[OPEN] Red, blue, orange and green. No yellow snow cones!

[wintershepherd]

Characters: Jack Frost, OPEN
Date: Backdated to the afternoon of Jan 11th
Location: At one of the playgrounds in Keeliai.
Situation: Deciding to surprise some kedan kids as they're getting out of school at the end of the week, Jack provides snow cones.
Warnings/Rating: CUTE?

It had taken quite a few trips to the various markets scattered around the city when he finally found what he was looking for in the Fire Sector: little pots of flavoured syrup. Jack had happily forked over his juulan for a wide selection of them and had brought them to a playground where he knew that children liked to visit once they were out of school. At the end of the week, Jack wanted to give them a special treat.

Now he was sitting on a picnic table with a pile of the cleanest, purest snow he could conjure and a field of cups ready for small hands to fill them before getting dollops of sweet syrup. Pretty soon kids were flocking to the playground with excited laughter as they told their friends, and their friends told more friends. It didn't take long for murmurings about "the snow boy!" to start making its way around.

Comments

[trainwrecked]

Bucky was heading home from his job (still painting houses and fences, not like, with the rain here, the work would even end) when he had to stop suddenly to let a small flock of excited children go running in front of him (instead of colliding into one of them). His eyebrows shot up and he followed along, because curiosity was not unknown to him... and he'd often been a part of such flocks not that long ago, technically.

And then he reached the playground, and, wow. He hadn't seen this many kids this excited since the welcoming festival, really, and that was... Bucky shook his head. Then leaned against one of the support for the swings to watch, a small smile playing on his lips.

Thing was? He could see ice-cream. And the kids. But not who was giving it to them.

[wintershepherd]

Jack was helping some of the smaller children scoop the snow into their cups, asking each which flavour they wanted and dishing it out for him; currently blue and pink were in the lead, their pots already half empty. The winter teen made a mental note to see if that shop at the market sold bigger pots for next time, because he was already planning a next time.

Seeing Bucky, one of the children ran up to him with a new cup of snow. The young ones didn't seem to mind the foreigners (although what Jack was doing might unintentionally be bribery) and offered it up to him with a grin. "Hi!" she chirped. "Are you here for treats too? They're good!"

[trainwrecked]

"Yeah?" Bucky's smile was easy and his eyes bright on the little kedan, he just... well, there was something strange, here, and he just wanted to make sure the kids were safe. Because children trusted things that adults would doubt and... well. Gangs. All kinds of options.

"Where do I get the treats, then? I'd like to try 'em. What flavor did you get?"

[wintershepherd]

The kedan girl snows him her cup. "I got the blue one!" she said proudly, her lips and tongue already tinted that colour. "If you go and get a cup of snow--" She pointed at the pile sitting on the edge of the picnic table, a miniature drift in an otherwise sunny afternoon. "Then the snow boy will give you whatever flavour you want! They're all really yummy."

Meanwhile Jack was telling a joke about snowmen and yetis, and while neither were native species to Tu Vishan, it was apparently ridiculous enough that even the kedan kids thought it was great (or wonderfully awful) and started shrieking with laughter once again.

[trainwrecked]

"A-haah, that's nice, isn't it?" Bucky grinned down at her. "So how many did you have, yet?"

Snow boy? What was the kid talking about? He kept the frown from actually showing on his face, scanning the playground. There wasn't anyone who fit that description. Which meant... well. When his new friend was off on her way, he was going to go to the snow pile, check it out... then follow the kids.

That was a plan, right?

[wintershepherd]

"This many!" The kedan girl held up three fingers -- although she only had four on her hand, and a slight webbing between them; another instance of the kedan's not entirely human ancestry.

Jack noticed Bucky's approach toward the picnic table and gave him a bright grin, recognizing mostly by his outfit that he was a fellow foreigner although he didn't recall meeting this person yet. "Hey," he greeted cheerfully, unaware that he wasn't being seen or heard. "You here for a snow cone too? There's plenty to go around."

[trainwrecked]

Bucky'd had plenty of time to get used to the differences. The way the kedan could change their shape, yeah, it had taken him weeks to process it, to accept it as how things were, here. But now he just grinned. "Yeah? Well done."

He let her go, and went in the direction kids were flocking. There... seemed to be something happening there, at the table. He just couldn't see what, and he was frowning hard, looking around - nothing. Nobody.

"Huh."

[wintershepherd]

Jack's expression fell slightly when Bucky didn't answer him, watched the man's eyes sweep over the area and not settle on him.

"Oh," he said, now more to himself this time. "Not much of a believer, are you..."

As there weren't any other kids at the picnic table he could ask to relay the message, Jack pressed his hand against the wooden surface and created a frosty handprint there.

[trainwrecked]

He hadn't been a child in a very, very long time, Jack. And his childhood wasn't exactly geared towards believing in magic, other than the magic that a person with a big heart and frail body could work around him. Nothing more than that.

The motion on the table's surface, however, the handprint that materialized without any reason that he could see. It threw Bucky off, and he tensed, his eyes much more defensively attentive, now.

He leaned in, to take a better look at the print. Touch it, wincing at the bite of frost. "Snow... boy?" More of a mutter than a question, really, remembering what the girl had said only minutes ago.

[wintershepherd]

Jack hesitated, his one hand closing into a fist slightly and then he raised it palm up towards Bucky and blew a stream of sparkling icy air across his hand towards the man. For a moment, a cloud of blue shining light glittered in Bucky's vision and filled in Jack's shape and features -- the white hair, blue hoodie, the apologetic smile as though to say sorry for the magic helping hand.

The image lasts only a few seconds and the glitter dissipates, and Jack disappears again. ]

[trainwrecked]

...

Bucky stared at the space that was empty again, blinking slightly as if to clear the glitter from his eyes.

"All right." Low, to himself. "Snow boy. I can see that."

He narrowed his eyes at the same spot, brows drawing down. "I can see that now."

A blink.

And then, there he was again, this time not vanishing.

"Now how do you even do that?"

[wintershepherd]

Jack stared at Bucky in something like awe. "Wow. That was the coolest way I've ever seen someone start believing. Can you... see me now? For real, without the magic?"

[trainwrecked]

"How did it... what did you do?"

Sorry, Jack. Not very helpful soldier here, yet...

[wintershepherd]

"I hit you with a little bit of winter magic," Jack said, looking contrite. "You couldn't see me and I thought it would help. It's kind of bending the rules a little, but I think it should be okay."

But then he gives Bucky a beaming grin. "But it's actually Jack Frost, not 'Snow Boy'. If you were interested, I mean."

[trainwrecked]

"What rules?"

It probably wouldn't have worked if it wasn't already clear to Bucky that there was somebody there. He just needed... to know who. What. Whatever.

... right.

"Jack Frost. Like... Jack Frost Jack Frost?"

[wintershepherd]

"Um, Spirit rules I guess," Jack laughed a little. "There's a thing about believing and the Man in the Moon but it's a little much all at once. And yeah, Jack Frost like Jack Frost. The one in the Christmas Song and all -- though I feel obligated to point out I was around before the song."

Jack pauses when a kedan child comes up to him for a refill and he drizzles syrup on the new snow in the cup before watching them scamper away again. "Yikes, I'm not sure I brought enough flavouring for fifth and sixth helpings for everyone..."

Then he's grinning at Bucky again. "Sure you don't want one though?"

[trainwrecked]

"Then you've got a song written for you."

Beat.

"Wait. How long have you been around? And, no, I'll be fine. I could get extra flavors before you run out, if you tell me where from."

[wintershepherd]

"It was a shop in the Fire Sector, but I didn't pay much attention to which street it was on," Jack said sheepishly. "If I can find it from the air easy enough, I usually don't bother with street signs."

The teen suddenly found the syrup pots very interesting when Bucky asked how long he'd been around. "A few, um... centuries."

[trainwrecked]

Great.

"Does that look mean you don't wanna talk about that, or that you're worried what saying that'll mean? This place is chock-full of weird. Yours'd freak nobody out, kid."

Beat.

"Or... not-kid, I guess. If you're at a few centuries old. Anyway, think on whether you wanna talk about that or not while I go and return. Just tell me where to."

Hey, the kids were having fun. Why not let them do that a bit more.

[wintershepherd]

Jack glanced back up at Bucky, his expression still cautious. "Well, most of the time I get a 'yeah okay' when I tell people who I am. Throw in a couple extra centuries and..."

[trainwrecked]

"Yeah, well. Most people haven't been here since August. After - when they're not supposed to be anywhere like this in the first place. I guess people's credibility stretches with exercise?"

Beat.

"Or is that people's credulity?"

[wintershepherd]

Jack's grin reappears with the explanation, and he nods. "You're right. I've seen a lot of things I would never have imagined... and believe me, I don't get to say that very often."

[trainwrecked]

"While it's getting to be kinda a habit, for me. Even back home."

Bucky shrugged.

"Anyway. Refills?"