milliways_bar | (no subject)

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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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"Oh I saw you. Made me wish I'd brought some popcorn or crisps."

It was that good.

"You had time to get them before you chatted with Tommy Gavin," Autor says idly, applying more paste.

"And miss a moment? I'll survive without."

The next time he'll get to see Autor on skates again is six months from now. Assuming Autor decides on a second go.

"True, I don't know if you could have made it to the snack table before talking with Tommy," Autor points out as he wipes his fingers clean on his handkerchief. "You were pretty wobbly before him."

He'd be all :I! if he hadn't considered the possibility that Autor might get suspicious enough to consider that Rabastan had been lying all this time.

"Yes. That does happen when one's been out of practise for a long time.

"Little opportunity for physical recreation in my younger years; lots of opportunity to forget things."

Is he gonna buy that?

"Hm. I can understand your forgetting things in your old age," the boy says lightly, and hisses as he lifts his foot to the carpet. He has to shake his fingers out and clenches his fists a few times before he tackles the laces. "So you didn't go skating every year, obviously. How long has it been?"

For his dig at Rabastan's memory, he earns the two-fingered salute.

"Almost as long as you've been alive."

"Really!" Autor says, shucking his first boot off with a wince. "So you had to basically relearn all of it?"

"Not all of it. Just the parts I'd forgotten. Like relearning how to balance on metal blades."

Pause. He speeds up a bit. A speed that a novice would be comfortable at.

"I'm old and not as steady as I once was, you know."

"No, I don't know," Autor says, lifting his other foot onto the carpet. "You've always been old and unsteady to me."

The kid plucks at his laces. "How often did you go skating when you were younger?"

"Not often enough," he sighs. "School, socialising and siblings will put a damper on that."

It would even be true if skating were involved.

"Mmhm," the boy murmurs. He crosses his legs with the quiet groan of the heavily bruised, and strips of his wet socks. One of his ankles is a bit swollen, though it'll go away in the morning. Probably.

Autor toys, briefly, with the idea of explaining that he knows who Rodolphus was both from books and otherwise--and how he tortured the cat. Bijou, a young child's only friend.

"I'm sure."

An unnecessary explanation. It's not like Rabastan doesn't know about the books Autor read, or that Autor read them.

And reach a similar conclusion, based on their content.

He skates a few lazy circles around Autor.

"So how about your first foray into skating? I'm sure it went well."

"I'm sure you saw it," he says, smearing bruise paste on his forehead, "but it turned out better than I'd hoped for. In any case, I am bruised to hell and back, and should probably take care of those."

He glances down at the lines the wizard cut into the ice. "But, speaking of things turning out better than I expected," he says, "I'm impressed with your skating, Rabastan. Not half bad, for a neophyte. Not half bad, indeed."

Not missing a beat,

"What makes you think this is my first time on skates?"

Because, if you want to get technical, it's not.

"If it were your first time on the ice, you'd be doing about as well as I did," Autor says. "But you learned quickly enough, I'll grant you that."

"You seem to be labouring under the impression that I only just now learned how to skate."

True. But Autor's gonna have to pull metaphorical teeth to get him to admit that.

"I don't have to labor very hard."

"Suppose there comes a day for every workaholic where he does not labour as much as he usually does," he muses. "Though it's clearly not today, judging by how much of your face is paste."

"Yes, well. Unlike some people I know," he quotes loftily, "I have no issue with admitting to my deficiencies."

His smirk is as sharp as a steel trap.

"I see you're finally growing as an individual if admitting to your shortcomings doesn't bother you now, as opposed to how it did when you first arrived here."

Autor lays back on his carpet, and laughs. "You hypocrite," he says softly. "I was quoting you, and you know it."

"I know what I said, lad."

He's just not going to rise to the bait right now. If he's going to convince Autor that he's not lying, he has to keep his cool.

"And I meant it when I said it. But it's nice to hear you finally learning what that quote means to you."

"What, that you're a liar and a hypocrite?" Autor says incredulously, propping himself up on his elbows. "I don't know what you're trying to prove, here. It's just us, and I already know."

He leans back again, dangling his bare, bruised ankles over the edge. "It's not a bad thing to be a terrible liar, you know."

"No, Autor. That you're enough of a person that you can now admit to your shortcomings."

Pause.

"Lying? What makes you think I'd be lying here?

"Your own personal experience with practising deceit?"

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