Do you want to build a snowman? (Peter)

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This place…it was so…cold. Pauline shivered and hopped up and down a little, trying to stay warm. The uniform that those grown ups had given her was bulkier than anything she’d worn before. When they had first told her to wear it she was certain she'd melt. Now the girl wished she was wearing three more of them. The other children here were bundled up in similar clothes, which meant that she was probably at a school of some sort. That much was clear. As to where she was…Pauline had no idea. “You are going to a new home where you'll learn how to be good and there will be lots of children for you to play with.” That’s what they had told her, in a tone not unlike that used to address sulky four year olds. Pauline scowled and stamped her feet harder at the memory. No one ever before had been that patronising with her. What did they think she was? An idiot? This place was most certainly not a home, no matter what they said. Because home is with the ones you love best, everyone knew that. Pauline didn’t love anyone here, she did not even know them. Why had they called this place home then? It did not make sense. Eventually Pauline got tired of jumping on the spot and started walking around instead. This school yard that they’d shoved her into to “go and make friends” was unlike any yard she’d ever seen. It was covered in snow. Pauline know of course what snow was, she’d seen pictures of it. But the real stuff lying all around here was completely different from anything she’d imagined. Snow gleamed in whites and blues and greys wherever she looked. It started out crisp in her hands and soon turned soggy with her body heat. Snow tasted good, who’d have thought it? There were other children in the yard. Most of the older ones were loafing about and pretending to be cool and doing whatever it was that teenagers did. The younger ones were playing in the snow. It looked like fun, the snowball fight especially. And other were building a snowman. A snowman! Pauline forgot her initial resentment for her surroundings as she watched with fascination. The kids were moulding and shaping what were initially just lumps of snow and turned them into a being that faintly resembled the sandmen she had sometimes made at home. The snowmen were whiter though, and lacked any sort of hair, seaweed of otherwise. Deciding that building a snowman did not look too difficult, Pauline decided to try and make one herself. There was plenty of snow, and she could use pebbles and things for the eyes. But when she started piling the snow together it did not seem too want to stick. Instead of staying in a nice round shape like she wanted it would crumble away into little pieces. Pauline frowned, she was still very new knew to snow and had not been expecting this. “Why does building snowmen look so easy in movies?” she wondered aloud.

Word count: 509 Tags: Peter Kirkland   Notes: Yay Disney references!

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616

Tags: @wizardofoz

It was snowy and cold, so Peter was as bundled up as he could get, happily skipping outside through the white fluffy ice, his friends around him. He liked snow alright, and he liked friends even more, though he did really prefer warmer weather to the icy sort that currently ensnared the skies. It didn't really matter. He was in Archadia, where it was cold and snowy fairly often, and as such understood how to deal with the cold at least. He tugged on the scarf around his neck, which matched the winter uniform and coat he was wearing, allowing himself to be nice and warm. The only item he was wearing that was not specifically equipped for the snow was his hat, but he didn't ever take off the hat with his name stitched into it.

Today, he was going to build a snowman with his friends. He'd done it lots before. Mostly, they had to get creative. They weren't normally given much to build a snowman with. Normally, they'd filch things from the cafeteria in order to build one, or find pebbles on the ground, or similar. They also weren't typically willing to give up hats and scarves and things to the snowmen. That didn't mean the snowman couldn't turn out nicely, even if it turned out to have a carrot-stick nose instead of a proper carrot one, or it turned out to have really tiny stick arms because someone had been cleaning the lawn before it snowed.

There were already some snowmen around, and each one reflected the group of kids that had built it. Some other snow-sculptures were around, but those were mostly build by older kids who were better with their hands and a bit calmer than the younger ones. They were the snowy structures built by people who had been practicing the best ways to relieve boredom during a break given to play in the snow for years, and as such were many times more complex than anything Peter and his friends could build, even if Peter could say (rather proudly) that he'd been boarding at Weeds since he was three.

As he started the familiar task of collecting snow and patting it, though, something made him pause. He was fairly certain that he'd just heard a new voice say something in English. It was a female voice with an accent- Peter didn't know accents in English very well, now that he thought about it, so he wasn't sure from where, though he'd know once she spoke Russian- an accent that was certainly different than the accent Peter normally spoke with. She looked cold and lonely, and suddenly Peter knew what he was about to do.

"Hey guys? Y'see that girl? I'm gonna go talk to her, okay?" he said, just to make sure none of his friends decided to vanish on him suddenly or something. He waited for the muted replies of 'yeah, sure, whatever' and the likes before happily nodding and skipping off in the new girl's direction. He hadn't spoken in much English lately. He knew it was apparently the language his parents spoke because that was the language he'd known first, but he'd more use for Russian in his daily life anyway. Only certain people at Weeds spoke English (mostly recruiters and language geeks with the occasional native speaker), so he knew who the ones his age were. This was someone new! That was exciting!

"Hello!" he said excitedly in his somewhat British-sounding English once he got to her (though his accent had become so bastardized during the years that it was really hard to say what it was). "My name's Peter! Do you need help?"

Notes: Why don't I post fast? *sob*

made by MISSO on IoF