neutral_omens | (no subject)

Date: December 20, 1999
Setting: The grounds
Status: Public
Summary: War starts a snowball fight.

There’s all sorts of speculation on why wars break out, and though not many say it, most of it is due to boredom.

War had been bored. She had been bored in 1812 and re-fought on the sea a conflict that had already been settled on land. She had been bored in 1914, and had succeeded in getting millions of men to sit in miles and miles of pestilential ditches and shoot at each other for no good reason. There was nothing like a good bloody battle for light entertainment.

And she was bored now, and had had no way of relieving the ennui of the tentative, resentful peace in the Manor. An all-out skirmish would not be permitted, at least here, so War had designed the next best thing to ease the passage of a tedious day.

She was propped up on the edge of a tightly-packed fort on an incline on the lawn. She smiled a smile almost as cold and biting as the air around her, and her breath rose in thin tendrils of steam as she packed snow into a hard icy ball. She examined it, tossing it to herself a few times: it was heavy, sculpted into almost a perfect sphere, and about as aerodynamic as snow could be. Her smile sharpened. This baby was going to sting.

War wrapped her mink-trimmed coat tighter around her, kneeled to peek over the top of the snow-fort’s walls, and lay in wait for prey.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The last thing Famine had expected was a snowball - a very hard snowball, no less, almost an ice ball - to strike him in the face the moment he was outside. In hindsight it really shouldn't have been so surprising, what with the heavy snowfall and War being in the immediate vicinity. He looked in the direction the snowball had come from and was surprised when he didn't immediately see her. Of course, after a moment he noticed the fort and grinned.

War stood and leaned over the wall, grinning something ranging on good-naturedly. "Going to beg for mercy, Famine? Won't make me stop, but it'd be cute."

Famine laughed and grinned back. "Now, why would I do a thing like that?" He paused for a moment before quickly stooping and crushing a large handful of snow into a much rougher ball than War's, and sending it flying at her face. He had pretty good aim, as well.

She grinned. "'cause it saves you the effort of fighting back!"

War laughed as Famine retaliated and ducked, the snowball just skimming her head. She shook the snowflakes out of her hair and grabbed a few more handfuls of snow, packing them as quickly as possible, and winged one off in Famine's general direction as she worked on a pile of ammunition.

Famine dodged the hastilly thrown snowball easily and started packing his own snowballs, keeping one eye on the fort so that he could throw them the moment War showed her face.

Once she had a small pile, War listened for Famine's footsteps or the whisper of an impending snowball, but heard nothing. Not fool enough to show her head just yet, she lay on her stomach and dug into the wall in front of her, making a hole to spy out of.

Famine hovered not far from where he'd been when she threw the first snowball, one in each hand and a small pile at his feet. He knew better than to throw without knowing where she was, but when he saw the snow crumbling from a hole in the fort he lobbed one high into the air, hoping for it to come down on top of her.

The snowball made a pathetic pfff-ing noise as it landed a few feet to her left. War rolled her eyes and inched closer to the wall. "Nice shot," she called, sitting up and straddling the wall. "Let me make this a little easier for you!"

Famine threw the next snowball the moment War was in view. "What do you expect, I was throwing blind!" He immediately grabbed more ammunition the moment his hands were empty. He wasn't about to complain about her taunting, she had a fort and the high ground, he needed all the help he could get.

War ducked but ended up with snow splattered across her forehead and dripping into her eyes. "Getting better," she yelled. "Trying to get me to throw blind too?" She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and threw three tiny, hard-packed iceballs back in rapid succession.