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

"WHOA, UGLY!"

How much has he imbibed? He was almost certain not so many months had passed that it should be winter, and in that winter should be mythical creatures with anger issues. Porthos flails away, seeking the high ground.

There is no high ground.

"I will make sweetened ice of you, villain! Be warned!" he crows, unsheathing his sword.

Korra's mastery of waterbending doesn't extend to making her waterbended-snowmen roar, so it just raises its handless arms aggressively and lurches forward, swiping heavily at the sword.

(Korra herself is standing about twelve feet away, concentrating on the strong, smooth movements involved in waterbending, and trying very hard not to laugh.)

The Musketeer blanches, but it is not in him to abandon a fight. To fix one, of course; cheating is a time-honored fighting technique. This villain is not beyond him, it is just ... unfamiliar. A new challenge!

"Ah-HA!" he bellows, darting between its legs. His sword nimbly strikes, first at its left ankle, and then at its right.

OH NO. Sword strikes! His sword slices through the ankles, meeting little to no resistance as he slices the snowman's feet clean off at the ankles.

Leaving Porthos fighting an opponent that is exactly the same, except six inches shorter.

Well.

That is inconvenient.

"Come, friend! You are half the man you once were!" he taunts, laughing because someone has to and it might as well be him. He understands the full weight of his own hilarity.

This is how one might catch sight of the scene, blue tabbard fluttering in the wind behind a rotund man in full flight, leading the snowmonster in God only knows what direction.

The snowmonster cannot move as fast as Porthos, not without disintegrating under the force of waterbending. So it doesn't try: it lurches after him, moving through the snow easily as air itself, mending its broken legs at the same time.

(You'll have to imagine the roar)

:O

He did not realize it could mend itself. Another inconvenience.

"Ha-HA!" he cries, pulling out his miniature crossbow. It lets off a grappling hook that SHUNK!s itself straight into the snowhip, and once embedded Porthos gives it a heaving tug.

Oh HO!

The hook sinks deep into the snow hip and the snowman freezes - figuratively and literally as a bond of ice tightens around the hook.

Then when he tugs, the snowman EXPLODES into a shower of snow and ice that flies towards him.

Luckily none of the ice shards are too big or sharp.

!!!

"Mon Dieu!" he manages, before he finds himself buried in a frigid drift. He was not expecting that in the slightest.

The landscape is serene for a few lingering seconds, snow peaceful and sparkling in the sun. Porthos pops his head out with an eloquent BRRRRRR, shaking the snow out of his ears.

"Did I win?" he asks aloud.

From where she's been puppeteering the whole fight, and is now doubled over in laughter, Korra waves a hand.

"You win! You win!"

She'll stand up and say hi in a second.

What a strange little woman.

He arches an eyebrow. "Mademoiselle?"

Eventually she looks up, swallows her laughter and grins at him.

"You wanna go again?"

It takes some time for the implications of what she is saying to fully sink in. During that time, his face produces a variety of amusing expressions.

"You control that beast?" he cries, floundering to rise from his icy tomb. "Impossible!"

"Not impossible if you're a waterbender."

To demonstrate, she steps back into a wide stance and swings her arms in graceful, controls arches, and pulls snow together to form another snowman.

His chest, brimming with pride, deflates at the sight. Mustache drooping, he murmurs to himself in French.

"La vache! How does one so small and ... female control the weather?" he demands, gaze fixed on the new snowman. "What is a 'waterbender'?"

"It's not the weather, it's just the water in the snow," Korra replies. She lets the constructed snowman be and bends a pool of liquid water out from the snow, swirling it around her hands with careful, deliberate motions.

"This is waterbending."

The female comment doesn't even deserve an answer.

He watches the spectacle, agape, his head moving to follow the swirling water. It is dizzying and strange.

"You make snow water, and water snow, by your will alone?" he huffs.

She shrugs, and the water falls back down into the snow.

"By linking my chi with the water. It's called waterbending."

"Excusez-moi? What is qi*?" He is becoming increasingly dubious the more this girl speaks.

*Just using the traditional spelling of "chi" because Porthos is a traditional kind of guy, for srs. Obv.

Korra gives him the kind of look he might give someone who asked what a soul is.

"It's the life energy that flows through the world and through ourselves."

Duh.

"I believe you mean wine, infant," he corrects with the utmost gravity.