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For her friends and teammates, Rea kept her mouth shut, her face apparently unhappy but otherwise she kept a straight face. She didn't even look at the girl as she taunted them, blue-green eyes settled on a sight just past the horizon, eyes out of focus. She could hear Ume's voice getting tighter and tighter, her own throat constricting in response, but still she stayed firm, going quiet when the song ended and the black-haired girl started a new one, following with the next set of lyrics.

"When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even."

When the new girl interrupted, it took all of Rea's strength, plus a little of her respect for Ume, not to snap. It was pretty ballsy, and also pretty god damn bitchy, for them to come in and ruin a good thing. Rea was surprised that such lack of manners actually existed, but she supposed she shouldn't have been. There would be self-entitled people everywhere, ruining the fun for everyone. Well, control it, anyway. Power-hungry, she supposed.

Taking a step towards Ume, the strawberry blonde girl placed a hand on her shoulder, resting it in what she hoped was a comforting manner on her shoulder.

"If they're really bent on singing over us," She started, giving not a glance at the two girls who were effectively breaking up the caroling, "It's not worth it. We can always gather whoever's interested and move."

See? Diplomacy. She had a shred of it too, even if her blood was boiling so hot she could hear it in her ears.

Her own singing trailed off as the 'scene' started to form and she was torn between butting in with her own round of rudeness and just waiting to see where it went and what happened from there. A few girls spoke up and it seemed like things might be getting interesting (where 'interesting' meant maybe she should head home before she wound up at the scene of a crime) and then the bawdy lyrics started.

Grandmother definitely wouldn't have approved of those.

"This is ridiculous." She muttered beneath her breath, crossing her arms over her chest as she tucked her hands under her arms to warm them up a bit more. "I think you've got a good idea." Her eyes drifted over to Rea. "Some people have no tact whatsoever. Or respect. Or intelligence..." Or a dozen other things.

Dale just happily continued to sing along, quite overjoyed at the tensions rising. Girls were shooting catty glares at one another, being mean, and singing... bad lyrics. She actually wrinkled her nose at some of the colorful lyrics, but just kept on going. She wasn't trying to stick the group together or stick up for anything-- if her voice was as bad as people claimed, then it would certainly cause more discord, right?

"Ohh..." she just laughed. "If you want to hear good singing, you should go to the opera, not here. This is just some fun, right?"

Well, it was fun for her to watch.

Corinna brushed a lock of hair back over her shoulder. "Cowards, Ronnie," she observed dispassionately. "Fixed on this obsession society has with not making a scene. And that's all I did, anyway, that's what they're so up in arms about: I made a scene, fetch the smelling salts. I made some critical comments and suddenly it's the sacking of Rome, but you see, they care enough to be full of indignance over it. So it must offend them -- but they're so desperately terrified of making a scene about it that they'll just walk away instead. No conviction whatsoever." She knocked back a long swig of her coffee. "That's cowardice, Ronnie."

Veronica could probably have finished the statement, she knew Corinna so well: and cowardice is the enemy of heroism, cowardice is the enemy of justice. Cowardice, she knew, was not Corinna Grant's fatal flaw. Her fatal flaw was foolhardiness, was stubbornness, was a complete lack of social graces, an ability to start a fight in an empty room or a monastery -- she had a fair few flaws, and Ronnie had had a hell of a time trying to shore them all up.

"I don't need my own group," Corinna answered their not-entirely-refusable offer. In her left hand, she passed back the songbook and lyric sheets to the girls who had handed them to her. "Thank you for the loan."

"I do like peppermint bark," Corinna agreed.

As they turned, the smaller girl with her indigo hair and red beret began singing. It really was kind of cosmically unfair, because she did have kind of a rich, dark-voiced alto sound, it was fairly beautiful. Unfortunately it was also issuing from the lungs of this girl, whose voice many of them would be happy to never hear again for so long as they lived.

"I really can't stay...," she sang loudly.

Beside her, her companion laughed, but -- quick on her feet, chimed right in: "Baby, it's cold outside!"

They were fairly glad that she really couldn't stay.

She heard the crunch of the snow behind them, before anything else.

Blonde head turning, green eyes watched the snowball come hurling over...over...over... until it landed in an unceremonious splat a few feet behind Corinna.

Ronnie stopped, forcing her friend to come to a halt alongside her. The cheerful singing had stopped, replaced with awkward silence.

No words were exchanged at first. The tension was bad enough, Veronica staring down the blue haired girl who had dared to attempt an attack on her best friend. Was there going to be a catfight? An argument? An all-out snowball war?

Eyes narrowed, and Ronnie let out her own snort.

"Do you always wait until someone's back is turned to strike? Wow. Really mature. I bet you're a great friend."

Eyes looked the girl up and down once more, and then she shrugged, turning back and escorting her companion off at a slightly faster pace, less any other hooligan get any stupid ideas. Honestly, could they be any more immature?

"Crystal b***h. Go figure it'd be one of them."

And with that final mutter, both girls were down the sidewalk and off into the night.