[OPEN] the first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event

[the_usual_stuff]

Who: Pharos, and destinystrings 
Where: The Scorpio Ward, the middle of the afternoon, walking around in the snow.
Summary: This is the first time the child personification of death has ever personally experienced snow and needless to say, Pharos is just as endlessly fascinated with it as any kid would be on his first snowday. Therefore, exploration is in order! 
Warnings: Small children being cute, and Pharos being weird as usual. Also probably mentions of death because this is Pharos we're talking about here, and that's what he does, think about death?


There's a little black-haired child wandering about the Scorpio district today, scrambling up the ridiculously high staircases, walking through crooked alleys that crisscross the ward, and popping his head out one of the doorways that open onto the thin air of the mild snowstorm and staring down at the snowy street below, watching the flurries of snow buffet the people wrapped up in their warm coats as they moved up and down the district. Demons as well, both those ill-suited to the cold and those who basked in it, in their element, flickered from place to place, busy even in the first snow of the year. 

It's not the elaborate constructions of art that interest him, nor the countless crafts shops lining the streets; it's the snow.

It's... incredible.


He has never seen anything quite like it. Yeah, sure, he had witnessed it in his container(s)' memories, but he was detached from those recollections, and had observed them as if from behind a thick sheet of glass. His entire existence had been lived through others, never through his own eyes, and it was a change to touch and feel things firsthand for himself. A nice one, even if the cold air chilled his skin and numbed his fingertips unpleasantly.


One of the Arisatos, being the responsible quasi-guardians of Death they are, soon after the first icy snowflakes drifted down in clumps from the overcast gray sky, had realized what little protection Pharos' thin black-and-white striped uniform provided him against the cold weather and outfitted him with a slightly over-sized, puffy gray winter coat, gloves, a lilac blue scarf wrapped around his neck, and decent fur-lined snow boots instead of allowing him to walk around in his sandals and lose all of his toes to frostbite like he had originally planned to. Clouds of white vapor hung in front of his face as he breathed out.

Wide blue eyes gazed up at the sky, attempting to track every swirling dot of white that fell out of the heavens. Every now and then as he wanders silently from place to place, he stops and tries to catch the snowflakes before they touch the ground. Feel free to run into him anywhere in the Scorpio ward; of course, sometimes it's easy to lose track of small ghost children in the swirls of the white snowfall, and Pharos certainly appears wraith-like with his pale skin and luminous blue eyes.... So be careful about that. Maybe your eyes will play tricks on you.

But don't worry. He just wants to play in the snow for awhile.

Comments

[poweryetunknown]

Neku decided he didn't like snow anymore. Snow reminded him of dead things, and dead things reminded him that he was technically still dead, even if he'd been brought here from the instant where he was apparently going to be returned to life. Even if his body was flesh and bone and gave all the appearance of being alive, he was still tied to the Reaper's Game - and in part probably would always be, if only in memory. So to cheer himself up, Neku headed out to the Scorpio ward to get some art supplies - mostly just sketchbooks and pencils, but some spray paint too.

... Was there someone out there? It was hard to see with all the snow, but he had the feeling of being watched. He shook it off, and brushed the snow out of his hair. Thankfully he was bundled up - he was really glad his threads came with him. Cautiously, he worked his way over to an out of the way alley, and took out a red can of spray paint, starting to make a base coat. He was no CAT, but he still had a dream of making art that made people think.

[the_usual_stuff]

There was someone there, a silent presence but they made no sound as they blink, taking note of the person with bright orange hair trudging stubbornly past through the snowfall, and temporarily takes his attention away from marveling at the delicate snowflakes. It's the state of this soul, this deceased soul, that interests him more than where he's going, actually, but Pharos felt compelled to keep an eye on this human. Soon, Naku arrives in an alley way, sheltered from both the wind and the snow. The child trails after, curious.

Sooner or later, when Neku thinks to look up from his artwork, there will be a young, ten-year old boy crouched on his haunches a couple feet from him, lilac blue scarf tucked over his mouth, staring unblinkingly at either his incomplete spray-paint art, or at him. No footprints in the thin crust of snow lead to him. Pharos doesn't say a word.

[poweryetunknown]

It takes a few minutes before he looks away from his art, and he blinks in surprise at the feeling of someone staring at him. He turns, and spots Pharos, taking a few steps back, startled.

"Hey... uh..." How did he deal with kids? He was never the greatest with them, to say the least. "Uh... hey there. Shouldn't you be headed inside? It's pretty cold out here."

[the_usual_stuff]

His smile is an innocent one, no malicious intent towards Neku shown in his movements or his lighthearted answer even as the orange-haired teenager backed away from him. His small hands rested on his bent knees.

"Hello," he nodded cheerfully as a greeting. His forehead crinkled in thought as he pondered the next part of Neku's words, before shrugging them off idly. Why should he go back inside? "It's snowing; I wanted to play in the snow."

[poweryetunknown]

"Oh. I uh... I guess that makes sense. Just don't stay out too long, okay?" He had to be a responsible person for the little guy, right? ... Responsible. Right. Okay.

"Are you out here all by yourself?" He didn't see anyone with him... it was dangerous for kids to be left alone, right?

[ghost_shield]

"Having fun there?"

If anybody's good at spotting ghosts, or ghost-like things, it's Nick. Standing nearby in a winter coat and scarf, he watches the kid dart around, taking in the magic of every day life. "You come from a place with a lot of snow?"

[the_usual_stuff]

The blanket of pure white snow cloaking the ground crunched under the small Death's boots as he walks slowly, wandering from left to right slightly as he bats one arm at the swirling snowflakes, watching as the crystals melt into moisture on his gloves. At the sound of the man's voice, he looks down from the dismal, gray sky.

"Nope! I don't," Pharos giggled carelessly, the giggles themselves a little disjointed, from behind his scarf. It had snowed, but not terribly heavily in the regions either one of the Arisatos had visited.

[ghost_shield]

"Kind of neat, isn't it? Especially if you're a kid." Of course, when you're an adult, you associate it more with snowed-in cars and closed places of business than anything, but Nick remembers the magic days too.

"Hey, wanna learn how to build a snowman?"

[the_usual_stuff]

Pharos paused, tapping his boots on the frozen crust of frozen moisture under his feet, and looked vaguely puzzled at Nick's offer but interested as well. The snow falls and falls.

"What's a snowman?"

[celebrity_commentator]

The snowfall had caught Rise by surprise, seeing as it had been May before she came here, but after a few hours of extra huddling under blankets, she was out enjoying it. Last winter was...well, let's say rather weird for snow, and while a snowy day in a city isn't as nice as one in the country, she still liked to watch the flakes float down and, very carefully, play at trying to dodge them.

It helped that whatever had brought her here had been kind enough to provide her with her winter clothes until she could make enough money at her new job (plus employee discount) to get ones for this season.

At any rate, Pharos would probably see a cheerful girl wandering around in the snow, occasionally calling out her brand new Jack Frost persona to let him 'play' and marvel at the cuteness.

[the_usual_stuff]

At this time Pharos was keeping close to the entrance one of the upper scale concert halls in the district, carefully avoiding any slick patches of ice as he played in the snow drafts, stomping some of it hard and flat and leaving abstract patterns of footprints in the coat of white covering the pavement.

The glass doors of the concert hall are frosted over, and the chill hanging in the air was invigorating in its own way even as it stings his cheeks. He noticed a girl, small blue Jack Frost, standing not too far away, smiling cheerfully at her Persona's carefree antics. Pharos cocked his head to the side curiously, then faded away into the falling veil of snowflakes.

Rise will hear a young voice speak from a few feet behind her, soft but loud enough to be heard over the breeze. "The seasons change so quickly, can you believe it? It'll be winter before any of us know it!"

[celebrity_commentator]

Well, that wasn't creepy at all. Although to be frank, Rise had heard far worse, and when she turned around to see a little kid, obviously giddy(-ish) about the weather, she decided not to worry too much about where he came from and put her enjoying-the-snow smile back on.

"Haha, yep!" she agreed. "I really wasn't expecting it, since it was spring in my world when I came here."

[the_usual_stuff]

It's the wonder of a new experience that makes him beam, an experience he was well aware he would likely never have back in his dimension and so sought to take advantage of here in this city, unexpected or not. Life was not a boon he had personally enjoyed before.

"It's quite something," Pharos said as she smiled at him, arms folded neatly behind his back, gloved hands wrapped around each other to keep their warmth. "It's unpleasantly cold, but it's... pretty and I like it."

[bondsofsuffering]

Oh hey, it's that rude kid who totally ducked out of that conversation with him earlier!!

...Nnnnot that Hizumi really cares to begin with. Not really. It hadn't been anything important, so no harm, no foul. With a small, amused smile, he saunters up to the kid, his hands stuffed into the pockets of a brand new coat bought explicitly because of the snow.

"Enjoying the snow?"

[the_usual_stuff]

"Why, yes," Pharos turned around at the sound of the new voice, temporarily abandoning his childish revetment in the snow drifts, to respond to the green-haired boy with an innocent smile and a polite greeting of, "Hello, Hizumi. How are you?"

His curly black hair was lightly dusted with snowflakes, otherworldly blue eyes gleaming with curiosity, and his gloves were wet with moisture. Pharos is enjoying the snow for the first time in his existence, indeed.

[bondsofsuffering]

...That makes him pause for a moment. It's hard not to when you've spent a good amount of your life as one of those big secrets that few people were allowed to know about. Which begs the question: why does this boy know?

His expression becomes slightly more closed; guarded. He's only been here for a little while, but he's seen some of the types of people who have been brought here. Considering that gods were among them it didn't seem like too much of a stretch for this child to be yet another such being. At the very least, he definitely isn't ordinary.

Despite all of this, he keeps his tone lighthearted. No need to look completely mistrusting, his true feelings aside. "Aah, that's weird. I don't remember ever introducing myself to you, but it seems you already know my name!"

[the_usual_stuff]

"So I do," his own tone is lighthearted as well. Whether he is being purposefully cryptic and evasive or not, he doesn't elaborate much beyond that unless the other person decides to press for more information. He doesn't visibly react to the slight tint of careful wariness that entered the green-haired boy's expression, yet his smile fades a little. "But you don't know mine."

Clearly, he should rectify that. It would be rude to not introduce himself in some way. Bright blue eyes crinkled and he said, "I'm called Pharos!"

[greaterdays]

It was still strange to have completely missed summer... But Nanako isn't too upset by the sudden snowfall. After all, when snow had covered Inaba she'd been recovering her strength and her dad didn't let her out to play as much as she'd have liked.

So the drifts pull her outside. She's also decided she wants to build a snowman. But without her big bro around, it's difficult to get a snowball big enough to serve as the base - until she gets an idea. She concentrates, and summons her Persona. Now there's two little girls packing snow.

...This is probably going to be more tiring than just making the snowman on her own, but she hasn't realized that yet.

[the_usual_stuff]

Snow had tasted cold on his tongue, bitter and watery when he had tipped his head back and stuck out his tongue to let snowflakes land on his tongue. When Pharos looks down again, he sees Nanako, the little cousin of the Japanese god of life's chosen. Snow crunches under his quiet feet as he walks closer.

"What are you doing?" The little boy asks, quizzically staring at the girl and her Persona working tandem to pack snow together into a icy white, roundish clump.

[greaterdays]

Nanako looks up - and the break in her concentration causes Loveline to waver and fade away. She's still not used to calling her, although she's tried it out a few times since the initial one, just for fun. Also, it's pretty amazing to have a character from a TV show inside her head.

She soon recognizes Pharos as the boy from the other day, despite him not being in the pajamas. "I'm making a snowman. Do you want to help?"

[the_usual_stuff]

He's still wearing the pajamas actually; its just hidden under his puffy, pale grey winter coat and warmer pants because he's weird about clothes. He doesn't blink when the Persona flickers out of existence as Nanako looks up from molding the clump of snow. When she extends the offer for him to help her, the small boy moves a little nearer.

"Sure," Pharos bemusedly agreed, coming to a stop beside the unfinished ice lump and looking down at it.

...

"What are you supposed to do to make a snowman?"

finally got round to tagging this sob

[belfire]

Kazuya lightly kicked his way through the building snow without a care, looking somewhat out of place with his cape thrown over a winter coat and scarf. Not even dressing like he was on a trip to the Arctic would stop him from wearing his beloved cape.

He hated the cold. He didn't mind it before, but since becoming King of Bel, he found himself distasteful of the low temperature even if he didn't really feel it that much. It was probably Belial's doing. He could feel him grumbling inside of him, even if the demon's eternal fires warmed him from head to toe.

It was when he was sulkily walking about that he spotted a small kid wandering about with his head tilted right back, staring up at the sky as if he had never seen snow before. Kazuya suddenly grinned a bit wickedly, and he prowled towards him, his steps light in the powdery snow.

"Enjoying yourself there?"

[the_usual_stuff]

The sky is a dull molted grey, and when Pharos felt the presence of the older teenager stepping lightly over towards him, he tipped his chin back from staring up in childish fascination at the countless dots of powdery white falling from it, and looked at the demon who had a air of wickedness to his grin with no distrust or fear. So many people have asked him that question today.

"Yes," His vivid blue eyes held interest for a moment. Maybe it's the headphones or the blue hair that attract his detached attention. Pharos smiled politely, "And you? Are you enjoying yourself this cold day, Kazuya-san?"

He breaths small puffs of white clouds into as he spoke, the air condensing and evaporating as little slips of mist before fading into nothing, moisture dampening his pale blue scarf.

[belfire]

Kazuya's grin faded and he became much more guarded, straightening up with a hum.

"Have we met?" he asked lightly, turning his head away to regard the child from the corner of his eye. Now that he thought about it, he was sensing something extremely off with him...

[the_usual_stuff]

That would be the constant aura of death, inhumane, vast and empty, that practically saturated the chilled air around Pharos if you stopped and looked at it. Whoops?

"Not personally, I believe," he replied cheerfully, but considering whose soul this was, Kazuya could have been one of the very first humans to meet him in a way if you believed the stories. So, yes they had met before. The small child tugged at his scarf, loosening it slightly.