[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: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

"Funnel cake," Emma repeated. "Because it's normally made by pouring the batter through a funnel into the oil. To get the pattern." Not that the inn had the type of funnel pitchers she was most used to, so she was using pastry bags today, one for each flavor batter, each one currently standing in a tall jar ready for when someone wanted her to cook another.

Emma was used to mutants who didn't always react to temperatures in the same way as most people, and there were more kinds of people here than just mutants, so she didn't think anything odd about how the woman – Val, maybe? Emma thought that was the name she'd heard – was dressed.

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_allionofdoom]

"Is this pattern special?" Valkyrie asked after taking another bite, trying to discern anything from the remaining pattern.

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

"It's about the surface area. Lightly crispy, golden outside, and soft in the middle, and it cooks really fast. Also it leaves more nooks and crannies for the sugar or other toppings to fall into." And it was fun to pull apart bite by bite.

"Where I'm from, they're popular festival food. You find stands at carnivals and fairs and street festivals. People could make them at home, but most don't. So they're a treat."

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_allionofdoom]

Valkyrie nodded in understanding, gesturing at Emma with the breading in her fingers. “What’s your name?”

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

"Most people call me Emma." It was easier keeping it at that, rather than explain the progression of diminutives that led to it. "Not to be confused with the blonde Emma, who showed up... last month maybe?" As usual, Emma hadn't gone out of her way to get to know the newcomers. She learned faces, picked up names in passing, but cooking was easier than taking the initiative to reach out.

"I've been kind of hermiting more lately, or staying busy in the kitchens."

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_allionofdoom]

“It shows. The kitchens. In a good way.” Valkyrie proclaimed, nibbling on the ends of her fingers. “Call me Valkyrie.”

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

Compliments on her cooking were easier for Emma to hear than most others. She had taste buds, and she ate; she could believe them. It still brought a hint more color to her cheeks, although maybe that was just the cold.

Thankfully, she got distracted by curiosity before she could start thinking too much about why. "Valkyrie. Is that a name, or a... title?" She knew about the mythological valkyries, of course, warrior women and chosers of the slain. Psychopomps.

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_allionofdoom]

"Both. Though as the lone standard-bearer, it's fitting I carry on the title as my own." Valkyrie held her head high as she said it. "Perhaps one day, the Valkyrior will see new blood and rise from the ashes." Training successors was not a bad idea to ponder.

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up..." she trailed off, waving a hand vaguely, when she wasn't sure how to finish her apology.

"Are you from the same reality as Loki and Thor?" She wasn't sure if that would make things better or worse, but maybe it would be less lonely for someone who was the last Valkyrie. "I knew... well, knew of, I hadn't really introduced myself, the Thor in my world, and from what this Loki has said, their experiences were very different."

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_allionofdoom]

Valkyrie raised a hand to calm her penitence. "Looking towards the future." With that being said, she cast an intrigued glance Emma's way. "His Majesty and his Highness are from my realm, correct. You've a pair in yours?"

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

"There was a Thor. I didn't know him well, but he would go drinking and fighting and stuff with my mentor and some other people I knew. he'd been, um... banished to Midgard for awhile." She didn't know the whole story, but mostly she felt bad for Dr. Blake.

"There was possibly a Loki too, but all I know are the myths, which I know aren't entirely true."

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_allionofdoom]

"Believe them, if you like. The truths are weirder." Valkyrie shrugged, blowing a few flakes of snow about. "An interesting life you must have lead to cross paths with that pair of any universe."

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

She shrugged, sheepish at the idea. "Interesting enough for me. Maybe not for an Asgardian. And it's kind of like that old quote about the curse, 'may you live interesting times'. I'm a mutant, and the world was trying to figure out if mutants and non-mutants could and should live together. And it was getting to the point the answer wasn't going to be found without a war.

"Even for those of us who didn't want to fight."

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_allionofdoom]

Valkyrie nodded once--she'd bore witness to many human wars in her time. "Perhaps this inn provides some sanctuary, then." A questioning lilt at the end of her sentence.

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

Emma bit her lip, weighing her feelings against that idea. No, she couldn't, sanctuary wasn't right. Not for her.

"Being here means I'm not there for my friends and family when they need me. There have already been enough losses, and..." She shook her head. "Sorry. Safe doesn't feel very comfortable, when the people I love aren't."

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_allionofdoom]

"I understand." And she did, all too well. She'd been pulled away from her place guarding the entirety of the Asgardian refugees just days into reclaiming her duties. To say it stung bitterly was a massive understatement.

"I may not be of your world, but I can say my feelings reside in solidarity with yours."

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

She wasn't sure where the idea came from, other than the constant need to find things to do here, but she was even more surprised to hear herself dare to say anything.

"I was wondering – and no is a completely valid answer, I wouldn't want to impose or anything – and I'm not much of a natural fighter, not compared to a lot of people I know, but I'd been training, before here. Would you, maybe, be willing to train me some? Even if it's just something for you to fill your time." She could feel the heat rise, spreading across her face and ears as she bumbled her way through the question, and knew her pale skin was going tomato red.

"I have had to fight when we were attacked at home. And here the once. I just... I want to be ready, when I need to again."

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_allionofdoom]

Valkyrie had been patting her fingers free of powdered sugar when the question hit her ears, and she cocked her head.

Training. Another warrior. And another woman, at that. How long had it been? She'd done sparring plenty of times, but those rough and tumble matches on Sakaar were for leisure--hardly passing on the legacy. Valkyrie sized the young one up, shifting her weight to one leg. "What manner of training?"

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

Emma wasn't sure if that was what training she was asking for, or what she'd already gotten, but the latter should give an idea of the former, and really she was interesting whatever Valkyrie would be willing to teach her.

"It started as self-defense – I'm squishy. No super-strength or speed, no invulnerability, and my precog isn't the type to help in a fight – but expanded to broader close combat. Unarmed, as well as swords and knives, staves and canes. For the weapons it was mostly types that show up in tarot decks, so I could use my projections more easily."

She was so used to being out as a mutant here she didn't think at first how Valkyrie might not know what she meant. Showing was usually easier than just telling, so she tugged up her sleeve as she explained. "I'm a mutant. That's what I do, see the future and make projections out of psionic energy. Like this." She looked down at the tattoo revealed on her arm, her eyes went solid white, and a knight on a winged horse, sword drawn, appeared in the air
before landing near them. Emma reached over and stroked along the pegasus' neck as though it was any other horse.

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_allionofdoom]

Valkyrie listened, weighing Emma's words against her appearance and her own knowledge of the many and varied types of combat out there in the wide universe. She'd thought her life as a Valkyrie had prepared her for everything there would ever be to see (with some Asgardian arrogance thrown in), but Sakaar was humbling in the unique and delightful methods she'd witnessed thinking beings slaying each other through.

Then, this young lass was summoning a warrior atop a pegasus and she was brought back in time. Whatever Emma was capable of, it was simultaneously new and intimately familiar. Valkyrie moved towards it, nodding towards Emma in silent inquiry to inspect for herself.

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

The pegasus bowed over its foreleg, the knight crossing his sword arm over his chest in a salute. "You can touch it if you want. It feels real. Well, it is real, just not a person or a horse. It's not an illusion, though.

"I manifest images as if they were real, and can control what they do. I've always been fond of this one. It's saved my life more than once."

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_allionofdoom]

Returning the salute in kind with a bow of her head, Valkyrie laid her fingers against the pegasus' snout, feeling its firmness and warmth. She turned her eyes back to Emma, appraising her focus and effort. While her psychic abilities were outside of Valkyrie's scope of experience, the honing of fortitude both mental and physical were invaluable regardless of the ability at play.

"Your intentions are noble." She smiled. It wasn't a difficult decision to make. Filling her time was easy enough, but it was harder to fill time with purpose. If a young woman with some innate ability was approaching her in good faith, was there a reason not to? "In respect of your dedication, I won't treat you lightly."

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

Dani and Nina had never gone easy on her. And neither had Sage, for the short time she'd trained Emma, and this, asking Valkyrie to train her, felt a little more like when she'd asked Sage to. Emma wouldn't have expected her to do any differently.

She nodded. "I didn't think you would. I won't waste your time."

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_allionofdoom]

Valkyrie extended her hand to the young redhead. If she was going to have Emma adapt to her methods, a little reciprocity was appropriate. "As is customary to seal a deal between humans, I believe?"

Re: Emma and Valkyrie

[st_ackeddeck]

Emma took the offered hand and shook decisively. "One of the most common ways, yeah, and probably the most appropriate in this case." What? Culture was complicated, but Valkyrie wasn't wrong about the handshake.

"I usually try to be in the kitchen when people are most likely going to want meals, but other than that, whatever times work for you should be all right. And people can always eat chicken or cook for themselves if I'm not around to cook sometimes."