"They tested fine," I say."But they don't say anything.They're not alive."
I get up and grab a whiteboard marker.There's no plan, just instinct.I start sketching circles and arrows, words that haven't fully formed yet.I draw a finish gate, then slash it out.
"We don't sell medals," I say."We sell that moment your spine lights up because someone just took a risk.That breathless second before the gate.The seven-year-old in ski school who sees a racer fly and thinks, I want to be that."
Dominik sighs the way only a man in performance fleece can."You're not wrong.But this isn't an ad agency.It's a national team.Let's not get… poetic."
I open my mouth, ready to push back—but a voice cuts in from the corner.
"What if poetic's what sticks?"
I freeze.Turn.
Thomas.
I hadn't even noticed him come in.
He's slouched backwards on a folding chair, arms crossed, hair still damp from training.He doesn't smile.Just look at me.Steady.Measured.Like he's testing whether I believe my own pitch.
Before I can find a reply, the door bursts open and Lukas and Niko crash in, fresh from training, still half-laughing.
Lukas tosses his gloves onto the table and says to Niko, "Don't get stuck in your head.The clock remembers your time.But the crowd?They remember the ones who carved their line."
He takes a long pull from his bottle like he's said it a hundred times.
Niko groans."Great.Put it on my tombstone.Misspelt, just to spite me."
Something in me snaps into place.
"What did you just say?"
Both of them turn, blank looks on their faces, but I don't need an answer.I've already got it.
The phrase clicks against my ribs like a key in the right lock, and suddenly the whole mess of moodboards and half-dead slogans rearranges itself in my head.It all sharpens.
My pulse jumps.That precise, delicious panic when you know you're onto something real and now you have to catch it before it vanishes.
I lunge for my notebook.Flip to a clean page.The room falls quiet, weirdly quiet, as I scribble.Fast.Sharp lines.Words and fragments, crossing some out before I finish them.
Underlining phrases until the paper starts to wrinkle.
And then—there it is.
I write it in all caps.
CARVE YOUR LINE
I stare at the words.Like they were waiting for me.Like they've been here the whole time, just needed someone to dig them out of the snow.
I've spent the last four days wading through half-baked moodboards and six different font decks from the federation's freelance designer, who may or may not be designing drunk.And now, out of nowhere, the perfect line just… lands.Casual locker-room poetry.I'm stealing it.But I'll make it mean something.
"That's it," I say aloud.My voice doesn't shake.
I hold up the page so they can all see.
"It's technical and emotional.It's racing and risk.Everyone has their own line—on snow, in life.We don't chase perfection.We carve our truth."
Silence.
