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Like, who knew?

Judges would just pop out of nowhere, catch us off-guard, that by the time I even manage to register their existence, half of whatever the hell they were asking would have already flown over my head.

And they weren’t your usual 1+1 inquiries either. Almost all of them revolved around very specific scenarios, hypotheticals, designed to trip you up with no clear answer.

‘If a family member or your partner were both helplessly trapped in a burning building about to cave, who’d you choose to save?’

‘Say your partner confesses he had an affair in a prior relationship, but swears that they’d do right by you. Would you believe them?’

‘It’s movie night. Last slice of pizza in the box. Who gets it? And why?’

Rinse and repeat across the Christmas square, that I’d feel a dose of dread every time I hear something, anything, that sounded like the click of a pen. And that’s just me, Adalia on the other hand, unfortunately, perceptive and astute as she was, the nuances of a budding relationship were simply just not her cup of chocolate.

.....

Thankfully, it didn’t take long before we branched off from the main festivities, ending up instead converging on a denser, thicker forest of snow-baked trees.

According to the directions on the flier, we were coming up exactly into the right place for the current event, but… when I think ‘snowball volley’, I picture a big-ass snowfield, snow troopers, snow forts, snow trenches, all playing host for an intense exchange of snow pellets strewn from one end of the field to the next.

Basically, all-out war.

And if we were supposed to show our love with the blood of our enemies here… then, well, if history has ever taught me anything, it is that trying to fight a war in a lot of foliage and trees is a very bad idea.

Then again, maybe I’m just reading the name of the game wrong.

Hmm…

“What do you think we’re supposed to do here?” I asked my comrade-in-arms wrapped tightly around my arm.

But she wasn’t with me it seems, presently, mentally. No, those eyes of hers were gone from the moment, peering long and hard into the deep secrets of the universe, and I could only scarcely imagine what profound, existential thoughts were rousing in that head of hers.

“What is… love…?”

Truly riveting mysteries, indeed.

“A noun,” I replied, looking around elsewhere for any aid. “Okay, good. There’s a stall over there. We probably sign up there. Let’s go.”

I marched us forward toward the stall, a little wooden stand propped up right in front of an opening into the forests. Meanwhile, in Adalia’s little world of her own, it seems she wasn’t out of the woods just yet.

“If… I want the pizza… if I take it… without telling… you…” She blinked, her head falling sideways a little as if pushed by an invisible wave of gloom. “Would you… still love me…?”

“Yes, Adalia. I’d still love you.”

Waking up today, I never expected to ever have to reassure Adalia that she was actually, in fact, worth a lot more than me than a small slice of pizza but here we are, I guess.

“How about if I stole your pancakes from you without saying a word?” I said, pointing out the absurd logic. “Of course, you’d still love me just as much, right?”

She just blinked. She didn’t answer. Funny joke, Adalia. Good one. Yeah, I get it… such a stupid question, doesn’t even deserve an answer, right? We both know you would.

You would.

You would, right?

“Just barely made it!” exclaimed the lady-attendant by the stall, greeting us with a smile as we approached, jingling and tinkling in bright green as one of Santa’s little helpers. “You’re participant number ten! The very last! Must really need those points, huh?”

She laughed at that, and I wasn’t sure whether to chuckle away with her or not.

“You’re gonna have to wait for the other couple to finish first though. One at a time,” She said, and just then the sound of rustling and shrieking rippled out from deep in the forest’s depths. “But good news, sounds like they’re halfway there!”

“Halfway where?” I asked.

“Ah, right, you don’t know,” She giggled again. “Almost forgot. Let me fill you in on what you’re in for.”

As it happens, the wintry warfare I had pictured in my head was nowhere close to what the event actually was. It was far less complex, much more simple along with a single objective that was just as simple and easy to follow: reach the other end of the forest in the fastest time.

Except if only it really were that simple and easy…

“Along the way,” The attendant explained. “You’ll find the Grinch’s minions are on the prowl insides, and they don’t appreciate lovebirds entering their forests, and they’re armed and very, very dangerous.”

Then, from under her stall, she pulled out something small, round and very, very blue in her hand.

“Blue snowballs?” I said.

“Colored snowballs,” She corrected. “One for every color in the rainbow. But blue’s the one you really want to do your best to avoid. They’re rare, sparse, but get hit by even just one and that’s ground for immediate disqualification. You understand?”

There’s a one-hit KO mechanic? In a game where you’re already trying to weave and dodge objects moving at the speed of get-fucked? It’s like a freakin’ mobster designed this course or something.

“So your job,” She pointed a finger at us with a wiggle of approval. “The power couple as you are, is to get through the forest as fast as you can while also avoiding being pelted by balls as much as you can. Points will be measured by how fast and clean you are by the end of the challenge.”

Adalia quietly peered into the twisting, jutting murkiness of the forest clearing, and the slow swirl of her gaze is like she’s never been more present in the here and now.

“Fast… and… clean…” She turned to the attendant. “Winning will… prove our love…?”

The elf-lady beamed, ringing loudly as she vigorously nodded her head.

“Nothing says true love like a couple who’s always got each other’s back, in my opinion.”

And just like, the sluggish, despondent vampire was instantly reinvigorated. All prior setbacks nulled and voided. No need for blood, no need for rest—motivation was all she needed.

Noted.

A sudden crackle of static pierced the idle silence, and the attendant quickly took a radio out from one of her many pockets and held it close to her ear. A second passed, she slowly formed another smile, then a whisper, “The couple just got blue-ed. You’re all clear to go.”

We were led closer to the entrance, placed just right behind a big, bold line painted in the snow. The attendant took a step back, radio in hand and heaving in a lungful of air, gave us the signal to start in the most eloquent way possible.

“GO!”

To my shock and brief confusion, I realized that I wasn’t the one leading us this time. Zooming past the starting line, hopping over snowy bushes and obscured tree roots, hand-in-hand, Adalia pulled me along quicker and quicker.

The only sounds I could make out were my own panting breaths, the cracks and snaps of broken branches and twigs, all deeply muffled by the frigid whistling of the wind blowing into my eyes as we kept venturing deep in the vastness of the forest.

Then just as quick and abrupt, Adalia jerked us to a sudden stop, a wave of powdered snow rippling with our carried momentum across the earth. Thanks to all the franticness of the prior moments, I couldn’t make heads or tails as to which direction was forward.

“I think… I think we were supposed to be taking our time, actually…” I gasped, holding onto wobbly knees. “I don’t think anyone actually… just… just rushes through this whole thing, y’know? I mean we have to be careful too, remember?”

“Fastest… wins…” Adalia reminded, turning her head to a seemingly random branch-filled horizon. ‘And we will… win…”

She took hold of my hand again, and collecting what little I could of myself, we were off once again, hearing nothing but more brittle crunches and the brisk pace of feet plowing through the snow.

Eventually we hit our first snag—the deeper we ventured, the forest got denser—and little by little, our momentum slowed to that of a leisurely jog. Any faster and that’s me tripping over pretty much everything. And it was here I felt like dead weight.

If she didn’t have to accommodate me, I’ve no doubt Adalia would have cleared this entire challenge a hundred times over by the time it takes for the other participants to get through it just once.

Sure, you could argue that a Matriarch’s inherent speed and agility wouldn’t be fair game here. But since when was anything fair in love and war? Adalia certainly didn’t have a problem playing a little dirty.

It happened in an instant, as we walked, all I heard was a faint rustling, then out of nowhere—splat—an explosion of bright green crumbling down a tree in powdery chunks, and Adalia with her body arched back, her hair in a silvery cascade inches from the snow with her little Santa hat lying upside-down.

She… dodged.

“Three… hiding…” Adalia muttered, slowly curving herself back upright, fastening her hat back atop her head. “More… coming…”

And like prophecy, like inevitable fate in its reckoning, there was another audibly rustling, and this time I saw it—a streak of deep red coming right at me.

At the very last second, I manage to jump away, feeling the breeze on my cheek, an empty splatter resounding just as I regained my footing.

“Another…”

I heard it again, saw it again—but this time not quick enough. I couldn’t react fast enough. And all I could do was watch as the brightest blue blur whizzed straight toward my face.

My heart skipped, my breath hitched. In that one brief instant of a split-second, I had already accepted my face.

Then the blue ball exploded in the air.

I blinked, and the next thing I knew, I was staring at clumped, shattered pieces of blue snow laying before my feet.

Before any questions came, before the whats and hows of shock and awe could fill my head, the answer already came to me—Adalia. I immediately veered my eyes toward her and there it was, my answer, savior, personified.

Her hand was outstretched, and the white skin of her palm coated in powdery white with the snow at her feet with visible groovings of something sharp evidently being scraped across it.

“Did you just…” I blink at her, gaped at her. “Throw your own snowball just now?”

“Yes…”

I blinked harder, gaped wider. “And you managed to hit it mid-air as it was moving at that speed?”

“Yes…”

Then without a second to waste, Adalia grabbed hold of me again, her hand firmly grasped in mine.

“Cleanest… wins…” She reminded again, spurring us forward, the sound of determination and strength ringing clear in her soft whispers. “And we will… win…”