let it snow, here we go! [age event: begin]

[dustless]

//Everyone seemed down for it! Any thoughts or questions can go here~

The air sharpens and chills, frost crawling from the top of the tallest towers and branches to creep along the castle grounds. The trees with leaves quickly fall bare; the sky bubbles with clouds not long before they start sprinkling snowflakes over it all. Winter has finally settled in.

It's not all iciness and faded colors--in fact, it's quite the opposite. While outside is snowy, sparkling winter, inside changed to match. Most of the rooms alone can't keep out the cold, but fireplace after fireplace spring up to crackle merrily and invitingly. Someone (or something) set a mood for celebration, decking the halls with evergreen branches and baubles, glimmering ribbons and candles, color and cheer! And the kitchens have feasts to match, any sort of roast and pie one could hope for, paired with mashed potatoes and puddings and cookies and drinks.

Even the halls ring with celebration. In the distance, voices are caroling their hearts out. It's a pity they always seem to be moving too far away to meet.

All this will greet the castle denizens when they wake up in the morning...as well as changes to themselves.

Not that they'll always know. The child who will one day be Frisk certainly doesn't.

All they know is that it's cold, and Mama--who just cut their hair for reasons they don't understand--is nowhere to be seen.



...There's doorways inside, but they make themselves heard long before they get all the way to the big walls. They've got a toy firetruck in their hands with tons of buttons, and they slam their fingers on them to make the siren go off.

WEE-OO WEE-OO WEEE-OOO! Mama's gonna hear that no matter where she is, and they don't even need to open their mouth.
 

Comments

[dustless]

A tail. It looks so soft. Softer than their bee shirt, which was supposed to be from pajamas and not being outside (not that it matters).

But--no! They jerk their head and clutch the toy to their chest. It's not his, it's theirs! And they don't need a stranger! And Mama doesn't either! What if she finds him instead of them? She might think they've gone away forever too. Frisk tries to skitter around him.

[silvermists]

Sure, they can run, but they can't stop him following. Which he does. What's wrong with this one? None of his kind utterly refuse to respond when he speaks. They must be broken. Maybe it has something to do with the lack of tail.

"Where are you going?"

There. A question even the soulless ones understand. He expects an answer. The genomes have no personality, and they don't ignore him any more than a computer that responds to voices would.

[dustless]

Some people might call them that. Some people would get that toy rammed directly into their nose if they said so to their face, too.

Noise locks up in their throat, but they don't want to answer anyway. They glance back just to stick their tongue out at him.

[silvermists]

His eyes widen in sheer astonishment--they're never going to be rid of him now, this is far too interesting and new. And he's a good mimic, it seems, because he's sticking his tongue out right back at Frisk.

And huffing one little laugh out. At least he knows how to laugh, if not to 'play' and 'have fun'.

"What's wrong? Did someone put Mute on you?"

[dustless]

And in all their childish wit, they do it back again, with a raspberry noise this time.

A few months in their future, they would maybe nod or shrug, but this is Frisk's 'now', and they don't know that word. He's just calling them weird or dumb, isn't he.

Their gait changes. A good way to hurry isn't by running, it's by skipping. Just feels faster, and funner.

[silvermists]

He's never seen skipping. So much newness. This person is definitely broken, and Garland is going to come and...

Well. Take care of it. Shame.

He's still following and he's not going to stop. He can't sense any magic on them, they're just not talking. He was talking right away when he first became aware...

"Did he forget to teach you to talk?"

[dustless]

Small things work okay if they try them sometimes, so he gets a little more of a response this time: "Shhutup!" See? Nobody needs to teach them to talk, they can do it. Just not always. And they don't want to.

...And they shouldn't even be talking to strangers in the first place.

Besides, he's being loud and their toy is supposed to be the loud thing, thank you very much!

Frisk tries to go even faster.

[silvermists]

Shut up.

Interesting first words. He's told others of his own kind to shut up, but they and Garland wouldn't do the same to him. He blinks, surprised into actually shutting up.

Can't make him go away, though. There's nowhere else to go.

[dustless]

They still try, of course, get away from rude bigger kid, but they're...really not that fast. Little legs mean little strides.

And if he's quiet and stays that way, they'll start forgetting about him. It's less important than finding their lost Mama; eventually the idea gets into their head that maybe they should be opening doors, and so they slow down to tuck the truck under their arm to do that.

It just so happens, inside that first room, there's a bunch of tiny tinsel-covered trees. Very tiny. Not-even-to-their-knees tiny.

Okay, now. This is interesting. They stomp into the room to get a closer look.

[silvermists]

Those are... they're... trees! The word pops into his head after a few seconds of thought. He's seen recordings of trees, that's all. They don't exist on Terra, only Gaia, and he isn't ready to go there yet.

One day he will be. Or maybe this could be Gaia?

"They're all shiny." he says, still trailing the kid with the noise machine. He pokes at the sparkly whatsits on the trees, enthralled. "I thought trees would be bigger."

[dustless]

Frisk pets the tinsel, decides they like a particular pink one, and starts disentangling it as best they can. Finally, neat stuff that's reachable.

They frown again once the other kid makes noise, but...that's a weird thing to say.

There's windows in the back of the room. Plants need light to grow!

Frisk tries snapping their fingers like Papa did, but it just looks silly. They push a button instead to get the weird kid's attention, then point at the windows. Butthead, there's trees right out there. He just might need to pull himself up a little to get a good look.

[silvermists]

He's doing the same thing with a nice purple one. It'll probably wind up tangled in his hair. Why not?

But... there's the noise machine again. Weirdo wants him to look out the window. Wouldn't it have been faster to just say so?

Whatever. He's over there and hauling himself up as quickly as he can, tail held high up behind his head. Much fluffy, very long.

It jolts when he sees real, full sized trees. "Where am I?"

[dustless]

Theirs is going to be a scarf. They've never worn one before, but those're supposed to help with cold, so this pink tinsel must do that too. Must be there to keep the trees warm now, but Frisk needs it more!

They hum an I-don't-know. Somewhere in a part of the city they haven't been before, they guess. And tail-kid too.

Thinking of that tail, Frisk's eyes lock onto it. He's not paying attention...

Once their tinsel-scarf is situated--it's kind of itchy--they start creeping up behind him. (Badly. They aren't light on their feet.)

[silvermists]

He's leaning out the window to stare, totally unafraid of falling. Who cares? He can float. (Not fly, really, just catch himself before he splats on the ground.)

The stranger is right behind him and that's also nothing to worry about. Some years from now he'll be more suspicious of people... but not now. No one's harmed him. He's very important.

"Look." he says, glancing at them and then pointing down. "Trees. You can climb them. And make things from the wood."

[dustless]

Frisk doesn't need to see, they were just out there. They definitely do pout when he looks at them, but then he immediately goes back to looking away, so it's fine.

Dogs bite when their tails get grabbed hard, so they try not to do that, but they definitely pounce. One wag won't get away from them!

[silvermists]

It's much stronger than it looks, strong enough to serve as a third hand. Even strong enough for him to dangle from things with it. So some smaller person grabbing it won't hurt. They'd have to really, really be trying for it to be painful.

He just twists around and stares at them, perplexed, and swishing it like he's giving them a side-to-side handshake.

"You're so odd. I didn't grab you."

How in the world is a perfectly ordinary tail cooler than real trees?!

[dustless]

A squeeze ensures they don't let go, and then they progress into petting it. Just to feel how soft it is, mind you, they're not trying to be nice for no reason.

Frisk hmms and glances meaningfully behind themselves. Of course they didn't, there's nothing on them to grab. If he wants anything, he can pick them up by their shirt or pet their hair, though the latter will get plenty of just-trimmed ones tangled in what they have now all over his hands. If it's not all over him already just for being near them at all.

[silvermists]

He could grab their arm--it's just as random as grabbing someone's tail. But he doesn't. None of that, no hair petting, nothing. His tail is soft and silky and furry, and he's much more interested in looking at the trees... for about a minute more.

Then an idea strikes and he's turning back around, trying to yank his tail out of their hands.

"You can keep touching me if you let me do the noise machine."

A bargain!!

[dustless]

It's no effort, they're not strong at all.

With his tail comes an utterly offended gasp. What! But! BUT!

"Truck," they spit, annoyance cutting through their silence. They crush it against their side with one arm and try to lunge for his tail with the other--he won't even need to dodge, they miss and stumble roughly into the wall all on their own. Seems a shoe's untied.

[silvermists]

"Truck." he repeats, rolling his eyes like he's a pro in his ripe old age. Truck, and shut up. So rude, and they still expect him to be still for petting??

He sits on the windowsill, pinning his tail underneath his bottom where no one can get to it, and doesn't lift a finger to help. Yet. "I just want to look at it."

[dustless]

Sharp nod. Duh! That's the word! Everyone knows that. Just like everybody knows trees.

...Fine. Fine, sharing's nice anyway. (If they were a little older, they could conclude that mama might hear the truck anyway and it wouldn't matter as long as they were close by, but puzzle-solving skills are still murky.)

Frisk holds it out. They definitely keep their fingers jammed in through the windows, though. They'll let him touch it, they won't let him take it!

[silvermists]

And now he can't quite remember how they were working the thing in the first place. He's jabbing at the sides of it randomly as his tail snakes back out for more petting, as promised.

"It's just a tail, anyway. Everyone I know has a tail. Except Garland, and that's because he's a machine."

[dustless]

Some of the buttons do blend in to the rest of the red paint. He'll probably manage to set the lights on top off before the noises.

With their other hand, they grab his tail. A hold instead of a pet, just in case he's going to try to go back and pull it away.

"Hmm," Frisk says. "...Why?"

[silvermists]

That's half the puzzle solved. Ten seconds later he does find the noise button.

And no, he isn't. Or he'll lose his chance with the truck machine.

"Why what? Because I do and you don't. I bet that's why you like it so much. Because you want one too."

[dustless]

Because.

Well. Okay. Chasing because-es almost never works out.

Also: "Yeah." Why wouldn't they? Then they could have something to pet all the time!