[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

[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."

[celebrity_commentator]

"Well yeah, it's cold...does it not snow where you come from?" she asked, paying attention to her ability to read people. Or at least their sentence structure.

[the_usual_stuff]

"I suppose it did," he muttered. And Japan or the island port wasn't exactly known was having snowstorms. Pharos had been limited to a single bedroom and whatever his vessels saw. It would have a struggle on his part to project himself any further than that when he had been incomplete. "But when it did, I never witnessed it myself."

[celebrity_commentator]

"Didn't get out much, huh?" she asked. It would account for the paleness. "Were your parents strict?"

She suddenly thought about it. "...oh, are your parents here? You didn't need help finding them, did you?"

[the_usual_stuff]

"I was very weak," he admitted. And also his memories had been fragmented, and he had been locked up for a decade.

The next question brought him up short. Pharos supposed the Queen of the Night would be what humans referred to as a parent to him but the girl was talking about parental units in the traditional sense, right? Two people who had children together and raised them. So, not quite like his progenitor. Was 'strict' a proper way to describe Her?

He shook his head. "Parents? I don't... have parents, so I wouldn't need help finding them."

Besides he had Minako and Minato. They were more than enough for him. He didn't understand why she had bothered to offer to begin with. He was a stranger to her.

[celebrity_commentator]

"Oh, I see...," she said, a little taken aback that she'd just bothered an orphan about his parents. "Um, sorry to bring it up. Do you have anyone here taking care of you, though?"

He'd had to have gotten that coat from somewhere, after all.

[the_usual_stuff]

"It's alright, I'm not bothered," he quietly reassures her, sensing her unhappiness at unknowingly breaching the subject of missing parents. And well, it's not like he is particularly sensitive over such topics himself. (He's mister "hey, didn't your parents die ten years ago? :'D" after all) But at the mention of him having any caretakers to look after him, Pharos does perk up considerably. "Oh yes! My friends are allowing me to stay with them."

Because he stalks them, and it's easier for everybody if they live in the house. The Arisatos are responsible guardians of the child manifestion of Death.

[celebrity_commentator]

"Oh, that's good. I was a little worried," Rise admitted, relieved. It was bad enough that little kids were summoned to this town, let alone one without someone to take care of him.

"Well as long as they know where you are and they're not worried, there shouldn't be a problem," she said. "Oh, my name is Rise. What's yours?"

[the_usual_stuff]

She seems to be simply relieved he is not alone in this city before belatedly introducing herself. He offered his own name in return and said, "Ah, I'm Pharos. It's nice to meet you, Rise-san."

[celebrity_commentator]

"Nice to meet you too," she said in return.

"Soooo...if this is your first time really seeing snow, do you know about snowball fights?" she asked, with exaggerated innocence.

[the_usual_stuff]

Hizumi had introduced him to snowballs before this at least! So yes, he knows about snowballs. His feet tapped against the frozen crust of snow under his boots.

"Snowball fights?" he echoed her, bemused. The note of confusion in his voice probably gives him away, but he does connect the dots pretty rapidly; Snowballs are essentially handmade spheres of cold, wet snow and therefore would be quite effective in combat. That doesn't explain the reason why you would fight with them, unless. It was a game?

[celebrity_commentator]

Rise bends down and picks up a mittful of snow, rolling it carefully in her hands.

"Snowball," she said. Then she pitched it underhand at Pharos's chest. "Snowball fight!"

[the_usual_stuff]

Pharos stares in surprise, "Huh?" his arms unfolding as if to brace himself and the snowball she tossed hit his chest and exploded into powder. He glanced down at it as a white lump slid down his coat and plopped onto the ground.

He turns back to Rise, understanding what she was talking about now, and clarifies, "It's for fun, right?

[celebrity_commentator]

"Completely for fun," she agreed, nodding firmly, "and vitally important for a kid to know about if he's gonna go out into the snow! Now throw one back."

[the_usual_stuff]

He nodded with a giggle, and bent down to do so, scooping up a fistful of snow and packing it together into a sphere that he lobbed at Rise. (Of course, he's got very little practice at throwing with decent aim, so chances are it'll miss.)

[celebrity_commentator]

(Of course, she doesn't try very hard to dodge, more or less letting it hit her leg.)

"Good shot! Try another one!" she said back, picking up another snowball and throwing it a little more seriously, counting on her aim to not hit the poor kid in the face or something.

[the_usual_stuff]

(Rise...)

Since he's prepared this time, Pharos neatly steps to the side smiling when she launches the snowball at him, and only pauses to crunch together another sloppyish snowball before the small child returns her throw with his own toss. (If all snowdays were filled with new experiences like this, he was looking to the next one. :>)