| abstract
| - Snow Days Festival Grounds The wiry blue-black grass that normally covers the landscape of this patch of turf on the outskirts of the city of Necromundus has been covered by drifts of white-blue snow. Flakes of fresh falling snow swirl about, settling into the eaves of wooden structures set up for festivalgoers around a central bonfire. Garviel is standing in the middle of the fairgrounds. Two snow forts have been set up on either side of the field, and behind each snow fort a five or so foot tall pole has been set up, each with a santa hat on top of it. He's currently holding a snowball in his paw, and tossing it up to himself. Strolling into the festival grounds comes Miran, complete with ChirpyBag, both of them singing a tune that Earthlings know as Queen's "We will Rock you". The Bag provides the percussionist background. She twirls a nasty looking snow pistol from one hand. Eloise eyes Miran and her ChirpyBag with a grin. "I forsee pain," she murmurs to noone, but she makes no move to leave the fair grounds. Instead she checks the snowgun briefly. Up from the sky, a shadow breifly passes over the grounds, and air from two buffeting wings makes freshly fallen snow twirl and spin about. Narthic lands, those two green glowing orbs he calls eyes shifting about. Brasidas stops at the fringes of the festival grounds, and adjusts his sunglasses. Cocking an eyebrow at the gathering group and Garviel, he shoves his hands in to the pockets of his trench coat, finally walking to the finge of the "battlefield" and settling himself, quietly watching the winged newcomer. Garviel glances around, no expression on his face, but his tail wags, "Alrright, glad you all came. Herre arre the rrules, no fighting except with snowballs, means no swords, axes, the like, and no punching, kicking, biting, flame," he glances briefly to Narthic, before continuing, "Anything like that. Objective of the game is to get the otherr team's flag, and brring it back to yourr forrt beforre they do the same, underrstand? Who else wants to be a team Captain?" Swinging the chirpy bag from one arm, Miran looks at Garv with a slightly lifted brow. "Ah. I shall, I suppose, as the only antithesis of your holiday goodness present." Narthic blinks. "Oh, of course. Give the Dragon the fire joke." he snorts sarcastically, two streams of steam puffing from his snout. Eloise scuffs a hoof in the snow, cuckling. "Antithesis of holiday goodness, says the woman in the bright red holiday garb." Still, she tucks the mace safely in her bag to prevent instinct from putting it in her hands. Brasidas finishes listening to the instructions, and as per the rules, snicks the safety to the 'on' position on his 1911 pistol. Kneeling slowly, Brasidas tests the snow for packability, and, satisfied, stands again, wiping the snow from his gloves. Garviel wags his tail a little at Narthic's comment, no expression on his muzzle, but he appears to be in good humor. He nods to Miran, "Alrright, rrock, paperr scissorrs forr who gets firrst pick?" Preening, Miran re-settles her hat and neatly taps the toes of her boots against the ground to shake the snow from them. "Not all of us are equipped with fur coats for skin, thankfully," she notes with a disdainful eye to Eloise's attire. She looks across at Garv. "The dragon should assume his...lizard man form, to be fair." She sets the bag safely in the sidelines and rolls her neck. "Right. On three." "Gah...you people." Narthic says, before a shifting cloud of energy enveloupes the Dragon until he takes his more usual Dragon/human hybrid. "It would've been so much easier that way." Eloise dusts the snow from her fetlock with a tap of her hoof, declining to comment. She watches the game of rock-paper-scissors with distant interest. Brasidas 's eyebrows raise for a moment as he watches Narthic's transition, his hand lightly on his weapon beneath his trenchcoat. When Narthic's hybrid form appears, Brasidas seems to settle once more, and dropped his hand as if it was never there. Garviel manages to pull off a win in the rock paper scissors game, his tail wagging a bit, "I'll take El," he says simply, pointing at the Tauroid. "Excellent. I'll take the six-shooter then," Mir crooks a finger at Brasidas. "And, since he doesn't have a snow gun, and his excellent pistol is outlawed, I'll take Narthic too." She smiles at Garv, her eyes glinting slightly. "Hrm?" Narthic grunts, looking over towards Miran. "I'm picked? Huh...alright." he shrugs moseing on over towards the Demoness. Eloise eyes Brasidas and his shifty hand suspiciously, but she crosses the snowscape to stand next to Garviel with but a nod and a grin. Brasidas grunts under his breath: "Its not a six-shooter..." and trudges towards Miran, irritated. Garviel glances towards Mir, nodding, "Alrright, get to yourr forrts," he replies, beginning to move towards the one closest to him and El. Miran snorts softly. "No sense of dignity," she mutters, legging an elegant curtsey and tilting her head. Then she straightens, grins at the two warriors, and heads into her fort. She snaps as she walks, and the front seems to etch "Fort Victory" into the front. "So...this is some kind of snowball fight, eh?" Narthic ponders, following after the two. "Well, needed something to kill time. Might actually be fun." Eloise nods in response to Garviel's whispers and follows him to the fort. She doesn't do anything special, she just vanishes behind it, bar the short ivory horns just barely visible peeking over the top of the icy wall. Brasidas follows Miran to their fort, eyeing up the battlefield for good snowball positions. A small smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth as he sees the "Fort Victory" emblazoned on their fort. Garviel nods as he takes a position behind his fort, "Everryone rready? On thrree..." he says, a paw placed on the edge of his fort. Miran watches the paw count down to three...as soon as the number is reached, she vaults over the top of the fort, her wings unfurling as she goes, allowing her to land and take a knee, aiming the hat. Taking a moment, Narthic wait till the count of three and spins, revealing half of his form, the other which covered by the forth. A lump of balled snow in head he takes a bead at El and hurls the cold projectile at the Taruoid. Brasidas rolls out of the left side the fort and runs forward a few steps, carefully aiming a snowball at Garviel, finally whipping it across the battlefield. Eloise's gigle is half-laughter, half maniac vengeance as she springs up, kneeling half way up the wall. The snowball plants sqquare on her chest delaying her just a bit. She fires at the fastest target, Brasidas. Garviel leaps over the side of his fort, beginning to sprint towards the other fort, not even bothering to throw snow as his claws tear it up underpaw. As Brasidas's shot flies at him, he spins the the side, pulling off an airborn three-sixty in order to easily dodge the snowy projectile, before hitting the ground, still running towards the fort at full tilt. Mir dashes forward to stand beside Brasidas, again kneeling and taking aim, this time at Garviel. "Hah, you overgrown lap rug," she yells, "eat snow pellets!" Narthic isn't about to let up on El, already having another snowball ready due to his tail was scooping up another ball of snow as the Dragon was throwing the first. Tail coming around to drop it in his already open and waiting hand and flings the next one, the tail going back down for another lump. Brasidas takes the snowball in the face, causing him to slide to a stop. Turning away from the others, he slides his sunglasses gingerly off his face and wipes them, finally returning them to his now-scowling face. Eloise still, covered by the snowfort, eloise manages to avoid being face-splattered by and icy bomb, but the snow still sticks to her side with an explosion of fluffy white powder. She squeals as the icy cold penetrates her fur, and turns her sights next to Narthic, the mighty snow lobber. "Argh! That's two! Time I got some payback!" Garviel sidesteps Miran's snowball, perhaps not as easily as the first one, nor as epic, but no snow touches his snow-white fur as he continues moving straight at the flagpole, managing to reach at least the other fort, but not yet his goal. "Stop the sleddog," Mir yells, aiming to retake aim for Eloise as she hopes Brasidas recovers. She fires of a salvo of snowpellets, grinning as the bag chirps from the sidelines. Narthic finds a new target in mind from Miran's suggestion, that target just so happens to be Garviel as he seems to be the largest threat at the moment. Another snowball plops into his hand from his snowball-making tail and flings the next one. Brasidas stands momentarily in position, gazing at the approaching Garviel. With a start he takes off running towards the enemy hat, murmuring "Nice doggy." just loud enough for the passing Garv to hear. Garviel takes Narthic's snowball right in the chest, not fast enough to dodge that one, even though he tried. With that, he nabs the santa hat from the pole, pauses long enough to put it on his head, flicks Narthic a salute and takes off back towards his own fort. Another hail of ice crystals rain down upon Eloise, mostly deflected by the snow fort. the cold crystals still make her blink, hard, but she is otherwise unaffected. "Oh no you don't!" She shouts with just a bit more grit in her voice than intended, taking aim at the scampering Brasidas. Miran takes off running towards the other fort...turning to fire at garv as she runs. One more sprint brings her in the range of the other flag, and the bag is humming in irritation. Those glowing eyes of Narthic's turn from a bright green to a dark blue, looking not too enthused that the Lupoid managed to make off with the hat. Another peice of white ammo loaded into his hand and he throws again at Garviel. Brasidas takes the snow-cannonshot flat in the chest, and is hit so hard he is thrown into the air. Realizing his hieght, Brasidas tucks his body into a backward roll, and, righting himself as he falls, holds his sunglasses to his face with his left hand while his right was thrust downward in expectation of solid earth. Falling the last few feet, Brasidas lands, displacing a large cloud of snow in a fantasical explosion. As the snow slowly settled around him, one can see Brasida's kneeling form within. Garviel glances over at Brasidas' spectacular explosion, obviously not paying attention the Miran's snowball coming right at his face. He's momentarily blinded by said snowball, doesn't see a patch of ice and goes sliding, his paws come out from underhim as he slides. The hat slips off his head, floating gently to the ground. Eloise Watches her teammate go down in proverbial flames, wincing empathetically as he hits the ice. "Yeow." She mutters to herself, before reasserting the battlefield. Brasidas: Down. Garviel: Down. Narthic: Too far to care. Miran: Threat. Eloise aims to neutralize that threat, following the fleetfooted Miran with her sight. "Keep the dog down!" Miran, running with a tilted head, takes the snowball to her hat, which she whips off as she runs, laughing at Eloise. "Hah! Luck favors the prepared, lady!" She vaults over the wall and aims at Eloise at point blank, hoping to devil her shot is good, so that she can snatch the hat and begin the trek back. Seeing an oppurtunity, Nathic takes it. Rising up to his full height, the Dragon spreads out his thrity foot wing-span. Croching down, legs muscles tense and release, while the ice and snow under his cloved feet buckle and groan, accompanied by the a thundering 'CRACK' when the the creature leaps off the ground. Narthic jets up ward, a whirlwind of snow being left in his wake. Above the battlefeild now at a good heigh, he hovers, taking a bead on the downed Lupoid. With a oversized snowball clutched in each talons, he hurls the first down at the puppy. Brasidas stands, the cloud finally disappated around him. He dusts himself off slowly, before returning his thoughts to the battle. Seeing Miran's success at approaching the hat, Brasidas turned on his heel with a hidden snowball, whipping it at the still-prostrate Garviel. Garviel manages to wipe that original snowball off of his face, just in time to see the basketball sized snowball coming straight for his face. His eyes bug out, and he manges to get out a "Oh no..." before his face is covered in snow again. Brasidas' snowball doesn't hit Garvi, just kinda 'plinks' onto the pile on his face, not adding much to the already snow covered Lupoid. "AHAHAHAHA!!" Eloise's sharp and suddenly maniac laughter cracks across the landscape, muted only by snow and silenced not even by Narthic's grand take-off. "You missed!" She cries out, a lopsided and devilish grin baring all of her flat, herbivore teeth. A tiny ruffle of snow sits on her bangs, scratched off of the snow ball by her horns. She sets her muzzle practically against Miran's back and pulls the trigger. Shot in the back! Miran drops the hat as she stumbles forward a few steps before collapsing into the snow, muttering. "Et tu, Bovine?" The bag begins howling, a horrible, screeching sort of growl and wriggles furiously as if to join in the fray. Miran struggles to pull the pistol out from under herself, hindered by her coat, her laughter, and her sudden concern at the bag. "No!" she shouts at the bag. "Stay, Fuzz!" Narthic overlooks the battlefeild like some ancient deity, the two glowing orbs that make up his eye looking quite pleased at his successful strike. With another oversized ball o snow, he winds back his arm. That wuffy is staying put. Brasidas glances once at the basketball-sized snowball planted on the lupoids face, and once at the floating lizard-man, furrowing his brow. Not wasting a beat, Brasidas sprints the last distance to Garviel's fort, intending to support Miran. Garviel takes a good deal of time to get rid of all the snow on his face, just in time for the next basketball size snowball to hit him square in the face, the Lupoid managing to sigh before it impacts. "Dowm you go!" Eloise grunts, watching Miran tumble. She turns to sweep the field, catching Brasidas as the last of him dissapears behind the wall of the fort. "Not on my watch, mr. .45!" She sniffs, before vaulting half-way over the wall to get a better shot at Brasidas. Brasidas isn't knocked out by the snowball thrown by El, but is clipped across the face, throwing his sunglasses to the ground. A moment passes in silence, and Brasidas stares coldly at Eloise for a moment before retrieving his sunglasses, sliding them on his face, and stalking off into the night. Seizing on the brief distraction Brasidas offers, Miran snatches the hat back up and brings the gun around to bear on Eloise. "Cow-ard!" she mocks the significantly larger female. She plops the hat on her head and then fires, cocking her head to peer out from the enormous fluffy trim, the fuzzy ball on the end tipping to her shoulder comically. Free hat just waiting to be taken up. With one strong wingflap, Narthic turns around in direction until he starts speeding down towards the ground, and towards that other hat in specific. He pulls up in his spiral a few mere feet above the ground, zooming across the snow. With one cloved hand reaching out to grab the hat, the other hand digs into the snow, grabbing a lump to use for his next weapon. Clutching the hat up in a claw, he pulls back up flying high up into the sky again. He takes a moment to places the hat on his scaly head and begins to ball up the clump of snow into another snowy missle. Garvi gets the rest of the snow off of his face, blinking as the dragon takes the other hat, "Oh no you don't!" he says, sitting up and balling another snowball up, he stands and whips it at the airborn lizard. Eloise is plastered squarley in the side of the head by Miran's return fire. Dazed, Eloise topples over the rest of the snowfort wall and lands with a mighty FLUMP in the fluffy snow. Miran sprints up to the wall, scooping snow up as if to smash it onto the back of the fallen healer's head in passing...but then she stuffs it into the stolen hat. Swinging it, she throws it at Narth, leaping off of the edge of the fort for the extra height. "Catch it and land!" she yells before bringing the gun to bear on Garv. 'Thwap'! goes the the snowball agasint Narthic's back. Snorting he turns around, just in time to reach out with his tail to wrap around the other hat. "Hmph." he grumbles, using that new missle to launch at Garviel. After doing so, he lets his wings fold upwards, the Dragon falling down to back to terra firma. 'FOOO-WHOMP!' goes the newest explosion of snow as the Dragon falls into a snowdrift...or well it /was/ a snowdrift. Now its white crater with the black scaled lizard in the middle. Where did the rest of it go though? Well now theres a large wave of snow that showers a good portion of the feild from the energy released. Garviel 'oooff's when he's hit in the back by Miran's snowball, skidding again on that same patch of ice, before going down facefirst into a snowdrift...and then getting covered in a bunch of snow from Narthic's landing and snowball, the white Lupoid pretty much indistinquishable from the snow he's covered in. "Bad form," is all Eloise Has to Say, as she levels the snow pistol at Miran, from her position half-buried in snow. Miran skids to a halt as the wave of snow rolls towards her, wincing, and then opening one eye into the soft hiss as the mist settles around her, Garv having considerately absorbed the brunt of the wave. She turns to stick her tounge out at Eloise, wiggling her fingers from her ears, and then continues on her run into Fort Victorious. Inside the cloud that lingers over the newly formed crater burns two icy blue orbs, before the outline of Narthic can truley be seen. As the snow settles, the Dragon hybrid strides over towards the pole near the fort, his tail placing the first hat on it before plucking the second off his his head with a claw and putting it atop the other one. He turns, and blinks at the rest. "So...did we win?" he asks, sounding a little unsure. Must've gotten all wrapped up in throwing things at people. Garviel shifts from his pile of snow, his eyes coming into view as he sits up, "Yea...looks like you guys did," his tail wagging a bit as he brushes more snow off, "Good game, guys, though I had yourr hat theirr forr a bit," Eloise stands up, shaking off as much of the crusted snow as she can. "Yup. Great game!" she says, striding across the field in long steps to meet up with the rest of the participants. "I thought we had you, until you took down Garviel." Mir extends her hand first to Garv and then to El. "Absolutely...that bit in the air...encredible." Narthic whips off some excess snow from his wingtips as they fold up into his back. "Huh, well that was fun." he nods, seeming pleased. Also, his eyes quickly fade from dark blue back into the ever-familar bright green. Garviel stands, taking Mir's hand in his paw and shaking. His tail wags, "What'd you expect frrom a white wolf? I'm at home herre," he replies as he looks around, "Nice thrrow yourrself at the end therre, too." Mir nods. "My thanks, packleader. It was a good fight." The bag cheeps from the sidelines, and begins rolling towards the crowd. Mir grins and scoops it up from the snow. Eloise takes Miran's and shakes it gingerly. "Nice shot there behind the fort. I din't see it coming till after I hit the ground. And you," She looks up atdragon form Narthic with a grin. "Are a nasty cheat, but it was a great manuever!" "Cheat?" Narthic blinks. "I did no such thing. There was nothing specified about keeping your feet on the ground." Garviel continues wagging his tail, "It was, perrhaps would could do it again sometime, know I wouldn't be against it," "Oh really," Mir quirks her brow. She lifts the pistol and fires it at Garv. Eloise pauses to think about this for a moment, before shrugging. "Fair enough. But it was great fun anyways. I'd love to play again. Right now, though, I wanna defrost a little bit!" She gestures to her ice-matted fur. Narthic hangs back while Miran institues another fight. Garviel drops as soon as Mir fires, the snow ball passing over his head. He's still on the ice though, but instead of slipping, his uses his claws to his advantage, digging them into the ice as he slides downwards and to the side, the claws sending a spray of chipped ice straight up at Miran. Laughing, and pointing, Eloise excuses herself, waving merrily back to the others as she goes. Miran dances nimbly aside from the flying icechips, her heels finding surprising purchase on the slick ground as she laughs along with the bag's mocking chirps. "Ok, ok! Truce." Narthic nods to Eloise as she passes by. He chuckles at Miran. "Don't know if you should be beliving that." he jokes, idly picking out some ice between some scales. Garviel wags his tail as he picks himself up, offering his paw back to Miran, "Until next time," he agrees. Mir shakes the paw again, and then hefts the bag again gently. "Evening." Narthic watches the exchange of handshakes and wraps his wings about his form like a cloak. But seeing as the fun has ended, he turns to head off to wherever he may roam. Garviel nods, wagging his tail, "Evening," he replies to both of them, before moving to go sit on one of the snowbanks.
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