Logs:Comrade Snow Strike

Comrade Snow Strike
Dramatis Personae Naomi, Spencer, Shane, Astrid
In Absentia	2021-02-01 If I come back for anything it'll be to help build a massive snow fort.
Location <XAV> Rec Room - Xs Second Floor
School this may be, but life for Xavier's students certainly isn't all studying. Outside classes, this is a popular spot to find students in their downtime. An enormous tribute to slacking off, this room is a wealth of fun and relaxation. Comfortable armchairs, couches, and beanbags offer plentiful seating scattered throughout the room, and the cushioned windowseats by the high windows offer a cozy nook to curl up and look out on the grounds. The room is often filled with the noises of gaming -- whether it comes from the big-screen television (tall racks of DVDs beside it, if nothing can be found on the multitude of cable channels), tricked out with consoles from retro to the latest releases, or the less electronic clatter and thump of the pool table, air hockey, or foosball. For those a little more subdued in their gaming, the cabinets hold stacks and stacks of board and card games, ranging as classic as chess and go to as esoteric as Dixit, Catan, and Gloom. More days than not, there's some variety of snacks to be found on a table beside the gaming cabinet -- quite often in the form of fresh-baked desserts. If the first day of February could use some sort of distraction, a snowpocalypse probably wouldn’t have been most people’s first pick, but it’s what the east coast got. By the time class ended the accumulation had been enough to warrant a snowball fight, which should always be followed up by hot cocoa to supplement any attempt at warming up. With a steaming mug of cocoa in hand and ruddy cheeks, Astrid heads straight for one of the couches to drop into, careful not to spill any of the piping hot liquid from the mug. Most of her thawing and now wet outer layers have been shed and left in the foyer, leaving her in a pair of grey wool socks, a black hoodie and navy blue joggers. Her wavy hair is a mess, plastered to her head from having lived almost the entirety of the day inside a black beanie. Her black frame glasses as usual angle slightly to the right. “I have never seen snow like this.” Her voice is dripping with excitement as her adrenaline rush has yet to wane. “Seriously. Back home we maybe get like an inch that mostly ends up a gross slushy mess the next day and then ices over the next night.” The mug is pulled close to her lips, which she attempts to cool with light blowing. “And whoever pegged me in the back of the head has got another thing coming.” Her toothy grin spreads ear to ear. “If I ever figure out who that is.” “Wait but ain’t you from like, north north?,” comes Naomi’s voice. The girl has wrapped herself up tight in a thick throw blanket, huddled into the corner of the couch. Her hiking boots and shell jacket have been shed into a pile on the floor next to the couch arm, her grey socks and black leggings barely showing underneath the blankets. She’s still shivering slightly, the edge of her dark green sweater pulled over the palms of her hands as she clutches the hot cocoa. Her locs are bundled up under her toque, the remnants of snow melting on the top of her scaled forehead. “I figured y'all'd get more snow than Georgia, we got uhhhhh like four inches one year and they cancelled school.” Spencer has been collapsed in one of the armchairs since returning inside. Thanks to extensive bundling, the rainbow-trimmed black hoodie and gray corduroys under his snow clothes (nowhere to be seen now) have managed to stay dry through the whole epic battle outside. He's regrown just about enough hair to sort of velcro his soft crocheted blue-purple zig-zag spiral kippah to his head, but has his hood pulled up over it for warmth. "This is probably where I should tout my tough New Yorker cred, like I'm so jaded, had to walk to school in five feet of snow uphill both ways," he offers, teeth still chattering a bit and the red in his cheeks showing all the more obvious for his pallor. "But actually this is still way awesome even if you're more used to it." He struggles upright and smiles brighter at his brother's approach. Or maybe the brightening is at the approach of his cocoa, at which he's making plaintive grabby hands. "Thank you I should have gotten it myself though I feel fine now." "I dunno when in your life you ever walked to school boy been blipping about damn near everywhere since for ever." Shane has pared off his outer layers in a pile by Spence's armchair to just slim pinstripe trousers and vest (a small Mutant Mongrels emblem stitched over his front chest pocket above a grinning sharktoothed skull logo) over a silvery-grey button down. He presses one cocoa into Spence's waiting hands, keeping his webbed hands wrapped snug around his own as he settles onto the arm of Spencer's armchair. "A whole injustice they don't cancel it anyway here. Like just cuz you live in the same building as classes you get cheated out of snow days? Pfft. This keeps up tomorrow you should just strike." “Yeah, but it doesn’t really get that cold.” Astrid takes another stab at her hot cocoa, getting as far as actually titling the mug before thinking twice and lowering it back down to hover just above her left knee. “I am sure there is a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation for it.” She shrugs, indicating any actual reason completely alludes her at this point as her. “So you are saying I shouldn’t always look forward to this much snow?” Her attention turns towards Spence, as the mug starts closing half the distance to her lips. “Yeah… I didn’t think about it that way. That is complete bullshit isn’t it?” She bites down into her bottom lip the time it takes her mug to travel the rest of distance for her first sip. Eyes slowly move between Shane and Spence before she turns to face Naomi and mouths ‘can you believe?’ Starstruck apparently fades slowly. “It’s gotta be hard teleporting up hill both ways in the snow too,” Naomi teases, spinning the mug of cocoa around in her hands. “Go POP into a snowbank by accident, stuff like that.” Astrid’s starstruck gaze is met with her eyes, already open wide since Shane walked in, going just a touch wider, eyelashes pressing up against black scales. ‘Wild,’ she mouths back, shifting her blanket cocoon to sit up a little straighter. “Did you ever do a snow day strike, Sh- Mr. Holland?” Spence huddles around his cocoa and drinks deep. But then perks up at the discussion of Pacific Northwest meteorology. "Oh! Oh! It's cuz the water stays warmer longer in winter than the land and that's where your weather is coming from over there. Well, also a bunch of other reasons like ocean currents and wind currents and also mountains." He's bouncing slightly in his seat now. "I have definitely popped into some snowbanks by accident but now it's mostly intentional. Mostly." He looks up at Shane, gray eyes gleaming with mischief. "Oh man every day was strike day for Mr. Holland." He suddenly turns back to his schoolmates. "But he's right we should totally sick out tomorrow they can't give us all detention it'll be amazing!" "Huh, neat." Shane has listened to Spence's mini-weather lesson with a wider (-- much wider, his pitch-black eyes disconcertingly large pools in his narrow face) eyed interest. "S'sometimes big storms like this here," he tells Astrid, "but not so often that you shouldn't take full advantage of it." His sharp teeth click in a halfhearted snap in Spence's direction. "Gonna be confusing as hell with all these Mr. Hollands around. Anyway I didn't strike I just skipped class with my friends and -- shit on the books I probably still have detentions I never finished serving but you all don't have to be dumbasses like me." He gestures toward Spencer affirmingly. "Just organize it right like the hell are they gonna do? Can't punish all of you." “There you have it.” Astrid replies, grinning at Spence then Naomi as if his answer on Northwest meteorology was somehow her own doing. “I knew there was a reason.” She quickly clams up, taking another sip of her hot cocoa as she looks towards Shane, mug now held on both hands. Her excitement is clearly growing at the thought of a strike sanctioned by none other than an Xavier legend. “Safety in numbers. Good call. We’ll keep your name out of it too, Mr. Holland. Doubt they’d be able to make you come back and serve detention, but stranger things have happened around here.” Naomi’s forehead wrinkles into scaled ridges - she doesn’t seem to get the meteorology. “Can they make you finish your detentions if you already graduate? How many detentions did you get for snow days? Do we need to get everyone or like fifty percent plus one?” Her cheeks, still flushed from the cold, go a touch darker. “Gotta do our strike research, right?” Spencer beams at the others' interest, but moves on easily enough, snapping his (not quite so impressive) teeth right back at Shane. "C'mon we can be Messieurs Holland we'll be so fancy." He pauses a beat, looks between his outfit and his brother's. "Well. You and Pa will be fancy, anyway." He gulps down more of his cocoa, the color in his cheeks a bit more normal now that he's stopped shivering. "I don't think we need everyone to pull this off," he grins at Naomi encouragingly. "Half would be great but I'm not sure we'd need even that. It doesn't have to be literally too many kids for them to be able to detention...ize? Detend?" He shakes his head, undeterred by his uncertain word choice. "We just need enough that it's too much trouble for them to bother." "Tch. If I come back for anything it'll be to help build a massive snow fort." Shane lifts his mug, taking a long swig from his cocoa. His smile is bright, broad, extraordinarily toothsome. "Hell yeah. You just need some kinda critical mass to start out with. Enough to be a trouble and -- once you get a big enough group a lot of fence-sitters who weren't sure about skipping class will join in if they feel less worried about getting in trouble." He lifts his mug to the others, confident. "I believe in you. Lemme know how it goes, yeah?" “I think you might have nominated yourself as the de facto snow strike leader.” Astrid says to Naomi as her grin disappears just long enough for another sip of cocoa to be taken. “Don’t want anything official otherwise they’ll try to place all the blame on you, right?” She smiles, using her free hand to push her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose. Pondering Spence’s words, she tries to envision what number would be deemed too much of a hassle for the administration to deal with. The thought is quickly waved away with another sip of cocoa. “I bet getting enough people will be easy.” She lifts her own mug up, mirroring Shane. Naomi blanches, smile disappearing as she vigorously shakes her head. “Oh no no no no I ain’t leading nobody in nothing we know that don’t go well.” Her fingers curl tighter around the mug, one nail tapping against the ceramic. “I jus’ wanted a expert opinion.” Her eyes dart from Shane to Spencer. “I nominate Spence t’ be Captain Snowball Strike. Make it a family tradition.” Spence's face twists speculatively. "Well, as long as I can be a non-hierarchical Captain that's fine, I guess? I prefer Comrade Snow Strike, though." He's started bouncing again. "Once we warm back up we should go spread the word. Start with people who are likely to be onboard and persuasive." His expression wavers for just a moment, but then he's grinning again, nudging Shane in the side. "You know, I'm getting the feeling tomorrow might be a great day to build a massive snow fort."