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

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

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.

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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?"

"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.

...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!"

"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!"

"Pharos... That's an interesting name." Foreign to Hizumi, but that's not entirely a surprise in a place like this.

"Is this your first time seeing snow, Pharos?"

The name held a years' worth of precious memories for him, he supposed one could say. Sentimentality.

"Yes," he held out his hand, palm turned upward and watched as snowflakes drifted down from above, and begin melting the moment they touched his pale skin, becoming moisture soaking into his glove. "... It's interesting."

"You see snow for the first time in your life and all you can say is 'it's interesting'? Come on, where's the excitement?"

He gets down on his haunches and starts scooping up snow, packing it into a ball.

If you wanted a Death who actually recognized and knew how to accurrently express the emotions he felt and how much he was capable of feeling, you should probably go find Ryoji! He's the Death who understands feeling feelings. Nooot Pharos.

Pharos had other things to say on seeing delicate snowflakes tumble down from the heavens for the first time in his life; they're just all in his head. So, he defaults to staring curiously at Hizumi's actions. "What are you doing?"

"Making a snowball." How helpful. Once it's into a satisfactorily spherical shape, he'll hold it out to Pharos. "How good is your throwing aim?"

Snowball? He can see it's a sphere of packed snow, yes. He accepts the offered round, cold clump of snow in both small hands and looks quizzically down first at it, then at Hizumi.

Pharos blinked, "I don't know." He'd never tried... throwing... things. He'd dropped them on accident occasionally at the most. It had been a laborious struggle before coming to this city to just become tangible enough to be able to interact with and pick up objects.

Hizumi blinks a few times. "You've never seen snow, and you don't know how to throw? You don't get out too much, do you, kid?"

Assuming this really is a kid, of course. "Well, there's plenty of snow around, so you can try it out. Hold this in whichever hand you prefer and find a good target. Something that isn't moving would probably be best, liiiike..." his gold eyes quickly sought out a suitable target, "...that lamp post there. Gauge the distance with your eyes, and pull your arm back. And when you think you're aiming in the right direction, snap your arm ahead and let go of the ball, like this!" As he speaks, Hizumi mimes the actions with his own arm.

"If you time it right and put enough power behind it, you should be able to hit the post!" Thankfully, said post only about five feet away, so it should be an easy target in theory.

That earns an almost uncertain sideways glance from Pharos. "Not really, I guess?"

And then he'll listen attractively to Hizumi's directions and observe how he moves when he explains, the movements of his arms as he mimes the actions required to toss snowballs. After a moment's pause as he eyes the post before copying Hizumi's actions, pulling his right arm back, checking the distance and his aim and chucking the gob of snow at the target, almost releasing it from his fingers too late. The snowball speeds through the cold air and smashes into the post. He allowed his arm to drop back to his side.

"Hey! I did it." Pharos smiled in satisfasion. Let's make another snowball, and try throwing that one too!

"See? It's not that hard!" He scoops up some more snow, packing it into another ball. "If you practice on still targets enough, you can start aiming for moving objects, too." There's a bit of a mischievous grin as he pulls his arm back, lobbing the snowball at a post further down the street.

The snowball explodes into powder as it hits dead center. "Try shooting for that one now."

Pharos was still grinning an odd little off-kilter smile of his own, packing together and smoothing out his own snowball and nodding in acknowledge of the green-haired male's advice. "Perhaps I will try that. Practice makes perfect as I am told." Back goes his arm, tensing before tossing the snowball towards a post slightly closer than Hizumi's target. The snowball whizzes past the post, missing by a hair.

Not discouraged in the slightest by the miss, he molds another ball of snow and throws that as well.

... So there are two young boy chucking snowballs at street posts.

"That's what they say!" He's got an amused grin as he watches Pharos working on his aim. There's still definitely something off about him, but he's not threatening for now, so there aren't any problems.

But very suddenly, Hizumi stops, ducking behind a nearby vehicle. His smile has dropped, and there's a more serious air to his expression as he watches a person out of the corner of his eye. The person in question is a teenager, and more than likely a native to Hinoto-Ri. He's completely unaware of Hizumi's presence, and seems to be content to listen to his music while he walks to whatever his destination.

"Hey, Pharos... Do you think you can hit a moving target yet?" Hizumi's voice is quiet as he gathers up another snowball.

And when he's still working on that aim, Pharos glances back at Hizumi just in time to catch the green-haired boy duck behind a vehicle that was parked nearby, covered in its own thick, pure white coat of snow. Pharos promptly follows him to his hiding position, made curious by the serious air he had suddenly adopted.

Luminous blue eyes blink when the other boy asks him that question.

"I an unsure," he admitted wryly. He then tracks Hizumi's gaze to a native person bobbing his head along to the music being played in his earbuds as he walked, not much older in age than either of his containers and opts to simply observe and see what he plans to do next. This is intriguing!

He gives a sigh with the weight one would expect of a commander given the option to either fight or flee in the face of near impossible odds. "I guess it will be up to me, then. But if you can provide backup, it'd really help."

With snowball in hand, he slowly stands up slightly - just enough to get into a good throwing stance without completely blowing his cover. Once he's convinced the boy is oblivious to his presence, he pulls his arm back and throws a fastball at the guy, immediately ducking down again just as the snowball hits the unfortunate soul in the face.

"Hey, what the-?!"

He sounds mad. But Hizumi on the other hand looks downright gleeful. "Hope you're ready for a fight, Pharos!" He's got a wide grin now as he hurriedly packs another snowball, listening hard for the approaching footsteps of the angry teen.

He let out a small, noncommittal noise and watched without interference as the events occurred. It's when Hizumi tosses the snowball and wallops the unsuspecting human on the side of his face, hard enough to have stung the teenager's face slightly and said teenager's resulting outraged reaction as he wiped the chunks of snow off his reddened face, he starts to smile more as Hizumi dips back down into hiding. Okay, he can see the appeal in this.

A way to pass the time if nothing else.

"Indeed, I am," he agreed, reaching down to pat a snowball together and ready it to toss. "Isn't this amusing?" Pharos giggled a bit, still smiling his grin not as wide as the green-haired boy's beaming unrepentant glee, but more quietly amused.

"Amusing... That's a word for it, I guess!" Hizumi spares only a quick glance at Pharos before peering carefully around the vehicle. With his free hand, he hurriedly beckons Pharos closer behind his back. "He's coming, so get ready!" There's laughter in his voice as he flattens himself against the car, waiting until the perfect opportunity to spring up and pelt the poor high schooler with yet another snowball.

"Go, go, go!" The moment of truth has arrived, Pharos! Are you up for the toils that make up a snowball fight?

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

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