(no subject)

[katyafeline]

A tiny girl, with light delicate steps, slips into the bar.

And immediately disappears into the shadows, wary and watchful. She isn't sure how she got here, but she isn't about to surrender this rare chance to spend some time away from her trainers.

Comments

[herr_bookman]

A boy with steps considerably less light and delicate than hers doesn't so much slip, but enters a controlled fall into a chair.

He's sniffling a fair bit, but it only takes him a moment to spread his work out on the table and order a cup of tea.

[katyafeline]

It appears to be a bar, in here - a very bright, open bar with unfamiliar labels on the bottles and food everywhere.

Surely no one will miss that cookie?

...

Or that apple. It's even a fresh apple, without any soft bits.

[herr_bookman]

So far, Autor hasn't. He's scratch, scratch, scratching away on his notes, his attention focused down to a bubble of ten five feet around him.

He does, however, take a break to wipe his nose and indulge in his tea.

[katyafeline]

Heeeeey. That kid has actual sugar cubes. Like, nothing else added, pure sugar cubes.

She only sees those in the boss's office on tea-and-biscuit days.





And now he has a few less sugar cubes, and a frost-bitten apple core under his chair.

[herr_bookman]

And a puff of cold, which forces him to raise his head to look for the draft. His remaining sugar cubes, present in a bowl, don't catch his attention. Nor does he notice the apple core.

Sniffling, the kid returns to his work.

[katyafeline]

They are like pure crunchy heaven. Katya tries to nibble them slowly, but they're tiny little things, and have disappeared before she knows it.

...





Now he has no sugar cubes. It's only fair - he had many, and she had none, she's just.... redistributing the wealth more fairly.

[herr_bookman]

This time the puff of frigid air twigs his, 'something is happening, you idiot,' radar. The kid examines the bar carefully, looking for anything out of the ordinary...

And the quickly-melting ice crystals which line his sugar bowl certainly is that.

Wait, what? Autor thinks, and jerks his stuffed-up head around, looking for the sticky-fingered culprit. What?

Setting his quill down, he immediately orders another bowl full.

[katyafeline]

Oh, now that? That is wonderful. He just.. he can get more, so easily?

She ceases to feel at all guilty for pilfering his sugar stash.

She waits patiently for the rats to deliver the sugar, sitting the safety of her bubble inside the Gloom, and waits patiently again for him to blink.

And takes every single last sugar cube, making a neat pile in her lap, and replacing the empty bowl precisely before he's done blinking.

So much sugar!

[herr_bookman]

So now he has two empty sugar bowls, one covered in ice and the other shiny wet.

"Interesting," the boy murmurs, and immediately fetches a larger candy bar and some twine. He ties one end of the string to his finger and the other to the chocolate

Then he waits. He figures the creature saw him working--and could have stopped him at any time.

[katyafeline]

It takes her a little while to finish all of the sugar cubes - she's treating each like a delicacy, because she certainly doesn't get these back in the training halls.




And what glorious thing is that? It smells divine, but...

It's a trap.

A trap, perhaps, she can spring without catching her fingers in it.

Cautiously she circles the table and boy, looking for the best way to retrieve the treat without springing the trap.

Then, the next time he blinks, she neatly cuts the candy with the knife she habitually keeps, millimeters to each side of the twine, and snags the bits. He can have that tiny bit covered in twine. She can share.

[herr_bookman]

Autor lifts his betwined finger and laughs, raspy and stunned. He quickly scribbles a note*, covering the writing with his hand in the hopes that the creature won't see him.

Then he wraps it around another, smaller candy, and holds the ensemble up in the air.

He just hopes they can--or choose--to read.

[*"Hello! You're very clever. How are you doing this?"]

[katyafeline]

Katya scowls at him from the shadows - she's not so dumb as to go try to take something out of his hand, even if she does want to know what he wrote.




Two tables over, someone wonders where his hot cocoa went.

[herr_bookman]

Autor notes the hot cocoa theft, and sets bribe down on the table to wait.

He keeps his hands near, just in case the creature leaves behind that strange icing effect behind again.

[katyafeline]

It's a trap.

Though a very poorly laid one, there's nothing to catch at her once she reaches for the treat, and eventually her curiosity to find out what the boy has written overwhelms her natural wariness.

The candy disappears in a blink of the eye, leaving icy whorls in the wood grain.

A few minutes later a rather disgruntled Katya returns the paper as well, folded into a paper rose, because she doesn't know what the writing says. It's not in an alphabet she's learned yet.

[herr_bookman]

He didn't mean for this to be a trap, but if it worked, he would have been pleased. The boy draws his fingers across the cold and peers at the rose curiously.

"Hello," he says quietly, sniffling as he lifts his head. "Do you speak? Can you understand me?"

[katyafeline]

She watches him with dark, wary eyes, knowing from her trainers that humans cannot know, are not (and will not ever be) ready to know the truth about Others.

But really.

The questions goad.

So it's really not her fault she gives in and flicks one of the coal shards at his forehead.

[herr_bookman]

"Ow!" he cries, rubbing his stuffed-up head. "Well, that was uncalled for."

Which is... bizarrely familiar. He looks around on the ground for any number of things, among them wooden animal carvings. Is this a different creature entirely? Or the same one?

"Okay, clearly you can understand me," he says softly, immediately ten times grumpier than he was five seconds ago, "but don't you have a better way to communicate than smacking me in the head?"

[katyafeline]

She flicks another piece of coal at him. He's being insulting, so she doesn't feel guilty at all.

Besides, he might have more candy.

[herr_bookman]

"Ow," he responds, as really, what other way is there to respond to that? Aside from sniffling pathetically.

He'd sit down and ignore this creature, and while he doesn't care much about it pilfering other people's food, he does want to know who they are--and preferably whether or not they were the one in the forest.

"Is this familiar to you?" he asks, holding up a crude wooden carving of a bunny with fangs.

[katyafeline]

She raises an eyebrow even if he can't see it. She'll give him points for persistence, but takes them away again for weird questions.

So she steals one of his pages of notes next, to see if anything makes more sense than the note he wrote.

[herr_bookman]

Disheartened, he returns his desk to find cold-touched pages, slightly damp from the melting ice.

"Hey!" he cries, teeth set. "The sugar I didn't mind, but I need that back."

The boy loosens his shoulders and bows his head, partly as a show of humility, but mostly to prevent her from smacking him again. "Please."

[katyafeline]

After a moment, she obliges, leaving it on top of his head.

Mostly because she can.

Partly because she can't understand those notes either, and it's annoying.

[herr_bookman]

When Autor opens his eyes to find his hair frosted and his note returned, he cackles, which is cut short by a coughing fit.

"Thank you," he says, setting the paper aside. "This is unlikely, but pouvez-vous comprendre le français? Was ist mit Deutsch*? Maybe English?"

[*"... can you understand French? What about German?"]

[katyafeline]

... He's babbling again.

So she leaves the candy wrappers on top of his head too. Maybe he wants them back?

[herr_bookman]

Eventually, she'll get bored and leave him alone, he figures, which isn't necessarily what he wants. He dusts the ice and wrappers off his head, puzzled.

"I'm pretty sure you can understand me when I speak," he murmurs, flipping a page over to sketch out a rose. "But I have to wonder why you haven't made any other attempts to communicate aside from moving things around. Coy creature."

[katyafeline]

She studies him, considering. The rules of her life are fairly simple - don't get into fights, don't miss any of your classes, do well on all assignments, and do not let the humans know you exist.

It's not breaking the rules if they don't know it's you, right? If you don't leave anything readily identifiable? It's the theory she's going with.

But he's just laid out a challenge, and she has an awfully hard time refusing a challenge.

So she steals his pen, and responds.

| |
--------
|X|
--------
| |

[herr_bookman]

The boy squeaks, partially due to the ice on his fingers and partially due his happiness at the way she chose to retaliate.

He offers her a pen of her own, and picks up his quill. "Where do you come from, I wonder?"

| |
--------
|X|
--------
| | O

[katyafeline]

That, of course, she can't answer - it gets too close to the truth she's not suppose to tell, so she ignores it as best she can. Besides, she has strategy to prepare.

X| |
--------
|X|
--------
| | O

[herr_bookman]

"What do I call you?" he asks, sniffling as he considers his next move. He hopes that eventually he'll stumble on a question that she doesn't mind answering--but he's never put much stock in hope.

X| |O
--------
|X|
--------
| |O

[katyafeline]

She makes a face at him, even if he can't see it - he's very noisy.


X| |O
-------
|X|X
-------
| |O

[herr_bookman]

"All right. I think I'll call you Vere, from 'verecundus'," he muses quietly. "It means shy, in Latin."

He does, however, order up another half-bowl of sugar cubes.

X| |O
--------
O|X|X
--------
| |O

[katyafeline]

She frowns at him - she's not shy.

Just for that, when her answer appears, so do little frowny faces in all of his O's.


X|X|O
-------
O|X|X
-------
| |O

[herr_bookman]

Autor smirks. "I could have called you Furs, which means thief."

Then the boy softens, sniffling as he thinks. "How about Calli, from 'callidus', meaning clever or dexterous?" he says, and nudges the sugar bowl forward.

X|X|O
-------
O|X|X
-------
|O|O

[katyafeline]

Just for that, she only takes half of the sugar cubes.


X|X|O
-------
O|X|X
-------
X|O|O


The borrowed pen is laid neatly on top of the finished game, icy-cold