[crow]

He wasn't sure what he was going to do, but being hit by a stray snowball definitely hadn't been a part of his plans. In fact, moments after impact, he hada hard time comprehending what had happened. Rhodes wasn't used to being surprised, but it had happened twice in the space of a day. Maybe he really was losing his touch. He sat up immediately, back arched and tail fluffed, glaring in the direction of the children. “Who threw that?” he demanded. He was pretty sure the gangly boy was snickering behind him. “Speak up! Otherwise we are going home right now.”

That got a reaction out of Suvi, at least. Quickly pointing at Dante, she cried, “He did it!”

“Did not!” said Dante, indignant. He really hadn't, though the snow on his hands was as incriminating as anything. “Look, I was facing that way! I couldn't have thrown to hit him!”

[Bakery: 136]

I know these aren't going to be counted because they're past the time limit, but I just wanted to wrap up the RP since it's winding down anyway

[crow]

Rhodes glared at Elliot, but the boy put his hands up in front of himself defensively. He also didn't seem like the type. Rhodes still mostly suspected Suvi, mostly on the grounds that she was cheeky enough to have done it before, but Suvi also should have known better. He did remember that she hadn't wanted to play this particular game with him, after the last time.

It was only when he noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye that he realized he'd forgotten the fourth player. “You,” he said, starting menacingly towards the Thorn Thief. Rather tellingly, it flinched away, even though Rhodes was at some distance from it yet. Dante sighed tiredly, having realized about the same time Rhodes did what had happened. Several snowballs began to form, rising off the ground as they compacted and shaped themselves in midair.

[Bakery: 137] don't count this

[crow]

“Didn't mean it! Didn't mean it!” said Skitter, startling at the sight of the imminent assault. “Mercy, mercy!” Rhodes considered it, but he was still furious. His eyes had begun to glow. Suvi, alarmed, ran to his side.

“Stop it, Rhodes! It's just one snowball. Don't bury him over it!” Irreverently, she shoved the cat. It might have been bravery or mere foolishness, but whatever it was, it worked. The snowballs dropped to the ground all at once and Rhodes tumbled in the snow, coming up hissing. Undeterred, Suvi stood her ground. “Geez,” she said. “It's just one snowball. It's Christmas, Rhodes. We're just playing.”

“I will ask that you kindly keep that nonsense to yourself,” Rhodes said sharply. He didn't, however, make any more attempts to launch a revenge attack. Instead, he minced his way to a vantage point closer to the bakery and further away from the children, still sulking. He gave himself a good shake before he settled down to dislode any of the leftover snow. The boys and the Thorn Thief breathed a collective sigh of relief.

[Bakery: 138] don't count this

[crow]

Faber, however, had gone rigid. Charlie clocked his reaction and wondered at it. He had been disappearing more and more on his own lately, and still refused offers for a place to stay for the night. As far as she could tell, it wasn't because he had anywhere better to go. It seemed like what he was actually doing was staying out by himself, looking for Akala. “Are you okay?” she asked. The whole sympathetic listener thing wasn't usually what she did, but if he knew something...

She should have known better though. All her words did was snap him out of whatever he was thinking. He smiled at her--- a beat too slow, but maybe it was just Faber--- and said, “Yeah. I was just... yeah.” If he had considered saying anything more, he evidently thought better of it.

Some partnership we have, she thought. “Well, you look a little jumpy,” she said, not quite ready to let it go. “What is it? Don't like cats?”

“Something like that,” Faber replied. She tried to read something into those words, but he remained as inscrutable as ever.

[Bakery: 139] don't count this

[crow]

Eventually though, he settled again, and the snowball fight went on. Faber finished the rest of his sweets, and true to her word, Charlie stepped in to collect Elliot as soon as he was done.

Suvi immediately adopted a plaintive expression. “Aw man! Do you have to?” she said. Elliot nodded. He wanted to keep playing too, but he had already had a big night out. Part of him was relieved; as much fun as he did have, he was also starting to get tired. Going home and curling up together on the bed under all the covers they had seemed pretty inviting at this point. He let his sister put an arm around his shoulders and lead him away, only glancing back to wave at his friends once as he left.

Rhodes had a more difficult time with Suvi. “But Dante's still here!” she was saying, as Rhodes tut-tutted and told her to get a move on. “How come he gets to stay and I don't?”

[Bakery: 140] don't count this

[crow]

The question gave Rhodes pause for a moment, and he scrutinized Dante more closely. It was a good question; why was there no one around to collect him? Suvi realized what she had implied, and quickly backpedalled. “Uh, nevermind! Let's just find Sivvy,” she said, but that only made Dante seem more suspicious.

“Where is your guardian, young man?” said Rhodes. “Surely you are too young to be here unaccompanied? True enough that he had the Thorn Thief with him, but after all he had seen today, Rhodes was hardly about to believe that Skitter of all things was serving any kind of parental role for anyone.

Dante laughed, though there was a nervous note to it. “I'm older than I look. Really,” he added, when Rhodes looked as if he didn't believe this. It wasn't, strictly speaking, a lie. “I've enlisted and everything. I just thought I'd stick around and enjoy the festival a little longer.”

[Bakery: 141] don't count this

[crow]

Rhodes still didn't buy his story--- there was something about Dante that was off, the more Rhodes thought about it. However, it wasn't really any of his business what random children decided to do with their lives. He had enough problems dealing with the ones he was paid to chase after. “Very well,” he said at last, turning his attention to his own young charge. “Let us go to find Sivain. I trust you'll have plenty to tell him about tonight.”

“Oh, you bet,” said Suvi, proving that Rhodes' plan had worked after all. She had forgotten her conviction to refuse to speak to either of them completely. She was already prattling on about their adventures at the bakery as she walked with Rhodes to the bonfire area. Dante and Skitter stood there a while, watching them go, not sure what else to do with themselves. It was only when Suvi was swallowed up by the crowd that they finally shook themselves off and looked at one another.

They made a pretty comic sight, the two of them like this. The snowball fight had gotten them good. Each was covered with the stuff--- Dante's hair was dusted with snow, especially in the back where Elliot had gotten him square on with a snowball. Skitter still had globs of snow on his shoulders and torso, wedged in hard enough from their impacts not to have been shaken off by his movements. The Thorn Thief smoothed a hand over them and brushed them off. “Where we go now, Dante?” he asked.

Dante surveyed their surroundings, tousling his hair to rid himself of the melting snow. “I don't know,” he answered. “Did you see anything you wanted to check out? What were you doing while we were separated anyway?”

“Looking at pretties,” said Skitter. “Many shinies! Many-many. Skitter not remember trees being this shiny.”

“Well, let's go look at some shinies together then.” Slinging an arm around the Thorn Thief's thin shoulders, Dante walked with his companion in the direction of the big tree. They may have had a hard journey thus far, and he suspected it wasn't going to get any easier, but... just for tonight, they could enjoy themselves like everyone else.

[Christmas Tree: 142] don't count this

[Flame]

[Suuuuuper late to the party, and I might not be able to fit in that many posts, but I didn't want to miss out on the fun <3]


It was a beautiful, snowy winter’s evening. The sun was just beginning to fall below the horizon, and as if in reply, the town began to light up in bright hues of red, green, and gold, rivaling the sunset which painted the gradually darkening sky. The colors splashed down on the freshly-fallen snow that blanketed the ground, creating a wonderland of soft hues. Here and there, sets of tracks could be found criss-crossing the streets where people had wandered out to brave the cold and take in the sights. Some pedestrians even toted along shopping bags full of presents – no doubt finishing up their last-minute shopping for family and friends.

Amongst those tracks lay a particularly odd set; these were smaller than the rest, the prints individually spaced much closer to each other, as if the individual was much shorter than the rest of the crowd. That aside, it also seemed as if the tracks were in the shape of…bird feet? Or wait…dinosaur tracks? In fact, if one didn’t know any better, they might have thought that there was a small velociraptor somewhere wandering the snowy streets. But no, that would be ridiculous, considering the fact that they were cold-blooded creatures…right? Any scientifically accurate lizard would have been a scaly popsicle under the current conditions, especially considering the fact that the sun was fast setting below the line of the horizon and the chill of night was beginning to settle in.

Well, if that wasn’t the oddest of oddities in an otherwise perfectly normal town.

[1 - The Bonfire]
[Preferred prize choice would be edit-less custom then lakundra]

[Flame]

“Hurry up, Pip! It’s not like this holiday is going to last forever, after all!”

A young woman stood at the edge of the pavement, arms crossed as a toe tapped impatiently on the concrete, clearly waiting for someone. If her tone of voice was anything to judge by, she had either been waiting for a while now, or she simply wasn’t used to the concept of having to wait for anything. Of the two, the latter was the more accurate description; being who she was, it wasn’t in her nature to be patient for anything (unless it was an experiment that required time to be carried out). She was only interested in results, and in her eyes, every moment spent not doing research was a moment of her own life wasted that she would never get back.

It wasn’t clear exactly what or whom it was that she was addressing, and passersby merely glanced at her (albeit with some measure of confusion) as they passed her by. She paid them no mind, intent on her task at hand, even if it was just waiting for someone. The look in her eyes was probably enough to make even paint dry faster, and pedestrians were visibly relieved when it wasn’t turned upon them. As the seconds dragged on, the tempo that her foot tapped out gradually began to grow quicker and quicker as her patience waned thinner.

[2 – The Bonfire]

[Flame]

For a while, it really did seem as if the woman was talking to herself. It wasn’t entirely unheard of for crazy folk to find their way into town this time of year, especially when everything seemed so warm and welcoming despite the snowy weather. After all, the smell of roasting chestnuts, the sounds of the hustle and bustle and music, and the myriad of colorful holiday lights caused the town to shine out like a beacon in the evening. However, much to the public’s fortune, the woman – whose name was Allorah – was perfectly sane and sound in mind. What they might not have guessed on first glance was that she was actually a scientist, albeit dressed in street clothes (assumedly to blend into the crowd around her). She currently wasn’t doing the best job of hiding in plain sight though, considering the fact that she was the only mildly irate-looking person currently on the block.

It wasn’t often that Allorah came into town. Usually when she did, it was for the purpose of grocery shopping, or picking up other necessary supplies for her worth. If she’d had the choice, she would have had all of her necessities delivered to her door instead so that she wouldn’t have to leave her precious equipment and her experiments unattended. Usually, she did have someone to run those errands for her (she would have sent Pip, if only she’d had the foresight to choose a slightly…larger assistant when she’d taken him on), but considering it was the holiday season, no one was working, and as such, Allorah was forced to go out and take care of business on her own.

[3 – The Bonfire]

[Flame]

Allorah couldn’t imagine why anyone would ever choose to abandon their jobs in the name of revelry. There was hardly enough time in life as it was to do everything that she wanted, and she most certainly didn’t have the time or resources to waste in celebrating events which – for no good reason – reoccurred every single year on the same day. Heck, she didn’t really even know why Christmas was celebrated in the first place; she’d heard that it had something to do with religion, but being who she wasn’t, she didn’t particularly care about religion (unless it had to do with studying the differences in brainwaves and thought patterns between the religious and non-religious). But to each their own.

Nevertheless, that didn’t change the fact that she was still out of supplies and had no one to call upon to get them for her. As such, she’d finally ventured out of her own home (which was honestly more of a lab than it was a house) to face the inevitable and hopefully get this chore over with sooner than later. It wasn’t that she wasn’t capable of these things; she just preferred to leave the mundane to those people who had the time to waste on them. As for her – her brainpower was much better used on answering the questions that humanity had that couldn’t be answered by anyone but scientists like her. People always wanted answers, but she’d found over the course of the years that many weren’t actually willing to put in the work to find the answers that they wanted.

[4 – The Bonfire]

[Flame]

Allorah had left the house with the express intent of hammering out the chores that needed doing and getting back out of the cold as quickly as possible. She’d left a series of solutions stirring on her hotplates at home as well as a flask on the shaker that needed homogenization. She’d figured it was as good a stopping point as any to take the time and get what she needed done – after all, she’d only be sitting at home and literally watching water boil otherwise. To her surprise though, when she’d walked out her door, she’d been met with an entirely transformed world outside. Snow blanketed everything around her, and the town was alive with new sounds, smells, and lights. She’d never taken part in a Christmas celebration before, although she’d heard about them in the past.

It was amazing, actually, the fact that she’d managed to inadvertently avoid Christmas for this long in her life. She’d always been so caught up in her own work that she hadn’t even noticed the holidays go by (save for maybe the festive, discounted cookies that sometimes showed up in the days afterwards). However, unlike most other people in the world, she wasn’t immediately wowed by what she saw outside. In fact, her pragmatism rather caused her to puzzle at it instead, wondering why people had gone through so much effort to essentially throw themselves a bit party. Being the scientist that she was, she immediately began to break down each component of the situation in her mind, taking everything novel apart mentally before piecing it back together. After all, one had to understand the parts to understand the whole.

[5 – The Bonfire]

[Flame]

However, even Allorah herself was forced to admit that there was simply too much novelty to take in all in one go. It wasn’t as if she was about to just let that stand in her way though.  No challenge was ever too big for a scientist – instead, she merely looked at it as a whole new giant study in and of itself. Her question? What was Christmas, and how did it work? Indeed, it was a daunting task (and as one unversed in these kinds of celebrations, she couldn’t even begin to fathom just how huge that question was) but she was going to tackle it the way she tackled any other problem she’d ever come across; one step at a time. To this day, she had yet to find a question she ultimately couldn’t find the answer to.

She’d started out by making her way towards the first landmark she could see, a large, blazing bonfire near the edge of the town where her house was. As she walked, she took in all of the unfamiliar sights and sounds around her, marveling at the sheer variety of different decorations that people had come up with. Common themes she saw were snow, shiny baubles, and…peppermint candy? She would have to get down to the bottom of that at some point. Two out of three of those things didn’t make any immediate sense. Nevertheless, she didn’t stop to linger too long on any one thing – after all, there was still plenty more to see, and she had the feeling that more answers would come the more she explored.

[6 – The Bonfire]

[Flame]

Of course, just because she was doing something she didn’t want to do didn’t mean that she had to do it alone. In fact, any scientist worth their spit was almost never alone. In Allorah’s case, this pertained to her spunky little personal research assistant who followed her essentially everywhere she went. After all, it was her job to innovate and research, but at times it was difficult to keep up with all of her own thoughts as they flew through her head. As such, she’d long since hired a helper just for the sake of note-taking, but the job description had quickly grown to a much longer list than just that. It turned out that having a research assistant was conducive not just to keeping track of her own passing thoughts, but also for her productivity as well.

Enter Pip, her personal assistant, and as it just so happened, her own creation as well. The Velix had been a small side-project of Allorah’s, but during the process of his creation, had turned out to be much more capable than she’d originally thought him to be. His AI was far more advanced than she’d originally anticipated, and instead of becoming just another piece of scrap on a shelf somewhere, he’d become something of a pet to her. Even Allorah herself couldn’t deny the fact that he was adorable, and ever since then, he’d become her one and only constant companion.

[7 – The Bonfire]

[Flame]

“Honestly, what must I have been thinking when I made you so small, Pip?”

The question was more introspective than anything as Allorah stood on the sidewalk, still impatiently awaiting the arrival of her mechanical companion. Pip was actually short for ‘Pipet’, but Allorah wasn’t about to go running around calling her assistant by the name of a piece of lab equipment. In truth, he’d actually named himself that (once he’d garnered the intelligence to determine that he needed to give himself a name). His charging station stood directly next to the electronic repeat pipets, and for some reason, he’d latched on to that word in particular. She supposed that it could very well have ended up being ‘Repeat’ instead of ‘Pipet’, and for that reason, she was glad that he’d at least picked the word that lent to an easy nickname.

So maybe he hadn’t started off as the brightest crayon in the box; he’d certainly come a very long way since those first few days though. Now, instead of just mindlessly copying down her words, Pip was also in charge of keeping her instruments properly calibrated, as well as programming anything electronic or that required to be connected to some sort of computer software. That stuff was always too fiddly for her anyways, and she found that more often than not, she spent more time fighting with the technology than she did actually doing science. In all honesty, she was extremely appreciative of everything that he did for her – she just generally wasn’t one to show those kinds of emotions (as demonstrated by the lack of patience she exhibited at this very moment.

[8 – The Bonfire]