#we went ice skating through the frozen lake behind the village down a path

[lwveless]

how i feel every single time i wake up from a dream

[frostbite-the-bat]

yk what? i need to calm down i got nervous after learning that my brother's coming over, so here i am explaining one of my Poll Stories...! the ice hell story! stepping into ice cold frozen water in the middle of a forest story! overlaping with yuri on ice (and steven universe iirc LOL) phases...! it's not what you'd expect it to be, trust

This is an old one, dating back to approx 2018 (maybe late 2017??) i would've been around 14 at the time i think :skull:

so, back then, my best friend moon and i would hang out together a lot. talk about fandom stuff going to school and going from school, as a queer nerdy middle schooler would. this would end up with us having the same fandoms. not super relevant, but still funny to mention.

one of our favorite past-school things aside from sleepovers and playing games online and chatting about dumb shit always was going on hikes with our dogs. (rip moon's dog, who will go unnamed here but i love you forever and so does bertie. you were the best.)

we both live right next to a forest and some cliffs, it's funky here. so we go hiking there! we go up the hill, past the cliffs and then into the woods. where we then head to The Fabled Lake. actually it's not quite as in "middle of the woods" as you'd think, the road is close by but you still gotta trek through the woods a little bit before you get there. lil' zig zag path. but it's still not like we were like. 5 km deep into the woods away from civilization lol.

then you gotta down a hill past a few buildings, all of which have woods behind them as well. it's almost like a village. down this path my friend lives and a little further in in a street is where i live. so getting home would take a while anyway but it's not a hike through the woods anymore. this is a bit of set up for y'all

so, let's get to the juicy bits! we are on one of these hikes, it's the middle of winter. we play in the snow with our dogs and listen to music. we talk about what i'd be able to do if i had star stable star rider. we talk about our hashtag favorite yuri on ice memes. we sing steven universe songs. all's well! having a good time! we're still paying attention but i can admit we were just slightly, slightly careless whenever we got too deep into our talks.

we jokes about skating on the ice because, Yuri On Ice Phase, and i recall distinctly that moon's mom told us to NOT GO ON THE FUCKING LAKE ICE. we didn't! we knew it would be less frozen over than last time. (where we actually went on it) (after throwing rocks and boulders and sticks to see how deep the ice is. it was DEEP. the last actually cold winter that was ACTUALLY WINTER that i remember. i love global warming.)

but we knew it's be a bad idea, we like messing around and we aren't so stupid to just go there. though, eventually we get to the lake and we chat by it. we always stop there and let our dogs play together. usually we let my friends dog jump in the water after a stick then carry it back. since she had pretty thick fur and is a big energetic dog, we let her into the water. she'd break the fairly thin ice like an icebreaker to reach her goal of The Stick.

i kept an eye on bertie since he is a small dog, and can't stand even in the shallow water. but as we chat - he went on the ice. he is small and light enough for the ice to not break under him, and he clearly just wanted to explore and get closer to my friend's dog. but with the nervous look on his face and his slippery paws, he seemed to know this wasn't the best idea. (and i did tell him to come back but bertie doesn't always listen)

there was a bunch of big rocks there so he tried stepping one. at first he was successful, but the rock was wet and icy and slippery. so he slid down - and with all the force the ice broke under him and he was unable to go back up.

i notice instantly and i freak out as i see him trying to climb out desperately. he was in deep enough that i couldn't just lean down and grab him. so. i had to step into the frozen, ice cold, way below zero, water, so i could grab him and save him from the ice.

when i got him i fell over on my ass and grabbed my shoe to take it off and get the water out as it was basically flooded. i ended up taking off my sock too since it was soaked in ice cold water and. wet socks aren't comfy, but freezing temperature is worse. maybe not the smartest idea, i don't know, but HOLY HELL it started stinging like a bitch.

bertie was okay, he was shaking and moon held him close for a while until he got a little better. he's got fur and he runs around so he can warm up better. plus he was definitely just shocked from what happened.

moon and i wondered what we do since i wasn't in the best state and.. we REALLY didn't wanna call our parents because we'd be in trouble for going on the ice, even if in my case it was to save my dog. we just knew we shouldn't have been too close in the first place. plus, the reception there was a bit fucky so we'd need to move a bit anyway.

eventually i managed to get up and we leashed the dogs and moon helped me hop out of the woods by holding me up. eventually, i felt nothing in my foot anymore, so i just walked normally. it was odd, it both hurt but didn't at the same time. i just had to power through until i got home. i am not sure but i mightve sent a text to my mom? i dunno, my memory is foggy.

so moon helped me get back home (and helping wrangle two dogs - but i took over bertie eventually) (i mind you the walk we take is a DOWNHILL ROAD. like we were going DOWN not a straight road so it took a bit more energy to Fucking Keep Balance) and i walked past dad on the street doing stuff and i just wnet "i savbed tghe dog from tghe ICe Water. im gogign home".

when i got home my mom made me tea and i tucked myself into bed instantly and got warm clothes. my leg ended up being okay but. holy hell it was scary. but after moon and i had a funny story to tell, and our friend group being into YOI at the time we kept fucking joking about it like :skull:

aaaaanyways! that's the ice hell story...! be careful around frozen water guys i'm serious