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

Enzo pokes the sphere curiously. It's honestly the most interesting part, since you don't typically get these even in winter, as far as he knows.

Actually, it resembles the outside of a jetball court, a bit.

"Cool, huh?" a boy says, dangling his ice skates from a gloved hand. "Figuratively and literally. They really did a good job."

"No kidding. Feels sturdy. Who made it?"

"Avatar Korra. I haven't seen her around today but she may turn up," he says, and then glances behind him. "A mage named Mia made the snow. Last I saw she was skating around the rink. Do you skate, then?"

Ahhh. Mia. That explains it. The other name seems... a little familiar?

"Sometimes. Where do you get the skates?"

"My skating skills are close to nothing, so I picked my blades up from Bar," the boy says. "How long have you been around Milliways? You seem comfortable with the occasional oddity that crops up."

"More than six years. I just joined Security, actually."

"Did you!" Autor says, raising a brow to accompany his grin. "How did you manage to impress Miss Fray?"

"Well, not directly. She said Shufti suggested me. But I've helped out before when random stuff's gone down here."

"Ah, I know Shufti. She is a sweet person," Autor says, shifting in the snow. "What sorts of random stuff?"

"How long have you been around? Were you here for the Apocalypse?"

The kid shakes his head. "Only a few months, though it seems like much longer," he says, tapping his chin. "And no, I managed to miss that entirely, though I've heard about it. So you were there, huh? How'd you help out?"

Enzo grimaces. "Stayed here on alert, mostly, and kept some of the random stuff that started appearing contained. My dad provided a containment field generator. Until an EMP took it out."

"Containment is important," Autor says, shrugging. He thinks he gets it from context, so sure, he'll opine. "What's an EMP?"

"Electromagnetic pulse. Blew out the containment fields and knocked me for a loop."

It's just a good thing he didn't receive a direct hit.

Have some more blinking.

"All right," Autor says slowly. "I know a bit about electrical engineering and a fair amount the phenomena of magnetism, but how do they work together to create a pulse that can affect you?"

In reply, Enzo spits onto the snow. Where it lands, lightning dances.

"I'm a computer program."

"Ohh," Autor says, leaning forward to peer at the electrified spittle. "Ew! Neat trick. So you're like the demon child, then. Do you come from a video game as well?"

"No, but I play in them when they land. What demon child?"

Demon children are not inherently surprising around here, but the comparison is.

"Land?" Autor says, blinking. "What does that mean? Oh, and that's Vanellope von Schweetz, the president of Sugar Rush Speedway, a video game. She's the most contemptible little snot I've ever had the misfortune to run across."

Which clearly means he enjoys hanging out with her.

"Ohhhhh!" He grins. "So you don't mean literal demon, just Vanellope. She's not that bad." He sounds like he's trying to convince himself, though.

"We're... about as much the same as humans from really different Earths are. Totally not the same reality, but she's what we'd call a Game sprite in my world. We can eat the same stuff, things like that."

"She may as well be," Autor says fondly. "So what does it mean when a game lands, again?"

"Oh, well, in my world, when the User loads a Game, it comes out of the sky as a big purple cube. It lands on a sector of the city, and the Game is inside it. They're... really dangerous for us. As a Guardian, it's part of my function to play them."

The kid blinks about double the amount he did when they discussed the EMP. "All right," he says, and his brow furrows as he tries to figure this out. "A big purple cube... Is the User the person who controls your world, then?"

"Yeah. The human who uses the computer."

Re: Ice Rink!

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