Songs) Vivaldi' Winter Movement 2

Ten days ago I was flying fancy free, looking for Punjam Hy Loo Palace and any information. Now I had gotten myself caught in the center of North Pole. The room had no windows, just a lighting fixture made of Christmas Lights, a soft shag rug, and some boxes. How had I not forseen this? Scratch that, I had forseen this as a potential consequence of getting caught, but I'd put all my energy into not getting caught. Consider this a lesson learned. All in all it wasn't an unpleasant prison cell. No shackles and chains, no cages. Not like Pitch's general decor. I'd never asked if they were used for any practical reason. If they weren't he might have been offended. If they were, well, no use asking when you're deep underground and standing next to a cage with an open door. I kept comparing the Guardians to Pitch. It was the only comparison I could make. Where Pitch was dark, the Guardians were light, but Pitch was less jumpy for sure. He listened whereas the Guardians...maybe they listened, but they certainly didn't believe. I'm not one for labels. Fear, Wonder, Hope, Dreams, Memories and Fun. One of these things is not like the other. But things were shaping up to be quite backwards so far.

A yeti was posted inside my little room. After eight years of sleeping outdoors, and on balconies and cliffs, when I wake up I don't flinch or roll. My eyes simply opened to the creme colored wool of the rug and a yeti sitting with his back to the door. I immediately closed my eyes again, but left them open enough to see just through my eyelashes. This yeti looked similar to the one who caught me just before I blacked out. The fur was the same color at least. He had a weapon which I recognized as the Dinner Knife from the Guardian Book. Look at me, all medium security. Could have been worse, could've been the Abominable Mood Swing. But there was no way I was going to be doing anything in here without Furry over there seeing me. From the second I moved I would be under scrutiny. But I could handle that.

I brought myself up to a sitting position, criss cross applesauce. His furry fist tightened around the handle of the Dinner Knife and he gave me a serious look. A sort of don't do anything stupid look. I pulled up the corners of my lips, giving him a passive little half smile. Non-threatening. I made a big show of reaching into my pocket and the yeti, very agile for its size, reached over and picked me up by my wrist. Now dangling a quarter meter off the ground, I did absolutely nothing, just looked peaceably at the yeti who was glowering at my mirror which I held in my raised hand. He pried it out of my clenched fingers despite my futile attempts against it. He dropped me back on my feet and examined the mirror. He held it up close to his face, rotated it in his fingers, tapped it lightly on the wall. I followed him carefully with my eyes. That mirror was one of very few things I called my own. If he broke it...I'd still have to be good and amiable on the outside so I could get out of here. But I'd be upset on the inside. Satisfied that wasn't any sort of weapon, he opened it. Rotating his great big face he looked in the mirror, he was facing me so I couldn't see the mirror's face but I imagined such a small mirror would only show him his giant eye. It made me smile on the inside a little. It was a funny image.

Slowly I held my empty hand out. A silent gesture, asking for my mirror back. The yeti stared at me, a little suspicious, but after doing so for a time, he gently reached over and placed the closed mirror in my palm. I opened it and checked my eyes. They were still silvered over with the rainbow swirling deep in the background. I also briefly used it to examine the parts of the room behind me. Nothing promising.

The yeti drew back my eye, as he raised his fist to the door and pounded firmly on it three times. I was back to sitting on the rug, closing my mirror and putting it back in my pocket. I just looked up at him, shifting from one foot to the other, the floorboards creaking ever so slightly as he did so. After a few minutes of looking at each other, he sighed, his moustache waving outward, and sat back down on the floor with his back to the door.

Not a whole minute later the door opened out the yeti got quickly to his feet. Another yeti, somehow even bigger with gray and white fur, stepped in to exchange words with my yeti, as I now referred to him in my head.

Now was my chance. I needed to make a show of force, but not a show of harm. I wasn't going to let these G's think me too stupid. I was already ashamed of getting caught so unawares and caught because I lost control. I was still not 100% sure what had happened, but I wasn't going to let it happen again. Tall words seeing as there was still a lot about myself that I didn't understand.

I swirled up a very useful emotion. Complacency. It was a medium pink color, on the muted side. When I radiated it on humans it made them rather...go with the flow. Here's to hoping it worked on yetis. I made sure to keep all of it contained inside of me so they wouldn't get a tip off. Then, as if I wanted to ask a simple question I walked up to the two yetis and with each finger tapped them lightly on the shoulder, shooting a hefty dose into each simultaneously. Couldn't give one the chance to snap the other out of it. Their eyes turned a soft pink and they kind of lazily grinned at me. My yeti even gave me a pleasant nod, like we'd made eye contact passing on the street on a sunny day. With that I smiled sweetly back and sashayed right out the door.

I'd just proven that I could escape with a little work, but I didn't want them thinking I was up to any trouble. So I wasn't going blow this popsicle stand just yet. The guilty and the afraid run. I was going to prove that I was neither. I seemed to be back underground, in an empty room in an empty hallway, with similar doors. But I could smell something wonderful. Like warm chocolate and sugar. I followed my nose, walking openly through the hallways. I didn't care if I was seen; I made sure to keep my pace even and light. When someone inevitably caught me again, I'd appear as ill-intending as a marshmallow. I came upon a metal door with glass portholes. Pushing up onto my tip toes, I peered into what must have been the most massive kitchen I'd ever seen. It had two floors, with the upper being open and half the size of the slower. The lower floor looked to be a massive pantry. The upper floor had all the cooking equipment including what looked like a 32 burner stove! A lone yeti was inside puttering around with a large bag of chocolate chips. It looked like the bag was the size of me. He stumbled through what must have been some kind of storage door. He was restocking the chip dispenser on the lower floor. He couldn't see past the bag though and was wandering rather blindly around the pantry.

During a particularly heavy step, I noticed a small hole appear in the bag where the yeti couldn't see. Chip began to leak out. First one, then another until a small but steady drop of chips was hitting the floor. Now was as good a time as any to "get caught" and this poor fella was clearly on the struggle bus at the moment. I pushed the door open and morphed one of my bracelets into a bowl. I began to catch the falling chips in it as the yeti and walked into the pantry. Once he lay the bag down, he could finally see me and using my 'special sight' as it were, I could tell he was surprised and confused. Perhaps he though his help had come from a particularly light footed yeti. Did he know? About the intruder alert? Or had this guy been holed in the kitchen and missed all the fun? Before he could jump to any conclusions, I pushed the bowl full of fallen chocolate chips into his hands, paw-things. He looked down at it and emptied it into the chocolate chip dispenser. This guy seemed calm, so I went one step further.

I summoned my feelings of self control, the need to be in control of myself. My hands glowed a warm orange. The yeti's eyes went wide, as he backed away and grabbed the closest thing he could, which hilariously happened to be a very long ladle, which if I had to guess, was used to fish stuff out of the top of the dispensers. I reached my hands out, but not towards him. I reached toward the small scattering of chocolate chips that had made it to the floor before I'd begun to catch them. The ultimate expression of control: telekinesis. I gathered the chocolate chips into a floating ball and brought them towards us. Turning to the yeti, I uttered a single quiet word.

"Trash can?"

Taking one hand from the ladle, and bringing his guard down a little, he pointed to a hole in the wall, which led to a chute. I sent the chips down it and looked back at him. He'd put the ladle down. By now news of my escape must have reached somebody. The kitchen wasn't far from my cell. Any search would reach here soon.

I smelled something. The yeti did too. Forgetting me in favor of whatever was in the oven, he ran up the stairs and pulled a sheet tray from the ovens. I followed out of curiosity. He sighed in relief. It looked like nothing had burned. Chocolate chip with a salted caramel in the middle. He put the tray on the stove top and turned back to me. I clasped my hands gently in front of me. Now I was a problem that he could address.

With the barest of nods, he motioned that I follow him. We went down the stairs and held open the door I'd entered from. It would seem I'd be walking in front.

In part to steer me, and in probably in part to keep me from making a run for it, which wasn't part of the plan right now, he kept a paw-hand on my shoulder. It was warm and had a weight to it. It wasn't a backpack full of textbooks ow kind of weight. It was an almost nice weight. Even if it was a security escort, I hadn't been touched kindly in a long time.