(OTA) When it rains it snows

[ssmisery]

Who: Peridot, Lapis, and you!
Where: Out in the snow
When: Snow time like the present
Rating: Don't see why this would go above PG
Summary: snow sculptures snow sculptures snow sculptures snow scu

Well, winter Wonderland, are you enjoying the snow? It looks like your local gay space rock population is. To wit, one corner of the resort has become a gradually-expanding snow-sculpture garden as Peridot and Lapis practice their artistry meep-morpistry in a new medium. Since they don't get cold or even need to come in for dinner, they're free to get carried away!

Most of the sculptures are awkward, lumpy shapes that started out meant to look like things but embraced abstraction out of pragmaticism and/or sour grapes. You may be able to guess that these are Peridot's by the fact that one of them has her hairdo. Less common are simple shapes and swirls, smoothly formed except for the ones that broke under their own weight and were left in ruins. Also, one massive, perfectly rendered statue of a nose. Don't ask whose.

Someone could feasibly wander into this strange realm without even sighting the girls right away. Or join in, of course. On the other hand, with the wars raging around, one might see an opportunity to throw some snow and wreak some havoc. Whatever the case, the important thing is they're having fun, right?

((Both Peridot and Lapis are available for this post, together or individually! Please specify if you want one or the other.))

Comments

[slapfight]

"I know. And it gets on everything." This shouldn't be delightful- and normally it isn't- but the sheer phenomena of frozen water growing like a mold over the landscape is fascinating from a scientific perspective.

"We have to go out in it." The statement is punctuated by a delighted squeak. "Now."

[ssmisery]

Lapis could get whiplash trying to follow Peridot's infectious excitement from her own distrust of everything. Of course, that's essentially how it's always been with them; Peridot has so much excess enthusiasm she needs to share it out, and Lapis, conveniently, has a deficit. Wonderland only makes it harder. And also more necessary. That's a strange feeling.

Well, anyway, she has no idea why they need to go out into the white, but since Peridot is positively giddy and apparently drawing from actual experience, she's willing to entertain the notion. "It's like rain?" Lapis murmurs -- rain was perfectly fine once she got used to it. "I'll give it a try." She doesn't have it in her to even try to respond to the mood, but she'll listen and she'll make the motions.

[slapfight]

"But frozen! And other people can manipulate it. Not as well as you, of course." Peridot looks smugly casual about the whole thing as she takes the lead into the hall. "Really, you should be showing these amateurs what water-wielding is all about."

Lapis isn't as inclined to do things because of her ego as Peridot is, so this whole act is really just her living vicariously. The two of them will be unstoppable death machines out there- Peridot's experience with snow with Lapis's expertise with water? Look out, Wonderland!

[ssmisery]

Honestly, Peridot vicariously feeding off Lapis's coolness is probably also standard. Makes the relationship more symbiotic. Lapis, who carefully refrains from having ambitions of her own, is all right with being used to prop up Peridot's ego, especially since it hardly makes a difference anyway. This is really just comfortingly familiar.

Except that she doesn't trust Wonderland. But that's what the newly awakened bit at the back of her mind is for, already wondering about the combat applications of snow.

"Okay," she says when the last door is opened and they're beholding the scene, probably standing in the open doorway like a couple of rudes since they don't care about the cold, "it's very white." Someone who's very experienced in the ways of Lapis can probably discern that she's impressed under the dryness, probably. Snow-blindness is less of an issue for people whose eyes are themselves made out of light, but the snow by nature blankets the landscape, softening shapes until everything is one fluffy white mass. The effect is certainly striking.

"What do you do with it, exactly?"

[slapfight]

Peridot has struck a most dramatic pose as if she, herself, brought this snow into fruition. Once she gets the reaction she desires (Lapis's laconic version of impressed is always a victory), she bounds out into snow that comes up almost to her knees in some places. "Mostly I've seen people throw it at each other." She bends down, balls up some snow and tosses it. Predictably, it gets about a foot and drops back into the snow from whence it came.

Peridot doesn't seem to care.

"And- and get this they build things with it! Fortifications or things of a more aesthetic value." She lowers her voice, which for her is pretty much regular speaking volume. "Snow 'morps."

The possibilities are endless there. "They're made even better by the fact that you only have so long to appreciate them before they melt."

[ssmisery]

While half watching Peridot, Lapis is still processing the white-on-white scenery, details slotting into place one by one. There are trees in the distance still managing to get some green in. There are cleared-off walkways near the building. There are tall piles formed nearby from that labor. (Except this place was created like that by Wonderland, presumably, and even that much implied history is still an illusion.)

Lapis steps to one of the piles, then, reaches out and touches it with her fingers experimentally. When she pulls her hand back, the snow follows in a long sheet that crumbles and falls in another moment. That was millions of tiny pieces of ice, now rubble and sparkling dust around her feet; it's like and unlike liquid water, mostly unlike. She can almost begin to see how this snow can respond to humans and Peridot, but the last leap to get there seems miraculous.

Even that bit at the back of her mind likes this. It's hard to argue with.

Lapis sweeps the debris aside, which takes two goes to get all of because she's new to snow, and when she looks back at Peridot she's starting to smile. "You look pretty inspired. I think we're going to need more room."

[slapfight]

Peridot can barely contain her glee. Not quite grasping the difference between movement in snow and movement on normal earth (a distinction she will probably never make, because she's a klutz), she attempts to bound ahead and pitches forward into the snow, leaving a Peridot-shaped hole for a few seconds before she manages to right herself.

"We should be able to claim an unoccupied area." She brushes snow off her hair, scrutinizing the area like she didn't just faceplant. If at all possible, avoid acknowledging you screwed up. As she's looking, however, another thought pops into her head, one too bold to ignore. "Ooh! Lapis! Can you manipulate this? It's just frozen water! That could change everything."

[ssmisery]

Lapis just stares at Peridot in disbelief for a moment. Can she manipulate this? Well, first of all, she just did. But also, wasn't that the entire point of bringing her out here? Of course it's frozen water, so much that she can almost feel it all around her; of course she can manipulate it.

Was Lapis the only one immediately thinking of what she could do with this? That seems distantly, drastically wrong; for a moment she almost doesn't know what to do with Peridot's glee anymore. But, on the other hand, it's Peridot. So it's probably okay.

It still looks like a very obvious answer to her, so Lapis snorts a laugh, and responds with a sharp flick of the fingers -- you need a strong hand with this snow stuff, it seems -- that tosses more powder at Peridot. It's strictly good natured, mainly because Peridot's already gotten too much on herself for a little more to matter.

[slapfight]

You really overestimate how much Peridot was paying attention. A brilliant kindergartner! With such a fine attention to detail... Until she gets distracted by something else. But now that she is paying attention, she giggles and throws up her arms to block the spray of powder raining down on her.

"Yes, yes! We can utilize that to keep people away from our snow domain." She goes back to looking, squinting against the white glare until she spies a pot on the east side of the resert, carpeted in snow and presently untouched by any wandering guests. "There! Our new land awaits us, Lapis."

[ssmisery]

Lapis makes her way across the snow leaving barefoot prints that only dent the surface. Yes, it would definitely be too hard to not like this. Peridot's delight alone might be irresistible. But the snow seems like it could just about be designed for Lapis specifically; a change of pace from water water, but usable enough to ease her overworked sense of danger, at least a bit. Plus, it's fun, and she finds herself legitimately interested to see what she can do.

Nothing gets through the iron wall of distrust -- nothing Wonderland does ever will, for sure -- but it's nice.

"Is this really the event?" she muses as they trek to the new land, but it's light. It's not like there's always a catch. The space station never did sprout any nasty surprises despite her prodding. But even Lapis is hardly the only person who defaults to expecting awful things here.

[slapfight]

"Probably not," Peridot scoffs as she plods her way through the snow to their destination, and despite her world-weariness about events, she's not all that concerned, because for right now, it's all fun and games. "But everyone fusses so much about these things. Remember that event with the laboratory? Despite you being smaller than average, it was almost entertaining in a way, and yet everyone whined about it."

Maybe it was weirder for Lapis than she remembered, but mostly Peridot remembers the fusion dog and saving Lapis's gem from a creepy tube thing. She's had way worse events.

[ssmisery]

Lapis snorts. She largely remembers that Peridot was very unreasonable the whole time, and as she has a good memory that is surely accurate.

"Or the one with the dreams. You'd think humans of all people would like an event they get to sleep through." Lapis, you are the only person in the world who somehow kind of liked having vivid nightmares about your repressed emotional baggage.

[slapfight]

Peridot remembers it differently- as she remembers all things differently, and she's always the one in the right. Clearly.

She full-body flinches about the one with the dreams, since she definitely remembers that one differently. "Uh... Right," she laughs awkwardly. "That one wasn't so bad."

Ahem. Their destination is well within their reach, so forgetting that unpleasantness for the moment, Peridot plows on ahead and stands in the middle. Her weird, stocking-shaped footprints marring the otherwise untouched snow. "So! Let's get started. Hmm."

She rubs her chin thoughtfully and considers her options, which... mostly consists of snow, snow, and more snow, but she's behaving as if this is a matter of deep artistic consternation.

[ssmisery]

Lapis, on the other hand, isn't feeling the pressures of the fast-paced art world, which is nothing new either. She has clear and simple goals here: mess around, get a feel for the capabilities of snow, and, stars so aligned, have a nice time with the roomie in the process.

There is still the question of where to start. Lapis thinks it over a moment, with a tilt of her head and a dramatic "Hmmm," and then swings into a heavier-duty waterbending pose, arm outstretched. You know, the kind that evokes ominous drum-and-bass background music and inexplicably billowing hair. Lacking better ideas, and for a basis of comparison, she has decided to fall back on her old go-to of building a giant hand.

...Giant, in this case, solely in the sense of being bigger than anyone's actual hand. It's like two feet tall because she's not actually taking this seriously and has a strong sense of irony. Under Lapis's concentration, the hand rotates, shedding material, and probably attempts to do something but then one of the fingers falls off.

"Nah," she says, and lets go. Another finger falls off and one more cracks, but surprisingly, the overall structure remains upright. Lapis raises a brow at this and nods to herself, apparently satisfied. Look, she probably understands what she's doing.

[slapfight]

"It's not really as malleable as water, is it?" Peridot frowns at the hand as it begins to crumble. She's in the process of rolling a giant snowball that has become larger than her and thus too heavy for her to push, so she's laying across it pathetically. "But the structural integrity is flawless!"

She slides off and begins to roll another, figuring at the very least, she can slide them together and make a fortification.

[ssmisery]

With her hand evidently finished, Lapis is simply watching Peridot work for a bit. Peridot-watching is a good hobby, and tends to be useful for the learning process anyway, given how much more adventurous she is. Lapis will take another stab soon enough.

"You could build yourself a house," she suggests wryly, which is agreement but also just a funny image.

[slapfight]

"I could." It's actually an enticing prospect. "We wouldn't have to stay inside at all. We could live out here, instead!"

That prospect will get old after awhile, once the novelty of snow wears off, because Peridot did get sick of it when she only had herself to entertain, but for now the idea of camping out in the snow with Lapis seems like a great idea. "We can tell scary stories and try to see how many confectionery puff rocks we can put into our mouths at once!"

[ssmisery]

"I thought that's what you were trying to do with the tent." That, admittedly, was back at the barn; neither of them has tried camping on Wonderland's grounds to Lapis's knowledge, although one can never put anything past Peridot. Who knows, maybe she misses it. "And I'm still not helping you get them back out."

None of that is technically a no, and hey, Lapis still thinks the idea is funny. It'll probably get old to her even faster if they actually try it, though.