Jace yawned. Now that they were in the middle of winter break he had nothing to do. He hadn't bothered with the curtains. It didn't even matter what was Ral's and what was his anymore. He stopped caring. As long as Ral didn't wake him up at god awful times of the morning then everything was fine. The two of them had gotten so much stuff on Christmas that the curtains would've only gotten in the way anyway. Jace had moved the stuffed animals under his bed, or onto it because Ral had gotten him one to three for nearly every day they'd been on this world, and put a bookshelf between his bed and his desk. He'd put a second one between his bed and the door. Ral had helped him set up the computer on the desk though Jace hadn't touched it since then. He glanced out the window. Everything was white. The room was warm but he didn't doubt it was cold outside.
It was January. Winter break was almost over so everyone was getting in some last minute games in the snow before school started back up in two days. Jace personally would more than enjoy school starting back up. It meant Ral would stop bugging him to play in the snow. Wow. We've almost been here a whole year. Time here is so fast. We arrived in May of last year. Last year. We've been here for a while.
"Cat Ears!" Ral opened the door, "Come play in the snow."
"Last time I did that it didn't end well," Jace reminded him. Last time he'd played in the snow Michael and David had decided to dump a bucket of snow on his head. Being the shortest person in the school it wasn't hard to pick on him. He'd ended up sick for the next three days.
"C'mon. Michael and David have promised to leave you alone. Besides, we're gonna build a giant snowman!"
"No," Jace shook his head, "I'm not playing with you. You guys are mean."
"You are playing with us!" Ral went into the closet and grabbed Jace's coat.
Jace curled up deeper under his blanket. He wouldn't be able to catch me if he tried anyway. Of course the only place to run would be outside. Then someone, probably Chandra or Alice would catch me.
Alice had started hanging out more with her fellow students instead of hiding in her books now that everything had mellowed out. Echo had managed to isolate most of their protocols. Leisa was currently learning how to work with the Athena protocol instead of fighting with it. Hades had decided to stay at the school and was outside in the snow, helping with the snowman. Jace didn't worry much about his protocol. It had never actually been able to win anyway. Echo had suggested he learn to work with it as well but he wasn't entirely sure how he felt about the idea.
Ral started bouncing the bed, "Cat Ears! We're building a snowman! It's gonna be bigger than the Christmas tree!"
"Is that thing still outside?" Jace snapped.
"Well yeah. Why would we take it down?"
"Maybe because it's not Christmas anymore," Jace said.
"Then you go take care of it."
"No," Jace shook his head.
Ral started pulling on the blanket, "Come help us with the snowman!"
"No!"
Jace held onto the blanket for a moment before letting it go. He snickered as Ral fell backwards. He stepped over his roommate and out the door, "I haven't even had breakfast yet anyway." The hallway was cold. He growled in dissatisfaction and continued down the stairs into the common room. The battle with Athena and the disaster that had been the third principal of the first semester seemed like a distant memory. Jace remembered it clearly but did admit that the light air made it easy to believe everything that had happened was a dream. Of course some of them had some new scars thanks to that fiasco.
Ral appeared a few moments later, "Help up build a snowman!"
"No."
"Cat Ears!"
"No."
"You don't even know what I was going to say."
He was going to say that you're hair's messed up. Kurai's voice echoed in Jace's head. Jace looked at Ral, "You were going to comment on my hair weren't you?"
"You had Kurai help you with that!" Ral cried.
"I did not!" Jace knew he was lying but Ral was gullible, "That's considered cheating and I'm actually an honest person believe it or not!"
"I don't believe it!" He was usually gullible.
"That's your choice," Jace turned away from him.
"What are you going to have for breakfast anyway?" Ral changed the subject.
Jace shrugged, "I don't know."
"Cereal?"
"No."
"Eggs."
"Gross."
"When was the last time you had eggs anyway?" Ral asked.
Jace shrugged, "I don't like eggs."
"If you haven't had them then how can you tell whether or not you like them?" Ral asked.
"They're just gross."
"Oh my god Cat Ears," Ral put his winter coat over his shoulders, "Come play in the snow. Onyx can buy something."
"I doubt he wants to spend his money on me," Jace snapped. He shook off coat and left it lying on the floor. He went to the freezer and grabbed a vanilla ice cream.
"Cat Ears! I will dress you myself and drag you into the snow if I have to!" Ral warned.
Jace ignored him.
Ral picked up his coat, "You thought I was kidding."
He continued to ignore Ral even as he put his arms in the sleeves of the coat. Eating his breakfast around Ral's insistence that he wear his coat and eventually go outside in the cold and the snow was difficult but he remained silent. Jace still had no intention of going outside but Ral wouldn't give him a choice. He had long since become resigned to the fact that no matter what he tried to do someone, whether it was Ral or Michael and David or someone else, would get him to participate in whatever activity they had planned. However he was going to take as long as possible to eat the ice cream so as push away the moment when Ral would shove him outside. He idly wondered what could have happened if one thing in his life had been different. What if he had never been part of the sick experiment in the first place? What if Chandra had never come to pick him up, even if it was against his will, before this all started? What if Chandra had never even remembered the previous loop? What if he hadn't gone back to Sun's Reprieve to warn them about the artificial copies of them that may or may not still exist?
"Why the hell are your shoes so complicated Cat Ears?"
The question pulled Jace's wandering thoughts back to the present. He looked at Ral in surprise, "They aren't that complicated."
"Says the one that wears them everyday," Ral muttered.
Jace shrugged and returned to his ice cream. What if Bolas had never existed? Then none of this would've happened. None of the loops would've been necessary. Life would probably be boring though. Well until the next bad guy came up. There's always a bad guy. I don't really think that it's fair that the good guys and the bad guys are constantly warring with each other. There's never an end to it. He sighed, "Why do you think people fight for good?"
"Because somebody has to do it," Ral shrugged, "Would you stop fidgeting! I'm trying to figure out your shoes and your constant movement is not helping."
"You wouldn't have to figure out my shoes if you'd just leave me alone and let me read all day," Jace said, "This is your own fault."
"Alright. You have a point there but I'm not leaving you alone so please be nice."
Jace kicked Ral, relatively lightly, in the forehead.
"Ow! Cat Ears! I just asked you to be nice!"
"That is nice," Jace smirked.
Ral growled. He finally managed to figure out the pattern to the buckles and straps and ties on Jace's shoes and pulled him to his feet, "C'mon Cat Ears! Let's go build a snowman!"
"Wait! I haven't finished breakfast-" Jace was shoved out the door and into the cold. He glared at Ral, "I said after breakfast!"
"You just said you hadn't had breakfast yet. Besides you can eat outside," Ral ran over to where Melody and Hades were rolling a relatively ball shaped piece of ice in the snow to create the beginnings of a snowman.
"You haven't even started the snowman yet?" Jace asked irritably.
"There are cookies in the pantry," Melody said.
"Thanks," Jace muttered.
"She only mentioned it because you're grumpy," Kurai said from beside Ral.
Ral jumped, "When'd you get there?!"
Kurai glanced at him in amusement.
Jace stuck his tongue out at Kurai and knelt down in front of what was going to be the snowman, "Is this the bottom part?"
Hades nodded.
Jace could see his breath in front of his face. The tips of his ears were already going numb but he refused to wear a hat. There snow went up to Ral's knees at the shallowest. That meant that Jace could easily start drowning in the deeper mounds of snow. It was an odd winter, having snowed almost constantly for the entirety of it so far. Most of the Ascension City kids weren't nearly as familiar with snow as a lot of the Elendeth kids were. Ascension City was set up on a small island near the Mediterranean Sea. Jace looked around, "How big is it going to be?"
"Bigger than the tree," Melody said.
Jace glanced at the tree, "Is there even that much snow around?"
"It's deeper than it looks," Hades muttered.
"Rick fell over there and got swallowed," Melody pointed to one of the larger mounds up against the wall.
"He freaked out it was funny," Michael knelt down beside Melody, "Are these good enough?" He showed her medium sized black circular beads.
She shook her head, "The snowman's gonna be huge."
"Right. Big eyes," Michael nodded. He got to his feet, "David we need BIG eyes!"
"Big?" David looked at Onyx. Onyx sighed and walked over to his van. There were plenty of students that could drive. Most of the ones that could were not trusted to do so safely, Michael and David among them. Onyx was one of the few students that was a safe driver and wouldn't go careening down a major road just because there weren't any cars around.
Jace sighed, "So that's what they're doing huh?"
Melody shrugged, "I can always use the buttons to make a shirt or something.
"Just how many things can you do?" Hades asked curiously.
"Well...My mom and sister are always sick and so there's no one to work really," Melody explained. She didn't sound bitter or embarrassed as she spoke. "Dad's never been around anyway. I learned to cook, sew, and pretty much everything else from my grandmother when she used to live with us."
Jace whistled softly, "Wow."
Hades shook his head, "And here seventy five percent of the school at least can't even make something out of a box."
"Actually it is eighty seven point nine percent," Cain corrected as he set a large mound of snow down in front of them, "That should be enough to make it ball shaped enough that you can begin to roll it and collect more snow that way."
Melody nodded, "Thanks Cain."
He nodded, "Of course."
"Even so, no one can cook," Hades shrugged.
"Well it's not fair that most of us have never had to cook or we've never had the...opportunity to learn to cook," Jace said.
Hades nodded, "There is that."
"I don't mind cooking at all," Melody shook her head.
The three of them piled the snow onto the ice ball and then started rolling it through the snow. Jace used a small amount of magic to keep it from falling apart on them because that would piss him off. He really didn't want to deal with that. He paused, "Hey Cain!"
"Yes?"
"How big would the bottom have to be in order to support a snowman that's bigger than the Christmas tree?"
"Twenty foot diameter," Cain said instantly.
"Huh?" Jace looked at the snow around them. That's a lot of freaking snow. Oh well. "Fun." He turned back to the small snowball they currently had. He sighed. I wanna go back inside.