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Squeezing the hand he now held, Lai moved over to Einar's right and started walking with the man down the path to the pond, listening to the other's words in polite silence. He laughed as Einar spoke about other members falling and sliding around on the ice, finding the idea of the Elites doing so quite entertaining. At the mention of Einar never skating before Lai squeezed his hand again.

"I will help you learn then." His tone was confident, he wanted to skate with Einar, so teaching him would allow for optimal time to do just that. "Though I cannot guarantee you will not fall, I shall do my best to catch you beforehand." He shook his head. "Sadly I do not have any skates, so it looks like we will have to 'wing it'. I hope you do not mind Einar."

They reached the edge of the pond promptly, Lai looked around to see if he knew any of the people already there. Only two names matched with people there; Shee and the priest Asmadai, who were farther down from the two lovers. Looking at the ice and judging by the nearly opaque white color, Lai was sure the surface was over six inches thick and able to hold anyone and everyone who stepped onto it. Keeping hold of Einar's hand, the Russian took his first step onto the pond. Since he had no skates, he chose the boots with the shortest heel and the least traction which were luckily the ones that were the most comfortable to wear, even in winter. His boots would still have a grip on the ice to ensure he didn't fall on his back all the time, but the soles were worn down enough to allow him to freely slide as if he was wearing skates. The Russian walked out just as far as arm's length from Einar, their hands still joined, before turning back to the Norwegian and giving a gentle tug for the other man to join him.

"That's OK! You can just slide around with shoes, and I assume you do have some sort of footwear on." She beamed at his compliment. She knew it wasn't true; she wasn't truly clumsy, but she wasn't graceful either. She hovered in that undefinable space in between. But it was still a nice thing for someone to say. As if to try to prove his point, she skated a slow figure eight in front of him. "That's my best trick!" It was, sadly, true.

She stopped in front of him once again, arms outstretched and one leg in front of the other as her skate was turned to the side to prevent barreling right into the priest. "It really only is cold in the winter. Although that does tend to be most of the year. But yes. Having been here for a while, and with not much to do, I've learned a little bit. I'm still not very good, as there isn't much ice in India," she paused here, having just thought of that blasted kulfi again, "but I will get better! I'm going to learn how to do jumps." The excitement was evident in her voice. She had seen the lovely figure skaters on the television when they had just arrived, and had been seized by a desire to try the exciting and exotic exercise. She'd checked for ice of the proper thickness carefully for months and begged Wraith for a pair of skates before she had found a suitable practice area and had promptly proceeded to fall backwards the moment she'd stepped on the ice. Eventually, she'd learned how to stay upright, and then she'd learned how to move forward. With Wraith enlisted, she'd learned how to go backwards and how to do tiny spins and circles. That had been a long time ago, however, and Wraith had been too busy lately to help her with anything.

"Come on, Asmadai! I'll help you." She extended a gray-gloved hand out to him expectantly.

Even though Del was quite irritated with the fact she fell, she smiled anyway. Life always had its ups and downs huh? Del was just down on the ice this time. Stretching her hand out, Del laughed at the present grin on Alberto's face. She began to hum the tune of "Yisun Yisun." It was an old folk song about a donkey with the name Yisun. He had a terrible smile, but that did not hold him back from smiling at everyone to release his happiness. His name literally means "one hundred" as the village he lived in estimated him to smile that much. He kept on smiling, even on the day on his death, where he was dragged along and fell off a cliff when he and his family were going to market.

Now Del did not want Alberto to fall off a cliff and die smiling, but he really did have an air about him that reminded her of Yisun. Pulling herself up, Del jumped off the ice and bumped onto Alberto. "...A-Apologies!" Del stammered as she tried to regain her footing in the snow. She was never this much clumsy, but she was not wearing snow shoes. Del shook her head as she looked over him. "Alberto, alright?" she questioned, her thoughts hoping that her new friend was alright. Del's mind was still lost in worry, so she didn't take note that her hand was still in his.

She couldn't help but laugh along with the priest. He just looked so hesitant and worried. "You never know with shoes. A lot of people don't wear them, no matter what the weather is like or what sort of surface they're walking on."

Shee tried to move backwards slowly, to glide down a small patch of ice and pull Asmadai with her. Considering their relative sizes, even factoring in her extra layers, it was evident that nothing was going to happen if Asmadai didn't want it to. Except that she would likely fall over. "Don't worry about falling. Look, Delgerdzaya's already fallen once!" She was sure Delgerdzaya wouldn't appreciate that, but she thought it might make Asmadai feel a little better, so Shee didn't feel too guilty.

As Einar went down, the Norwegian let go of his hand, but Lai still tried to grab him. The Russian missed of course and Einar landed hard, causing even him to wince at the thunk Einar meeting ice made. Still, there was just something too cute about it and Lai found himself stifling a bit of laughter with the back of his hand as he surveyed the man sitting before him.

"W-Well, think of it this way," He said as he finally dropped his gloved hand, his smile reaching his eyes which were filled would good humor and deep affection. "You now know the proper way to fall!"

Lai crouched down before Einar, reached out and took one hand in each of his own before slowly standing back up. He tried pulling the man up on his own, but that only made Einar slide toward him instead of getting him to stand. Lai chuckled at this predicament, all of his focus on trying to get the blond man up so the lesson could continue. He heard the screaming from Estrelas and Eponine, but deftly ignored them, remembering and connecting the voices to the Masquerade and deciding they weren't worth his attentions today. On the other hand, Einar was.

Unaware of the reason for Del's slight warming to him (and chalking it up to his latent charm), he smiled a little wider. He was genuinely enjoying himself now, and there was nothing against throwing away his own pretenses for a little while (how easily he trusted a pretty face). His ears tuned to the song in her throat - she had a pleasant voice. It really fit her, Alberto thought.

The calm that the song brought in their conversation reminded him of his childhoods, where he'd file past his mother and her friends in the kitchen on his way out the door. They were normally loud and sharing choice bits of gossip (which he found annoying but listened anyway to sate his own curiosity), but on occasion they would begin to sing, and the effect would lull him into such a state of calm that he would almost forget he was leaving the house.

In fact, he was about to ask her the name of the song she was humming when she had hopped off the ice and bumped into him. He stumbled back a little but managed to keep his footing, and if anything it knocked the nostalgia of the memory away and brought him back to the present. Time to pay attention to someone real, not a memory.

"S'alright," he added in his slight accent with another grin, "I'm fine... are you okay?" He checked to make sure she hadn't soaked through too much, and in doing so he noticed that her hand was still resting in his own larger one. Not that he minded that much.

His gaze wandered over to the others on the ice and noticed a couple of the Elites skating a short distance away from them. The man was a bit shaky at first, but the girl seemed to go about it a great deal better than he was.

"We'll have to try gettin' some skates sometime.. might make things easier," he added to Del with a nod and a raise of the eyebrows. Although this wasn't necessarily true, as he noted the two guys who were sliding around on the ice. The blonde one with the eyepatch had fallen but neither looked like they minded it much.

Einar couldn't help but grin as Lai tried to help him to his feet, and though he slipped for a moment or two he managed to get up well enough that he wasn't sliding back and forth anymore. The ice felt firm under his feet, almost like the roads back home, and he picked his left foot up before he set it back down and did the same with his right.

"I wore good shoes at least for this - my feet won't get wet or cold any time soon. We wore these on marches through rain and sleet, so I figured they'd be a good choice for ice too."

He didn't mention through mud made by blood, but that was beside the point.

"So, now that I've learned balance and how to fall down more gracefully that our lady friend over there,"

Einar pointed his chin towards Del.

"What do we do next?"