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Prompt 13 (Winter Rainbow): Winter weather is usually fairly predictable–clouds, rain, snow, and a sunny day if you’re lucky. It’s unwise to predict anything in Destiny City, though. Lately, there’s been an uptick in unnatural rainbows. The sky almost regularly seems to be covered with some sort of pastel shimmer. The clouds have a rainbow sheen to them during all weather, and more than once you can even make out a rainbow from just the moon’s beams. Scientists claim there are just many water crystals in the air–and that checks out. During the frequent snows, it’s common to observe soft rainbow snowflakes that catch the light like tiny suncatchers. Even fallen snow seems to have an iridescent sheen to it. It’s not a common occurrence, but it’s happening often enough that you're likely to see it at least once this season.
Today was the last day of classes for the year. Yay winter break! Andy was feeling quite happy, fairly skipping on the sidewalk as he made his way back to his room in the dorms of Azure Valley Academy. Soon he would be packing up and heading home to spend the holidays with his parents. They had promised him a car this year for Yule (as his family celebrated according to his hippie pagan mom's wishes) – he was skeptical that they would actually deliver, but seeing as this was his next-to-last year in high school before choosing his next journey on life's roads, he'd be needing a vehicle sooner rather than later. And his marks were stellar, so there was nothing there to give his parents reason to deny him.
Even the sky above him seemed happy today, scattered clouds shimmering lightly with all the colors of the rainbow. It was enough to make one want to dance; Andy acted on that thought, performing a pirouette on the toes of his Docs, followed by a series of grand jete leaps that left him smiling with joy. He'd be able to really work on his ballet much more if he had a car – transportation to the ballet studio he studied at was a challenge, given how remote Azure Valley was from the rest of Destiny City. Ballet was his dream, his raison d'etre, and he would not be thwarted. His parents didn't deny him anything, in fact they encouraged him to try everything until he settled on the thing that moved him. That it happened to be ballet hardly caused his mom to bat an eyelash in alarm (his dad was a bit more taken aback, but he yielded to his wife in practically everything when it came to their son.
It was then that Andy noticed that the snow on the grounds of the school was shimmering with rainbow hues as well, and he stopped in his tracks. Nah, no way. How could this be? Andy squinted from beneath his ginger-orange emo fringe and pushed his glasses back up his nose. It was weird, and he didn't do well with accepting the weird; he demanded empirical evidence whenever someone mentioned something out of the ordinary happening. He wasn't frightened, just in deep denial, especially now that something weird was happening to him.
Andy broke into a trot, trying not to look at the iridescent snow. He'd have to check out the local news sources once he was back in his room to see if anyone else had reported on this happening. Maybe it was some freak weather phenomenon or something. Surely he'd be able to find out online. Reaching his dorm, he flung the door open and took the stairs two at a time, rushing into his room and loudly slamming the door behind him. He tossed his backpack onto his bed, and without even changing out of his school uniform, he sat down at his desk and began searching for information. Someone had to know the truth of what was happening.
To his relief, he found a report from scientists saying that the unusual rainbow reflections appeared to be caused by moisture in the atmosphere crystallizing and acting like miniature prisms, casting rainbows when light hit them. He leaned back in his desk chair and sighed. Wow, that was a close one – a phenomenon he couldn't explain duly scienced. Andy wasn't ready to turn in his diehard skeptic credentials just yet.
(wc: 587)
