milliways_bar | (no subject)

The sun silently beats down on the grounds, waves of heat radiating off of everything. But then, a soft rumble begins. It grows louder and louder, starting in the mountains and crashing down down down until a great roaring avalanche of snow arrives...

The calm returns but the blistering heat is gone. "How's that, Autor?" Mia asks.

The boy smiles shyly at her, his warm, knitted scarf demonstrating a clear gradient of skill from raw novice to advanced beginner. "It's lovely," he says, squeezing her fingers in his gloved ones. "Thank you, Mia." Releasing them, he turns and places a hand on his hip to watch the next step.

At the mouth of the inlet a narrow cliff juts out into the water, covered by a thin layer of soil to which a mat of short grass is clinging, littered with demon bunny droppings. On this ledge, Korra stands, her feet planted firmly against the ground. Starting with that wide stance, Korra moves a foot and then pushes her arms in front and up, causing the lake bed to shift, and the waters to part as a narrow ledge of earth divides a smaller pond away from the larger lake.

Turning into the inlet, she leaps onto the surface and slides out into the center on a shelf of ice that stretches out in larger and larger crystals as it thickens beneath her. In the center of what will be the ice rink, Korra stops, and takes one calm, centering breath.

And then with her eyes closed she moves again, this time much more fluid in her motions, turning a slow circle on the ice with her arms in front of her, swaying as her weight shifts from foot to foot. A bubble of water rises in front of her, and as she pushes out, the bubble expands, passing through Korra so she's standing in the center of an ever expanding air filled bubble of water, stretching further and further out so by the time it hits the shore any onlookers will feel the cool sensation of water vapor from a fountain. She shifts her movement again, and the snowflake patterns of ice crystals appear at the top and the spread around the bubble, crystallizing and solidifying in a lattice of clear ice.

Then Korra opens her eyes, and finishes the rink as she slides back to the shore. There, a further turn and a sweeping gesture towards one side shatters a large hole in the side, perfect for a double door.

"Neat trick, Avatar," Autor says, accompanied by a saucy grin and an informal salute. With a few simple words, Mia sets a flurry fluttering down in the dome.

Once the rink is complete, the boy heads off to help an industrious ten-year-old set up the food and drinks table. There are some things too heavy for Rae to lift.

[Credit to the respective muns for their pups' part in the EP! Standard party post rules apply, all tags welcome.]

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The man grins widely.

"Autor," he says. "Wanted to go ice skating. In summer."

He shakes his head.

"So he wrote himself a scenario where he could."

The girl shrugs, grinning. "Why not?"

"This place is just like that. If you want to do something, even if it wouldn't normally be possible, you usually can."

"Should I start thinking up impossible things to want?" the man says, still smiling at her.

"You can," she answers, giggling. "Others've been doing it, too. Like rainbow fish swimming in the fireplace?"

Those are one of her favorite things.

"I have got some impossible things already that I didn't even know I wanted, so I think I'm good," he says, cheerfully.

"Good," she replies. Rae prefers it when people are happy - even if sometimes that seems like one of the multitude of impossible things.

"Me, too."

"What did you find?" he asks.

"Mm," she tilts her head this way and that. "Friends I wouldn't've had otherwise. Books I'd not be able to get back home - I'm still grounded from going to the library. And I met a sorcerer here who gave me a little stone hedgehog he'd magicked from a lake pebble, for my birthday."

"Whatever you are grounded for," the man says, "it's probably not a good idea to ground you from the library. It defeats the purpose of education."

Autor realized as he was taking off his skates to check for an ankle twist that the cookie plate looked a little scant. So he hit the bar for more--and can't resist nibbling on one or two as he returns.

"My mother thinks I'm lying to her," answers the ten-year old with a slight, frustrated sigh. "Books were just the next thing to be taken away."

"I'm really enjoying The Count of Monte Cristo, though I don't get a lot of the references."

"Taking away books is a very uncivilised punishment," the man says, clearly disapproving. "What did she think you lied about?"

The boy picks his way across the transition between grass and snow, ignoring the ice skates bonking on his back.

Maybe Rae will--He looks to her, and his gaze falls on the cheery pair. His step slows and his jaw sets.

He drops the remainder of the cookie he'd been eating, and draws a cleansing breath to ready himself as he continues towards the tables.

Her face scrunches slightly, a ten-year-old trying to figure out how to word uncomfortable things

"I've been... having trouble at mealtimes. I can't eat some of the things they fix. It makes me sick to try. Mom thinks I'm lying, being difficult, to get attention. Which I'm not," she says, emphatically.

"What is it you can't eat?" he asks.

Arriving at the table unheralded but certainly not unnoticed, Autor sets the plate of cookies down, and scoops one up to offer to Rae later.

"Can't eat meat."

"Your mother objects to you wanting to be a vegetarian?" he man says. "How very short-sighted; almost as bad as grounding you from the library. I don't approve of her educational methods."

Pause.

"Why can't you eat meat?"

"Because cookies are too tempting," Autor says, smiling as he offers Rae hers. "Have you had one, Dr. Lecter?"

The uncomfortable look on Rae's face says that it was not her choice to be vegetarian. There was no wanting. Charlie's famous beef hash would still be her favorite dish, if she could but eat it.

But Autor approaches before she has a chance to answer, and her look lightens.

"They are good," she agrees. "I made them."

...With Autor's help, of course.

"Autor!" Dr. Lecter says. "Did nobody ever tell you it's rude to barge in on a conversation? I was speaking with the young lady."

"Now one person has," Autor says, raising a brow to accompany his easy smile. "I appreciate your tending to my education."

The light smile fades as ten-year-old looks from one to the other of them.

She has heard these tones before, and recognizes them. They are falsely light. They are adults who do not like each other, and wish to argue, to fight, but would rather not in front of her. She remembers what that sounds like, and she remembers that yelling often comes next.

The urge not to be there didn't need to be remembered. It was there already, waiting.

"Autor, if we were low on cookies," the girl tugs lightly on the boy's sleeve, "we're likely low on drinks, too."

They should go check on them and make sure. And not argue. Maybe? Pretty-please?

"Duty calls, I think," Dr. Lecter says, smirking at Autor. "In the shape of a ten-year-old lady. Being the host is busy work. This might be your next lesson, administered by - I think you never told me your name?"

He looks at Rae, enquiring.

"Duty, hm?" Autor murmurs, and manages not to close his eyes at the good doctor's question to the lady.

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