[Completed] A U.S. expatriate is cast into a rainy, foggy corner of Europe. He went there on the pretense to work on his research, but he actually wanted to put as many miles as possible between himself and his ex.
The university he works for has fo...
Passengers carrying skis, boards, sleds, snow shoes, and various other snow-worthy means of transportation bustled around Art as he followed Rashid out of the cable car's top station.
The brilliant light made him squint. People clad in a kaleidoscope of colors were milling between picturesque, wooden houses, shouting and laughing in a merry, tumultuous chaos. Most of them were gravitating towards a building from which a chairlift emerged, carrying passengers further up into the mountainscape.
"Rashid, Art!"
Jake, waving a hand, stood between Adriana and the Meiers. "Welcome to Oberippenberg." He spread his arms as Rashid and Art approached him. "Isn't this so much nicer than the gray city?"
Art wondered if Jake's spread arms were an invitation to hug the man—some strange Tavetian mountain baptism. To his relief, the arms dropped before he even got into embracing range.
"It's so beautiful." Rashid had donned a pair sunglasses, and so had the rest of them—Adriana's were apricot orange, matching her scarf.
The only tenant with eyes helplessly exposed to the sun's glare was Art.
"So, we first go to a store where we can rent the snowshoes. Then I'll show you the Bijou. There's a great trail right behind it." Jake's sunglasses were pitch black, but Art felt that the man's stare was straight on him.
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The sports store was in one of the picturesque houses. Jake introduced the shop's owner, Gigi, obviously a friend of his.
Gigi's leathery skin was even more tanned than Jake's. And as if to spite the winter outside, he wore a t-shirt that incidentally displayed an assortment of bulging muscles.
"So..." The man paused with his hands on his hips and bouncing on the balls of his feet. He looked at his customers one by one as if searching for new talent to join the national Tavetian snow sports team. "Who of ye has done snowshoeing before? Show me yer hands."
Everybody raised a hand—except Art.
Gigi arched his blond eyebrows at him and then addressed the others. "Okay, ye'll find the shoes in that rack over there." He pointed his thumb at the shop's rear wall, which was covered by shelves crammed with sports equipment. "Help each other. And ask Jake, he knows his way around up here." Then his gaze settled on Art. "And ye... come with me."
Art followed the man.
"Not snowshoeing, eh? So, ye're a skier... or a boarder?" Gigi asked while looking at Art's boots.
"No, neither skiing nor boarding." Art's first and only skiing trip had ended with him stuck headfirst in a heap of snow and his skis scattered around him. He had been a kid then, and the incident had marked the harsh and premature end of his snow sporting career.
Gigi looked up at him and frowned. "So, ye're riding a sled?"
Art shook his head.
The man hesitated, then a smile flickered over his face. "Bobsleighs!"
"Er... no."
Gigi's mouth opened. "So... what do ye do in winter?"
He shrugged. "Not much, actually. You know... I'm not from around here. There's not much snow sports where I come from."
"Ah. A foreigner."
Art nodded, feeling defensive.
Gigi sighed. "Do ye do any sports at all?"
"Yes." To Art's huge relief, he had a sporty answer to that one. "I'm into jogging. In fact, I ran up Utopoint just yesterday. You know it?"
"Utopoint... yeah. I see." The man pressed his lips into a thin line. Then his smile returned. "It doesn't matter. Snowshoeing ain't that hard, ye'll learn it." He turned towards the shelves, let his hand glide along them, and picked up a pair of shoes. "Here they are. Eclipse Flex 200VTX."
The things that Gigi held into Art's face looked like two Transformers lying low. Red, anodized aluminum tubes forming their frames, black plastic shells to clasp your feet, a wealth of black nobs and levers with unclear purpose, and red straps holding it all together.
"Ye take a seat, we'll try them on."
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Some fifteen minutes later, Art stood in the shop's foyer, carrying his rental shoes and a pair of telescope poles in a bag strapped to his back. He studied a rack of sunglasses. His neighbors had unanimously decided that he had to get himself protective eyewear to brave the sun's mountain glare.
He pulled a pair from its stand—dark glasses, with a tag naming them "Nightshades" and pricing them at 49 TFR, Tavetian Francs. This was about the same amount in U.S. dollars. Not cheap, but knowing that you only have that one pair of eyes and you should take good care of them, he shrugged, put them on, and studied himself in a mirror. They covered his eyes securely and with a generous safety margin—two almost circular patches of black blotting out nearly half of his face.
Agatha Meier, standing at his side, laughed. "Sorry..." She held a hand to her mouth. "But you look like an owl now."
"Here, try these." Adriana handed him another pair.
Art knew it was never a wise move to resist women giving you fashion advice. He meekly returned the Nightshades to where he had found them and tried on the others instead.
They were smaller, not round and black, but two narrow, bluish-reflecting bands covering his eyes and what was to the left and right of them. They made him look positively mean.
I could outstare Jake's red predator car in these.
His hand went to his beard. He wondered how he would look without that hair in his face.
"Wonderful," said Agatha beside him.
Adriana nodded.
Art gave himself a last, admiring look and—reluctantly—took the things off. He inspected the tag.
DEFIANCE
Give the World Your Hardest Stare
He turned the tag around.
TFR
159.95 only
Glancing at the two females beside him, he knew resistance was useless. And his heart craved Defiance.
