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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Perhaps. Though our reality has no such gods. And if there is a god of any sort, He doesn't really make his presence known that directly." Or, in Howard's opinion, at all.

"That is where the other possibility comes in, the very distant future. It is not widespread knowledge on Lunar. If anything, I might be considered a heretic for what I'm about to say. But Althena has ceased to exist as a goddess.

"If that's the case, her influence may very well be gone and you might live in that prophesied time when the Blue Star is habitable again and we can return to it."

"But the moon is a dead rock. And my understanding is that it's always been a dead rock." He only took two classes in astronomy in college. But that much was pretty clear.

"How far does history go on Earth?"

"Written history? About 10,000 years maybe. But science can go back further. The moon is known to be millions of years old. And almost unchanging." Except for the endless stream of meteors and asteroids pelting it.

"Hmmm... I wonder how long it might take for any signs of life on Lunar to completely die out."

It certainly didn't take long when Ghaleon tried absorbing all of Althena's strength ten years ago.

"But then, there is the third possibility, which is the one you brought up first: we're just from two completely different realities. It's all really hard to tell."

"I don't know how much it matters in the end. The Bar has a way of showing the range of possibilities. And impossibilities." Things that would confuse a lesser man, but can inspire an inventive one.

Mia shrugs.

"I suppose it only matters if we wish to sync up calendars. But then, I just cheat and go by whatever year it is for my husband's old home, which is 2007 I think?

"But that's a lot about me. What about you and your inventions, if you care to divulge? I'm always interested in learning about science, as it's not terribly common at home."

Howard takes a look at the snow for a second and then finds the words.

"Well, first off the year for me is 1946. And my company specializes in airplanes. Flying machines. I'm the chief engineer and designer, but also the chief executive officer. I get to innovate, but not as often as I would like."

"Ah, aeroplanes! I've heard of them but don't know much about them."

Plz moar?

"They use special engines and fans to create lift under the body of the planes. That is how flight happens." It's so simple that anyone with a degree in engineering should understand.

"Ah, I think I see. Do you work on other airships as well or just aeroplanes?"

"Blimps have seen their day." After the Hindenburg disaster, they became toxic, even with helium instead of hydrogen. "We're considering helicopters, but I regard them as of limited use." And speed. And grace. And finesse.

"Blimp? Ah, that might be the sort of airship I've been in before. Is it rather round, sort of like a balloon but much bigger and more oblong?"

"Yes. But they tend to be fairly slow, and unwieldly." And occasional explosive. "How did you come to be in one?"

"It was one of the many modes of transportation my friends and I found in the war ten years ago."

"What war? Om your world?" All that magic, and they would use blimps?

Mia nods.

"Yes, the War of the Magic Emperor. There are texts here on the subject."

She might be blushing just a bit.

"But there were blimps. And not, say, magic carpets or the like?"

"Do you remember how I said magic is tied to the Goddess Althena? Part of the war took place in the Frontier, the part of Lunar that looks the way the Moon does to you and the only place nearly devoid of Althena's blessing. Because of that, magic methods of transportation couldn't take us there."

"That's interesting. Your god is not all powerful. More like one of the classic gods of myth." And she apparently lives on the far side of the moon.

"It's more than that: she is now mortal."

"How could that happen?" It sounds like a story, somehow, and not a faith.

Mia scratches at her head.

"Goodness, you're getting a lot out of me," she says. "Are you sure you want to know? I feel like I'm talking your ear off."

She smiles sheepishly at that.

"Mia, I rarely meet a fact that I am not better off not knowing. It's how we learn things, how we get new ideas." Even if theology is not what he considers essential.

Re: Snow!

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