Masked (A Hat In Time)

Distant

Fun fact: I have a vaguely thought-out plan for the plot of this book. Like, I know the big events, and I know what I want to happen. But I never planned out the dialogue or the smaller things in this story. Every chapter you've read so far I made up as I typed. I'm kinda ad-libbing here. I don't have a fully fleshed-out plan every chapter.

And I don't even have the end of this planned out. Yes, I know what happens, I know the consequences...but what about after that? For some reason, I haven't been able to come up with a satisfying end.

So anyway, the original plan was to only have two OCs in this book. But who knows, there might be another.

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Hat Kid settled smugly on top of the ice structure. Like Jaide's home, the top was strangely cylindrical, but there were lots of large ice spikes. She'd spent a few minutes climbing up the ice spikes until she'd found two of them that made a nice bench-like shape. Hat Kid folded her arms behind her head, admiring the distant view. It was nice to relax now that she'd collected the timepiece.

"Hey." Bow Kid's head popped up as she emerged from below. She shot Hat Kid a questioning glance. "Where's Outlander? I thought you two were racing." She paused. "I did see him fall..."

Hat Kid grinned.

"I didn't fall!" The Outlander clambered out of the hole behind Bow Kid indignantly. His eyes narrowed, and he jabbed a claw at Hat Kid. "You pushed me!"

Her grin only grew. "Ooh, someone's salty!" she exclaimed, sitting forward.

The Outlander hissed, his tail lashing angrily behind him. "Of course I am!" he snapped. "I would've had that race in the bag if you hadn't pushed me! You cheated!"

"Cheated?" Hat Kid asked. "We didn't establish any rules for either race. There was no rule saying I couldn't push you, so that wasn't cheating."

The Outlander's eyes narrowed. He was silent for a long moment. His tail flicked against one of the ice spears jutting out of the ice cave. "Fine," The Outlander spat out, his voice low. "You. Win."

He strode over to an ice spear and ducked underneath it. A moment later, he melted into the shadow it cast. Hat Kid turned in surprise as the Outlander emerged again right next to her from the shadow she cast. "Oh wow," Hat Kid said. "If you wanted to win so badly, why didn't you just shadow-teleport to the top right away?"

The Outlander shot her a glare. "Because I didn't want to cheat." He sat down next to her.

Bow Kid clambered up the ice spears and sat down too. She looked out over the horizon.

The three of them sat in pleasant silence for a long moment. Right next to her, Hat Kid could still feel the Outlander fuming. Wow, did that race really mean that much to him? Or was he just a sore loser? Maybe she shouldn't have pushed him. At the moment, all she felt was adrenaline, excitement, and something boiling inside of her, telling her that she couldn't lose to him no matter what. At the time, seeing the Outlander's face of bewilderment and anger was fun when she'd first pushed him, but now, she was starting to feel horrible.

She shot a sideways glance at the Outlander. He ignored her, but one of his ears flicked back in annoyance. Yup. He was definitely still mad at her.

"I'm sorry, okay?" Hat Kid asked. She frowned. She didn't sound sorry, did she? She tried again. "Sorry," she said, sounding more sympathetic this time. "I wasn't thinking. It was just a spur-of-the-moment action."

The Outlander glanced at her, his eyes considerably less narrow than earlier. He considered her, curling his diamond-shaped tail closer to him. "I accept your apology," he said stiffly.