strangetrip | [GP] SNOW DAY

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[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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Loki was neither dressed for the cold nor playing in the snow. Maintaining the freezing outdoor temperature, while not taking up all of his personal resources, was enough effort that his method of participation was currently ‘walk around and occasionally cause extra snow to fall on Thor’s head.’

Bit by bit the load was becoming easier to manage, though, which in turn meant he minded being blue in public less than he might have otherwise.

When she realized residents at the inn had once again used their powers to bring a snow day to an area that wouldn't otherwise get snow, and after that first pang of missing Bobby and wondering how Pyro was doing, Emma mixed up some batter in a few different flavors, gathered other supplies, and like last year's snow day, took one of the inn's portable cook station/deep fryers outside, not too far from the poolside bar.

Soon the aroma of fresh funnel cake filled the air around her to tempt anyone passing by, and hopefully discourage them from sending snowballs her way. Off to one side, away from the fryer, she'd set out several large mixing bowls to catch snow as it fell. She sipped at a mug of coffee she'd brought with her, trying to draw out how long it lasted to warm her against not drinking so slowly it got cold.

Hm, maybe she could talk Kitty into making mulled wine or cider. Or she could do it, she guessed.

"Funnel cake?" she offered as someone approached.

Xavin had claimed a small plate of gingerbread cookies and a table, and had thrown herself into decorating with all the will and precision that had made her a good soldier and Super-Skrull candidate. This meant very exact lines and utterly serious concentration.

The gingerbread man didn’t actually look like a person at all, because she was honestly not aware it was supposed to.

The sun had barely started to crest the horizon when Moana climbed on her bike and headed toward the coast. There was a particularly cold rain falling, clinging to her skin and dampening her hair. It was so much colder here than she was used to, both in the air and the water. She'd gotten used to putting on a wrap over her brightly colored clothes but this was even colder than that.

She spent the morning and early afternoon at the beach as usual, fishing and foraging, gathering seaweed for drying. Repairing her nets and letting Heihei roam about being chased by crabs. When she'd gathered as much as her basket could hold, she packed it all up - both food and fowl - and set off down the now familiar path to the inn, intending to turn the edible portions over to the kitchen as usual.

The temperature dropped as she rode away from the beach - the opposite of its usual pattern - and the sky closed in with gray clouds. Rain began to fall again. Or, at least, rain was the only word she had for it. It was white and strangely fluffy. It wasn't wet exactly, at least not until it landed on her bare hands and legs, stinging sharply. It piled on the path, obscuring her view and making progress difficult. Finally, her wheels got very stuck. She should have been able to see the inn from here but the rain made it impossible.

Her feet, buried up to the ankles in the fallen frozen fluff, ached. Heihei shivered. Moana picked him up and tucked him against her body then started off toward the inn, hauling the bike and its basket along behind.

When she'd seen what Hurley and Xavin were getting up to, Caroline had added hot cider (both with and without rum) to the coffee bar in the lobby, then set up her karaoke laptop with a nice holiday playlist. If someone wanted to jump in and sing along they could, or the background music would just play.

Then she tucked herself into a cozy chair with her own cup of cider and a book. It was not feeling like a day for being productive for once.

Outside

Noticing the newly fallen snow; grabs his heavy grey coat and heads outside and eyes upwards. Even as cold as snow is - it is lovely and while no one is looking - maybe - sticks his tongue out to have a few flakes fall on that and then continues to walk and marvel at the beauty of nature with a big old grin.

The snow fell, and the castle rose.

Last year when the snow had come down, Snow White had found Sansa kneeling in the snow building her home Winterfell, and Sansa had told her all she could remember about the towers and the library and the greenhouse and the hot springs and the crypts and the godswood. They had built together for a time and talked quietly. Snow didn't know where she had finally found the nerve to ask for her first and only kiss, but it had been sweeter than anything.

Sansa had left soon after that. Yet Snow found now that she could think of her without anger, or pain. She wasn't anywhere near there with Kash. So she focused on the memory and did her best to rebuild that castle as she remembered it. She looked at her brown hands against the whiteness of the snow and for the first time in her life, it did not fill her with old shame. Kneeling here and making, rather than breaking, felt soothing in a way she did not expect.

The snow fell, and the castle rose.

Edited 2018-12-16 01:22 (UTC)

Snowmen were a must in snow, right? Bo should be good at building snowmen - or so she told herself since she grew up in Toronto where snow fell yearly. Today, however, it seemed as if she couldn't quite get the proportions right. Maybe it was the foreboding knowledge the second test was coming - the machine for such a thing had been created, but it didn't seem to be ready to work, despite the magic imbued to it.

Bo sat back and looked at the small, pitiful snowman. With a sigh, she toppled it over and decided to try again from scratch.

As she had the year before, Corbie had run shrieking delightedly into the snow, bounding into snowbanks with childish abandon and not a care in the world for how wet and cold she'd be later. She was a wizard. Warming up was not difficult.

No her concern right now was throwing snowballs at people who weren't paying attention and when they investigated, looking at them in such a way as to say 'what? I didn't do it' and 'play with me!'

Ned was on his way to sit down and enjoy his funnel cake with hot chocolate when he lost his balance and both items fell into the snow. The hot chocolate pooled into the snow leaving a large blotch of chocolaty brown snow and the funnel cake landed powder-side up taunting him. Ned paused as he tried to consider if the 5 second rule applied here or not.

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.

Annie ran around delighted at the snow. When someone wanted to start a snowball fight, Annie would gladly oblige. She was in a pink hoodie that had a black Spider-Man logo at the top of the hoodie and on the sleeves. It was made in black permanent marker and it was clear the rhinestoned "M" that was once on the front was carefully taken off.

The hoodie was currently covered in snow as she giggled and threw another snowball. It went wide from its intended target and flew at someone else.

Oops!

Quill found the funnel cake almost immediately and decided to huddle down by a little bonfire near some chairs to eat it. Snow made it feel like back home in Missouri. He had been to a couple of snow planets in his travels in space, but they always sucked. This sort of snow was better.

He decided to eat his funnel cake and then maybe get some spiked hot chocolate.

After last year's snowday, Regina and Vax and Piotr had installed smudgepots in the orchard and around the garden. Fortunately.

Because apparently two of the Inn's colossal idiots had decided on a snowstorm without warning her.

As soon as she felt the temperature drop, she'd snapped her fingers to change into jeans and a heavy sweater, thick socks and boots, and gone out to start lighting them. She hadn't been out but fifteen minutes when Vax and Stephanie came out to help.

Once they took over lighting the smudgepots, she divided her focus between providing a magical heat shield for the most susceptible plants, explaining to Apple that this wasn't natural and she shouldn't go to sleep but help her protect the plants, and cursing snow-making idiots who apparently didn't care if they continued to have fresh fruit and vegetables if their resupply suddenly stopped.

Peter Parker is inside making cookies.

It's not that he doesn't like snow. In fact, he loves it, even though Queens is dumped with its fair share of snow every winter and he should probably be tired of it. He just really wants to make cookies for people.

He spent five minutes carefully cutting different shapes from the dough. So far there's a heart for Liz and a hammer for Thor. Now, he's frowning down at the dough laid out in front of him, wondering how he's ever going to come up with something for the rest of his friends. Those two were easy enough shapes to carve. A spider, on the other hand?

Probably was going to be hard and probably wouldn't come out looking like a spider anyway. And he wasn't sure how to do Cap's shield or Tony's arc reactor, either. Should he just carve out circles, then lightly cut the details into the dough? Would that even work?

Peter regrets not watching more cooking shows.

Rocket was no stranger to snow. Gotham had had it, and the occasional snowball fight, too. In Rocket's opinion, ambushes were better, and the snow was deep enough here somehow that one of his favorite tactics was available.

He burrowed under the snow and moved that way. The cybernetics and his fur regulated his temperature enough that he could stand it even if it deadened his usual senses enough that he had to navigate by occasionally popping his head out to look around. For the most part he was a snow shark, though.

And when the snow shark closed in on some good prey, he attacked by bursting out of the snow, flinging a pile on his hapless victim, and yelling, "Gotcha!"

Thor is splayed out in the ground in the snow making a snow angel. Angels of course didn't exist in Asgardian mythos, but he had seen enough of them while on Midgard to know that most were probably not as massive as he was.

Thor stops, stares up at the cloudy sky and the sprinkle of snow that falls down from it and thinks of what Quill told him about what the Guardians said about him back on The Milano:

It's like a pirate had a baby with an angel.

His mother was definitely an angel.

The thing about spending most of his life at sea is that he doesn't have much experience with things that occur mostly on land. Like snow. He'd experienced cold temperatures before -- there had been plenty a storm with freezing temperatures while at sea -- but the snow that had come with them had been different than this snow. But this is not what he had in mind when wanting new experiences.

As much as he might want to spend all day inside with Emma (and he does) he knows it's not practical. So eventually he does venture outside out of necessity. He's only been here a couple of weeks, so he's still learning his way around, still meeting people, and he might as well.

He doesn't have any weather-appropriate clothes, so he'll just have to make do with what he has. Which is half the reason for him to look over the snowy landscape with a skeptical eye.

"I thought we were in a desert."

Mildmay hated the cold. One of the good things about being here, it hadn't been all that cold, even coming up on the end of Frimaire. Cooler, yeah, but not the kind of cold that dug down deep into his leg and made his chest want to go tight. So when he'd woke up to snow outta nowhere today, he wasn't exactly happy about the idea. By the time he'd finished washing the breakfast dishes and thought to go back to his room, the snow was good and deep, and it seemed like half the people here were out playing in it. Including Corbie, who looked like she'd been rolling around in it, the way she was dusted all over with shimmery white flakes.

Corbie on a bad day had more common sense that Felix on his best, but watching her enjoying the snow, Mildmay wasn't sure she'd come in until she was froze through, without somebody to remind her. Still, he didn't want to take her away from what was maybe the only snow they'd get this indiction. So he got a mug of mulled wine from Kitty at the bar, chatting with her a little, until he could feel his leg starting to stiffen up. He'd be warmer moving, and if he wanted to be able to walk at all the rest of the day, he needed to keep moving now. So he moved off through the snow, leaning on his cane when he needed to, keeping an eye on Corbie when he could, and just knowing his cinnamon red hair and black clothes made him an easy target for the snowballs being tossed from all kinds of directions.

Bucky wasn't sure how he felt about the cold. His memories were mixed, some good and some bad. Some of them reminded him of Russia and Hydra. Others reminded him of Brooklyn and Steve. Sometimes he felt like his mind was a warfield that he had to pick through and step carefully just to go about his daily actions.

He watched as the others had their fun, getting a cup of mulled something from Kitty. Cider, maybe?

Reaching down, Bucky made a snowball, turning it over in his hands. "Huh," he murmured. He smiled slightly as he remembered playing in the snow with Steve when they were kids. "Nice job, Asgard. Nice job." If he had to guess, he'd say that Thor and Loki were behind it, but he had no fact to prove it. Either way, he knew Loki could do something nice for people when he wanted to. The idea made him smirk.

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Loki - OTA

Emma - OTA