[Open] Hit the Slopes

[topgun_textiles]

Characters: Everyone!
Location: Mount Hood, Oregon
Rating: Varies
Time: July 28th - 29th
Description: Skiing! Hot chocolate! Snowball fights! Hiking! Folks of Death City say 'screw the heat' and decide to take a frosty vacation a few states away. COMMENCE MISCHIEF.



The discounted price came at a surprisingly good time. With the temperatures in Nevada climbing and no end in sight, it seems the owners of a Pacific Northwestern lodge took pity on the Meisters and Weapons of Shibusen and offered them a break from the heat. Despite it being July, the snow was still plentiful for skiing, snowboarding, sledding and innertubing! Dress warm, rent some gear or bring your own and have at it, they say!

From dawn to dusk, the mountain is lively on all sides, boarders and ski nuts to ski newbies enjoying a mid-week break while nature buffs take hikes over the trails on the greener side of the mountain, reachable by a short bus ride from the main lodge. Whether you're more into the powdery white or the vivid green, there's a spot for you to take a breather on Mount Hood.

The question is, where do you even start?



[I volunteered to put up the log for the Oregon trip, and here it is! Tag in to one, two, or all three of the areas noted and start your own open or closed threads within. Tag yourselves in (you guys know the drill), mingle, and enjoy!]

Comments

Open | Outside the Lodge

[vintage_magic]

[Growing up in Texas, snow wasn’t unheard of but more than a dusting was rare. There was one memorable occasion when a blizzard that blanketed nearby El Paso in two feet of snow left a similar amount in her hometown of Jarod. Eight years old at the time, Lily had built a snowman in her grandmother’s yard, the only time she’d gotten to try out that particular childhood pastime.]

[She couldn’t help remembering and being distracted by the snow when she stepped out a side door of the lodge, dressed in an old wool coat and intending to take a walk. Feeling silly to be doing this at her age—32 if you counted her birthday the week before—she quickly glanced around to see if anyone was watching and then gave in to impulse and crouched down to start piling up snow with gloved hands. Although it didn’t look much like a traditional snowman, about knee high and less rotund than the usual stack of giant snowballs. More like an animal sitting on its haunches. And was that a snout? If someone caught her, she’d likely look a bit sheepish.]

[scatterflower]

... What are you making?

[ Chika had to admit, seeing someone who was clearly an adult making a snow... thing like that was kinda weird. Even a teenager doing it by him or herself would be kinda weird, actually. Not that she didn't know plenty of people probably herself included that would, but still.

She was having a bit of a hard time figuring out what the older woman was making though. It was... not a normal snowman, definitely some sort of animal, but maybe she came by too soon to be able to tell? ]

[vintage_magic]

Oh! [Having become a bit too absorbed in what she was doing, Lily startled at the unfamiliar voice and fell back on her butt. Good thing she was just wearing an old pair of jeans! She quickly stood up and brushed off the seat of her pants, saw the teenage girl that had addressed her and felt her cheeks burn slightly at being caught at this childish activity.]

Um, it's a pig...

[scatterflower]

[ Chika blinked, looking over at it for a few more moments before her lips curled up into a smile. ]

Oh! I see! That's not something I've seen a lot of people make out of snow before. No wonder I didn't recognize it.

[vintage_magic]

[She fidgeted with her scarf, still a bit embarrassed. The idea of a snow pig was a bit weird, wasn't it? Chika might notice the Texas twang as she explained...]

Oh, it's because I had one as a pet back home. I miss the fellow.

[scatterflower]

[ Chika smiled, grinning when she heard that. Also, she's from Japan, so yeah she's not recognizing the Texas accent at all ]

Oh! That explains it then!

[ She might be doing the same thing here if she had a pet like that. Though now that she thought about it... maybe making a snow Piyomon might be a good idea. She missed him too. ]

Do pigs make good pets? I've never really seen one in person before so I haven't really thought about that before.

[vintage_magic]

Well, I've only had him for about three months so I've not been around pigs much either.

[And there was the fact that the pig form was really a disguise for her shapeshifting half-goblin, half-gargoyle familiar. But that wasn't exactly the type of thing she could explain to most folks.]

But it was nice having a pet when I'd never had one before. My co-workers and the customers liked him too. He was sort of the shop mascot and he liked to eat a lot.

[scatterflower]

[ Chika giggles. ]

Yeah, I bet he did. In my experience most animals eat a lot...

[ Not that Digimon really counted as animals in the traditional sense, but still. ]

At least you know that when you get sent back home by BREW or we win this war you can go back to him though, right?

[vintage_magic]

[Lily smiled, warming to the conversation and forgetting her initial embarrassment.]

Did you have a pet back home too?

And it'd be good to see Oscar again. That cotton-pickin' contraption keeps bouncing me back and forth like an interdimensional yo-yo but it wasn't long enough to see him the last couple of times. [Since it was only a second both when BREW made her a Weapon and then changed her back to normal...]

[heretic_hamlet]

[Gallione had its share of snowfall, but one had to go to the mountains in the northeast to really see the winter weather. Of course, that didn't mean Ramza didn't see his share of playing in it as a child... or fighting in it as an adult, but that was beside the point. And this was a more than welcome reprieve from Death City's usual weather, either way.

Of course, the snow-...thing... inevitably caught his eye in his wintry wanderings and he approached Lily as she sculpted it. In part because he hadn't seen snowmen built since he was a boy, and in part because its shape actually seemed a little familiar.]

A wild boar?

[Strange; he knew he'd seen this woman around plenty, yet he couldn't place her name...]

[vintage_magic]

[Land sakes! Caught in the act again! Lily gave a sheepish chuckle as she looked up at the young blond man who had asked. She supposed her snow sculpting skills weren't very good compared to her abilities in carving magical talismans.]

Um, a pet pig actually.

[Similarly, she was trying to place him. She had the vague sense she might have passed him in the apartment building lobby at some time but didn't recall speaking to him or a name. But then her memory for names wasn't the best.]

...Have I seen you around somewhere before?

[heretic_hamlet]

Almost certainly. I've crossed paths with you more than once, though I don't think we ever stopped to talk...

[Ramza idly takes a fistful of snow off the ground and smacks it onto the side of what passed for a head, tapering it off with his fingertips to form a facsimile of an ear. But as their conversation moved ahead, he instead extended his hand.]

I'm Ramza. Ramza Beoulve.

[vintage_magic]

[She rubbed her gloved hand against the leg of her jeans to remove the traces of snow and then reached out to shake his hand.]

Nice to meet you, Ramza. My name's Lily Ivory. You live in the same building, don't you?

[Glancing over at the snow sculpture in progress, she examined his addition. It seems a bit odd that he thought of wild boars rather than regular pigs.]

I take it wild boars aren't uncommon where you're from?

[heretic_hamlet]

[After a hearty handshake, he returns to a bit of modest snow-gathering from the ground below.]

Casualty Communal Nine. I might have guessed that's where I had seen you. I should have spoken my part sooner but seldom do I find the chance to mingle in these times...

[As he starts to amass the snow into a sculpting mass, he blinked, returning his sight to Lily.]

Ah-- far from it. But naught like the ones you might see here... In my home they were monsters, often in league with goblins or dragons.

[vintage_magic]

Ah. I was wondering who else lived on my floor. I guess I should have made more of an effort to meet my neighbors. [With how she had kept to herself around there, it had been nearly a month before she even learned Lezard lived next door!]

[Lily reached for some more snow, intending to enlarge the ear to match Oscar's oversized ones but stopped with the handful of powder halfway to the sculpture at the mention of goblins. She blinked and gaped slightly in surprise for a second. It seemed a bit coincidental because, well, Oscar wasn't really a pig but a shapeshifting half-goblin familiar... Recovering, she went back to work on the pig and tried to keep her tone casual.]

...Um, goblins? And dragons and wild boar monsters? Sounds like you lived in a lively place. Those types of things were only fairy tales in my world.

[heretic_hamlet]

One land's legends are another land's ways of life, it seems.

[Ramza cobbled together some more of the powdery snow and made to fill out the snowpig's chest... but, seeing Lily reshaping the other ear, he carefully followed suit until he had his reasonably close.

Huh. The roundness really did lend it more the look of a pet than a beast. Who'd have thought?]

But fortunately we had our share of knights and wizards to match. [He laughs.] Besides, many of us had once thought a god of death a myth; how wrong we were...

That icon makes me think someone snuck up and threw a snowball in Ramza's face... XD

[vintage_magic]

I reckon that's true with some of the folks I've met here. I certainly didn't expect to meet an alien!

[With the snow creature looking more pig-like now, she carefully traced a mouth under its snout.]

Knights and wizards, too? Magic wasn't considered unusual where you were from? [It sounded more like Lezard's world than her own.] Most back home thought of it as fiction and didn't believe in things such as sorcerers. They wouldn't have believed in a death god either. And I certainly didn't think it was possible to travel between worlds when I ended up here.

[topgun_textiles]

[The fireplace got too hot too often. When you were a warm guy, you usually had to take a break to keep from overheating. It was nice to step out into the crisp air and take it all in, such a good break from the dry desert.]

[...Hey... was that Lily building something over there? Looked like a-]

Cool pig!

[vintage_magic]

[Maybe, she should have found a quieter spot for this... But Lily was a little less embarrassed this time since it was Kanji rather than a stranger stumbling on her and her snow pig building attempt.]

Um, thanks. I guess missed Oscar from back home. He was kind of the shop mascot.

[topgun_textiles]

Man, it woulda been cool to meet 'im...

S'he need pals? I can build up some more around that one.

[vintage_magic]

[She laughed a bit.] I don't think I'd have been able to handle more than one Oscar with how much he ate! But I reckon it's okay if they're only snow.

Most of the customers liked him and quite a few would slip him treats.

[topgun_textiles]

'Course they did- if a store's got a mascot, the mascot gets the benefits! And pigs're smart, too. I bet he knew exactly how to charm the treats out of 'em, huh?

[He bends down to start rolling a few balls of snow. Snowpig would have many pigpals.]

[vintage_magic]

Yes, he did. [But her laughter quieted and she glanced around furtively. Seeing no one else in sight, she dropped her voice and leaned over to confide a bit hesitantly...] ...Um, actually, he wasn't really a pig. He just disguised himself that way around regular humans.

[topgun_textiles]

[He blinked.]

So... what was he?

[vintage_magic]

[She glanced around again, confirming again that there wasn't anyone within earshot and hesitating a bit as she wondered if this was a good idea. Kanji seemed okay with the idea that she was a witch back home but still...]

...Well, he was given to me as a familiar, a half-goblin, half-gargoyle.