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 Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2025 5:11 pm
2025 Winter Holiday Prompt Snow Glow (15) : On especially cold nights, strange puffs of light rise from the snow like warm steam--only this 'steam' glows in soft, sparkling colors and moves in slow, liquid shapes, like wax escaped a lava lamp and is rising towards the sky. Scientists insist it’s an unusual, but natural, phenomenon caused by pressure and temperature changes, but that doesn’t explain how the lights react when you reach for them--swirling around your fingers like playful, weightless ribbons. Sometimes, around these strange pockets, the snow beneath your feet glimmers when you step near the lights, and coming into contact with the glow results in it clinging to your skin or clothes in faint, shimmering patches. The luminescent residue fades after a few hours and has no lasting effects.
When he stopped to admire the view of the city from a rooftop, he noticed that weird, colored, glowing steam rose from the snow blanketing everything. He thought he'd heard about people talking about the phenomenon before, but had never gotten a chance to see it for himself. It was supposed to be natural, but how, then, did it get so colorful? It reminded him of what had looked to be fairy lights showing up everywhere during the Star Festival.
Ever curious, Sinope tried to reach for a puff of light or steam or whatever it was as it drifted near him on its way upward into the sky. Instead of dispersing, however, as he thought it would, it swirled around his hand and fingers and then clung to his skin, causing it to glow.
"Whoa," he said softly, touching the luminescent substance. It wouldn't rub off, however. He hoped it wasn't anything bad, like energy-sapping Negaverse stuff, but it certainly seemed harmless enough...
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2025 6:52 am
It was a particularly freezing night in Destiny City and Sinope had learned to do more than simply trust that his magical outfit...
Tetra wasn't one to be distracted very easily when given a task. In fact, the biggest issue often is that he becomes so overtly anxious about that one task, that he might worry himself into doing it too much. It was a habit that only visits him on occasion now. Especially with his Fiancee almost always there to be an anchor and supporter for his racing thoughts.
The other had always been so patient and caring with helping Tetra adjust to their new life here in a country, and their new work as negaverse agents. Patroling and working together always ended up putting Tetra to ease by the end of the day. Today though, while the other was busy researching on better ways to extract energy. Tetra saw the opportunity to practice doing things alone. His fiancee was the busier one out of the two, and he didn't want to put himself in a position where he was helpless without him. He had to grow too, afterall. And if he improved himself, indirectly - hopefully , he'd be able to make his fiancee's life easier too.
After giving the other a goodbye kiss, he changed from his civilian clothes to his agent uniform, and headed out for a quick patrol.
The plan was to be out at least an hour, avoid touching random things he found on the floor, and hopefully - he's able to work through his anxiety and go home when the hour is up. Though the night gives a sense of peace with how quiet it is, the early minutes of his patrol involved tensing at moving shadows, and freezing at any sudden sound.
He took a break in an alleyway, behind a building he didn't recognise. Leaning against the wall, and steadying his breath. What he expected to be a predictable 5 minutes of just deep breathing, instead turned into another challenge for his anxious mind. As small. almost lava-lamp like things started... popping out of the ground, he stood defensively for a moment. Assessing if it was dangerous before calming down and staring at it as it slowly rised up, like it was reaching for the skies. Tetra held 'Samantha' close to his chest for a moment before deciding to see where that strange fluid was going.
With his new enchanced abilities, he jumped on anything he could to push himself up from the ground, closer to the rooftoop of the building, trying to follow the floating liquid at a close distance. Just as he got on the roof though, he took his eyes off the floating liquid at stood tensely frozen, noticing he was not the only person here.
"S-sorry" he took a step back instinctively, " I- I didn't know anyone was up here.. " his eyes widened, noticing a similar looking liquid floating further from where the stranger was standing. Blinking at how the others hand seemed to glow. "*O-Oh..was that.. your doing? The um uh- pretty.. floating.. coloured... water.. thing..*?". He had momentarily forgotten how to create a cohesive sentence in English.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2025 6:55 am
As soon as the lieutenant jumped up from below, Sinope startled backward, falling on his butt in the snow that had blanketed the rooftop. That caused a whole surge of glowing, colored 'steam' to bubble up from under him and start to cling to him and his clothes with its luminosity. But he was too busy staring at the Negaverse agent in front of him to notice.
He had been so curious and fascinated by the phenomenon with the floating liquid-like steam shapes that he had completely forgotten to check his surrounding for unfamiliar energy signatures. Not to mention the lieutenant's was relatively weak due to having much less chaos energy than his own, so perhaps that was another reason he hadn't really sensed him at first. Still, the lieutenant surprised him with his first, stuttered word: an apology.
Clearly, this guy was new. New enough not to have known who Sinope was, anyway, which the Dark Mirror Senshi was grateful for. That probably also meant he didn't know Faustite or had any connection to him. Still, he decided to remain wary. There was always a chance the lieutenant could have just been pretending to be innocent, naïve, and nice.
"...It's okay," Sinope murmured flowly, picking himself up off the ground and trying to dust the snow off of him. He seemed to be trying to convince himself of that sentence just as much as the stranger, however. "I was just startled is all." It was then that he realized the colorful luminescence had clung to him and would not come off with the snow. He could only hope it wouldn't be permanent. He didn't want to walk around in public glowing like a colorful neon sign. It wouldn't have been much good for him as a senshi, either.
"Huh?" He looked at his hand when the stranger commented on the glowing phenomenon being his doing. "Oh! No, no, this isn't me," he assured him quickly, waving his palms in front of him. "I just saw this stuff flowing into the air from the snow and tried to touch it and then...well, now it looks like it's sticking to me. At least the colorful, glowing stuff is." He paused, blinking. "So, wait - this isn't the Negaverse's doing, either? You're not, uh...using it to collect energy from people or anything?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2025 7:53 am
His eyes widened in worry as the other fell into a pile of snow. He stepped a bit closer, ready to assist if he was needed. But it seemed the other managed to pick him up well. " S-sorry for scaring you then.." he said, looking guilty.
He shaked his head at the question if the negaverse was doing this. " I... uh.. I wasn't told anything. " he blinked at the mention of collecting energy and frowned in worry. " O-oh uh.. I hope not...I'm not .. sure? Do you feel like it? Are you feeling tired? Ticklish? Hurt?" Tetra took another step closer, his gaze assesing the other in concern.
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