Moonfall

The castle was further away and bigger than either of them imagined. They were still on their way when Katie saw the first hole appear in the snow ahead of her, a coin impacting into the ground.

“Frankie!”

It came slow at first, tokens hitting the roofs of houses and entering the ground a few times a second. Then, just as they took to the front of the castle, alongside many other participants, it began to pour.

“Get out the net! Get out the net!” Frankie shoved her hands into their bag before setting it down on the cold ground to hold their creation.

They sure were grateful for the helmets. Even as the spread out their tool of choice, metal was dropping onto them like a hail of bullets.

“It’s working! It’s working!”

The net started growing heavier as their plan succeeded. Others nearby, envious they hadn’t thought to do the same or wondering if they had enough time to make their own, stared at the sisters as they caught token after token like shooting fish in a barrel. Some had buckets and some had bags, but nothing else seemed to work quite like a nice, big net.

It became pretty easy at that point. Both of them had been preparing for a final test, and here they were dancing in circles letting their net fill up on its own. They didn’t even need to move anywhere thanks to the equal precipitation and decently open space. If anything, most of their competition was moving out of the area, seeing how pointless it was to compete against their duo.

Soon enough, the trial became fun. Little more than an entertaining mini-game that their dreams just so happened to be riding on. They found that, as their worries slipped away, they only did better at the job, moving in perfect synch with their eyes to the sky as they caught each and every coin they feasibly could.

“Left!”

“Right!”

“Over there!”

Eventually they were both laughing through the entire challenge. The net got so heavy it was touching the ground, their hands were freezing and their legs ached from the back-and-forth exertion- but they were doing as well as they possibly could, and having a damn good time doing it.

By the time the rain of prizes started to slow, they’d forgotten all about why they were doing this. They were just sad to see it come to an end.

Frankie panted. Katie fell into the snow.

Between the two of them, at the end of the event, was a large net of so many tokens they’d need to spend all night counting them.

“That was… amazing.” Breathed the younger sister.

Katie nodded.

Once she’d caught her breath, Frankie stretched and folded their handcrafted net. It was a tad heavy for sure, but they were just small coins at the end of the day. It made a crinkling, rustling sound as she lugged it around back to their bag.

While Katie laid making slow angels, Frankie walked around back to where they’d started, wherever that was. She found herself walking for a long while.

“Something wrong?” Katie asked. Frankie nodded, slowly. Something was wrong. But what?

She stopped focusing on the ground and took in the entirety of her surroundings. A few other opponents, scooping paltry amounts of coins off the ground and digging them out of the snow. A few kids. Some people on the rooftops collecting everything that fell there. The castle. A lot of personal belongings other than theirs. Plenty of white, empty snow.

“Where’s our bag?”