voidtreckerexpress | Winter Wonderland [Event]

Winter Wonderland [Event]

”Good Morning passengers. Today is day Twenty Four of the month of Catfish. You may wish to look out of the window.”

As passengers wake in their beds they will indeed notice something different about the light. If they look out of the window, instead of the ever changing void they will see white slopes of mountains, flakes of snow alling down around them and frost covered trees zipping past the windows. If they glance at the ICP on the table they will see a message.

Investigating the dressing cart they will find the drawers and cupboards unlocked once again. However, instead of the fantasy-esque clothing of world #25768 they will find thick winter coats, hats, gloves and scarves. There are heavy fur lined boots and even some ice skates.

Entering the garden carriage they will see that the glass dome of the roof has opened, leaving the carriage exposed to a bright blue sky. Any nonsense of the past few weeks has vanished, leaving the carriage pristine. Not that that is easy to notice as it is covered in a thick layer of snow. The paths are clearer, a light dusting of snow but easy to talk through. Around the paths the drifts are high, perfect for snowman building or a snowball fight.

The streams and the pond in the centre are solid ice. Anyone brave enough to try to find the ice holds their weight for ice skating.

And the ICP message was correct. There is hot chocolate in the stores.

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Reigen is naturally skeptical of any treat the train has in store for them, but once he gets to the carriage and sees the snow covering the ground, he's completely forgotten about whatever he was suspicious of.

"It's snowing? Oh my god, it's actually snowing on the train! That's crazy!"

It hardly ever snows in the city where he's from, and he doesn't usually get to go into the mountain areas where snow piles up, so seeing the kind of snow that only shows up in storybooks or specials about the west, Reigen devolves into the kind of excitement of a little kid on his first snow day.

So of course, Reigen near immediately sets to work doing the most appropriate thing with this amount of snow: building a snowman! Hey, when in his life will the chance be right in front of him again? He doesn't know!

How could anyone possibly be suspicious of something as great as snow, right? And with the total lack of dangerous creatures around - for once - it sure is a lot easier to just enjoy it. It's why Madoka isn't surprised at all to find Reigen building a snowman. Who could resist? Not even amazing people like him, clearly!

"Oh, that's a pretty big snowman..!"

.. Madoka may just be easily impressed.

"Haha, of course it is! I have to all out for something as important as this, Madoka-chan!" Reigen pats down the second part of his new snow creation, laughing with pride.

"See? It's a snow dog!"

His creation looks nothing like a dog. In fact, it's probably closer to some mutant snow-rabbit.

...

"Ah.."

That's exactly the mental struggle Madoka is having right now. The reason she was calling it a snowman to begin with is that it definitely wasn't dog-shaped, so she assumed it was a human..? But.. now she's looking at it, it's kind of got rabbit ears? But not really a rabbit shape?

Whatever it is, it's definitely not a dog. But she trusts Reigen's judgement so much more than her own that she's literally starting to doubt her own idea of what a dog is supposed to be by now.

So after staring in total shock for a moment, she awkwardly smiles up at him.

"Um, right! It looks like.. a very amazingly strong dog..!" Madoka, you're a terrible liar.

"Thanks! It's a labrador!" No it's not, Reigen.

Regardless of what the snow creature is, Reigen doesn't seem perturbed by it or Madoka's awkwardness. Is he deliberately ignoring his own terrible sculpting skills, or is he genuinely oblivious? It could be either one.

"You wanna make something, Madoka-chan? I'll help you! Who knows when it's gonna snow next?"

You have no idea how happy she is for a change of topic. If she had to say anything more about this dog-that-doesn't-look-like-a-dog, she might start panicking even more. But building a new snowfigure? Now that's something she would like to do.

Even though she's a little unsure of the outcome after seeing Reigen's creation.

"S-Sure, I'd love to! Is there anything else you still wanted to make? We can make it together..!"

"Maybe a basic humanoid snowman? The dog needs a friend."

Thankfully, Reigen is at least able to make a basic circle while he starts on the basic snowball for Snow Creature 2: The man edition.

"There are probably branches somewhere in the garden to give this guy arms...that stuff falls off all the time." He's not sure he wants to rip off the branch from an existing tree. It feels like vandalism.

Madoka nods, and then a moment after already starts looking on the ground around them for branches. She definitely agrees that she'd rather use ones that had fallen already.. Although it's a little harder to find those with the blanket of snow draped over everything. She's starting to find some by wiping the snow to the side on certain spots though.

"We should probably make sure to dress him up too, right..? Maybe there are some extra hats."

Reigen continues forming the body of the snowman while Madoka picks out some good arms for the little guy.

"Yeah! I think there are a lot in the dress car. We can pick out the best ones over there!" He looks genuinely excited about this. They are going to make the best snowman.

It's kind of cute how he's getting so excited about this.. So even people who are huge geniuses and experts when it comes to psychic business can be excited over something as simple as building a snowman, huh. Just that very thought by itself already makes Madoka smile a little as she approaches him with a bunch of sticks in her arms for them to pick from.

"I didn't know you enjoyed making snowmen so much."

"Ehehe...well, it never snows enough for this in the city. And last time I was able to go somewhere it did, I was too caught up with work..."

That's a more favorable-sounding way of saying he got trapped in a parallel world, but she doesn't need to know that. Reigen looks over the sticks she found, picking out the ones he deems most arm-like for the snowman.

"Thanks Madoka-chan, these work...oh! Deer have antlers! We can save the others!"

At least 'caught up with work' does make Madoka think something along those lines, although not as extreme. She's just imagining him having to deal with a lot of people being haunted or something.. Of course he'd be out there working hard instead of having fun for himself, that's exactly the kind of amazing person Reigen is in her eyes!

So she stares at him in total admiration for a moment until she realises he was talking on.

"O.. Oh, yes!" Madoka shakes her head to try and snap herself out of her thoughts. "I'm sorry, I was just thinking.. as expected, you're really amazing!"

"Huh? A-am I?" Reigen's heard praise before, sure, but there's something about when Madoka says it that feels authentic, and it trips him up for a moment. A lot of praise he gets doesn't feel earned because it's for things he lies about. He quickly pushes any lingering fear that he might let Madoka down because hey, he already decided he's not going to do that! Now they're making snowmen!

"I mean, of course I am! Thank you for noticing, Madoka-chan!"

For better or worse, either she doesn't really seem to notice his moment of hesitation at first, or she's just writing it off as something it's not.. but she doesn't seem to react to it at all either way, instead just smiling in the face of his thanks. How could someone as great as Reigen not know how great he is, after all!

"Hehe, I guess I have a sharp eye."

She says it as a slight joke, because Madoka can't actually give a genuine compliment to herself.. but hey, this is still close enough to it.

"How should we decorate it more now?"

“Haha, you ever think about being a detective? You’d be good at it!” He’s half joking, but Madoka does have a good head on her shoulders. It’s worth a shot!

“Well, we can go get it a hat...the question is, what to use for the face? We’ll have to go hunting for some rocks or buttons!” He stands up, ready to go on a quest for snowman decoration.

Madoka blinks in surprise. Her, a detective? There's no way she could do that! ~~Even though she'd be on the same level of cute detective as detective Pikachu.~~

It's a good thing their Rock Quest manages to snap her out of it before she starts freaking out and getting flustered about it. "Um, we should be able to find some rocks.." Since this was the rock garden and all before this whole load of snow was dumped straight on top of it. "But they're probably all buried beneath this snow."

It'd be adorable!

"Hmm...well, it's a good thing I'm wearing gloves." With that, Reigen starts to sweep away at the nearest patch of rock garden, looking for the best rocks. It's all going to be worth it when the snowman looks great.

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Winter Wonderland [Event]

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