aterat | Winter is not a season

Who; Everyone (don't forget to tag in & tag around!)
What; The Winter Festival
Where; The circus complex and the park
When; Today & lasting for 1 week
Warnings; None, but if something needs a warning, please label as such!

Back in November, Ignis petitioned Halcyn for a Winter Festival. He requested snow, lots of lights, and an in ground hot tub or two or more.

Train/moogles/horses - There's also a small train to go ride around the city, and horses will again appear for sleigh rides. Moogles will be appearing/on hand to give directions to where things are if people get lost. They are also serving as sources of information in case someone doesn't know anything about a festival or activity. Just ask the moogle kupo!

Food/shopping - Ignis also learned of and requested that European style christmas markets (including Japanese ones) so all of the foods for those countries and all of the things/traditions that they are associated with will be available. Whatever country has what, feel free to learn about it, or whatever different world. Recipe books will be available for whatever place too so pick one up while you can because you might want to learn to cook it for yourself! (Sorry folks, Remy not included) Enjoy all the shopping and fooding even if you've never heard of that place, world or food before. So eat, drink and be merry!

Activities/things to do - Skiing, sledding, skating and tobogganing will be available and if you're really tough, maybe archery hunting in skis may appeal. Riding on a ski lift can be a relaxing thing to do as well. Snowboarding is available as well, but a few words of caution on that. There may be sledding moogles as you go, lots of trees to run into, balloons, and if you hit an igloo, there may be an angry moogle that throws a table at you. There are also snow chocobos and snow moogles along that path.

For those not so daring to go snowboarding, the snow moogles and snow chocobos will be around town in different spots so that they're not missed. And while they won't throw snowballs at you, your friends just might! And you can ride a horse to go see a model of a royal library. A word of caution however, as there may be monsters even if they're mostly slimecicles. There may be some Luminous Lamplings or Bongo Fandangos lurking about too.

Other activities/happenings - There will also be events and things for the Chinese New Year, such as lion dances, all sorts of traditional foods, decorations, fire works, firecrackers and kids might get red envelopes. Since it is now the Year of the Rabbit, adorable rabbit decorations of all sorts are everywhere. On the last day of this Winter event will be the Lantern Festival.

Something else to note - If you're feeling adventurous there's a place or two to get married! The Hunting Lodge is always open so you could married there too! Take a walk through some Christmas illuminations for romance, or just because they're pretty.

Other notes - People from home will appear this week too as it's a fourth wall event, so be on the lookout for them! And if all of this stuff doesn't work, feel free to choose your own wintry adventure!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yuki was surprised, but it was nice to hear what he was, because Jagger was from Earth, and that was comforting.

"I imagine so many people like ice skating that it'd be hard to go anywhere without the rink being packed."

And he kicked at the ice with his skate to ready himself to move.

It was a natural motion for Jagger, kicking off as starting at a slow pace. It was nice just to move across the ice, and sometimes, when he'd had the place to himself, he remembered being able to just pretend the world fell away for a bit.

"Sometimes, but my dad knew the bloke who ran the place most years, and sometimes we were allowed in after hours, or before opening, got the whole place to ourselves...or myself later, which dad was too busy," or just wanted to get rid of him for a while. Dad didn't realize Jagger knew, but when you lived with someone, and when you were given visions and psychic impressions when you touched shared objects, you knew.

Yuki got his legs underneath him and fortunately Jagger wasn't going fast at all, so he was able to keep up.

He listened in to what the other said and couldn't hide his surprise. That had to have been a wonderful experience to be there with no one else crowding around at all.

"Wow, it sounds like you were lucky enough to have a lot of practice ice skating then."

"Yeah." He let the word hang in the air for a moment, his thoughts drifting back over the years. It had been simpler then, and when he was out there, on the ice, alone, everything had seemed okay, like maybe he wasn't a freak who knew things he shouldn't when he touched things or who unnerved his father as often as he reminded him of his wife. He was at peace in those times.

"I wouldn't trade that for the world." He looks over to his employee though, realizing just how little he knows about the other man. "What about you? Surely you've got a good childhood memory."

He smiled as he waited for Jagger to continue speaking, but apparently there wasn't anything else that was going to be said.

So he kept his head down and focused on his skating which mainly consisted of making sure that he didn't fall down. But then he heard the question and put his head down to think.

A fond childhood memory. That wasn't going to be easy and he wasn't going to get into his past. But he could give one thing.

"There was this little girl I helped get home to her mother since they got separated. She chased me and when she got home, I gave her the hat I was wearing. Years later it turned out she moved into my cousin's house, even though I'd had no idea it was her at first."

"Yeah? Heartfelt reunion, then?" Some of his own precious childhood memories were too precious to share, like ice sculptures that would melt when exposed to too much heat. He kept them close and safe. "Did she still have the hat?"

Yuki smiled. "Something like that." It had been really weird how Miss Honda had ended up in his life again. It was fate or something like that maybe.

But he perked up at Jagger's last question with a nod. "I saw it in her room and I couldn't believe it. She kept it all that time."

He smiled at that, nodding. He drifted along slowly, one skate in front of the other, hands in the pockets of his coat.

"It's nice, isn't it, learning how much you matter to someone like that?"

He smiled and watched himself as he started moving along the ice. Yuki was pretty good at most things when he started out, but since the curse was gone he wondered sometimes if that 'golden touch' wouldn't keep working.

As he thought about the question he had to nod. "Ya, it was really something to see things come full circle." and he always knew Miss Honda cared.

Winter is not a season

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