincts sharp as always. You drink in his expression – the widened violet eyes, the severe line of the mouth, the furrow in his brow – with a heady sense of triumph.

Galahad eases down as quickly as he tensed, casts a dimly irked look over your figure decked in bulky wool and a horned mask, then makes the sensible decision to move away.

That is, until he hears your chortle.

His gaze narrows on you, with a far more intimate sense of vexation this time. “Mordred. Of course.”

“Oh, did I spook the golden knight?” You slip off your mask so he can not only hear, but see your taunting smirk too. “Almost soiled your pants?”

“No,” he says tersely, “but you did make me spill my drink. ”

You both glance down at the blood-like speckles in the snow; miraculously, the wine seems to have eluded his pretty brocade coat.

“It’s not even that much. Now –” you snatch the goblet from him, metal warm with the phantom of his touch, and down it halfway before handing it back. The mulled wine heats you from within, sweet and tangy. “Now I owe you a new drink.”

Galahad looks completely unimpressed. “Amusing.”

You make a mock bow and turn on your heels, having no intent on paying your debt. You feel lighter as you walk away, high on your victory – or perhaps the wine itself.

You’re just a couple strides away when a chill hits you squarely in the back of the neck. You reach your fingers into your cloak’s collar, coming away with a handful of snow.

“Spooked you?” Galahad calls out.

Oh, he’s not getting away with it.

You shake yourself off, plucking back your dignity, and set off back down your path, feinting disregard. No second snowy missile comes after you, but one will soon be on its way to Galahad.

You shoot an arm out as you spin round, guiding the snow with your motion, willing it to strike where your index points – straight in Galahad’s smiling face.

He ducks, abandons his goblet on a nearby stair, and squares his shoulders. The game is on.

What follows is a most vicious snowball fight. Neither of you need to waste time on bending down and scooping up snow to mold into chilly projectiles. Your duel is more akin a dance as you wave your hands, wiggle your fingers and step around each other, drawing on magic – your own blood’s for you, the Goddess’s for him – to throw slush at your foe’s face, to flank them with a barrage of flakes.

You might almost be having fun.

And, you realize as you take in Galahad’s ruddy cheeks and animated eyes, so might be he.

So enthralled you find yourself with this sudden revelation that you fail to notice the snowball headed your way. You make a desperate, flailing bid at ducking away, and it misses you, barely, swishing past your shoulder.

Your boot slips. One moment you’re looking at Galahad’s alarmed face, limned by the gilded lights of the fair, and the next you’re seeing stars, cold and glittering and too distant to be something to cling to.

Yet you do not fall. Wide, bright violet eyes fill your vision of the sky. Galahad’s breath blazes against your chilled cheek, your quick, sharp exhalations twining into wispy tendrils. One arm wrapped around your waist holds you uptight, flush against his chest. It rises and falls in concert, frenzied succession with yours.

Away from the dazzling lights, music and the crowd, you feel suspended out of time – there’s nothing but you and Galahad, the wild beating of your hearts as you stand frozen in a picture that...that you don’t even know how to frame, don’t even know how you feel about. Don’t know what to make of that look in his eyes.

All you know is that you have to get away.

With one flick of the wrist, you call down a small cascade of flakes. It powders your head and tangles in your lashes but it makes Galahad flinch, too, giving you the opportunity to break away and run – run until you’re down the alley, round the corner, into another shadowy lane, back pressed against the wall. You listen, but there’s no footfalls following in your wake – would you want there to be? – just your trembling breath filling the air.

You pull your mask over burning, heated cheeks and steal off into the night.