For lastvoyages: [Neighborhood Spam]

[can_has_vodka]

[Arkady Collins, bestselling New Age author and crystal-waving hippie, has set up a row of little snowmen which are now wandering around her yard, some dancing, others caroling a bit off-key. There's also a giant snow-inchworm lumbering randomly across the property.

[She is tending to a banked bonfire worth of colds beneath an enormous fat-bellied cauldron full of steaming cider. She gives it a stir regularly, gives passerby drinks using a nearby stack of mugs, and occasionally adds to either the fire or the contents. The whole setup is bigger than she is, and she's even standing on an apple box to stir the cauldron. But she sets to it all cheerfully, and has a smile for passerby.]

Comments

[itstopped.livejournal.com]

[Felix Gaeta has a dilemma: he hates crystal-waving hippies and Christmas, but he does like free warm things in the middle of winter.

Torn, he winds up lurking across the street for a while, watching the crowd, arms skeptically folded on top of his crutches.]

[can-has-vodka.livejournal.com]

[Arkady notices him, but he seems skittish, and so she waits until there's no crowd around the cauldron before waving to him cheerfully.] Hello!

[itstopped.livejournal.com]

[When it's just the two of them, he can't exactly pretend he's doing something else, so he stifles a sigh and hobbles across the road.]

Well, this is... something.

[can-has-vodka.livejournal.com]

I do it every year. People ask if I do it for Christmas or Solstice or what have you, but the truth is I do it for It's Bloody Cold Out And I Like My Neighbors.

Do you fancy a mugful?

[itstopped.livejournal.com]

[His eyes follow the inchworm as it, well, inches, but he nods anyway.] Sure. I... all right.

[can-has-vodka.livejournal.com]

[She goes up on the apple box to get him a mugful from the cauldron, her stance a bit wobbly in the piled snow.] That's Sir Globulous. I wanted to see if the Christmas magic would work on animal statues as well. Next I'm going to build a cottage.

[itstopped.livejournal.com]

Sir Globulous. Right. [He tries to sound polite rather than condescending, but kind of fails at it.] You do this every year?

[can-has-vodka.livejournal.com]

[She just smiles. She's used to being one of the town weirdos.]

I do, or some variant. They'll wander off the property eventually, they always do.

[itstopped.livejournal.com]

[Oh, just what he wants: for downtown to be raided by creepy snow-worms. But he just smiles blankly and nods.] I see.

So what did you make?

[can-has-vodka.livejournal.com]

I have an apple-press. My last harvest from my trees, this is. So it's real cider. Added cinnamon and cloves, and apple chunks now and again. No booze, for oftentimes I'm serving kids.

[surfaceshine]

[In another life, Dean would be investigating this scene for entirely different reasons than the one with which he is watching the snowy inchworm circling the yard; it's bemusement, but it's simple unsettled wonder and not inherent wariness. He smiles back when she smiles at him on his way by to wherever he's going, and pushes hair back out of his eyes.]

That's a pretty impressive arrangement you've got this year.

[can-has-vodka.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I like watching them run around. I'm going to do a bunny later.

Like a drink?

[surfaceshine]

Won't the... what is that thing? Eat the bunny? [He seems genuinely concerned about this, because it's kind of weird, but also amused.] Sure - thanks.

[can-has-vodka.livejournal.com]

I was going to make the bunny bigger than Sir Blobulus. [Up on the apple box she goes to dipper him up a mug.]

There you go. How are you holding together? Is this your first winter locally?

[surfaceshine]

Sir Blobulus. [Amused. Amused, amused. He accepts the mug, smiling broadly.] Thanks. I'm doing alright. I'm not here for long, just came back for the holidays, and yeah. It's my first in a while. I'm Dean.

[can-has-vodka.livejournal.com]

Hi Dean! I'm Arkady. I write books and wave crystals and make snowbeasties. Oh, and cider.

So you're not used to them moving about then? [She pauses to shoo some snowmidgets away from the fire.]

[surfaceshine]

[Dean watches the herding of the tiny snow people, never quite losing the smirk completely even when he sips at his cider.]

Guess not. Not really surprised, though. Is it magic? [He should probably, he figures, be less alright with this; but he's strangely comfortable with the idea. Also, it's hard to deny, looking at them.]

[una_persson]

[Have another local hippie type, Arkady: Una, teacher at the local Montessori school.]

Happy Yule, Arkady!

[can-has-vodka.livejournal.com]

Happy Yule, Una! Would you like a hot drink?

[una_persson]

Thank you, don't mind if I do.

[She approaches and accepts a cup from Arkady.]

How's the holiday season for you?

[can-has-vodka.livejournal.com]

We've got plenty of raw materials for snowbeasties! I'm good. I'm going to be performing a little experiment soon. You see, we have people out of doors in this. And yet our snow is magical.