smash_logs | baby it's cold outside

baby it's cold outside

Who: YOU
What: SNOW
When: DECEMBER 4th
Where: EVERYWHERE
Warnings: SNOW

As a quiet Sunday morning dawned on the school's campus, one could perhaps...feel it in the air. A creeping chill, a silent, barely-detectable indication that yes. Today would be the day.

Today, it would snow.

[OOC: GO CRAZY. Make threads. Have snowball fights. You guys know how this works.]

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Her head inclined and she looked over herself for a moments. "Right."

Because the cold hit her again. She pulled her hands over her face and drew in a deep breath, as though her mind was trying to play catch up and just get over all of the obstacles he decided to put down in front of her. I'm cool. I'm cool. Literally. Because of the snow.

"Proof that I look good, even in the snow," she managed to get out, except it didn't quite sound like her when she said it. "I guess. I should go find Ai. And then go back inside for the next three months."

Jeez, I hate winter.

Byrne had a feeling that Nabooru's refusal to wear warm clothes out in the snow wasn't due to stupidity, though he didn't know what it was. The air and the snow were very cold, and she could easily get sick, due to lowered immune activity, or get hypothermia in general. That wouldn't do.

"If you're going to stay out here," he said, "You should attempt to warm up."

He removed his jacket and offered it to her. "Here, I don't need it. I'm used to the cold, since I wasn't raised in an arid desert."

He wasn't raised in a cold environment, no, but he wasn't accustomed to incredibly high temperatures like she was. Surely the cold would bother her a lot more than it would him. Besides, he needed to build up resistance to the temperature anyway. He could easily do without the jacket.

What was it with guys giving her jackets? She seriously wanted to sink down into the snow and just curl up. She eyed his jacket, his hand, and then his face as she hesitantly reached over. Then she settled her hand over his and simply blinked a few times. "It's embarrassing to have you doing that."

Then she paused, "Not that you, yourself are embarrassing, but-"

I'm not used to it. You're making these stupid pitter-patters on the inside. Stop it.

"-it'd be like you letting me do something like that for you," she mildly protested. "If I really need to, I can go run and buy one." Which really meant if he was really that worried about her, she'd reluctantly go do exactly that. "But I'm not refined enough for a guy to be treating me like a princess," she coughed, mildly shy by the treatment.

Or a lady, evidently.

"I'm not trying to treat you like royalty," he assured her, though if she wanted to feel that way, then she was certainly allowed to. "You're from the desert and you're not used to the cold. Your clothes are thin and not built for the snow. It's just common sense."

Byrne was unaware that Shinon had already done the same gesture earlier, though if he had known that, he would have wanted to punch the lights out of the archer for reasons he couldn't figure out.

However, if Byrne thought the gesture was anything more than simple common sense, out here in public, he might not have offered Nabooru his jacket. Though part of him did know that he was both being polite and more, so it irked him slightly to see Nabooru refuse his gesture. He tried not to show it, though.

He sighed, then, and simply draped the jacket onto her shoulders (also unaware that Shinon had done the same earlier). He really didn't need the jacket as much as she did. But if she refused again, then that was her own damned fault.

How humiliating. Twice in one day. Do you guys think I'm weak or something?

Nabooru inclined her head and stared at the snow for a few moments. She thought about making some sort of joke about the situation, especially considering it was the second time it'd happened, but she got the distinct impression that Byrne wouldn't find it funny. And he'd probably turn it out in their spar and then Shinon would come back to her and be mad that she said something.

Or not. Shinon did seem to like the idea of flaunting his relationship with Nabooru in front of the martial arts instructor. That whole thing was stupid, too. And she was still angry about the whole thing. Her expression became unamused and she looked up at him.

"Question," she began, rather straight forward. "Do I seem weak to you?"

In a gesture of politeness by offering her a coat since she was clearly not dressed for winter, Nabooru thought that Byrne was implying she was weak? He was about to berate her for that, but then he realized that if he had been in her position, he would have thought the exact same thing. He didn't need help or charity or any of that.

"No..." he said, "No, you don't seem weak."

She wasn't as strong as him, of course, but she wasn't a person he would label as "weak." Physically, and even mentally too. Her resolve to go through with her Sagedom was not weak, even if it was a bit moronic.

Her confidence and strength was something he admired about her, and if she had been an annoying weakling, perhaps he wouldn't have stuck around for so long.

Then why do you insist on treating me like I am?

Except that would have been her pride speaking up, which she very quickly stomped all over to keep quiet. She knew very well that it was just an extension of him being concerned about her, which it would have been more than rude to turn him down. So she tried to swallow back a lot of her protests. Well, all of her protests, and instead eyed him for a few moments.

"It's big on me," she observed. "I look silly." Which was just her stating a fact. It wasn't his jacket that looked silly. It was her in the jacket that did. In his jacket of all things. As silly as she'd looked in Shinon's jacket.

Well yes, of course the jacket was big on her. He was taller, more muscular, and just had a completely different build than Nabooru. He wouldn't say she looked "silly" per se, but it was plainly obvious that she was wearing a jacket much too big for her.

"'Silly' isn't the word I would use, but..."

Nabooru wasn't being very thankful, was she? Byrne wasn't treating her like she was weak. At least not consciously. So he was a little ticked off that she thought that, but he said nothing, knowing that he would have felt the same way.

"Well, if you're going to stay out here, just take it. You can return it to me later."

He had another jacket in his dorm, so if she took a while to return it, so be it.

He was about to head off to the forest to train alone, but stayed in case Nabooru had any other protests to make.

Her expression did all kinds of contorting as she heard him. She wanted to frown and maybe stomp around a bit childishly. Wanted to. Didn't necessarily mean she was going to. And she was trying to be on her best behaviour.

She eyed him for a few moments, lips parted. She'd had more on her mind, of course. More she hadn't shared with him. Wasn't sure if she should. Kind of wanted to. Wondered if she was just simply crazy. And assumed the latter could have been entirely plausible. So she chose not to say anything on her mind in the least.

And instead:

"Thanks." Sorry for the inconvenience, remained unsaid. "I'll go buy myself a jacket later today and leave yours at your room later tonight."

Or maybe she should have had it washed first. She didn't know how it went to use someone else's clothes...

Somehow Byrne suspected that Nabooru wasn't actually going to buy a jacket. Or else if she did, she would never wear it. He could be wrong, though, but he still said nothing about it. She already looked irritated enough, even if she was trying to hold it in.

"Like I said," he reminded her, beginning to walk off, "You aren't weak."

He doubted that would do anything to reassure her, but then did it even matter? If she was going to get that idea in her head and refuse to let it budge, that was her affair, not his. He was merely discarding an article of clothing he didn't fully need that day and giving it to someone who would, so he thought, appreciate it more.

But perhaps it was his own way of demeaning her, he realized, as he headed toward the forest. He hadn't intended to, but he did it somehow. He always had to prove that he was the strong one, that he could weather anything, that because he didn't need a jacket and she did, that he was stronger.

Just because Nabooru was weaker than him, though, didn't mean she was weak in general.

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baby it's cold outside

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