(no subject)

[sunbaked_baker]

It is cold and grey outside, the sky a flat off-white of cloud promising more snow before the day is out. Most of the signs of the... whatever it was the other week, the attack, the fiery creature... are hidden or erased by the smooth white blankets of snowdrifts. Everything is peaceful now. Clean and cold.

But then, it had been peaceful that day, too.

Young Rae Seddon had hoped for a sunny day - the light helps even if it's cold - but supposes clouds will have to do. Rae has a test coming up in her math class, and she suspects she should probably actually read the explanations in her math text book sometime before the test itself.

She has settled on the couch by the fireplace with her math text book, spiral notebook, and a mechanical pencil, her bright red coat and yellow scarf lying on the armrest for later. Once she's figured out how to measure volume and memorized some of the ways of finding volume of different shapes - Rae begrudgingly admits to herself that these would be useful to know, however boring they sound when the teacher talks about them - she'll reward herself with going outside and building a snowman.

Catch her in the bar and save her from the terrors of fifth-grade math, or outside building her snowman.

Comments

[brooke_sandhu]

Brooke has heaped up a giant pile of snow, almost as tall as her, and is busy launching herself down it on a sledge.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae, pulling on a pair of lime-green mittens, laughs when she sees her. "Your own sledding hill. Good going, Brooke!"

[brooke_sandhu]

"Want to join in?" Brooke asks, sliding down on her front.

"I wanted to go down the mountain, but Dad wouldn't let me."

And it's too far to go alone without getting caught.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Sure!" Rae replies, grinning as she comes over to take a turn. The pile feels smaller for her, being taller, but is still fun. Knowing Brooke, Rae can see why she'd be seeking a bigger slope.

"We might see how big a sledding slope we could make up against the side of the jungle-gym by the Scout Hut, too. Bet the snow drifts by it would already be pretty deep."

[brooke_sandhu]

"That's a good idea. Dad never lets me do anything fun." Brooke says.

"Maybe we could climb up the climbing wall on the side of the hut and then sledge off the roof if we make a big pile?"

This is why Dad never lets her do anything fun.

[sunbaked_baker]

Even Rae, who does sometimes do things more ambitious than her parents would like, knows sledging off a roof is a little on the far side of what's okay.

"I don't know if we could get a pile that big, really," she says, skeptically. "Eventually, we'd have to haul the snow to the top up the climbing wall somehow. Let's try the jungle gym first."

[brooke_sandhu]

"Okay." Brooke agrees, amiably enough.

"We had snow at school but they said we had to play according to 'health and safety' rules."

[iprotectyou]

"Why are you stacking balls of snow on top of each other?" Baze asks about the snowman, grinning. He looks a little smaller, now that he's not wearing armor, though he's still a large man--tall, and broad in the shoulders. He's wearing his old jumpsuit, armored gloves, and a green scarf.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae looks up from smoothing all the irregular bumps from the most recent ball of snow, a brightly-colored figure in the world of white, and grins. Her coat is bright, cherry red, and her scarf a sunny yellow. "Hello, Baze! I'm making a snowman!"

She fetched a rather disreputable-looking hat and pipe and scarf from the Lost and Found box before coming outside, which are now lying nearby, waiting to be used.

[iprotectyou]

"Snowman?" Baze says, cocking his head to the side and invoking a giant, lost puppy.

"Oh! Huh, yeah, I guess that could be a person. Neat! Can I help?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"Sure!" She laughs, realizing. "I guess it doesn't really look like a person, if you've not seen a snowman before. Usually they're made with three big balls of snow, stacked on top of one another, with a face made onto the top one, and decorated with sticks for arms, and a hat or scarf or even a coat. I may need your help to lift the third ball soon. I wanted to make a really big snowman, and the third snowball is getting heavy already."

And to be of the proper relative size to the other snowballs, it's going to have to be even bigger than it is.

"Did you get much snow, back in your world?"

[iprotectyou]

"Nope, we didn't get any snow at all! It was markedly unfair, to have a moon with a permanent winter and no snow," Baze says, beaming at her. He starts scooping up snow in both hands and applying it to the ball in question.

"Let me know when the third ball needs lifted. Do snowpeople always take three balls?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"No snow at all?" the girl boggles at him as they both add more snow to the third ball.

But then... what all has he missed out on?

"Most use three, but sometime people use four, or make more realistic-looking snowmen," she says, smoothing out the packed-in snow on the growing snowball with her green-mittened hands. "You've gotten to play out in the snow here, though, right? Like properly play in it?"

Rae at any age can't hide what she's thinking. Her slight smile has a tiny bit of mischief in it, even she tries to keep it from showing. Because there's a key question.

Has anyone introduced Baze to snowball fights?

[herr_bookman]

Autor's breath mists in the air as he approaches, his gloved hands in his pockets. He's donned his too-long, knitted, blue scarf, which would drag on the snow behind him if he didn't bundle his face up in it. "Hallo, Rae. Building a snowman?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"Autor!" Sunshine beams. Rae would think that scarf is just the right length, because bundling up in a scarf is the best way to wear them. Rae loves hers, its bright, cheerful yellow. But she loves Autor more. She leaves off her careful smoothing of the latest snowball and comes over to give him a big hug. "Yes - it hardly snowed at all back home this past winter, and now it's springtime, and I didn't get to make one. Would you want to come help with it?"

[herr_bookman]

Autor embraces her back, smiling a little. "Sure, I can help you. What needs done next?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"I was able to make the first two balls really big, and get them balanced okay," she replies, eventually letting him go from the hug. "But the third one, to look okay with the other two, has to be bigger than it is, and by the time it's the right size it'll probably be big enough that it'll be difficult for one person to put on top by themself."

[herr_bookman]

"Ah, I see," Autor says, nodding thoughtfully. He pats her shoulder. "Well, between the two of us, I'm sure we can get it situated. Do you want to make the ball bigger?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"Oh yes," Rae nods, grinning. "I'm sure we can get it big enough and then put it on top of the snowman just fine, the two of us working together."

"It'll need to be...." she looks from the half-finished snowman to the growing ball of snow, and back again, then estimates a height a little taller than her knee. "Maybe this tall, and the same width as height?"

[runningred]

Jay comes over with a mug of hot chocolate for her, topped with cream and sprinkles. "Hey, Sunshine. How you doing?" He hasn't seen her since the Balrog.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Jay!" The girl immediately pushes aside the despised mathwork to stand and hug him tight.

"I'm okay! I stayed with Ms Bonnie for a while until everything calmed down again." Though the words are a little muffled. "What about you? I'd heard that thing'd got someone!"

[runningred]

that very tight hug is returned gladly. "Yeah, a couple of people were hurt but no-one died." That Jay knows of. "It won't be coming back here in a hurry."

[sunbaked_baker]

"I'm glad," she says, fervently, reluctantly letting go. "I saw some of the damage it'd done outside, though there's more snow now to cover it up."

To make it look normal.

"Does anyone know what it was or how it got here?"

[runningred]

Jay shakes his head. "Don't know, I'm afraid. But we've got enough god and high powered metahumans who are looking into it. What we can do is learn from the experience so if anything like this happens again, we'll know what to do. And I think Bonnie was very smart to take you back to her place for a while. It was quick thinking."

[sunbaked_baker]

"It was! I'm glad none of the other kids were around when it happened. All I could think while I was at Ms Bonnie's was... if something happened to someone, how would we know?" It was a terrible thought.

"Thank you, for... going and making sure no one was left outside," she says, quieter. "It was really brave."