Deep snow continued to fall as chunky flakes in the vast alpine forest. Everywhere you looked the world was covered with a thick layer of white powder that chilled you to the bone. There was nary an animal in sight with the rare sighting of wildlife marking a special occasion. Hunting in this environment certainly wasn't easy, especially with the wolves seeking the same prey. Thankfully however this wasn't the reason we were up here on the side of the mountain today.

A long time ago, around a full year now, I had promised my close friends the Deuiden family that I would teach them about skiing. They were well aware of how sleds were used as they used them extensively in the winter months for transporting things like firewood and food. The concept of skis however was something nobody around here had any real reason to think of. Their invention was more inclined to happen in areas with longer exposure to snow after all. Snow shoes were something these people were aware of but even those were not widespread.

It was a wonderful winter day up here on the forested slopes of the Henjuk Mountains. Or at least as pleasant as being out in the wilderness among the bitter cold snowdrifts could be. The inherit dangers of such an environment was completely negated by the fact there was an actual goddess around though so safety wasn't actually a concern. Our little group was composed of myself, Miya, Elentra, Duncan, and Tromly. They were all wearing suitable clothing and had small meals packed away with transportation to and from this remote local being handled by me.

We trudged up another small hill and through a small patch of bushes until the actual slopes of the mountain proper came into view. They were truly a wondrous sight and made us all stop to take it in. Just vast blank ridges covered in white that were only interrupted by small cliffs and sparse trees. This was the perfect place to practice with skis as it wasn't too steep and we could pick out short slopes that ended safely at the entrance to the actual forest.

This location was also important as when people are learning how to ski they are going to fall down quite a lot. You want to have the lessons in a place that is safe enough for that kind of thing. Here there were no trees to smash into and not many sharp rocks to poke up out of the snow. Even though I could just heal any injury instantly its much preferable for them not to go through the pain at all. These were my friends after all.

As the family of humans finished gawking at the pretty landscape of the mountainside I turned to see Miya walking up to me. Like the rest of them she was in heavy boots but her thick fur coat was lined with special fur tufts. She looked quite cute all things considered and now that she was becoming more well known in the kingdom there would be no end to her suitors.

“Hey Jenna?” Miya asked with a questioning tone. “Are you sure this a good place for this? It just seems so empty.”

I giggled a little and turned around with a smile on my face.

“That's exactly why its a good place silly! Nothing to run into!” I turned to look at the rest of her family. “We can end up going quite fast and you don't want to hit anything at those speeds.”

Tromly was only slightly taller than I was so he was struggling to get through the snowdrifts at times. He was firmly refusing to be carried by his father though as he wanted to prove himself a man by toughing it. Normally he wouldn't have been able to make it this far due to being tired out but he was sneakily following directly behind me. As a goddess my strength allowed me to just plow through the snow and left small trenches for him to travel through.

Seeing me come to a stop Tromly did as well, mostly to avoid having to force his own trench out. He had also been staring at the vast mountainside with awe.

“Its so huge!” He gasped. “Even bigger than you are goddess!”

Elentra sighed and smiled. She had been following in her husband's footsteps but came to a stop next to her son.

“Now dear.” She said lightly scolding. “That's not good manners, comparing someone's size like that.”

Tromly looked down with a hint of sadness.

“I'm sorry goddess Jenna...”

I just smiled and shrugged.

“It's fine. I'm actually fine not being the size of a literal mountain. That would be such a pain in the ass.”

Miya walked past me and placed her right hand on top of my head, rubbing my hair a little bit and causing me to blush.

“It would surely make it hard to interact with us mere mortals without crushing us wouldn't it?”

There was a certain degree of sarcasm to her voice as she teased me, something the rest of her family had not felt comfortable doing yet. That was fine with me as I only really felt happy with Miya specifically acting this way with me.

Duncan had walked a short distance away from us to the west, his gaze going up and down the mountain slopes. He was no stranger to the outdoors and had probably even been to this area of the mountain before. After looking over the slopes he turned back to face me.

“If this is the spot we might as well get this underway.” He said as pragmatic as ever. “It may be morning now but daylight wont last forever.”

The rest of the family turned to look at him and I sighed with a shrug of my shoulders. I could tell his wife was going to say something to reprimand him so I got ahead of her. With a single jump I leapt from where I had been standing to an area far in front of the family, about a hundred feet away.

“Well before we can start I need to do just a bit more preparations. Just stay there for a couple minutes alright?”

With the whole family agreeing immediately I went through with the final step before the skiing lessons could actually start. In the age I came from the slopes people used at actual facilities were prepped to make them even safer and that's what I was about to do. Now that I was far enough away from the humans I grew to my full goddess size and began digging a large trench up the slope we were on. All I did was dig my left foot into the snow and scrape it along the ground, my gigantic boot like an excavator that made a ten foot wide ditch with a very compact snow bottom. This was perfect for walking on.

Once that was done I dug another trench at the top of this slope, a few hundred feet up it anyway, and then used my hands to smush the snow down into a little ramp so that it was easy to climb out of the walkway and onto the snow itself. As I walked around my footprints were making their own messy craters but they were so far out of the way it didn't matter. Then after I had completed all this I changed back to human size and pulled a pair of skis and poles out of my pocket dimension.

“Alright everyone!” I called down the slope to the family. “Here I come!”

Quickly I bent down and slid my boots into the skis, strapping myself in and standing up with the poles on either side. It had been a very long time since I had done this so I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. The last thing I needed was to make a fool of myself in front of everyone.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Now properly prepared I dug the poles into the snow and pushed myself off. The skis slid over the fresh snow like a knife over bread and I felt myself wobbling around quite a bit. Thankfully I was able to keep my balance, though even with a slope this short I was picking up more speed than I had expected. Within moments I was almost at the bottom of the hill and aiming right at the family.

“Woaah!” I yelped.

Stopping had always been my weak point when it came to things like this. My speed had to have been at least twenty miles per hour and with my trajectory taking me right at Miya I panicked and dug my poles into the snow to brake. This resulted in me twisting to the left and toppling over. I lost my grip on my poles and one of my skis went flying off to the side as I tumbled through the snow.

After only a short distance I came to a stop face first in a heap of arms and legs. One ski was still attached while the other slid up and hit me in the butt causing me to grunt. This whole blunder would have left me covered in bruises had I been human but as a goddess all it had done is assault my ego.

There were gasps of concern from the two adults while their son jumped and waved his fists in the air clearly excited.

“That was amazing!” Tromly cried.

Miya trudged over to where I lay face down in the snow and leaned down over me. She then offered her hands to me to help me stand up.

“Goodness! Are you alright?”

She knew I was unharmed but was still showing concern out of her kindness. I accepted the kind gesture and grunted while she lifted me to my feet. By the time I was standing my face was beet red and I was trying to avoid eye contact. After a moment I stepped backwards and cleared my throat.

“Well um...” I said shyly at first but then with a loud and firm voice. “That's how not to do it alright? Falling over: not the goal!”

Duncan couldn't help having a large grin on his face that he was desperately trying to hide. He walked over to where Miya and I were standing with the rest of his family following behind.

“Well I can clearly see why you wanted someplace so out in the open.” He said. “Hitting a tree like that would certainly leave dangerous injury.”

I quickly brushed the powder off myself in an attempt to recover my dignity. While I did so I replied and began my instructions.

“Right! People can die doing this so even though we're doing it for fun you have to be careful.” I snapped my fingers and my other ski and poles floated over to me. “I suppose we should just start down here with balance and moving straight before going for an actual hill.”

Miya nodded and took a step back from me as the items floated over to me.

“That sound good. We're ready when you are!”

With conformation coming from the others, especially the overly excited Tromly, I pulled more gear out of my domain through a portal. There was a set of skis and poles for everyone with an additional warm helmet complete with visor. While I passed out the equipment to everyone I explained what it was all for.

“These are the skis, poles, and helmet. Obviously the skis go on your feet and you use the poles to push yourself along the snow. You want to be sure you can grip them tightly enough with your gloves.” I saw that Miya had already put her helmet on and wobbled as if she was losing balance. I quickly stabilized her with my right hand. “These helmets are to protect your head. You'll also notice the visor that makes your vision look orange. That's to protect from sun glare. Ya'll have already been squinting due to the light bouncing off the snow into your eyes. I don't have to explain that phenomenon to you though you've experienced it enough in your lives.”

The others tried on their helmets now and had various degrees of surprised reaction from seeing the visor in action. These helmets were very important for their safety and I had hopefully made them comfortable enough.

Duncan grunted as he looked around with his helmet on.

“Very handy this.” He commented. “The orange coloration will take some getting used to though.”

Tromly was having difficulty with his and had fallen over due to losing his balance.

“This is dumb! I can't even see with everything orange!”

I sighed softly and walked over to crouch down in front of him in the snow. Then I reached out my left hand and flicked him on the helmet with just enough force to make him topple all the way over on his back.

“Well too bad little guy!” I said with a giggle. “This helmet is important to protect your eyes from snow blindness. You don't want to go blind do you?”

Elentra gasped in shock and clutched the helmet to her head.

“S-Snow blindness? Is that real goddess?”

I stood up and left Tromly to pick himself up off the ground which he did with little difficulty. While he did that I walked over to where Miya was again and addressed the question.

“I mean its not permanent blindness.” I replied. “But it is dangerous to wander around in the snow for hours at a time. You might not think it but the snow is reflecting the sun up into your eyes just like water does. That much light beaming straight into your eyes nonstop all day can cause some real damage.” I then turned to Elentra. “You wouldn't look into the sun would you? Same thing.”

Elentra nodded and gulped nervously.

“No goddess...”

Duncan reached over to take his wife in his arm for a moment.

“We will be fine dear.” He reassured her. Then he turned to me. “Thank you for these protective helmets goddess.”

I nodded. “No problem! Now lets get these skis on shall we?”

Miya had already been putting hers on and while she had gotten her feet strapped in they were done incorrectly. She was standing up seeming to be proud of her work.

“Like this Jenna?”

I walked over and looked down, noticing they were wrong right away. With a smile I bent down and started redoing the straps so her feet were correctly tied down.

“You need to do them like this.” I explained while I worked. “If you have your feet strapped in its going to do more harm than good.” Once I was done I stood up again with my hands on my hips. “There like that.”

“Oh thank you...” She replied absentmindedly while studying the new setup.

I then bent down and picked up her two poles and handed them over. She was wobbling around still and I waited a few moments until she was comfortable.

“Why don't you push yourself around in the area?” I suggested. “It's like walking but with your feet on the ground. You'll get it. While you do that I'll help the rest of your family get ready. Just yell if you can't stop ok?”

Miya nodded to me with a look of determination behind her visor.

“Yes ma'am!” She said in a serious voice.

With her focus dialed in she then pushed herself away with her poles. She was still quite wobbly and almost fell over a couple times but was seeming to get the hang of it pretty quickly. I left her to practice while shifting my attention onto the others.

The two adults had also tried to put their own skis on but had done them wrong. Not that I could blame them as they had never even seen a pair of skis until today. It didn't take long to help them get them correctly strapped on, though Elentra wanted to pass on skiing for now to better help her son. I offered to help him instead and took my own skis off. That was satisfactory enough for the worried mother. This experience was for her too after all.

Tromly was understandably the one who had the most trouble with his equipment. However having a goddess as a teacher was a great boon, even if my own sense of balance wasn't entirely perfect. I ended up having to walk alongside him for most of his time on his skis which was fine with me. This was all about them having fun. I could go skiing whenever I wanted.

So we spent the entire morning and much of the day, just the five of us sliding around this large slope on the mountainside. At some point I got to get back on my own skis but I didn't have much more success than they did. It had been many years since I had done this after all. While my failures were embarrassing its not like I had anything to worry about. These were the humans I trusted the most and I felt safe enough to be ok with them witnessing me failing.

Most the morning was just us practicing on the flat area scooting around. Eventually we stopped to eat some lunch with a fire provided magically by myself. After that it was attempts at the slope itself. I had carved out launch points at various heights along it by this point as the entire thing was a bit much for beginners. Surprisingly however it was Elentra who ended up with the most proficiency by the end of the day. The humble mother able to take the slope from top to bottom without falling.

Once it hit mid afternoon the sun began to go down, the short days of winter an endless source of disappointment. When the light thus started fading I collected everyone and teleported us directly back to Doovlin through a portal, one of the many perks of being friend with a goddess. Everyone was exhausted by the end of our little trip but they also had lots of fun. They even wanted to try doing it again sometime in the future and I told them I'd see if I could fit it in.

Such fun little excursions were indeed rare for a goddess with as much responsibility as me. It was important for me to spend time with those I cared about most however, if for no other reason than my mental health. I was truly lucky to know a family as special as them and I was very thankful to have met them. One never knew what kind of crazy things would happen in the future and having a grounded element like them was amazing.