strangetrip | [GP] SNOW DAY

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.

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Xavin stared at the other girl blankly. "...why would a cookie need eyes? Is that not creepy, when it stares?"

Maria looked to Xavin.

"Well... I mean, they're not real eyes." She said, confused. "They're supposed to be gingerbread men... and people have eyes?"

"They are?" Xavin looked back at her cookie, puzzled. It had an odd shape, like a splash of paint. She'd thought it was just the shape the cookie happened to be, some Earth tradition about which she had no knowledge. Which it was!

For whatever reason, natural or cultural, Skrulls had a hard time with certain arts, representational art among them. To a human, the cookie looked like a human. To Xavin it... did not. "How?"

Maria grabbed one of the other ones on the table.

"May I?" She asked.

When she got the O-K, Maria began to decorate. It wasn't fancy, but she drew some lines and squiggles and decorated a gingerbread man.

It was... lines and squiggles of frosting on an oddly-shaped cookie. Xavin tilted her head back and forth, as if the different angles would help her see a person instead of a pastry.

Eventually, she pointed at a line of dots (what any human would see as buttons) in the middle of the cookie. "Does he... have too many eyes?"

Maria was confused.

"What?" She asked.

She stared at the cookie really trying to figure out what Xavin was saying. It took probably longer than she should have to figure it out.

"Oh! Oh." He said. "Well... no. It's just, sort of easier that way? I guess a better artist could draw something better..."

"So those are eyes?" Xavin tilted her head back and forth again, looking at the buttons. "So this is a face with too many eyes," she pointed at the buttons in the middle again, then moved her finger in a circle to encompass the whole cookie, "surrounded by... a lot of hair and big ears. I see it!" She did not. She was guessing.

"Uh, no.. no." She said, then paused.

Maria reached for another blank cookie.

"Okay, okay. So this is the face." She said.

She drew two dots for eyes and a semi-circle for the mouth.

"How is that a face?" Two dots, a curve. Two dots, a curve. Ohhhhhh. "Eyes. And... a hideously deformed nose?"

Maria looked at her cookie. I don't think it's that bad.

"That's a smile. It's, uh.. abstract, I guess." She said. "Like, you take things and put it to it's simplest form?"

"This may be a limitation of mine," Xavin decided. For the life of her, the 'smile' didn't look like one. "Cultural, perhaps psychological. I do not know. Not biological, I have human biology at present."

Maria looked up from the gingerbread she was trying to explain.

"At preset?" She asked curiously.

Xavin shifted to his usual male shape, then pointed at his face. "Still human, now male. I am Skrull, we are shapeshifters."

Maria's eyes went wide and she yelped.

"Holy crap," Maria said louder than she meant to.

She took in three deep breaths with her eyes closed to calm herself down.

"Wow... okay, so... alien?" She asked carefully.

[GP] SNOW DAY

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