Snow Princess

Chapter 25: Do you trust me?

"You better not drop me!" I stressed to Roman as he lifted me up on his shoulders.

  It took us a little while to get onto this position in the first place. Well, only because we were bickering with Eros to not let us do it. I didn't know if I could do it and I didn't know if we would do it right. But Eros reassured that nothing would happen because he would be right there if anything did happen. He was quick on his feet and he proved that when I was struggling to get up on Romans shoulders. 

I suppose balancing myself wasn't going to be on any job applications anytime soon. But after help from Eros, I finally got up standing on Roman's shoulders. Roman had held my feet for support so I wouldn't fall. Now it was just a matter of jumping down vertically to the floor that I had to accomplish. I wasn't really excited for this part. I was actually nervous.

 I could think of possible scenarios that could happen but the one that kept running through my head was what if I face planted onto the ground and it messed my face up? I don't think that Roman would find me as pretty, if he does now, that he would after. My mind was racing as I looked to the floor and it didn't stop til Roman tapped on the bottom of my shoe. 

 I looked down at him as he was looking up. He gave me a sly smile and another tap on my shoe. "Everything's going to be okay. I'm going to catch you, I promise."

 I shook my head and smiled back. "Yeah, don't promise anything you can't keep." 

 Roman looked to me with an eyebrow raised. "Do you trust me?" 

 My smile dropped just then. Did I trust him? Here I was with thoughts running on how I was going to fall on my face but not once did I think of being caught. I looked back to the floor where I marked where I was going to jump and then I looked back to Roman. "Yes I trust you," I finally said. 

Roman looked back, smiling then nodded. "Then jump, I'll catch you." 

 I nodded back and looked up, closing my eyes. If I was going to jump I was going to do it with my eyes open. I took a deep breath before I heard Eros's low voice reach my ears.

"Whenever you guys are ready; though I must say you don't have much time till we begin the actual lesson." 

 I took another breath before Roman let go of my feet. In three short movements I was up in the air, flying down to the floor and Roman right there grabbing me and pulling me close to him. The adrenaline from falling and being caught was kind of like sticking your head out of a car window on a windy day. 

 I closed my eyes as Roman had cradled me near him. But I felt his hand go to my cheek, so I opened them to look at him. "You okay?" He whispered with his face close to mine.

 "I am now," I said as a small smile made its way to the corner of my lips. 

 Roman smiled and pecked my lips. "Good, I told you I'd catch you." That he did. 

 "Okay you love birds, come on, get up. We got to go over some simple and quick partner work before you guys can go get some rest." Eros voice was just above us. Roman and I awkwardly looked up but to our surprise Eros was smiling from ear to ear. 

 Roman smiled, scratched the side of his head before he quickly got up and offered me a hand. I took it without any hesitation and looked to Eros. "What exactly did you have in mind?" I asked with my head tilted to the side. 

 "Well it seems like you both know exactly what it takes to trust each other but now we have to make it seem like you hate each other." 

My eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. "Hate each other?" 

 "Yup, you heard right little princess."

 Before I could even think over what he just said, it seemed like Eros caught his own mistake as his eyes grew a little wide with realization.

"Both of you stand on the opposite sides of this field please." Eros directed with his fingers, now looking at the field we were standing on. 

I looked at Roman who was now walking to one side of the field without any questions while I stood there with many questions. I didn't ask them though because I didn't want to waste the time we had for the lesson. I made my way to the other side of the field, opposite of Roman. 

 "Good," Eros's voice boomed a little louder than before for both Roman and I to hear him. "Now, let's say you guys are fighting one day about who knows what but you guys want to go at each other's throats. What would you do Luna?"

 "I would try to work it out, no matter what, by talking about it," I replied.

 Eros looked at Roman after I replied and waited for his answer. 

"I would do exactly what Luna would do but I'd probably get air before I do that."

 "Hmm, well that's what I don't want you to do right now. Let's say something bad was happening in the middle of you to." Eros said as he put a big manikin in the middle of the field. "What if you couldn't work things out before this thing got into the middle of you both. Just imagine Luna, Roman cheated on you and you hate his guts for it. And Roman, imagine Luna left you without saying anything." 

Roman laughed. He probably did because of the time that I had snuck off and he found me. 

"I don't think that's a good example," Roman concurred. 

"Okay how about, imagine Luna wrapped around someone else's arms. Now you're extremely mad at her."

 "Wait Mr. Eros, what if I was forced to be wrapped around someone else's arms and Roman didn't really cheat and everything was just taken out of context?" I questioned. 

 Roman laughed as Eros glared at us both. "Luna, the whole point of this exercise is to get you mad at each other not try to compromise a situation that hasn't even happened. You can ask as many what if's if you want but the main thing is that you wouldn't have known because of the fact you guys haven't talked about it. So please, just pretend that you both don't know anything and you hate each other for it." 

 I nodded with understanding while I saw Roman smiling from the corner of my eye, which made me smile. We both knew that, that wasn't going to happen to us. 

 Eros shook his head. "I love that you guys have enough trust in each other, which is good but not for this exercise. Now back to what I was teaching. You guys want to tear each other's throats out and something is in the middle of you guys. Let's say someone trying to kill Luna." Eros looked to Roman. "How do you deal with the thing in the middle? Don't say anything, just act." Roman stood there, thinking while I stood there confused on how he was going to react. It could go two ways. He could just go around the thing and get to me or fight the manikin to save me but common sense would say 'why fight a manikin? It's a manikin?' I don't think Roman got the memo because he advanced forward and started crawl on all fours. 

I found it odd until he did some weird movement where he snapped the manikin's head off with his feet. I think I saw that in one Kung fu movie one time but I wasn't completely sure. When he was done he came running on twos to me and stood protectively in front of me. I just stared at his back as Ero's clapped. 

 "Good, now Luna it's your turn. Roman please go back to the other side as you were," He said this as he placed another manikin in the center, between us. 

 I looked at it, thinking of what I was supposed to do. I couldn't just copy what Roman did. I wanted to try it without having to copy so much of what he did. I strategized in my head the possibilities to overcome this obstacle but nothing was sticking. 

Roman could sense that I was having some unease towards this task and mouthed what I thought was "Feel it with your body." What did that exactly mean? Was I supposed to just relax my muscles and feel it? I suppose I could try that. So that's what I did. I closed my eyes for a brief second, taking a deep breath but what I thought would be my body moving towards the manikin, the ground under my feet started to shake.