tampered | Log ; ONGOING

With her skates tied together by the laces and slung over her shoulder, Misaki's eyes narrowed at the very wet lake before them. Then she shrugged her shoulders. It would be easy enough for November to freeze, and she knew, even without everyone's insistance, that a break would be good for her.

Nothing too disasterous could happen from ice skating with friends, and she might just accidentally have some fun.

A hand patted at his pockets, seeking out the pack of cigarettes and lighter that he knew to be there, and November 11 smiled. He waved to the two ladies as he walked up to the lake. He'd frozen it the previous night, and it should hold for a few more hours. Any sign of fault, and he'd just freeze it again. It was as simple as that.

"Good afternoon, ladies. And how are you today?"

Hei was more than able to skate, but for the purpose of keeping his carefully played facade up he played the part of a lame observer.

"If any of you are hungry, I've made snacks," he smiled that ever-fake smile, motioning toward a set out picnic blanket.

Sakura bounded up to Misaki, her usual childish grin set in her features as she bowed in greeting.

"Hello~ I'm Kinomoto Sakura. It's nice to meet you."

Misaki nodded towards Li, knowing full well that by the end of the night she'd have helped herself to a rather generous portion of the food he prepared.

"Ahh-- Kirihara Misaki," she said in reply to Sakura, smiling sweetly, in awe of the proper cuteness radiating from the little girl's being. Idly she wondered why the child wasn't out enjoying the festival with kids her own age, but dismissed the thought; they weren't old enough to be geezers, that was for sure.

November waved at Li-kun, then made his way over and sat down to tie his ice skates on. A sprained ankle, huh? Shouldn't an injured person still be at home? But whatever, it was of no consequence to him. It occurred to him that maybe he should freeze a small piece of ice, give it to him as an ice pack, but he shrugged it off. Li-kun seemed smart. He probably would have already thought of it.

The contractor moved onto the ice, circling around to where Misaki and Sakura stood, and bowed to them. "Shall we?"

She stared with certain look of suspicion at the ice, as if it would somehow rise up and attack her--or at least cause her to trip. Bad flashbacks galore! But after pulling on each boot, she stepped forward onto the ice with a shaky foot, then pulling the other forward upon gaining balance with the other.

"...Are you sure the sun won't melt the ice too much? It might crack..."

Misaki wondered the same thing herself, but with a Contractor -- and gentleman -- like November around, it wasn't likely he'd allow either of them to skate on melting ice.

At least, Misaki had hoped not.

Wrinkling her nose at the thought, Misaki nevertheless donned her skates and took her first steps onto the frozen lake. It had been years since she'd gone ice skating, but once she got going it all came back to her.

"It should be fine, Sakura-chan," Misaki said with an encouraging smile -- making a point to raise an eyebrow at November. "Right, Mr. Simon?"

He gave the two of them a beaming smile as he said, "Of course! I assure you, it's perfectly safe." And if anything happened to change that, he'd just freeze it again. It was simple, so easy it would have made him cry. November couldn't help but be a little grateful April was absent. The woman would be laughing her ass off at him, more than likely, but even she would see the reason behind this, right?

"Do you need any help?"

The man held out a hand to Sakura, smiling at seeing Misaki safely skating. He wasn't quite sure how good of a teacher he'd made, but there was a first time for everything, right?

Sakura accepted the contractor's hand, though still bracing herself in an awkward position upon taking it. She wished she was better at this--Misaki-san and Jack-san could both skate so well, why couldn't she?

Sakura nodded, hoping that the light shade of embarrassment that tinged her face would not be noticeable.

"T-thank you!"

Misaki smiled fondly at the two holding hands, and slid up next to them so that she could offer her own to Sakura. "Once you get used to it, it's simple," she encouraged her, helping her along as she did so.

For the first time since arriving to this bizarre city, Misaki might have forgotten herself for just a minute.

It was fun.

November's eyes widened for a moment as Misaki took Sakura's other hand, and then he smiled, motioning to their feet.

"If you can roller blade, then you've pretty much already got it down. The only difference is, the blades are a lot thinner." He moved forward a little, not letting go of her hand. "Just think like you're skating."

If they were paying attention to the man sitting on the grass, perhaps they would have seen a peculiar smile on his. It was peculiar not because it was a strange smile, but there seemed to something different behind the expression---it wasn't one of his typical fake smiles, it was genuine grin.

Sakura slid an unsteady foot forward, though much more confident in her step at the thought of having the two flanking her sides. From the corner of her eye, Sakura glanced between Misaki and November, silently evaluating the pair with curious eyes.

"Are Misaki-san and Jack-san from the same world?"

Misaki watched November helping the little girl along, silently intrigued. Though he had always been a kind man, there was something about his helping Sakura out that was somewhat touching. After being around so many heartless, cold-blooded killer Contractors, November was like a breath of fresh air.

At Sakura's question, Misaki nodded, "Yes. We are."

Another step forward, and he nodded, backing up Misaki's answer. "Yes, and so is Li-kun over there," he said, nodding over to the aforementioned man. Fine eyebrows rose slightly at seeing the smile on his face, and his own seemed to brighten a little. How odd, today was strangely... pleasant. He hadn't expected it to be.

"Hoee...really," she sounded somewhat surprised, wondering to herself whether there'd ever be anyone from her world in the City, "That must be nice, knowing that you have someone who shares something in common with you. Someone to depend on, neh?"

Misaki's smile slowly dissolved into a frown, and she knelt down before Sakura so that she could see the girl face-to-face.

"Do you not have anyone to depend on?"

He couldn't think of anything to say. Was he depending on them? It didn't seem like it, but things were always different from another's point of view. Misaki was his coworker, and Li... was just a friend of hers. It didn't really feel like he was depending on either of them..

..was he?

Sakura pressed a finger to her lip for a moment, pondering a proper answer to Misaki's question. She really didn't mean for her comment to come out that way...

"It's not like I don't have anyone here! There's Suzaku-san, Fai-san, Kuro-bubble, Suu-chan, and lots of other people," she replied, "It's just that...you share something with people from your own world. What may be strange to other people here is familiar to them."

Her contemplative expression quickly cut to a sheepish grin, worried that she might have dampened the mood.

"--Do you want me to show you something neat? You have to keep it a secret though!"

Misaki straightened, brow furrowing as she smiled. Even if those people were all from other worlds, it was good that Sakura had at least someone to depend on. Looking at Li sitting off to the side, then November, Misaki's expression fell somber -- what might it have been like had neither of them been there with her?

Snapped out of her reverie by Sakura's question, Misaki grinned. "Sure. What is it?"

Oh. Well, in that case, it was quite true. It was something of a relief to have others from the same world, even if neither of them were Contractors. Besides, there was always 201BK-kun. His appearance was definitely something interesting.

November shook himself out of his reveries and smiled at Sakura. "Okay. I won't tell anyone."

"Do one of you mind helping me keep balance while I show you--I need both my hands," she looked to either one of them, hands absentmindedly fingering the key on her neck.

"Ah-- I will," Misaki replied with a nod, curiosity mounting. She slid up behind Sakura and placed her hands firmly on the girl's shoulders to keep her steady.

"Are you going to show us a magic trick, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura looked nearly surprised at Misaki’s statement, her curious mind wondering how Misaki could have guessed on the first try.

“Unn! How’d you guess, Misaki-san? “

Her attention shifted to the darkened sky above, as though she had forgotten what she had addressed only moments before.

“Skating is more fun that I thought…but it’s really not the same without snow, don’t you think?”

Small fingers moved to pull the key from her neck, and if one was paying close enough attention, he or she might have noticed that it seemed to float between her palms. She whispered words beneath her breath, in turn changing the key to it’s true form.

“It might be a bit windy, but…”

With her free hand, Sakura pulled a single card from her coat pocket, tossing it up in the air gently.

“Snow! Help complete this picture,” and with her command she brought her staff down upon the card.

After the light from the spell faded, Sakura glanced u, staff still in hand, to stare at the now falling whiteness.

...[[ooc: Ack. @_@ Messed up comment order---well, just assume it's November's turn?]]

November's eyes widened as the snow began to fall. That was-- how was that possible? For a second, he was convinced that she was a Contractor as well, but then he remembered that she didn't come from their world. She wouldn't know what that was, much less be one.

He looked down at her, surprise still written across his face. "How did you do that?"

Misaki's reaction was much like November's. That the girl was a Contractor was impossible, but that didn't stop Misaki from considering the possibility. Breathtaken by the display, Misaki could only stare and gape at the snow falling gently from the sky.

"That's incredible," she said quietly. She had seen many a strange thing in her lifetime, but something so gentle and delicate... it blew her away.

Nodding at November, Misaki reiterated the question, "Sakura-chan, that was amazing! How did you do that?"

"Eh? I thought you just said it Misaki-san," she replied, somewhat puzzled as she had thought Misaki meant magic in the literal sense, "It's magic!"

I can trust them.

Glancing around the vicinity to check that no one else was around, she slipped out half her cards and then passed them to both of her companions.

An eyebrow quirked as he was handed a few cards, but he looked through them, anyway. He wasn't one for the occult, but they were kind of shaped like tarot cards, weren't they? Just a bit big, though, with strange pictures...

"What are these, Sakura?"

Skeptical as Misaki was of most things -- odd, considering her occupation, dealing with things most normal people didn't believe in -- she looked at the cards with a raised eyebrow. Tarot cards? Weren't those the things crazy fortune tellers used to swindle people out of their money?

Misaki looked at Sakura curiously, awaiting an explanation.

She tapped a finger to her chin, contemplating the best way to phrase her explanation, "Each card holds a different entity, which I can summon with my magic."

Sakura cast a sheepish glance at both contractor and policewoman before speaking again.

"...you don't think I'm weird, right? I..It's not common in my world, magic, but...it exists."

"Magic?" That wasn't so hard to believe, if one took Hell's Gate and Contractors into consideration. But that meant they weren't tarot cards.. How was that possible, to summon cards?

"I don't think you're weird. It does sound a little... far-fetched, though."

Misaki lowered her head, shaking it slightly, while a half-smirk formed on her lips. Not weird, definitely no. Misaki had seen far too many bizarre things since coming to the City, and even before then, to consider a girl who could make snow fall weird.

She looked at November, somewhat surprised. "Far-fetched? Coming from you..." She smiled at him knowingly.

"I didn't believe it myself at first, but since you've seen it, you can't say it's not real!"

Sakura blinked at Misaki's comment--was she saying that Jack-san was strange?

November let out a laugh. "I suppose you're right, Misaki-chan." Being a Contractor, he really couldn't say that much of anything was far-fetched, could he? It would just be hypocritical.

He noticed the expression on Sakura's face and smiled. "That's quite amazing, Sakura."

Misaki leaned down so that she was cheek-to-cheek with Sakura. "It's very beautiful. I'll say from now on that I definitely believe in magic," she said, patting the girl on the shoulder.

Her gaze turned towards November then, her expression softening.

"I definitely don't think it's strange."

Log ; ONGOING

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