Welcome to Gaia! ::

This is an AU, or 'alternate universe' RP. This means, it works in a slightly different timeline than our actual RP thread, so we can have as much cheerful holiday spirit as possible. Adrian is in the student council. Noir has yet to grace the gossip board. Any other character relationships may be portrayed here just as they are in our in normal RP.

This thread will run up to New Year's Day. I'd like to ask everyone here not to let this RP derail the old one *too* much, so please continue posting to finish the last class.

~~~~~

It's morning, and the campus is coated in thick white snow, and classes are off for the holidays. The buildings have decorations of wreaths, and a large, decorated tree stands in the cafeteria, giving off the scent of pine. The cooks are serving hot chocolate and gingerbread.

Students mill around, either sledding or getting into snowball fights. The ponds have iced over enough that they are safe to ice skate on, and a small group of teachers stand watch at the two main ones. Many of the older students are discussing the dance planned for the evening.

Gregor trudged along the semi-frozen walkway, watching his breath puff in the air. He was very much against the concept of being outside in inclimate weather. In fact, he was pretty much against snow in general. It was cold, it was slippery, and he had bad memories of balls of it being hurled at his face.

He unrolled a very short Christmas list as he walked. He'd be at his grandmother's house tomorrow, so he had to make sure everything was planned and ready to go before he departed. He'd purchased her a box of apricot tea. He had cards for everyone else. Yes, it was all in order. Except, in fact, for the patch of ice in front of him.

Whump.

"Winter!" he remarked disgustedly as he picked himself up.

Sofie Thorn stepped cautiously along the freshly shoveled sidewalk, rubbing her small mittens together in an attempt to keep warm. The sparkling white coat of snow wasn't visible to her, but she sensed the crisp winter smell, the icy tingle on her face, and the heightened echoes of sound. She had decided to leave the cane in her room, it would not be much use to tap the ground when it was covered with snow, and if she did happen to trip the snow would offer some cushion.

Curiously, she turned her wool-capped head towards the sound of scraping ice from the skating rink. 'Ice-skating...?' she thought to herself. 'I never realised there were any lakes around here.' She took a step towards the sound, and her foot immedietly sank into the wall of snow on the side of the sidewalk. Sofie gave a surprised squeal, and pulled her leg out. To most students this was nothing, but to this tiny girl it was slightly above knee-high.

'I had no idea it had snowed so terribly much!' she thought in surprise. 'Well, there's no sense in standing about here... I'll just have to brave it!'

Making her way through the crunchy white powder as best she could, she followed the sound of Natalie's skates. She was nearly there when she tripped on a hidden object on the ground and fell face-first into the snow.

"Mmmphph..." her muffled voice said from under the white powder. She flailed her tiny arms as if she were swimming in the stuff. Eventually she was able to right herself, and took some steadying breaths before finally arriving onto the shoveled area by the ice, which had been cleared to allow space for students to change into their skates.

Sofie brushed the snow off, red-nosed but proud of herself for having navigated the sea of snow single-handedly.

It's beautiful. This feeling reminds me of listening to Vivaldi's "the Four Seasons.' She smiled cheerfully, titling her head up towards the sky and clasping her mittened hands; listening to the crisp sound of skates skimming the icy pond cover.

Gregor didn't seem to suffer any real injuries, just a little bruising to his ego. Still, it'd be a good idea to ask the groundskeepers to put some more ice on the actual walkways and around the street-side of the gate. It'd be a shame if someone wound up busting a tailbone or spraining a muscle.

Rachel cut across the grounds. Skating...she hadn't done that in years. Or sledding. Snowtubing...that would be fun. Wonder if I can dig one up somewhere?

She crouched down, scooping up a handful of snow. There was one winter activity you didn't need equipment for: just your hands.

And a good target.

"Hey, Scranton!"

Rachel let fly with her snowball.

Charlie patted down the the last handful of snow on her creation. She stepped back, rubbing her chin pensively with one glove, examining her work with a critical eye as would a fine artist looking over a recently finished masterpiece.

"They need to be bigger...!" she said decisively, taking two more larger handfuls of snow and packing them onto her snow woman's chest. "Fabulous! Now you'll make all the other snow people jealous."

She grinned with satisfaction, giving the carrot-nosed being a tender kiss on the cheek.

Having spotted Charlie, a certain petite blond tossed some snow at the back of her head. "You have such a one track mind." he said quietly, laughing. Although, he had to admit, it was a pretty good snow sculpture. Looking out over the expanse of snow he saw that pretty much everyone was attempting to have a good time, Gregor excluded. Of course, Gregor never had a good time since he seemed to think it was too childish.

Sofie turned her head towards the approaching scraping sounds.



"Hi." she replied pleasantly. "I was just listening to you skate. It's a sound I haven't heard in a long time... Normally, my parents don't like me to go near anything too slippery, like ice. I suppose I'm being a little naughty today, I hope Santa doesn't mind." she added with a small giggle.

Gregor glared, shoved the paper into his jacket, and moved off. Disliking winter was not tantamount to 'being a Scrooge'. And Scrooge himself had been a very sensible man, after all. He'd read the book several times and agreed with quite a few of his ideas, if not his obvious greed. Holiday spirit was highly overrated. Besides the religious aspect, it meant little or nothing to him.

He passed Bade, who was talking to a girl making a snow...woman? He blushed when he realized what it was she was doing. She's adding on...bosoms! How obscene! There are children here, and decent, modest people! Gregor fixedly stared ahead of him, deciding to inform a teacher about the blatant impropriety.