Here's my challenge version: I'm trying to do both 7 sentence challenges at the same time. That will probably mean being a little loose with the prompts, but I think it's honestly kind of easier to have more than one prompt to think about at a time!

This is effectively a totally original fic, but the characters are (I guess?) slight AU versions of the characters from... a different one of my original works (see the thorn twist in your side). That one's not finished yet, though, so I guess that won't mean anything to you yet!

(also they're probably like 13 here. I couldn't figure out a way to get that very specifically into the exposition because, you know, 7 sentence original fic is kind of limiting :P)

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1. road trip + salt

"I think this is sleet, actually," Carter says, cheerfully launching into a lengthy explanation of the differences between winter precipitation types and exactly how dangerous she thinks each ought to make a drive over a twisty mountain pass in a beat-up old station wagon. In the back seat, Shae folds her arms across her unsettled stomach, feet tucked underneath her, lulled by the rhythm of Carter's chatter-chatter-chatter interspersed with her dad's dutiful sounds of vague acknowledgement as he drives: "mhmm," "right," "'course, hun." 

It doesn't seem to her like it matters what this is, really—sleet, hail, freezing rain—because no matter what words you use to describe it, the result seems like it'll be the same: they're going to be crawling up and down the narrow lanes of state highway whatever-the-heck at what feels like fifteen miles an hour, the car's motor wheezing like an asthmatic, until they break down and freeze to death, or slide off the road and freeze to death, or... something else involving freezing to death (the possibilities really seem endless).

Shae had been nervous about her first ski trip—maybe she'd be terrible at it; maybe her friends would all leave her behind on the training slopes, laughing at her, and she'd have to just sit in the lodge and drink hot cocoa and sulk—but at this point a comfortable, stationary place to sit and not be carsick sounds like heaven, and she says a little thanks to whatever god might be listening when Carter finally gets a momentary bar of cell service and finds them a little log-cabin-hotel-thing just off the highway.

As they enter their room and knock the snow off their boots, Carter's dad says something about waking up and setting off as soon the trucks come through with with salt for the roads, but Shae has other things on her mind: insulation is not a strong point of rustic cabin construction, she discovers with growing horror, and she's soon tangling herself in the too-thin blanket of her double bed with all of her clothes on, trying not to shiver, insisting that she's—fine, really, honest—

"...Shae, silly, c'mere," Carter whispers, though, only a few moments after they turn out the lights, raising up a corner of her blanket.