It's beginning to look a lot like shippy shenanigans...

[i_am_not_cute]

[It's sunny, snowless, and warm -- odd adjectives for a winter day in Luceti. But if the shifted Christmas decorations on all the buildings didn't tip someone off to the true season, certainly the sprigs of mistletoe popping up everywhere would.

At this point, Pao-Lin can practically draw a photographic image of the parasitic plant from memory; she's just seen so much of it. Such things happen when a girl makes it a point to zap any mistletoe she can spot as she goes for her usual run around the village. Though she doesn't harbor a hatred for the plant the way other Lucetians seem to do, it gives her a little more purpose in her days for the moment. It's kind of fun, in a way, like a game. One with awkward consequences if she loses, but by some stroke of luck she's managed to miss out on mistletoe misery thus far.

That being said, there is one person she wouldn't mind being stuck under the mistletoe with. But she hardly needs an excuse to kiss him.]

Comments

[alacritous]

[Naturally, Hubert does better with the heat. But after a considerable time in Luceti and its more rounded changes in the weather, he can tolerate the cold better than before. The mistletoe, not so much – he makes a point of avoiding those as he walks through the village. That is, with intense care and caution.

At the sound of steady, paced footsteps, he angles his head in its direction. Just then, he sees a familiar face no more than a few yards ahead, their paths about to intersect.]

Pao-Lin?