jingle bell jingle bell jingle bell

[mansionstaff]

Who: YOU
What: SNOW
When: DECEMBER 6th
Where: EVERYWHERE
WHAT: SNOW (BONUS TREE DECORATING)

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



By Saturday morning, the entire academy would be covered in snow.

BUT WAIT



That wasn't all--a large pine tree had made an appearance on the main quad, in desperate need of decoration.

Comments

guess someone didn't earn that scout badge ha ha

[wassa_matta_you]

Desmond did not expect to have the wind completely stomped out of him when he went on this adventure today. He knew this feeling from the giving end, feet pressed deep into a man's back, clocking his lungs to a complete stop. With his head colliding into the cold fluff and just barely keeping him from a cracked skull, he had little to no time to make a sound before he ate snow.
Stunned, shocked, and admittedly frightened. He'd been hiding out here for awhile but this place still made him uneasy.

When he realized he hadn't received a new piercing in his throat, Desmond immediately flipped over onto his back with a sharp schink cutting the air, gasping with his blade ejected from his sleeve.

"..gh!"

Only to see Haytham. Shit.

Uh.

He should probably conceal that but he's not actually sure with this man.

[tacohat]

At the sight of the blade, Haytham reacted immediately, pouncing back onto the man to grab his wrist and force his hidden blade to point somewhere harmless. And then he ejected his own hidden blade to hold down very close to Desmond's throat.

"Ah, I suppose this means you must be an Assassin. Or just a well-armed fool," he remarked, pressing a knee down onto Desmond's stomach in case he wanted to squirm away.

[wassa_matta_you]

Desmond was thinking well-armed fool at this point. God, how could he react so instinctively? Stupid! This world really put him on edge.

Desmond's arms shook as he pressed what weight he had left to manage back toward Haytham, trying to speak just as he found a knee going into his gut. The wind escaped him, but it swept back momentarily.

"W-...wait!" He focused more on trying to get Haytham's blade away from him rather than get his own back. He didn't want to actually kill the man, but he was panicked and angry enough to know he certainly would if he had to. Shitshitshit.

[tacohat]

He pushed his knee down harder, smiling coldly and keeping the blade a hair from Desmond's neck.

"That word has no persuasion. ...But, I suppose there is no true need to dispatch your head from your shoulders, provided you never raise a blade to me again. Is that clear?"

[wassa_matta_you]

Desmond grunted at the increased pressure into his stomach, but it didn't deter him from making a quick deal to save his neck. He was not about to die again because of stubbornness and pride. He had shit to do.

"Yeah, fine! Transparent...!"

[tacohat]

"Good," he said, letting the hidden blade slide back into his bracer.

Weighing heavily on Desmond's stomach, he pushed himself back up until he was standing in the snow, though he kept an eye on Desmond as he did in case he wanted to swing his blade around some more. Desmond would be rewarded with a heel crushing his balls if he did.

"We have met before, have we not? The barkeep who pours more generously than the capacity of one's cup."

He smiled humorlessly.

[wassa_matta_you]

Fucking Christ. Desmond coughed a number of times as he caught his breath again, climbing back to his feet and dusting himself of the frost. It's bad enough his legs had mostly gone numb but his ass didn't need the same disservice.

But the moment that Haytham spoke and recognized him from when he had first arrived, his tongue flattened against the roof of his mouth, teeth clenched behind stiff lips. He hadn't forgotten him, huh? Well, Desmond made a pretty god awful initial impression, shooting off his name and acting like he knew him. He had thought he was hallucinating then but now that the situation was clearer, boy had he wished he never said a thing to him.

He weighed whether or not lying to him was pointless, but when he couldn't decide on the right answer, he put his money on just lightly clicking his tongue and looking away from him, as if hiding his face would do any good now.