"Okay, Team Fire against Team Flower!" Akira cheered and held her hand up. Lea reacted right away and gave her a high five with a very confident grin.
"Let's get this show started!"
Standing a bit afar from the pair, Kairi leant to Ilana and whispered: "Isn't it kinda unfair that they get to team up?"
"Do you want them on different teams?" she answered with a glance and a raised eyebrow to her younger friend, gathering some snow in her hands. "We want to play a game, not starting a war."
Besides them, Belle chuckled. "Well, at least we have the advantage of numbers, isn't that right Chip?"
The young boy nodded enthusiastic. "Yeah, they will stand no chance against us"!
Ilana let out a sigh, but smiled. "Don't count on it actually helping us against those two."
She looked over to Akira and Lea. He gave her some instructions on how to form a good snowball - had he been to a world with snow before? - and she had even started to build a little wall of snow.
The group from Radiant Garden had decided to give the Beast's Castle - could you actually still call it that? - a visit, after Lea had told them that, unlike their own world, there is snow in others when the cold season started. Neither of the girls had ever seen snow before, so they had been very excited to see the white glory for the first time.
Of course, Lea had to mention games you play in the winter, like a snowball fight. Of course Akira was all for it. Kairi and herself only agreed to it, after Chip and Belle had overheard their conversation and wanted to take part in this little game.
Ilana just hoped it would stay a game. One could never know with those two.
Several minutes later the two teams had finished their preparations. Kairi went over the rules they had agreed on.
"..., no hard objects and no magic in any form!"
"As if our magic would help anyway," Ilana could hear Lea say to Akira, who chuckled and agreed with a nod.
"The game ends when one team gives up. Everybody ready?"
A collective shouts of YES! echoed through the backyard.
"Okay, then ready….GOO-ahhh!"
The moment Kairi gave the starting signal, she already had to hide behind their little wall from the snowballs of Akira. But the princess was quick and threw one of her own and hit Lea on the shoulder.
It quickly became apparent that Kairi was the one with the best aim in their team, scoring most hits on the two red heads. Chip barely scored anything, but that didn't damp down the enthusiasm of the boy and he had the time of his life.
Ilana herself had just one goal: Hit Akira at least once in the face. And she even managed it! But her friend wasn't so happy about that and now she was her primary target. To keep herself safe, Ilana sat down behind the snow wall besides Belle.
"I have to admit, you guys play this game with much more fervor than I'm used to," Belle said with a nervous laugh and dared to glance over the wall, just to quickly sit back again, when a snowball flew right above her head.
"Warned you, that playing a game with them is not for the faint-hearted," Ilana smiled, making it herself comfortable. No way she would get up now that she had Akira's wrath on her.
"Indeed. But at least they seem to have fun," Belle mused, looking at Chip and Kairi.
Ilana hummed in agreement.
Not only were Akira and Lea very much in the game, but also Kairi. It surprised her sometimes how ructious the princess could be. Was she always like that or did it come from the time she spent with the other two?
Ilana slapped Kairi's knee before she could finish the colorful sentence she had just started.
"Kairi, not in front of the kid!"
"Ups, sorry," she apologized, but was right back in the game when she was hit at her head.
With a sigh Ilana eased back. She bet that the cusses came from Lea.
"We give up, We give up!" Kairi shouted, half hiding behind the snow wall and waving her arms over her head.
The hail of snowballs stopped at that.
"You sure? We'd give you another fair chance if you want," Lea shouted back, casually leaning with his elbow on their own wall.
"No thanks," Kairi said loud enough, before she let herself drop to the ground with a sigh. "None of us wants to continue this madness," she mumbled only for Ilana, Bell and Chip.
"Says the one who highly contributed to it," Ilana chuckled and got a grin and shrug of shoulders from Kairi.
"It was so much fun! I hope we can do this again!" Chip said, grinning widely. Still it was obvious that the boy was tired, since Belle had to hold him in position, or he would have just slumped to the ground.
"This certainly was...an experience," Belle commented over the loud victory cheerings of Akira and Lea, while she wiped all the snow from Chip's head and shoulders.
"As much fun as this was, I have to admit I can't wait to get back inside. This whole snow thing can be really cold," Ilana admitted and rubbed over the sleeves of her jacket.
"Yeah, I just realize that now," Kairi agreed and mirrored the motion, her teeth jitterin now that the heath of the battle was over.
Belle laughed at the two girls freezing like that. "Well, then we better head back into the castle. I'm sure Mrs. Potts has prepared some tee for you to warm up."
"Ah, that sounds lovely," Ilana hummed.
She was about to get up and call, grabbing at her back and shaking herself, while Lea had to lean against the wall from how hard he laughed.
If Ilana had to guess, he had shoved some snow down her back. She shook in sympathy for her best friend.
When Akira gave up on getting rid of the snow in her clothes, she turned around to glare at him.
"Lea, you goddamn-!"
Quickly Ilana covered Chip's ears.
Why does everyone have to curse?
Before Lea could react, Akira was tackling him to the ground, pressing his head into a pile of snow. He struggled a lot and was then able to throw her off his back, just so that he could pin her on the ground and now tried to shove snow down her front. But she quickly kicked him against the side and started her counterattack.
The others watched them in their tussle.
"I don't know if this is cute or concerning," Ilana mused, making Kairi chuckle.
"Hard to tell, huh?"
Belle on the other hand was certainly concerned. "Shouldn't we try to stop them?"
"If you want to get caught in the cross-fire, by all means do so," Ilana snorted and the other woman nodded with a sigh.
"I assume this is normal for them?"
"Yeah, it's their way of showing that they like each other. They're weird that way," Ilana explained on the quiet, making now both Kairi and Belle chuckle.
But Chip was confused by this. "But Belle and Adam like each other too and I never see them play around like this."
"You know Chip, adults have different ways to show affections. Akira and Lea are both very silly and prefer to play and joke with each other, instead how Belle and Adam do it in a civilized manner," Ilana said in a rather exaggerating tone, making the other two laugh again. Chip on the other hand pondered about this answer.
"Anyway, let's finally get inside. They'll follow us when they've worn out each other," Kairi suggested, receiving agreeing hums.
Ilana and Kairi, draped in blankets, carried plates of tea and biscuits to the library, since Belle had suggested that they should warm up there at the fireplace, while she read one of her favorite books of them.
It was when they passed the entrance hall, that they spotted Akira and Lea entering the castle.
They were both wet from head to toe, their hair sticking to their heads and jittered awfully from the cold.
"Well? Finished fooling around you two?" Ilana asked them in a teasing tone, but it seemed they were too exhausted to catch on the ambiguousness of that question and just making confirming, grunting noises, while trying to get warm again.
"And? Who won?" Kairi looked from one to the other.
They stopped in their attempts to warm themselves up and looked ad each other with an unsure expression, before answering.
"I guess...the tree?" Lea's answer sounded more like a question, but Akira nodded.
"The...tree?" Ilana and Kairi were confused at this, so Akira started to explain.
"You see, while we were still in the middle of our little brawl-"
"Which I would have totally won," Lea muttered in-between.
"As if," she retorted and punched his upper-arm playfully. Before this turned into another tussle, she just continued to explain. "Anyway, we weren't paying attention to the things around and at some point we both crashed against a tree. Bunch of snow fell down and almost buried us."
"It was a really close call," he added with a not so happy face at the memory.
Ilana and Kairi sighed.
"We really can't leave you two troublemaker alone, can't we?" Ilana said in a slightly chiding tone, but still smiled at them.
Lea and Akira grinned at each other, before they looked back to the girls, sticking out their tongues.
"Apparently not," Akira answered her answer, making them both laugh.
"You two are so childish. Sometimes I can't believe you're actually older than me," Kairi said.
It was not intentionally from her, but with this simple statement a lot of the merry mood was drained out of the two before her.
"Have to catch up on things after all," Lea answered with a shrug and Akira nodded, both having a rather sober smile on their face.
Confused, but also worried, Kairi looked between them, before it dawned on her what the problem was. She was about to apologize, when Ilana spoke up.
"You two should get out of those wet clothes or you'll get sick. Mrs. Potts is in the kitchen, she will have blankets for you."
"Right, sounds like a good idea," Akira agreed, both seemingly to remember that they were freezing and with jittering teeth made their way to the kitchen.
"We will wait in the library for you," Ilana called after them. After giving Kairi a reassuring nod, the two girls went on their way.
The group had already settled in in front of the fireplace, with Belle sitting in a big, comfy chair and Ilana, Kairi and Chip cuddling together on a small couch, when Akira and Lea joined them.
Their clothes had been apparently so soaked, that they had to borrow pants from someone and wore only their shirts under their blankets.
While Lea claimed an armchair as his, Akira fetched the tea for them.
Ilana was a bit surprised that Akira sat besides Lea and huddled up to him with no protest, especially when he put his arm around her, even tho she could see that her friend's ears were red. Seemed like she was glad for any warmth she could get.
As soon as everybody at made it themselves comfortable and was provided with tea and snacks, Belle started to read the story for them.
It was about an hour later.
The exhaustion from their day spent outside, the warmth of the fire and the soft tone of Belle's voice made Ilana very drowsy. Kairi and Chip, who leant against each side of her, were already fast asleep. She would have dozed off too, if not for the fact that Belle suddenly stopped reading and chuckled, which got her attention.
She looked to the other woman, who pointed with a smile to the chair of Lea and Akira. When Ilana looked at them, she had to chuckle, too.
They were both also asleep and had gotten very cozy with each other.
Lea was simply slumped against the backrest, supporting his head with one arm leaning on the armrest and the other one still around her shoulders. He snored softly, something that didn't seem to bother Akira, even her head and one hand rested on his chest.
This was such a cute sight for the sore eyes! Ilana just had to take a picture of this, for various reasons.
While rummaging for her Gummiphone, Kairi besides her woke up and looked around confused. When Ilana pointed to the two sleeping in the armchair, it took Kairi only a few seconds to get what was going and also started to giggle.
Ilana was able to take a picture just in time, since apparently Lea wasn't that deep asleep. Or the giggling woke him up. His snoring died down and slowly opening his eyes, trying to blink away the sleep.
With big grins, Ilana and Kairi waved at him, when he looked over to them.
Still a bit sleepy, he raised one hand in a salute, but that made Akira stir. Seemingly sensing the missing arm on her shoulder, she grabbed it in her sleep and put it back to where it was before, signing contently.
While Lea looked puzzled at that, Ilana and Kairi had to hold themselves together not to giggle and gush too loud. Still Lea put his finger on his smiling lips to beckon them not to wake her up.
Ilana nodded and shushed Kairi when she got a bit too loud with her giggling, even tho she herself was still trying to get herself under control.
Belle watched all this with an amused expression.
After a few minutes the girls had calmed down and Belle had resumed to reading the book.
While listening to the story, Ilana glanced over to the armchair.
Akira had luckily not waked up from their tittering. The girl needed every bit of sleep she would allow herself.
What made Ilana gush internally was the way how Lea gently combed his fingers through her hair and the soft smile he had while looking down at Akira's sleeping form. She bet that the girl would have melted like a snowball in front of a fire, if she could've seen it.
It was so adorable to watch. But also so frustrating with how in love those two where with each other, but refused to talk with the other about it.
Ilana did her best to push them into the right directions, but one thing they had in common was their stubbornness.
Maybe a direct approach would be better?
Akira was a lost cause for that, so much she knew.
But maybe it would help if she had a word with Lea.
Yeah, that sounded like a good plan.