[GP] SNOW DAY

[st_ratagem]

Thor and Loki got an early start, because there was a lot to do. Almost two weeks to the day since their first small-but-successful experiment with snow, Loki was confident that he'd improved enough for a bigger experiment. Still snow, because Thor wanted it and it did seem like a decent way to try something big-ish without causing Loki unnecessary grief with the other residents. (It was an arrival day, so there would perhaps be some grief with any new arrivals, but that was entirely acceptable.)

It was before dawn when they went out into the grounds. Thor called up clouds and loaded them with water so they hung low and heavy, covering the sky so that the sun, when it rose, wouldn't ruin the event. Loki took his frost giant shape and staff (now very familiar to his hand) and concentrated on dropping the temperature. Just around the Inn and grounds, but that was enough to be serious effort.

When the snow first started, the flakes were big and wet, and melted as soon as they hit the ground, which was still on the warm side. As they melted, they cooled the ground. After an hour or so, the flakes were smaller and more powdery - real snow, not glorified slush - and they were starting to stick to the ground.

By mid-morning, the Inn and grounds were covered with a thick layer of snow, and it continued to fall.

***

Meanwhile, indoors and inspired by the snow, Hurley and Xavin decided to try and make cookies. Cooking together was fun, since neither of them exactly knew what they were doing apart from 'follow the recipe', but since the point was 'try to make cookies' they ended up with a lot of cookies. Sugar cookies, gingerbread, all kinds.

There was no way they'd be able to eat all of them.

Instead, they loaded them onto trays and hauled them to the cafe, then brought out various frostings and candies for decorating. This had been completely intentional. Completely.

Comments

Re: Snow & River

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow said nothing for a long time, though she became aware of River's presence slowly as the other girl approached and joined in the building effort. "I hate it here," she whispered.

Re: Snow & River

[st_makemeastone]

River didn’t contradict her, she knew that what Snow said was if not true then also not untrue. And she understood. She didn’t hate it, but she knew why some people did. She more than knew she felt it.

So maybe she did hate it. She would have to think about that.

“Why?”

Re: Snow & River

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow had to consider how to make the thought coherent. Perhaps not for River's sake, since River sometimes knew what Snow thought and felt better than Snow did, but for her own. "I know," she said, "I know that when people die, it can happen suddenly, and without warning, and we don't get to say goodbye and shit. But they're not dying when they get taken away. They're just gone. That's natural. This ain't."

Re: Snow & River

[st_makemeastone]

"This isn't death." There was a long pause, and then she admitted. "Even if it feels the same."

Re: Snow & River

[st_arkcrowblack]

"Regina wants to tell me that people would be taken from me wherever we are," Snow said, shaping one of the castle walls. "But that's not true. People don't get taken, 'cept to and from places like this shithole."

Re: Snow & River

[st_makemeastone]

River silently thought of it was Snow, or Dyson that was taken Regina would be less sanguine about it.

"People get taken," she had been, sort of. And then Simon had taken her back. Then she'd come here. So maybe Snow was right, "Simon would agree."

Re: Snow & River

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow thought of her mother, snatched away from her people by her father, forced into marriage, raped and tied to a bed so she couldn't kill herself before Snow could be born. Gun That Sings never saw her family or her people again. She had thought once that that was just how a man got a wife, though at least she knew now that that was not the case at all.

Though yes. People could be taken. "Mm. That's true."

Re: Snow & River

[st_makemeastone]

"Doesn't make it hurt less." Because, gone was gone, wasn't it?

Re: Snow & River

[st_arkcrowblack]

"No." If anything, it hurt more, because there was nothing natural about it. Dying was something that happened. Taking involved a will behind it.

Snow wasn't sure if she hoped Kash had gone back to Exandria or not, considering it sounded like it sucked there. Zahra, too, she supposed, though she thought of Zahra less as a person in her own right and more as something Kash needed.

Re: Snow & River

[st_makemeastone]

"He will be happy," and Zahara would keep him alive. She wasn't 100% sure he could manage that himself.

Re: Snow & River

[st_arkcrowblack]

And he probably would be, but for Snow... "I need him."

Re: Snow & River

[st_makemeastone]

"I know," River didn't need him the same way, but if Sam went away... Or when she thought too much about Simon. She though she understood.

"I'm not much. Broken. Not always... I understand but I don't always comprehend. But you can have me." Until one of them went too. She didn't say that part though.

Re: Snow & River

[st_arkcrowblack]

"I'm broken, too," Snow whispered. Shyly she lifted her gaze to look at River. "Thank you."

Re: Snow & River

[st_makemeastone]

It wasn't much but it was a little bit good, finding someone else with broken bits. It made her feel, less broken. Which was illogical but she couldn't figure it out any more than she could calculate her age.

Too many variables, and none of them related.

"There should be a moat." Was as close to a you're welcome, or a thank you of her own as she was likely to get.

Re: Snow & River

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow's first thought was that there had not been a moat last year. And then her second was that it didn't matter. Sansa was gone, and she could make this castle whatever she bloody well liked. "I agree," she said.

Re: Snow & River

[st_makemeastone]

River nodded decisively and started half digging, half building a moat. It was possible she had suggested it simply because it hadn't had one last year, but try getting her to admit that.