The Indentured Mistress of a 'Human'

Shut Up

            Brook shuddered as a cold blast of air hit her when Nathan finally forced the icy door open. The lights snapped on, their intensely bright beams falling on a glittery white surface. Bleachers lined the silvery oval surrounded by a two foot tall cement wall with another two feet of strong glass on top of it.

            “What is this place?” Brook murmured, looking at her misty breath with wonder. She heard a slight rustling and a thick jacket landed on her head.

            “It’s an ice rink,” Nathan replied, dragging her to a counter in front of long racks. Strange black shoes with knifes jutting out of the bottom of them hung row after row on the hooks. “What shoe size are you?”

            “I don’t need this; you wear it.” Brook shoved the jacket back at him. “I’m perfectly okay with cold weather.” Courtesy of IMG. She wasn’t about to lose to the cold when it killed her sister.

            “If you get a fever-”

            “I won’t, so just get me size six.”

            “Fine; take off your shoes.”

            Brook took a seat and pulled off her shoes. “So what are we doing?”
            Nathan simply ignored all her questions and helped Brook “lace up”.

            Brook stopped stomaching the vague smugness of his after her fifth question and kicked her shoed foot up so that the blade was a hair’s breath away from his neck.

            “Tell me why we’re the only ones here or I’ll lop your head off.”

            “Easy, girl,” Nathan said slowly, remaining perfectly still. He didn’t put it past the heinous witch, no matter how hot she might be, to kill him. “I rented the entire rink.”

            “What do we do on it?”

            “Skate around on it.”

            “How do you ‘skate’?”

            Nathan sighed and carefully pushed away her foot. “Just follow me.”

***

            Her scream echoed across the entire building. Nathan watched her slip and slide on the ice, flailing her arms like a chicken trying to take flight as she crashed into the wall again. He skated, with intense boredom, over to his clumsy fiancée who scrambled to get up only to fall back down.

            Nathan held out his hand and offered some help. Brook stubbornly refused yet again and shakily got up like a newborn colt, legs wobbling.

            It was only several crashes later did Brook finally take Nathan’s hand. He winced as she heaved herself up with it.

            “Your fingers are freezing!”
            “It’s just ice; deal with it,” she grumbled, annoyed that her pride as a survivor of the cruel winters in IMG was stomped on by a human of all things.

            “Here.” Nathan pulled off his jacket and forced it onto Brook, taking advantage of her weakness when on a frozen surface. “Wear it or I’ll share it with you.”

            “…I feel like a fat person,” Brook muttered to the ground after putting it on. The jacket was warm and smelled like Nathan, which strangely didn’t repulse her.

            “When have you cared about fashion?”

            “Shut up.”