[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

Bad Memories | OTA

[st_randedinwinter]

Brad hadn't been paying enough attention with his earbuds in and his head down. When he walked outside, he saw snow at his feet first. He then felt the cool air.

Looking up, his body tensed. It felt as if all the air left his body. Instinctively, he took a step back. He hit the door that had closed.

Re: Bad Memories | OTA

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty had just finished a batch of mulled wine she was bringing out to the pool bar when Brad backed up into the door. His eyes were wide and his body tense, and a moment's thought reminded her that Brad had been chilled when he arrived.

Because she couldn't open the door without knocking into him, she phased herself and the crockpot of mulled wine through beside him. "Hey," she said quietly. "You okay?"

Re: Bad Memories | OTA

[st_randedinwinter]

Had he been paying attetion, he would have been startled by her phase. Right now Brad didn't even realize where she came from. It took him a moment to register the words. He looked up and over to Kitty. He nodded slowly.

"Um, yeah," He lied. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Re: Bad Memories | OTA

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"You're a pretty bad liar," Kitty observed, but not unkindly.

Ordinarily, she'd have given him a little more space to talk if he wanted, but with the problem of him kissing Liz, she wasn't sure he had anyone else to talk to.

"There's some hot chocolate where I'm going. Why don't you follow me," she suggested.

Re: Bad Memories | OTA

[st_randedinwinter]

Brad paused and then he agreed to follow with a nod. He stood up from leaning and he was ready to follow him.

Re: Bad Memories | OTA

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty nodded and headed out to wear Emma was manning the fry station. "Grab me a funnel cake and I'll get the hot chocolates," she suggested. "We can sit under that heat lamp over there."



[ooc: I'm sorry this has taken forever. Please let me know if you want to drop it. ]

Re: Bad Memories | OTA

[st_randedinwinter]

Brad grabbed a funnel cake, but he didn't grab one for him. He didn't currently have an appetite. Once procured, he found his way to sit under the lamp. It reminded him of sitting in the log cabin while Caleb turned the fire on and he waited for the warmth to hit him.

He pulled out his iPhone. Even though he knew it wouldn't have service, he still carried it around as he felt more comfortable with it. He clicked on the gallery icon and swiped until he came to a photo of him, his younger brother, his mother and his step-father.

[[ up to you. I'm okay with continuing if you are. If it's too much for you, we can drop too]]

Re: Bad Memories | OTA

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty came back a few minutes later with two cups of hot chocolate, hers discreetly spiked, since there was no reason not to. Besides, it tasted better with booze and cinnamon. She set Brad's down on the table beside him, scooted the plate with funnel cake closer to her but left it noticeably between them, and then took a sip of her cocoa as sat.

"Mmm. Always better with milk and real cocoa than the powdered stuff." She glanced over at him. "Whatcha lookin' at?"

Re: Bad Memories | OTA

[st_randedinwinter]

"Picture of my family," he explained.

He hesitated, but then decided to hold out the phone to show Kitty. He explained who was in the photo and pointed to each of them.

Re: Bad Memories | OTA

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty looked at the picture, noticing where each person was in relation to the others. He hadn't said much about his family, but she felt comfortable beginning with, "You were really close with your brother, huh?"

Re: Bad Memories | OTA

[st_randedinwinter]

"I still am," He replied. "I mean, I hope I still am... if I'm ever able to get back to him."

He ran his fingers through his hair.

Re: Bad Memories | OTA

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"Sorry," Kitty said quietly and put a reassuring hand on his arm. Inwardly she cursed herself for using the past tense with a kid who she was pretty sure had been in some kind of danger the last time his brother saw him. "Of course you'll see him again. Eventually, we'll find our way out of here or you'll go home like others have."

Re: Bad Memories | OTA

[st_randedinwinter]

"Do you know if the others have?" He asked honestly, looking to Kitty with an earnest expression. "I know people leave here from time to time... but is there any guarantee they don't just... I don't know. Disappear altogether?"

Brad & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

Having experienced that reaction to multiple things from the inside, Snow saw animal terror clearly in Brad's entire body. She hesitated for a moment before she approached, awkwardly offering out a cup of hot chocolate that she had planned to bring to Regina. But she doubted Regina needed it as much.

Re: Brad & Snow

[st_randedinwinter]

Brad's reaction was slow to the gesture. It was only when the smell of hot chocolate wafted to him that he blinked and turned. Somehow seeing Snow calmed him down.

He looked at the cup of hot chocolate and after a moment, he reached for it.

"Thanks..." He said quietly.

He felt stupid as if caught in the act of being weak. To distract himself, Brad took a sip of hot chocolate.

Re: Brad & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

"Welcome," she mumbled back. Snow made no comment on the long wait before Brad said anything. Wasn't like she did any better half the time, even now. Case in point, she started to ask if he was all right, but that was such a stupid question that she ended up saying nothing and quietly chewing the inside of her cheek.

Re: Brad & Snow

[st_randedinwinter]

He looked into the brown hot liquid in his cup. The heat was nice and jarring.

"I fell into a lake once," He said, not lifting his gaze. "It was the dead of winter. Pretty sure I almost died."

Re: Brad & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

"I'm sorry," Snow murmured. Because she knew that for all the misery and cold of the milk baths, for the ice she was forced to hold in her mouth and other parts until she thought she'd die of it, that wasn't falling into a lake in the middle of winter.

Re: Brad & Snow

[st_randedinwinter]

He leaned back against the door and took a sip from the hot chocolate.

"It's stupid, you know." He said. "For me to feel this way. I'm from Canada. We basically spend six months of the year in winter."

Re: Brad & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

"I still hate milk," she mumbled before she could stop herself. Then Snow shook her head. If there was something she didn't understand, it was how people couldn't just call a thing what it was when they damn well knew better. "Feelings are. The dumb part's when we tell ourselves they're supposed to do something logical and convenient."

Re: Brad & Snow

[st_randedinwinter]

Part of Bradley wanted to ask Snow why she hate milk, but he didn't. It seemed to personal.

"I guess you're right," He said. "It's why people fall in love with people who genuinely suck as people."

Like my dad

Re: Brad & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow's own feelings about anything around love were complicated, and for good reason, so she wasn't in much of a place to make an assumption of who or what he was talking about. "You... wanna talk about it?" she asked, almost shyly.

Re: Brad & Snow

[st_randedinwinter]

The warm cup in his hand helped to keep his focus. His mother always told him that talking about his problems would help him feel better. He hadn't been listening to that advice since he got to the Madonna Inn.

"I fell into the ice because my brother found his hunting rifle at my dad's." He said. "My mom and dad are divorced, so he doesn't see us often. He generally sucks at being an adult, but I only started realizing that a year ago."

Before a year ago, he looked up to his father like Caleb had before the trip.

"So he decided to bring us out into the woods to teach us to shoot or whatever." he explained. "Trying to show off to my brother. Caleb still thought my dad was cool."

Re: Brad & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

Learning to shoot was one of Snow's actually unambiguously positive memories of her father. Sure, he'd also put the gems in Rose Red every times she'd pleased him somehow--and she still didn't understand that system--but she'd never actually cared about the pearls or the black opal. At first the opal had even pissed her off, because it had changed the weight of her gun. But when he'd taught her to shoot, when for once she had his attention, not his remembering her mother, or his wishing she'd been a little white girl, or his empty gifts. She couldn't imagine having something taint that.

But she couldn't quite put this scene Brad was describing together. "... Was he using you as target practice?"

Re: Brad & Snow

[st_randedinwinter]

"No," He answered. "But he pressured my brother into shooting a rabbit."

It was hard to explain how his dad bullied them. His dad had made him shoot the rifle without and preparation and it had recoiled hard into his chest which bruised him.

"But then my dad got drunk and couldn't drive home." He said. "So he let me drive, which I thought was cool. Except Caleb was being annoying and I stopped paying attention and we got stuck in the snow."

His eyes drifted to the hot chocolate again.

"That night we accidentally let it slip we were moving to London, across the ocean," He explained. "And I think that's really what triggered my dad to go crazy, or whatever it is he did. He said we were all he had left."