while the rest of the girls are drowning in roses and songs

[lucked]

While Mr. Muggles had long since learned better than to step foot outside with the streets filled with puddles and ice alike, Claire was starting to think of the whole change in terrain as an experience that she couldn't let herself miss out on. If everyone's predictions were right, then London wasn't likely to last longer than the month, and after

Comments

[not_so_smooth]

Sam had just been heading to get a bite to eat from the Compound, or what the Compound had turned into, when a snowball hit him on the side of the head. It wasn't necessarily a hard throw, but it wasn't a gentle lob either.

He immediately spun around to see who it was, only to lose his balance on the frozen ground and fall sideways into a pile of snow. Sputtering and shouting he jumped back up, dusting himself off.

"Oh, it is so on!" Sam called out. "Once I find you. And make a snowball. And get close enough to hit you with it? It will be on. And then off right away so you can't retaliate."

[lucked]

Biting down the temptation to call out with a taunt or two, Claire carefully kept her face slightly obscured by her feathered hat and moved slightly in the crowd, packing a second snowball with her hands until she could similarly chuck it Sam's way from a significantly different angle. The chances of her getting away with the second snowball without being recognized were slim, now that he was on the lookout for who'd been responsible for the throw, but Claire figured that it was probably a better idea to keep the fight going while he'd yet to pack a good snowball himself.

"Meaning I've just got to keep you from stalling long enough to make a snowball, right?" she called out his way, once the snowball was already hurtling through the air.

[not_so_smooth]

Sam was still scanning the crowd to try and see who might have thrown the snowball. It was the sort of thing Coraline might do, but he didn't see a flash of blue hair anywhere. When he heard the telltale voice though, he knew he should have guessed right away who it was. Claire was always a mischievous seeming one, what with her entirely un-mischievous face that was clearly a clever cover for mischief.

Sam turned toward her to offer some sort of witty remark... only to turn full face into the snowball she had just throw. It didn't hurt, she had thankfully not packed it that hard, but his pride was damaged. Bruised. Shattered in a way that could only be repaired by the blood of his enemies. Or, you know, by hitting them with a snowball.

"Claire Bennet!" he shouted in warning, crouching down to gather up his own snow ball, "So help me, you will be nicknamed Frosty I'm going to cover you in so much snow!"

[lucked]

The problem with trying to then hit Sam with a barrage of clumsily packed snowballs was that hitting him on the shoulder, neck, or indeed anywhere other than his face was bound to have little impact, especially when he was already mentally prepared for the attack. Still, Claire made her best effort, biting down on her lower lip as she tried to decide on the best vantage point. Something with a decent obstacle to block his snowballs, of course. And something not so large that he could sneak up to the other side without warning. She settled on a nearby parked taxi.

"Them's fighting words, Witwicky," she taunted in return, sticking her tongue out in his direction as she hurled another couple of snowballs his way. "You sure you wanna make a promise you'll never be able to keep?"

[not_so_smooth]

"Hey, I know where you sleep!" he shouted, even though on review of that claim he realized since the city had changed he actually didn't know where she slept. Still, she didn't have to know that.

"I can devote as much time as I need to toward making sure that you get what's coming to you."

He really hoped that wouldn't be too much time though, because the longer he went when it came to following through on his promise the more leverage Claire would have to mock him. Keeping low, he kept a packed snowball at the ready for the moment he saw blonde hair pop out from behind her shelter.

[lucked]

"Creeper!" Claire shouted back, nose wrinkling even through her laugh. "And that would be totally low, by the way. Like, what, you really need to know where a girl sleeps to get the better of her in a snowball match? C'mon now." Packing her next snowball with a little more forced, she quickly glanced above her cover, eyes darting left and right. He'd moved a little.

Crap.

"Besides," she added, trying to move herself, "I call BS on you actually having mapped the full city out. You're in foreign waters, m'lad."

[not_so_smooth]

"You're the one that had to sneak up on me!" he called back, circling around to where he had heard her shout. If he could just get a glimpse of her, he'd let the snowball fly. There was no mercy here for Claire being a girl. She had earned herself full on revenge status and there was no pulling punches.

"I don't need to map out the full city, just the important sections!" he called back, upset that she had called him on knowing where she lived. "And I know all those petticoats can't be easy to run in. I'm going to catch you eventually."

[lucked]

"I wasn't sneaking when I hit you the second time! In the face," she pointed out, hearing the change of position in his voice and deciding to make a break for it in the opposite direction, half-tempted though she was to slip out of her overskirts entirely. Unfortunate though it was that she had to give away her position, Claire didn't want to trap herself into a corner all in the name of a solid defense. That wasn't the point of a snowball fight, after all.

The whole point was to get dirty.

"But yeah, the petticoats aren't easy to run in," she agreed, rounding a nearby lamp post. "I just figured you'd need a bit of a handicap!"

[not_so_smooth]

Oh, he had her now. While there was a good number of people now, not a lot of them were substantial. Claire wasn't exactly large, she was just this side of pocket size, but she wasn't transparent by any means. As soon as he caught sight of her, Sam let his snowball fly. Without even taking cover, he immediately began forming another snowball. His plan was to throw as many as possible in her general direction and hope some of them connected.

"You wouldn't have hit my face if I didn't turn!" he shouted. "In fact, I think I hit your snowball with my face, not the other way around."

[lucked]

"Hyee!" Claire shrieked, as the snowball managed to collide with the back of her neck, sending a heavy shiver down her spine as she managed to pick up her pace well enough to avoid the rest, laughing as she ducked behind a second taxi, aiming her own snowball for his nose and waiting for him to come chasing after. If he dared.

"Yeah, like hitting a snowball with your face is worthy of being boasted about," she stuck her tongue out in return, feeling younger and freer than she had in months, possibly even since well before her arrival. "I had awesome aim, okay? You can't deny."

[not_so_smooth]

"You were probably aiming for my legs!" Sam shouted after her. He took the brief moment of not being under fire to dash after her, pressing himself against the other side of the taxi, snowball in hand. All he needed was for her to sneak around one side or the other and he'd have her.

"And it's very boast worthy. Why don't you try it and see if you can do it? It's harder than it looks and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to."

[lucked]

Taking advantage of the time Sam spent talking, Claire slid underneath the taxi as silently as she could, before suddenly sliding out to his side and aiming another snowball at his face, laughing as she retreated back under again.

Sometimes, she was pretty sure that Sam would get twice as much done if he simply knew when to stop tripping over his words.

Not that she minded him doing so. It was part of the charm.

[not_so_smooth]

Sam yelped and tried to grab her, but he wasn't willing to go so far as to get under the taxi. He wasn't a big person by any means, but he knew that getting trapped under there would be seriously bad news for the number of snowballs he would take to the face from Claire.

"Okay, that's it, no more free shots to the face. I think we've demonstrated that I can hit your snowballs with my face. I've proved I'm good at that."

[lucked]

Grinning, Claire continued to squat under the taxi, glad that there was a fair amount more space under the vehicle than any modern day sedan would have offered, and for the moment, Sam's reticence to chase after her certainly worked to Claire's advantage. "Yeah, but are you good at anything else?" she taunted, scraping together snow in preparation for hitting him again, should he peer down in her hiding spot. "C'mon. I know that being small gives me an advantage in smaller surface area, but you've got the advantage in height and clothing."

Finally crawling out on the other side, Claire rose with a few snowballs on her overskirt, which she held up around her waist like a bag.

"Gimme your best shot."

[not_so_smooth]

"This jacket isn't very easy to throw in," Sam said, packing his snowball as he readied to throw it at Claire. It was somewhat demoralizing that she was just standing there, waiting for him to throw it, but he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity just yet. Especially not when she was still completely unmarred by the snow.

"And you are a tiny target, okay?" he teased, laughing as the threw the snowball and scooped down to make another.

[lucked]

Holding the gathered snowballs in her skirt still, Claire didn't manage to retain enough freedom of movement to dodge Sam's throw altogether, instead turning to take the brunt of it in her sleeve, glad that the powder was dry enough not to leave her completely soaked. (Not that she thought Sam would try to do such a thing to her, but one could never know with the advent of winter.) Gasping a bit from the cold, Claire quickly shivered and moved to the side, trying to get a better vantage point as she started chucking snowball after snowball, not with quite as much accuracy as she might have liked.

"Uh-huh. Never mind that I'm, like, at least three-quarters of your size, okay? So you really can't claim too much of a disadvantage there, kiddo," she called out.