Chapter Text
For Poppy Sweeting, rising star in British figure skating, her world on ice is a silent and solitary battlefield, defying gravity and chasing perfection. Elegance is her language, precision is her creed.
She is both her own teammate and enemy.
This is why now at the Lee Valley Ice Centre, London, Poppy feels catapulted into a parallel universe, where everything is (literally) screaming all but elegance.
Poppy has never watched a hockey game before, let alone in person.
Even the air, usually crisp and still during figure skating competition, is thick with the scent of popcorn and overpriced beers in plastic cups.
The skates of the players don't slide on ice with grace, but with purpose, with brutal force. Bodies slamming against each other and against plexiglass, all of this chaos only to chase a tiny black puck.
A complete antithesis of her world.
The game started ten minutes ago and there hasn't been a second of silence. Poppy can't even hear the skates scraping or the sticks cracking against pucks because the crowd screams with raw and unbridled energy. She is sure she will have a headache after this match.
Honestly speaking, Poppy feels like an anthropologist observing a foreign, peculiar tribe.
At her right side, her friend Adelaide Oakes matches the chants, waving a yellow foam finger, already halfway through her second beer.
Poppy feels a sympathetic joy at seeing her friend with this enthusiasm. It's been almost two years since Adelaide collided badly on the hard ice during a regional competition, fracturing her right ankle.
After the injury, Adelaide got her head into everything: baking, knitting, astrology and most recently, she converted to hockey.
Poppy is really happy that her friend keeps her mind occupied with other things , but hockey? It looks like a quarter-life crisis random choice.
“How you convinced me to come here is still a mystery, Addie,” Poppy leans into Adelaide, almost shouting over the roars of the fans, gesturing vaguely at whatever chaos is happening on the ice, "I don't know any rules.”
“It's not like I know every rule!” Adelaide shouts back, her eyes fixed on the play, “Just clap when we score!”
And by “we,” Adelaide means the home team, the London Lionesses, or “the ocher yellow team” if you're Poppy. The other team, the Edinburgh Vipers, wears a petrol green jersey instead.
“Besides,” Adelaide says after downing her beer “Who doesn't love seeing a bunch of strong women scoring and fighting?! Women's sports need support too!”
“And I agree on that, I really do!” Poppy replies, raising her voice when the Lionesses’ fans, including her friend, groans in unison as the goalie of Vipers has just made a save, “but I still don't understand a thing!”
Her last sentence is drowned by another crowd's roar and a goal horn blaring, but this time because the Lionesses have scored, the big screen above their head flashing 1-1.
Someone behind her screams “Let's go, Natty! Let's go!”
Poppy claps dutifully, even if she has no idea who Natty is and how she scored. Adelaide beams. “See? You are getting it!”
“Sure I am, ”Poppy snorts with sarcasm, taking a sip of her own now-lukewarm drink.
The chaos seems to intensify when suddenly two players - one in yellow, the other in green - slam into the plexiglass divider with such force that it makes the barrier shudder. Poppy winces at the impact, as if the shockwave has reached her.
Adelaide and the fans, however, shout in approval. That only confuses Poppy even more. Why such violence? And why does everyone seem to enjoy this?
Poppy can't resist asking, “Explain to me again why they are all crashing into each other.”
“That's called checking!” Adelaide explains, “It's part of the game!”
“Is it? That looked rather personal.”
Adelaide lets out a loud laugh. “Oh no, it's normal! They're even best friends!”
Poppy blinks. “Best friends?”
She watches the two players separating as the referee whistles. The one in green taps the butt end of her stick against the helmet of the other player, a gesture that even to Poppy's untrained eyes, seems more friendly than defiant.
Adelaide points the player in green. “That's Imelda Reyes, the Vipers’ captain. She's dating Onai. Natty, the one who scored. And the one Reyes has just checked is Vittoria Lewis. Number seven.”
Poppy has only a few seconds to read the name Lewis and the number seven imprinted on the ocher jersey before the aforementioned player turns and skates aggressively to the opposite direction, stealing the puck from the rival team.
She observes Lewis for the rest of the first period. Even from the stands, the Lionesses' number seven radiates a terrifying intensity. Lewis moves on the ice with a sort of predatory grace (even a figure skater like Poppy could call it ‘grace’), her stick like a lethal weapon in the hands of someone so fierce and ruthless.
Lewis maintains her alluring powerfulness even when the referee whistles to announce the end of the first period, returning to her team's bench.
She doesn't look winded nor tired. She looks ready for more.
“She is… intense,” Poppy finally comments, not finding any better word to describe her.
“She is, isn't she? But look,” Adelaide pulls out her phone, opening Instagram. When she finds Lewis’ profile she shoves the screen into Poppy's face. Poppy takes her friend's phone to scroll the Lioness’ profile.
A few photos show her with her team's jersey, with and without the helmet, with her hair tied in a high bun and a straight scar running through her left eye and eyebrow.
Obviously Poppy expected this kind of photo. What she didn't expect are the photos of Lewis with thin, black round glasses and a soft smile, eyes closed and the face tilted up to enjoy the sun. One with a guy, who apparently has broken his frontal teeth. “This one is hilarious!” Adelaide comments with a laugh, “Broken teeth is a common thing in hockey! Hisui,” she taps on the guy gap-toothy smiling, while Lewis is next to him, laughing hysterically as she points to the gap, “broke his last season. Read the description,”
That if a beatiful fmile, Jaimfen!
Poppy can't resist laughing a little at the comical incident. Poor guy, I hope his dentist bill wasn't too expensive!
Another one is Lewis with friends, the table full of pizzas and half-empty drinks. There are several more with teammates or friends, showing that Lewis is quite social. Another one - on which Poppy lingers more because she loves animals- with a brown puppy, a Jack Russell Terrier, the description saying “Coffee Bean when he was as small as a coffee bean” with a crying emoji.
Poppy looks up to the player sitting on the bench, shoulders hunched and her legs bouncing, eager to enter the ice rink, then back at the woman in the photos with the most golden retriever energy Poppy has ever seen in a person.
She looks at Adelaide, who is already giggling at her confused look, “Is it really the same person?!”
“She is!” Adelaide confirms, taking back her phone, “She's a shark in the aquarium! But off ice? A total sweetheart!”
What the hell does she mean by aquarium? is the first thing Poppy thinks, then she just assumes Adelaide was referring to the rink.
In the second and third period, Poppy finds herself tracking number seven more than the puck, as if pulled by some gravitational force. She doesn't know why, maybe because she saw a glimpse of her private life.
She watches the way Lewis skates - aggressive, of course but with the same confidence that reminds her of her own skating. It's just a different language.
The game ends with 6-5 for the Lionesses. As the Lionesses fans around her cheer for the victory, Poppy watches the two teams, who just a moment ago were fighting without mercy, lining up in the center.
The Lionesses and the Vipers exchange handshakes, back-pats, even quick hugs. Lewis and Reyes hug like they haven't seen each other in a long time (and definitely as if they hadn't earlier plastered each other against the glass barrier).
It is a strange, yet compelling display of sportsmanship. The brutality, the body slamming, the fight, the relentless pursuit of the puck – it was all part of the game. Once the buzzer blares, the battlefield dissolves, quickly replaced by a mutual respect and friendship (and apparently even romance, since Reyes and Onai are retreating to the locker rooms hand in hand).
Lewis is the last one to leave the ice. She skates towards a young girl, perhaps five or six years old standing next to the plexiglass barrier, a homemade sign in her hands. The Lioness shows her the puck in her gloved hand then, with a gentle flick of her wrist, she throws it over the barrier.
She grins when the excited girl catches it, clutching the treasure to her chest. Her parents beam thousands of thanks at Lewis, who nods before finally disappearing into the tunnel leading to the locker rooms.
Only Adelaide's question makes Poppy turn from the joyful scene. “So, what do you think now?”
“I certainly still need to understand a lot about hockey, but you're right.”
“About what?”
Poppy doesn't even try to hide her mischievous smirk. “Who doesn't love to see a bunch of strong women scoring and fighting on ice?”
Adelaide erupts in a loud laugh, wrapping her arm around her friend's, “Girl, I knew it!”