AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH ok ok so I got a lot of explaining to do with nothing to explain.
Basically the route to me not writing never mind posting anything for literally a year (or real close to it) started when school started winding up during the third quarter and I was struggling with math. I can't do algebra 2 and it was literally making me miserable. Then my PC's battery decided to break and not work so that's now completely dead until I can get it replaced. That happened during the fourth quarter so it's been a while. After that I was working at work (wow!) just about every day outside in lower New York weather so that was exhausting. And now I got back into a Lazy Town obsession so here's this. It took me like two weeks on school time. It's a miracle. I even have like 4 sheets of paper of organized notes just for ice skating. I wouldn't expect this sort of dedication with my larger projects until my PC is fixed. Sorry to my Merlin followers. Please forgive me. I wrote the above after I was completely done so I'm not changing the next paragraph to make sense. Have fun and let me know about what I say in my A/N's and the story itself!
Honestly guys I just love the idea of Robbie being good at ice skating and I seriously hope I did this justice. I'm not sure if I got all the personalities correct so sorry if the characters personalities are off.
Also, I'm by far no expert on figure skating, or skating in general. I got most of my knowledge from Yuri on Ice! and Wiki so I'm sorry if something doesn't realistically work. If you know how to fix it without losing the feeling and emotion behind it let me know and I'll fix it. I've also tried looking up (in the past, like last year) what's been achieved in figure skating today but honestly I don't remember anything. I'm going to try and just keep it to Lazy Town characters so anything that's either done by someone else or not feasible or makes Robbie really really really really talented just pretend it's slightly above average and call it a day. I'm trying to make him impressive so don't call me out on doing just that unless, like I said, it just isn't feasible.
Also, for the first dialogue I decided to just write it like Tumblr posts so just read them with an air of sarcasm. I was in school for some of it so I was bored and it was amusing. I write for y'all as much as myself.
Anyway enjoy. ;)
Winter came early to Lazy Town, leaving the residence with a cold chill in the air and a fresh three inch cover of snow. The fall was cold to begin with, leaving the local pond with a constant thin layer of ice. Early on, when the pond first froze over, Ziggy had tried to walk out onto the pond to test if the ice was strong enough, only to get flooded winter boots and frozen legs for his efforts. Sporticus had given the group of kids a lecture on ice safety, making sure to give them alternative ways of testing the strength of the ice.
Ziggy, after changing his wet clothes and shoes, made sure to pay attention to the lecture. He'd found it particularly unpleasant to feel his toes go completely numb after only a few seconds in the freezing water.
The morning of the first snow, the children had gathered on the newly white sports field to share their excitement of the snow. Stephanie, after realizing that many people's driveways and walkways were now completely hidden, had got the rest of the children to agree to help out the rest of the town and clear the snow. Sporticus, who came down from his airship not long after the kids started their clearing task, decided to take it upon himself to plow the roads.
Meanwhile, Robbie Rotten, the town's local self appointed villain, was peeved at the constant scraping the shovels were causing to reverberate through his underground abode. Wanting to get away from the constant racket Robbie bundled up in his winter clothes and grabs a wool blanket before leaving his home through his hatch.
Thankful for snows natural ability to muffle sound, Robbie walks away from the town and toward the woods. Entering through where the dirt path usually is, though it's currently quite buried, Robbie sighs in relief when the constant scraping and grunting that accompanies shoveling snow from asphalt fades to nothing. Puffing out a steamy breath of air, Robbie tucks his hands between the folds of the blanket and hunches his shoulders, finding the air colder than he anticipated despite the snow.
Making sure to stay on the path, Robbie finds his legs taking him to the pond Ziggy had fallen into just a few weeks prior. Looking over the untouched bit of wilderness, Robbie finds a rare genuine smile gracing his features. Walking to the edge of the pond, Robbie sees that the snow left a slush on the surface of the water, the temperature somehow having risen enough to defrost the ice but still cold enough to just let the snow turn to slush. Sighing in slight disappointment, Robbie retraces his steps to a bench he'd passed to get to the pond. Swiping the snow from the seat and backrest, Robbie flicks out the blanket and sits on the bench, making sure to completely wrap his thin body in the itchy but warm wool.
Finding the atmosphere much more relaxing than he anticipated, Robbie relaxes completely with only the occasional sound of snow falling from a tree interrupting the silent ambiance. It's only after a couple hours does Robbie realize that he's slowly becoming colder and colder, prompting the man to retreat from the peaceful paradise to go back to his home to warm up.
Upon entering the town, Robbie can hear the tell tale sound of a snowball fight in full swing. Scoffing in irritation, Robbie quickly escapes from the chilled weather into his bunker only to groan in dismay when the stomping feet of those playing clearly sounds through the lair. Quickly whipping up a hot chocolate that is as much chocolate as it's marshmallow, Robbie finds his 'do evil' motivation overruled by his want to warm up. Dropping into his fluffy orange chair without spilling his drink, Robbie waits in a tense silence for the playing individuals to go inside.
Over the next few days Robbie finds himself going to the pond clearing more and more to get away from the exuberant children and blue sports elf. Unfortunately, it takes about a week for the pond to finally freeze enough to hold his weight without creaking, and an additional day for the center to do the same.
On the day Robbie finds the pond completely frozen a wide smile breaks across his lips. Finally. The man thinks, leaving his blanket on the bench only to return with ice skates. Unfortunately, during the twenty minutes it took for Robbie to go get the skates and come back, the children of Lazy Town and Blue Kangaroo had invaded the peaceful haven and started to ice skate.
Robbie, who had his old skates slung around his shoulders, stood in shocked disappointment at the sight. Watching Pinky teach Sticky how to balance while the other three chase each other, Robbie almost misses the call from Sportacus.
"Robbie," The athlete calls from the ice, his own pair of blue skates on his feet. "Come join us!"
Robbie, startled from his thoughts, blushes angrily before turning on his heels and walking back to his lair, forgetting his blanket in his haste to get away from the people who ruined his perfect plans.
It's a couple hours later when a knocking startles Robbie from his nap. Grumbling about people not being able to leave him alone and let him do as he pleases, Robbie makes his way up the tube to tell the person to go away.
Upon opening the hatch Robbie is greeted with a bundle of pink clothing.
"Hello! Is this blanket yours? I've been asking all over the town." Pinky asks, lifting Robbie's, surprisingly, plain grey wool blanket up for the older man to see.
"Yes, gimme." Robbie demands as he snatches the wool from Stephanie's arms. "Now run along and bother someone else."
Stopping Robbie from closing the hatch, Stephanie shouts for the man to wait. "I have a question!"
"What is it?" Robbie demands, feeling the cold weather seep into his clothing and through his skin.
"Earlier you had ice skates. Were you going to the pond to try and skate?"
Sputtering at the audacity of the girl, Robbie spits an angry but unconvincing "No!"
Stephanie, mistaking his tone for embarrassment, gives the town villain a reassuring smile. "It's okay if you don't know how to skate. It took me a few months before I was able to even go in a straight line without wobbling." Robbie, finally realizing what Stephanie meant by "try to skate," watches as a lightbulb turns on above the girls head and mentally resigns himself to the next predictable words from this pink girls mouth. "I know! I can teach you the basics!"
Robbie, having expected the proposition, gives the girl an over enthusiastic "Really?" To be truthful, Robbie can probably ice skate better than Sportaflop, and the last thing the Lazy Town villain wants to admit is that exact fact. Despite this though, Robbie really wants to ice skate this year, and if he has to act like a beginner to do so than so be it.
"Really!" Stephanie agrees enthusiastically, nodding her pink head in agreement. "It'll be fun! Meet me by the pond tomorrow at 8."
"Alright, goodbye." Robbie agrees and dismisses, closing the hatch in time to miss Stephanie's slightly startled expression.
Deciding to go to bed early, Robbie isn't privy to Stephanie telling the group about her and Robbie's plans tomorrow and their conversation. The group are shocked to learn that Robbie Rotten, the man who is never voluntarily seen above ground before noon, agreed to meet Stephanie not only before noon, but to do a sport!
With that as the last thing on the children's minds, they all say goodnight to each other and Sportacus before going to their homes for the night.
Robbie, who had woken up at 6 due to falling from his chair, was already at the pond with his skates on before Stephanie even woke up. He'd put on his alarm watch, which does just what its name says, and he'd set it for 7:30 to make sure he had plenty of time to get off the ice and to cool off. Currently, Robbie is working his way through a random routine he'd been thinking about as he waited for the ice to freeze.
Usually it would only take Robbie listening to a song three times before he has the basics of a routine, but with him spending so much time in complete silence it took him a lot longer. He wanted to encapsulate the atmosphere of the pond and clearing, the peaceful inviting nature yet harsh biting reality.
Unafraid of the ice breaking, seeing how many people were on it yesterday and that the temperature had once again dropped from -3 to -5 Celsius, Robbie indulges in warming up with a couple double loop and Salchow, before moving up to do triple loops and flips.
Feeling loose and warm from his jumps, Robbie decides to push himself and see if he can remember how to do his signature move. Gaining enough momentum, Robbie kicks off for a quadruple axel, the defining feature being his raised arms.
He was able to add the quad axel to his roster during his second year of competitive skating, it being his first quad to land in competition. Truth be told it was a bit of an accident, but after he landed it with only a bit of a wobble it was able to raise his final score enough to give him the gold metal. Since then he has made it his life's goal to be able to land each quad jump at least once, whether in competition or during practice. Luckily he was fortunate enough to be able to land all but the waltz, of which he plans to do before the end of the winter season this year.
Practicing the single waltz a couple times to familiarize himself with the steps, Robbie slowly makes his way across the ice before turning around and starting to do the double waltz back across the ice. Finding his double a little shaky, Robbie continues to practice it until he feels more sure about his ability to do the jump.
Pleased with the progress he made after a year of no practice Robbie lazily makes his way to the edge of the pond and plops down on the bank. Stretching his legs out, Robbie can feel a pleasing burn starting up both legs accompanied by an unpleasant stitch in his side. Pressing his right hand into the stitch as he breaths evenly, Robbie looks down at his watch as it starts chirping. After turning it off Robbie sets it for ten minutes before getting back onto his feet and kicking off the bank.
Doing a quick stretch to loosen the stitch in his side, Robbie pushes himself to one end of the pond before turning around. Now facing down the long way of the pond, Robbie strikes a pose for dramatics before pushing himself forward, allowing himself to gain speed as he performs a step sequence from his youth. Reciting the lyrics in his head, Robbie waits for the right moment before pushing off, attempting the quad waltz. As he's about to land he can tell that the take off was not strong enough to complete the fourth rotation, causing him to land with his landing foot at a cross angle to his momentum. Upon landing Robbie's skate slips out from under himself, causing his leg to shoot out in front of himself while his body drops like a stone. Hitting the ice butt first, Robbie lets out a delayed indignant squawk as he continues to slide across the ice.
Before his flagging momentum causes him to stop Robbie is already on his side to alleviate the pressure from his behind, only to flop onto his front to be more comfortable. Sighing in annoyance, Robbie makes the decision to just stay lying in the middle of the pond.
"Robbie Rotten?!"
Or not.
Lifting his torso off the ice enough to place his arms under his head, Robbie turns his face toward the incredulous voice and sees Stephanie. "That's my name," Robbie sneers, hoping the girl hadn't seen his epic fail. "Don't wear it out."
"But- you- how did you do that?" Stephanie sputters, frozen to her spot next to the bench.
Ah, she saw. Robbie thinks in mild panic. I got this. " Do what?"
Stephanie, who had left her skates on the bench, runs to the edge of the pond before replying with an annoyed puff of air. "You did a jump! And you were dancing! I saw it!"
"No you didn't." Robbie says with a convincing tone and a relaxed posture despite knowing that his secret is outed now. Besides, he wasn't an ice dancer, so he definitely wasn't dancing.
Stephanie huffs, before leaning her weight onto her right leg and crossing her arms, giving Robbie a "nice try" look and posture.
Robbie sighs before pushing himself onto his knees and than onto his skates. As he stretches his arms above his head, Robbie pushes away from his spot on the ice and over to Stephanie on the bank. Looking down at the girl as he passes, Robbie walks up to the bench before sitting to take his skates off.
"Wait, what're you doing?" Stephanie asks, having followed the man as he walked up the short incline. Stephanie, remembering every moment Robbie loses balance or had tripped over something obvious, watched in fascination as the lanky man easily walked through the snow to the bench in his skates.
"I'm going home." Robbie says in a "duh" tone of voice as he slips his right boot onto his foot. "I'm sure you want to go back and tell everyone my dirty little secret, so scram."
Shaking her head, Stephanie stomps her foot in agitation. "You said you couldn't skate! So how are you able to even attempt a triple waltz?" Stephanie demands grabbing Robbie's other shoe before he could slip his left skate off.
Huffing in annoyance at the pink brat, Robbie lunges for his shoe, only for the girl to hold it well out of reach. Going to stand, Robbie's left foot partially slips out of his skate and he feels the cold air start to freeze the sweat that had gathered in his sock. Plopping back onto the bench Robbie shoves his foot back into the skate before tightening the laces to keep the chill out.
"I wasn't trying to do a triple." Robbie mumbles, crossing his arms and hunching his head, looking quite like a petulant child. "And how do you know what a waltz jump looks like?"
Stephanie relaxes her defensive stance from when Robbie lunged forward, and moves to sit on the other end of the bench. "I had a friend who was training to be a figure skater. He taught me the differences between the jumps." Looking over at Robbie, Stephanie cocks her head to the side before asking, "If you weren't trying to do a triple, than did you over rotate on a double?"
Robbie snorts. "No, I was trying to do a quad." After hearing Stephanie's dramatic gasp Robbie rolls his entire head with his eyes. "I know, the easiest jump and I can't do the quad. I've done every jump but the quad waltz I'll have you know." Robbie points at Stephanie to emphasize his point, only to see the girls shocked expression. "What?"
"You can do all of them?" Stephanie repeats, awe and amazement in her voice. "Even the quad axel?"
"Yes!" Robbie shoots back, "Why don't you believe me? And I never said I can't skate, that was all you."
Stephanie blinks in realization, before adapting a sheepish grin. Robbie huffs again at the girls expression before holding his hand out for his shoe. Stephanie, who had it clutched in her lap with both hands, looks down at the foot wear before asking in a slightly shy tone, "If I can't teach you how to skate, can you teach me instead?"
After ten minutes of mindless back and forth of "Please?" "No!" between the two, Robbie finds himself back on the ice with both skates on along with Stephanie. Robbie had first demanded that Stephanie shows him how she glides along the ice, and after a couple minutes of correcting her technique he sent her to the edge of the pond to practice.
"But I want to learn how to jump!" Stephanie complained at first, but after hearing Robbie's horror story about a fellow skater who broke their ankle after trying a single waltz when they couldn't even glide properly she obediently went and started her circles.
Robbie, who fibbed slightly on the true identity of the person and the severity of the wound, followed her for a single lap before going to the center to do his own exercises. Making sure to keep Stephanie's location in mind, Robbie decides to forgo jumps and instead recreates an old routine of his, making sure to replace the jumps with simple twirls instead. Coming to a more emotional part of the routine, Robbie loses himself in the movements and completely forgets about the little girl gliding in front of himself, Robbie easily falls back into the motions and dramatically places a hand over his chest, before moving his arms as if to try and convey a deeper understanding of the performance than before. Pushing away from his spot, Robbie forgets to do a spin and, with great flourish, executes a perfect triple flip followed by a perfect double axel. Finishing the routine, Robbie giggles slightly as he hunches over to try and catch his breath.
Clapping can be heard to his right, and upon looking over Robbie sees Stephanie standing while she claps enthusiastically. "That was amazing! I can't believe that you figure skate! I mean, at first I thought you were an ice dancer but after watching that! Wow!"
Robbie, embarrassed that this pink pixie is impressed at one of his most bastardized routines due to the removal of the jumps, blushes brightly before straightening. "Well," he mumbles loud enough for the girl to hear, "I, uhh, thanks?" He finishes eloquently.
"You have to show the others!" Stephanie continues, not seeming to realize Robbie's discomfort. "I can't imagine what else you can do if you can do that!"
Robbie shakes his head emphatically, causing his hat to almost fly off his head and onto the ice, much to the man's annoyance. "I'm not performing for anyone! Not anymore!" Robbie waves his hands in frustration before slumping his shoulders. "Look, if you want to see me perform there's probably videos out there."
Stephanie, excited at the idea of being able to watch Robbie properly perform, starts rushing over to the bank closest to the bench. Robbie, expecting the girl to try and walk up the slight incline to the bench in her skates follows just behind incase she falls. Luckily, Stephanie was able to keep her balance and is now lacing up her winter boots. Looking over at the taller adult's skates, which are resting on the bench in between the two, Stephanie sees that the brand name isn't that of an English company. Picking up the right skate, Stephanie tries to read the name out loud.
"Glanni Glayper? Glanni Glapuhr? Glap- What?" Stephanie asks, turning the shoe so Robbie can see the stitching on the side, only to blink in confusion.
Robbie, who had just finished tying his shoes, was hunched over still and stifling giggles. After a second, the man sits up and looks at Stephanie before taking the skate back. "It- it says Glanni Glæpur. It's Icelandic." Robbie, after giving Stephanie this information, lets out a couple more giggles as he ties his skates together. Standing, Robbie slings the tied skates over his shoulders before walking away with a small wave over his shoulder and a "Meet me here tomorrow at the same time and I'll teach you spins."
Stephanie, after hearing this, quickly finishes tying her boot before springing up and over to Robbie, throwing herself around the man's waist and giving him a fierce hug. "Oh, thank you!" Stephanie exclaims at the same time Robbie squacks indignantly.
Later that night Stephanie had asked Pixel if she could borrow a computer for the night, or if she could stay over and use one. Pixel, excited to share one of his projects with a friend, happily gave Stephanie a wireless touchscreen computer that will be able to get signal from anywhere in town as long as you plug it in at night. After thanking the boy, Stephanie skipped home with the computer and its power cord in hand.
Settling down for the night, Stephanie grabs the computer from her end table and boots it up. Giggling when she uses her finger to tap the internet icon, Stephanie searches for 'Robbie Rotten', only to have a couple sketchy websites pop up. Huffing in annoyance, Stephanie tries 'Robbie Rotten figure skating' and actually gets something. There on the screen, is a picture of a much younger Robbie Rotten in a tight suit reminiscent of Christmas and with his hair longer and slicked back. The man's expression was one of happiness and excitement, and his arms are up in a pose.
Looking under the picture to where there's a chart of information, Stephanie sees that in the box designated for Robbie's name instead has the name Glanni Glæpur. Realizing that the name everyone in Lazy Town knows Robbie by is the English translation of his Icelandic name, Stephanie lightly facepalms herself before scrolling down to see the rest of the information.
According to the information, Robbie is now 43 years old, 6 foot 2 inches, Icelandic by birth, doesn't have any known significant others, has a missing father, a deceased mother, and was a professional figure skater who retired at age 29. Finding a link that'll take Stephanie to a website that is dedicated to figure skating, she clicks on it and is first greeted with another picture of Robbie.
In this photo, Robbie is off the ice and is standing next to a much shorter and older woman. She's dressed in practical wear for an ice rink, but still looks professional. Robbie, on the other hand, is wearing a blindingly pink trench coat with a pink fur lined hood skewed over his shoulder. The picture doesn't show what's under the trench coat, but a black fabric can be seen riding up Robbie's neck that has a strip of gold going down the right side. The two are smiling blindingly in the photo, and Robbie is holding up a bronze medal.
Scrolling down, Stephanie sees a short repeating video of Robbie, this one showing the rest of the black and golden costume by the looks of it. The outfit is like that of a royal, with the main color being black while the accents are gold. On the collar and scattered around his upper torso are patterns that look like dripping gold. On the man's head is what looks like falling shards of what was once a crown, the higher pieces being gold while the rest become more black as they go down his head. Robbie seems to be doing an amalgamation of slow dances, his movements graceful but with halting transitions.
The next short repeating video is of Robbie doing a jump in a different costume. This costume has the colors of a sunset, where the colors get darker the closer to Robbie's feet and lighter towards his head, making it look as if Robbie's head is the sun. He has red ribbons attached along his arms, and during the jump they twirl around the man's arms like fire. Stephanie notices that, along with having his arms up, Robbie had perfectly performed a quad axel.
Scrolling down, Stephanie starts to read about Robbie's skating career. According to the website, Robbie, or Glanni, had started professionally figure skating at age 22, and during his first year in the Worlds Skating Competition he blew away the first competitors with his emotional performances and semi difficult routines. He didn't make it to the finals due to not getting enough points in the competition before the semifinals.
Scrolling down slightly, Stephanie sees that the page is rather short for such a long career, and instead of long descriptions of his performances there are links to videos that can be watched. Skipping the videos for now, Stephanie finds a section labeled "Surprise Retirement."
According to the two paragraphs in the section, Robbie retired after winning gold at the Worlds. His retirement was mainly influenced by a medical scare that was never publicly disclosed and according to Glanni Glæpur, "It's not until they tell you that you might die that you realize how short life is..." The most speculated reasoning for both retirement and the reference to mortality is that Glanni was diagnosed with some type of cancer. After his last exhibition Glanni went back to Iceland to spend time with his three younger brothers and receive medical treatment.
Blinking in surprise at the whirlwind of information, Stephanie makes a mental note to ask Robbie about what brief information she read from this website.
Shutting the computer down and placing it on her end table, Stephanie briefly looks at her clock and sees that it's well after her usual bedtime. Turning off her lamp, Stephanie falls asleep only a minute later.
The next day, after falling asleep close to midnight, Stephanie slowly makes her way to the pond at the same time as the day before. Approaching the pond, Stephanie can see Robbie already skating to some unheard music. Walking to the bench, Stephanie sits down and starts to replace her winter boots with her skates when Robbie suddenly wipes out after a triple toe loop.
"You okay?" Stephanie calls, cupping her hands around her mouth to try and make her voice carry farther.
Robbie, who was still lying in the middle of the pond on his back, gives the girl a single thumbs up before letting his arm drop.
"Hi Stephanie!" Comes a sudden voice from behind the girl. Whipping her head around, she comes face to face with the towns local hero.
"Sportacus!" The girl exclaims in surprise, watching as the man flips over the back of the bench and lands butt first. "What are you doing here?" The girl asks not impolitely.
"Looking for you, of course." Sportacus informs, turning to face the girl before briefly looking over at the overly dramatic man on the ice. "Is Robbie alright?"
Stephanie, also looking out at Robbie, lets out an exasperated sigh before nodding. "Yeah, I think he's just disappointed."
Turning back to the girl, Sportacus has a questioning expression to go along with his question. "Why would he be disappointed?" Sportacus briefly looks out at Robbie before turning back. "Skating is difficult, even for me."
"And me," Stephanie agrees, "but Robbie is really good." As Stephanie speaks, Robbie gets back up from his prone position and starts making his way quickly around the pond, gaining momentum without any flourish.
The two on the bench watch on in fascination as Robbie, after turning to skate backwards, kicks off the ice with his free leg and instantly starts spinning.
One, two, three and a half turns later Robbie lands. Having landed facing forward, Robbie pitches face first onto the ice and only just moves his arms in time to protect his face. Coming to an abrupt stop, Robbie pounds on the ice once with a fist and an accompanying snarl before popping back onto his skates and taking off. Sportacus, who's crystal had chirped in distress at Robbie's fall, was about to run onto the pond right before Robbie got up, the superhero only just getting off the bench and being stopped by the purple man's angry expression.
"See," Stephanie says, a sad half smile on her face, "for some reason he can't do the quad toe loop."
Sportacus sits back down with a look of surprise and wonder on his face, the man unable to look away from the frustrated skater. "Wow, I didn't know he can do jumps."
Stephanie nods her head vigorously. "He can do all sorts of stuff! He was a professional Figure Skater back in his twenties! I think he won gold at Worlds once." Robbie, as Stephanie speaks, executes a double toe loop followed by a triple.
"What's Worlds?" Sportacus asks, his voice portraying his distracted state of mind.
"I'm pretty sure it's the next best thing to the Olympics for skaters."
Robbie, who once again tried a quad toe loop and only touched down this time, plops himself onto the nearest bank and took off his scarf and jacket, showing that he had a thin purple shirt underneath where its neckline dips slightly, and the sleeves only go halfway down his forearms. Taking a deep breath, Robbie swipes his still gloved hands under his hat, taking the headwear off in the process. His hair is gel free, and what is usually his pompadour is now flopping into his face.
Stephanie and Sportacus look at each other in concern for the lanky man, and through unsaid words Stephanie stands and makes her way around the pond. Approaching the sullen man Stephanie is able to get a good look at the man without his slightly bulky jacket, and can see that Robbie is quite thin despite his diet and it's obvious that he has much more muscle than he lets on. Walking up to stand next to Robbie, Stephanie can finally see that he's wearing wireless earbuds, and the music playing is loud enough for even Stephanie to hear. There's a constant drum, what vaguely sounds like piano, and a male singer.
Kneeling in the snow an arms length away from Robbie, Stephanie gently taps the man's shoulder to get his attention. Robbie, after jerking away from the unexpected contact, looks over at Stephanie while taking out his right earbud. "I am flesh and I am bone. Arise, ting ting, like glitter and gold." Can clearly be heard from the earbud before Robbie clicks a button on its side, seeming to pause the music or turn it off altogether. "What do you want, Pinky?" Robbie snaps, though his frustration is clearly written across his face.
"I think you need to do something else for a little while. Wanna teach me how to spin?" Stephanie holds out a hand for Robbie to take, an obvious invitation.
Sighing, Robbie nods and takes the girls hand, but instead of Stephanie pulling Robbie up the man quickly shifts to stand on his skates and pulls her up, much to her surprise. "Go put your skates on. I want you to do three laps around the pond as a warm up."
"Okay!" Stephanie agrees as she takes off for the bench, causing Robbie to finally notice the blue kangaroo.
"Hello, Robbie!" Sportacus calls when he sees that Robbie is looking at him, the two making their way to the bank between the bench and the ice.
"What are you doing here, Sportaloon?" Robbie grouches as he pulls his blade guards out of his jacket pocket.
"I was worried for Stephanie. We didn't see her all day yesterday and she wasn't home this morning when the kids went looking for her." Sportacus says as he watches Robbie put his guards on, the man somehow able to perfectly balance on his left blade as he puts the right guard on. "We thought she was here to teach you how to skate."
Robbie scoffs with a single chuckle as he switches feet. "Well obviously that isn't the case." Finally standing with both guards on, Robbie carefully takes the single step off the ice and onto the snow before walking up to the bench where Stephanie is still seated tying up her first skate. "If you're going to watch just be quiet about it." Robbie throws over his shoulder, snapping Sportacus out of his surprised staring at the other man.
Following Robbie up the slight incline, Sportacus can't help but ask, "You'd let me watch?"
"You'd give me a choice?" Robbie shoots back, looking over his shoulder before continuing. "You could just watch from your airship and we'd never know."
Sportacus shakes his head. "If you don't want me to watch than I'd respect that."
Robbie hums noncommittally. "If Pinky wants you to watch than I guess you can stay."
"You can stay Sportacus!" Stephanie shouts to the blue man, her skate now on and her other boot in the process of coming off.
Robbie, more annoyed that the girl was listening in on the conversation than her allowing Sportacus to stay, groans in despair before throwing his jacket onto the sitting girl, causing her to squeak out an indignant "Hey!"
5,500 words exactly for the story itself! Gotta say I definitely held back for this one seeing I usually wind up with 8k-12k and losing interest or the plot. I feel like where'd I left this off is really weird, but it allows for me to be able to pick it up at a different time or situation so I'm happy. Y'all also are now able to imagine what they wind up doing on the ice and Sportacus' reaction, so that's a bonus.
I didn't have Stephanie bring up literally anything that she read during the night because it would mean that I continued the scene, which I didn't want to do so I could get this out there. Keep reading and you can find out how you may be able to read that conversation! I sort of plan on writing it anyway but I want y'all to get the chance to ask for specifics.
Just to have the next notes make sense, I wrote most of them before I was even close to the last scene, so some things may be mentioned as if they're in the story when they're, in fact, not. I'm sorry for the confusing rambling you're about to read, I'm just too excited to get this out there to fix it and keep what I was trying to say make sense.
If you want this to be longer or to have something you want to see added in let me know and I'll do what I can! I want you guys to enjoy reading this and your suggestions can only help my writing. I have about seven years plus a bit of songs that he could have skated to, that is if the average number is two; one for the short skate and one for the free skate. I have another exhibition that I'd be happy to put in, but I wanted to actually post something after so long and not make this too long. Not that story length is a problem, it's just I have a perfectionism problem when it comes to my writing leading to things not getting posted.
If you want me to continue in this universe then let me know what you want to see specifically or if you want to see where I myself take this. Because I'm posting this on FF (obviously) any continuations of the universe will be posted as chapters instead of having a new book for each universe continuation. I say this because if I could post on AO3 I would just link them as a series. Basically, to simplify what I said because it's a little confusing even to me; each installment of this universe will be posted as a chapter in this book, and each installment is its own mini story. There won't be chapters breaking up a linear plot.
For anyone that wants a continuation, make sure to ask if you want SportaRobbie or not. I'll put the kids with the kids but Sport and Robbie will only be with each other if anyone. I seriously can't believe Sportacus and Stephanie is a thing that's shipped, because the age difference is sickening and it'll never be seen in any of my works other than to denounce it.
I got loads of songs that I'd love to put into this work so if anyone wants a thing done let me know and I'll try and make things work. If you have a song to recommend I'll definitely listen to it but I can't quite promise that I'll be able to work with it.
For anything that blatantly opposes what the TV shows Robbie is like or does, except for the fact he figure skates, I obviously took some liberties to make it all work. There's no way a figure skater could skate on a diet of sugar, so that's obviously something that had to be modified. Robbie would need muscle to skate and do many of his engineering projects, so he gets muscles. Obviously he's nothing like Sportacus, but it's noticeable. He'd also need flexibility to figure skate so he just over exaggerates. Anything else I did and didn't mention I'm sure you can figure out why I did it.
I plan to do another work connected to this one but for the summer where he swims and we get to see more about Robbie's everything, for lack of better wording. I'm going to try and keep skating in it somehow, though I'm not sure how. I plan on having some type of SportaRobbie, so look forward to that! I don't know how intense it's going to be, but I highly doubt it'll even get to the point of kissing because I'm projecting and I don't care for that stuff XD. I hope it'll be good because it's just an idea right now, so bare with me when it comes out.