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 Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 6:22 pm
Quote: Prompt 3 (Drink Yourself Silly): Pop up shops are a dime a dozen in Destiny City this time of year, and for as much weirdness as they cause, there’s still something alluring about them. Walking through the city, you happen to come across one that seems particularly cozy and is decorated in such a way that you just know they’re trustworthy. The menu only has a few items but there’s something for everyone. Maybe it’s hot chocolate, maybe it’s coffee, maybe it’s some chilly winter sweet--whatever it is, it’s delicious. And magic, but you didn’t know that when you ordered it. It started with an itch at the back of your throat, but what happened after that was anyone’s game. Some of the drinks turn into a tickle in your nose, and now you’re suddenly sneezing snowflakes for the next hour. Maybe you finish your drink and you suddenly feel warm--like you’re in the middle of summer. (Do you even need your coat? It’s so hot! --Or is that a fever?) Or, the itch turns into something else--and suddenly you feel the urge to sink. It’s compulsive, you can’t help yourself, you must sing. It’s like you’ve forgotten how to communicate in any other way. It fades an hour after you finish the drink, but still…
“Something’s wrong!” he wailed.
Then he sneezed, and a burst of snowflakes drifted from each nostril.
He thought he was imagining it at first. He stopped at a little café on the way home and bought himself some hot chocolate with the money he earned from the flower shop. It was a different café than he usually frequented, but it looked so cute and cosy, he couldn’t help himself. And the hot chocolate was delicious. He couldn’t get enough!
Then there was a tickle in his nose. The sneezing started, and the snowflakes started with it. Outside on his walk home, it’d been easy to convince himself it was just part of the normal snowfall.
But he got inside and sneezed again and… well… here he was.
“Aliez!” Vyn cried. Again, he sneezed. Again, there was more snow. “Aliez, what Earth illness is this?”
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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 6:31 pm
Aliez’s eyes widened in alarm when Vyn burst into the room. But he didn’t really feel frantic until Vyn sneezed snowflakes??
“How is that possible??” Aliez gasped in horror and quickly pushed himself up from the desk where he was pouring over some of the medical books he’d brought home from his classes to study. “This… this isn’t any Earth illness I’ve heard of! Hold on, I’m going to try and look it up,” he promised, leaning over the chair of his desk so he could slowly tip tap the letters into the laptop’s computer page that he came to learn was a “search engine”.
“Why-- am I-- sneezing-- snowflakes--” he started typing, but then frowned and looked up at Vyn again. “Those are snowflakes, right? They’re not, like… something else,” he cringed, not knowing what else could look like snowflakes, but they should not be coming out of Vyn’s nose.
“Hold on let me see if I can find anything,” he continued to frown, wanting to comfort his friend but also desperately wanting to find out what was wrong. “Your body is too hot to be able to produce snowflakes. Where were you before you came home??”
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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 6:40 pm
“What else would it be if not snowflakes?”
Vyn tried his best not to shriek. They shared the house, and he hated to be a bother, so he never wanted to be too loud. But he was terrified that Earth had done something to him, something awful and irreparable. Oh, sure, snowflakes seemed innocent enough, but what if it got worse? What if this was just the beginning of some horrific illness that he would not recover from?
How was he supposed to perform his duties if he kept sneezing?
Case in point, he sneezed again.
“I stopped by a little café on the way home. You know I love the hot chocolate, and it seemed like a new place so I wanted to try it, especially when it looked so quaint.” Another sneeze interrupted him. “And it was good, I should have brought you some, but…”
He looked down, dismayed by the flakes of snow that fluttered to the floor.
“I can’t be kicked out of the Vanguard because of some Earth disease!”
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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 6:49 pm
Aliez shook his head frantically. He had no idea what it could be if not snowflakes. Unless. Dandruff? Weird crystalized snot? Some kind of mold spores that had somehow found their way to multiply in Vyn’s nose?? He had no idea!
“You’re not going to be kicked out of the Vanguard!” Aliez tried to reassure him without getting too riled up, himself. “I wasn’t kicked out--” he started and then frowned, and went back to looking at his search results.
Vyn meant well when he told the Commodore about his inability to use a blaster properly, but it still terrified him knowing that he was inadequate. If he couldn’t use a blaster to help protect those he cared about then what business did he have there…?
No, he was going to learn as much as he could, which was why he wasn’t going to fail Vyn now.
“I don’t… think this is an Earth illness. Nothing is coming up that I can see.” His reading was still slow, but it was improving with each day and lots, and lots of studying.
He also didn’t want to say that he was glad Vyn didn’t bring one of his snowflake hot chocolates for him, as much as Aliez loved chocolate.
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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 6:59 pm
“You weren’t kicked out because you’re brilliant,” Vyn argued, approaching inconsolable. “If I can’t fight because I keep sneezing, then what good am I?”
Not that they did much fighting. For all that Vyn trained, he hadn’t actually had many opportunities to utilize his training. Which was probably for the best; he couldn’t complain about that because it meant they were safe, at least for the time being, but it made him wonder what his purpose was at all.
He sneezed again, and again, and again. Each sneeze brought another small flurry.
“It has to be something about Earth!” he said. “This has never happened to me before!”
Another sneeze. A second. A third.
Then, as quickly as they came, they stopped.
Vyn stood very still and waited. Any second now, he’d feel the tickle in his nose. His body would tense, he’d squeeze his eyes shut, and snowflakes would burst from his nose.
Any second now…
After a minute, then two, Vyn cautiously wondered, “It stopped?”
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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 7:10 pm
Aliez highly doubted that brilliant was a word that should ever be used to describe him. There were other brilliant Cadets in the Vanguard. He was just desperately trying to learn how to keep everyone healthy and alive, and he couldn’t do that if he couldn’t even figure out why Vyn kept sneezing snowflakes.
But he absolutely agreed with Vyn. It was something about Earth doing this. There was nothing in his search that came up with anything useful -- probably not allergies causing Vyn to sneeze snowflakes.
He picked up his newest medical book to flip through some of the pages, looking in the glossary for any mention of snow but--
“It stopped?” Aliez frowned with continued concern.
But sure enough it seemed as though Vyn’s strange snowflake sneezing had stopped.
“Maybe you should take a warm bath. Just in case,” he suggested after several minutes of waiting and watching. But no more snowflakes appeared. And that was good, because he didn’t know where else to look for help. And they certainly couldn’t keep bothering the Commodore when they had trouble with things.
“I won’t tell anyone,” he promised, because if Vyn was worried, he wasn’t going to make him worry more. They would just have to keep an eye on things and hope that not all hot chocolate would make them sneeze snowflakes.
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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2021 7:13 pm
Vyn sniffled and thought he might sneeze. But no, he was just worried and distraught and feeling down on himself, like usual.
He nodded appreciatively. Aliez was a good friend.
But he also didn’t need to deal with Vyn being a pouty mess, so Vyn gathered a pile of clothing and flounced out of the room to take a bath.
Surely that would calm him down.
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