(no subject)

[nitro_is_ace]

It's that time of year again. Despite all the press about getting together with friends and family, this is one of the more common scenes of Christmas: Hiding away in a room, with the door locked or barricaded or both, cheerful Christmas music playing in the background, and the floor covered in various boxes and rolls of wrapping paper.

Yes, the Christmas Present Wrapping Project has begun. Except Ace is odd, and instead of doing this in the TARDIS, where she could get as much room as needed, and could lock the door against the entirety of the universe, she upstairs, a chair back wedged under the door handle, 'Peter Paul & Mary' playing on her CD player, Magic curled up on the quilt-covered bed watching anxiously.

This could either be due to the fact that the floor is shimmery-shiny and worrying, or that Ace is singing at the top of her lungs along with 'Light a Candle'. Both are kinda scary, if you think about it.

Comments

[creator_raven]

If Ace can hear over the noise, she still might not here Raven come in.

She will, however, probably feel the index finger that is poking at her shoulder.

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

"And this is why we will not AHHHHHH!" She starts, twists away, grabbing her bootknife before realizing who it is.

She eyes the locked, barricaded door.

Eyes Raven.

"Just as well I've already wrapped yours, you great feathered lump."

[creator_raven]

Raven beams.

Possibly it looks like his face is splitting.

"It is an interesting name, that."

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

It does, a little. It is a little more disturbing than that. She gives him a sidelong, faintly worried look as she shoves the unwrapped presents, tape dispensers, ribbon, bows, wrapping paper, tags, pens scissors, and other bits and pieces off to one side.

Then, because really, she's stopped needing an excuse a long time ago, she pushes herself up off the scrap-littered floor and hugs her oddest brother.

[creator_raven]

Raven hugs back, rather tightly.

"Things are well, I hope?"

And if his words are a tad muffled in her hair, what of it?

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

"Well enough." Her words are decidedly muffled against his coat, because, ahem, squished. She makes a vague handwavey gesture over at the desk, where there's a vase holding a bouquet of nastily-thorned roses.
"Got a 'mirer."

[creator_raven]

He squeezes her, just a little, then backs off, and moves to examine the roses.

"They are pretty, perhaps. And sharp. There is courting?"

He looks a little startled.

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

And now, amazingly, so does she. They can match for the holidays!

"Good God, no. S'one of the bar gits - calls himself the Opera Ghost, but he's really a man. A rather sneaky one, but still. He was rather nasty the last time I ran into him, but I guess he likes being proven right, so." She waves a hand at the roses, shrugging.

The git had been right, she'll give him that. But only that.

[creator_raven]

Raven tilts his head, considering.

"He is a little mad, then? Or possibly only dramatic. It is difficult to tell, I think."

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

"A bit of both, I think. Evidently his type shows up on a lot of worlds - Meg Giry, the ballernia, y'know? There was an Opera Ghost in her opera house too. But it's not this one."

How come it's the gits that get put on repeat, and the good folk that come as originals? Ace decides not to think about this depressing point, and flops on the bed beside Magic.
"S'what brings you my way?"

[creator_raven]

Raven blinks.

"Boredom, perhaps."

He shifts some things around, and settles into a comfortable position on the floor.

"Or knitting. It is much the same thing, in a way."

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

"Wouldn't tell that t'Captain Mal, he's taken a shinin' to it. Caught him knittin' sommat the other day, though he never did tell me what it is."

Poor Mal. He's gonna get bepounced the next time she sees him.

[creator_raven]

"It was involving a hoop, I think?"

Raven is definitely laughing, now.

Poor Mal.

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, didja see it? Daftest thing I've ever seen. How y'sposed t'get things off a hoop, once you've got them on?" Ace lacks faith. Woe.

A pen is snaged, and with some cautious stretching Raven is poked with it.
"S'what about knitting?"

[creator_raven]

Raven's smile is bright, but slightly rueful.

"It is not a thing I am good with, perhaps."

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

"No knitted scarves from you, huh?" She asks, cheerily. But as soon as she says it, it changes into something more thoughful, and curious.

Woe, bird, she's thought up questions.

"But I thought you were good at weavin' an' things? String an' knots an' such." She's entirely too watchful for her own good.

[creator_raven]

Raven smiles, slightly.

"It is different with needles, I think. They get in the way."

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

"They are rather fiddly." Ace agrees. "But I figure they're that long so that if some random barbarian hoarde ever rode into town, the ladies could just spear them with knitting needles. There's no other good reason to make them so huge. They're practically lances."

[creator_raven]

Raven looks oddly thoughtful.

"They are, at that. Should the right person wield them."

He is silent a moment, then nods, once.

"Also they are shiny."

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, the metal ones." Ace agrees, then falls silent.

But not for long.

She gives Raven a considering look.

"Y'know what is also good, if the right person wields them?"

She doesn't wait for a reply, hopping off the bed and scooping up a used wrapping-paper roll, boffing him on the head as she passes.

[creator_raven]

Raven gapes.

It is not an attractive look.

And then he snatches one up, as well, scrambling to his feet.

Unfortunately, this leaves him open to attack.

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

Thwap!

Raven may have a pretty bum, but it also makes a very nice target for opportunistic pyros weilding wrapping paper rolls of doom. Ace laughs merrily, which is to say, like a madwoman.

[creator_raven]

Raven would laugh like a madman in return, but that rarely ends well.

Instead, he wrinkles his nose, and spins a sharp circle, thwapping Ace on the shoulder.

He's out of practice with cardboard tubes. Take pity on the bird.

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

A talented cardboard tube fencer would recover and proceed with caution and skill.

Ace, sadly, is not talented here, just enthusiastic. Thus, she goes with the 'flail left, right, and down the center, and hope something lands' technique. It is a time-honored technique, after all.

"BANZIIII!" She howls, flailing.

[creator_raven]

Raven is, sadly, easily fooled.

No, really.

He blinks, slightly startled, and looks down at the floor.

"We might be careful of small trees, yes?"

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

Ace is, as noted, an opportunistic pyro.

Bamp! Boff! Biff!

"S'a warcry, not a tree!" Ace cheerfully informs him, giggling.

[creator_raven]

Raven snorts.

"It is not, perhaps, quite so impressive a thing."

And then the battle is joined, in earnest.

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

"Stopped you..." Whack! "Didn't it? She attempts to dodge an incoming shot and fails utterly, getting thwapped over the head quite neatly.

"The Dread Pirate Roberts takes no prisoners!" She informs him, loudly and enthusiastically, wielding her roll like no roll has been weilded before.

Which is to say flailingly, wildly, and missing more often than not.

[creator_raven]

"You do not have an eyepatch, perhaps. Or a peg leg. It is disappointing."

And then, very neatly, Raven trips her.

Yes, sometimes Bird cheats.

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

"AHHH!" Thump

It is at this point that Magic decides that this looks like a really fun game to play, and leaps off the bed, nearly flattens Ace on the landing, and proceeds to lick her face.

Throughly.

"I've been ganged up on!" Ace wails. You know. In that giggling madly wailing sort of way.