It had taken him the better part of the last ten minutes to even form any snowballs at all, and unfortunately the remainder of that time had been spent attempting to keep said snowballs into, well, anything like the form of an actual ball. Most of the results collapsed into a useless mass of half-melted mush, which was confusing. Though, really, it would just figure that he couldn't manage such a simple thing, right? He'd never even seen snow, much less had the opportunity to play in it, and yet here he was now, lingering about in a cold corner of some strange game he'd become stuck in, pretending to play in the snow like a child, and somehow... enjoying it? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he'd spent all hours since becoming trapped within the game uselessly huddled varying states of remorse and self pity, and that this was much better if only by comparison, but Sutra took it for what it was. It was better than moping for sure.

Even if the cold still felt like a mocking slap in the face whenever a breeze picked up. Even if he was terrible at this. It was actually pretty amusing beyond the initial frustration, because he just couldn't seem to grasp the point of it all. Grab snow, mash it into a projectile, then throw it at a person... and that was supposed to be fun? Did people enjoy this? Well... Considering the fact that he was having enough fun just failing at the second step, maybe it could be better than he was anticipating. All across the field were shouts and laughter, a lighthearted scene devoid of monsters or weaponry, it was one place where fears could be set aside. Maybe his difficulty was that he wasn't being friendly enough. A person couldn't very well have fun in a snowball fight alone... right?

And maybe, just maybe, lingering around in his lonely little patch of the field wasn't helping. Perhaps he could just push his worries away too, simply walk on over and strike up friendly conversation with someone, with anyone, because at least he couldn't be worse off at socializing than he was at playing in the snow. Right? Right.

Just as he rose to his feet, and before he had the time to dust the snow from his gloves, he felt the cold splat of a snowball smash into the back of his head.

There were a good ten possible retorts jostling for superiority in his mind when the culprit came clomping on over, none of which were particularly scathing, but Sutra decided to be civil. It wouldn't do to go telling people off at the drop of a hat, because this ordeal was supposed to be fun. Fun, he reminded himself. This was an event where people were supposed to throw snow at each other. So, instead of whirling around and giving the guy a proper talking to, or whirling around and chucking a snowball in return- since he hadn't been able to produce such a thing in the first place- he waited until the person was right up on him before turning to look, just a falsely shy peek. Which was a mistake on his part, because that look the guy was giving him was a good ten levels of stupid honesty more than he could handle, and he promptly burst into laughter.

"Oh, so this is how newbies are treated here." It was useless trying to sound stern when he could hardly speak properly at all. "Free target practice before the match even starts, I see!"

Sutra took a step back, trying and failing to stifle giggles into the back of one hand, and slung the remains of a would-be snowball at the guy with the other. "There you are then, 'friend'. F-fair?"

❖ albatross | ❖ post 1/10