The howling of the wind and the clashing of steel mixed in the air as Miria went through sword drills with them yet again. Helen had taken a seat on a nearby rock anxious to do something other than swing the stupid sword again. Not that she didn’t see it’s importance, but she was wishing for something other than drills to occupy her time.
Helen was bored. As many of her companions would tell you – Helen being bored is a dangerous thing. Not only does she think of weird pranks, she also has the drive to see them through. So when the seven hid their youki and stayed up North, Helen became extremely bored. No more bars and pubs, no making faces at kids as she passed them on the road, no more flirting with young men who struck her fancy.
No, just Miria, Deneve, Clare, Tabatha, Cynthia, and Yuma now. All one big happy family out in the middle of nowhere. Man she’d kill for a nice warm pot roast right now.
Helen sighed loudly, drawing some whimsical design with her boot as Cynthia came over and sat down.
“Bored as usual,” Cynthia smiled at her, pulling her pigtails back from in front of her face.
“Geez, like you wouldn’t believe,” Helen muttered. It was kinda hard to see how the ever-smiling Cynthia was ranked higher than Serious Face Deneve. Only when Cynthia and Deneve sparred was the difference made known – Cynthia was just slightly better at swordplay than her friend. Deneve acknowledged it from before but it was the first time Helen had seen Deneve go against someone near her level. It was quite a sight.
“I mean, other than the occasional wandering Awakened one we find, what are we gonna do?”
“Hmmm, I guess we are all just surviving right now,” Cynthia looked back at the group that had splintered off. Clare and Yuma were watching Deneve display a sequence while Miria was with Tabatha pointing to the east. “Is that not good enough?”
Helen brought her fist down against her knee. “Hell no!”
”Eh?” Cynthia was surprised by the other girl’s outburst.
Helen leaned down and gathered a ball of snow, packing it tightly. “I want to live a full life, not one cowering here up in Snow White Land just training.” She made another one and plopped it in Cynthia’s hands. “Aren’t you bored?” With that, she chucked the ball right at Tabatha’s back.
Tabatha took a surprised step forward and whipped around, her eyes immediately falling to the snowball held by Cynthia, who quickly whipped it around behind her back.
“Leave her, it was probably Helen anyway,” Miria told her, giving a glare at Helen, to which Helen just smiled and waved back.
“Why did you do that?” Cynthia asked, still holding the snowball behind her back.
“Why wouldn’t I throw a snowball? Look where we are! The snow isn’t going anywhere, might as well make use of it. It would be a shame not to!”
Cynthia brought the snowball from behind her back and looked at it for a moment. She then brought her arm back and threw it. The ball smacked Deneve right on the head, leaving a bit of snow on the top of her head. Cynthia covered her face but Helen nearly died laughing at the sight until Deneve threw one right at her, hitting her in the face.
“I didn’t throw that last one! Cynthia did!”
“I know but you were laughing,” Deneve replied matter-of-factly, shaking her hair free of the snow.
“Fine!” Helen gathered up some snow quickly and threw it back at her friend, who nimbly dodged out of the way this time. Clare sidestepped the white projectile but Yuma was not so quick to react and got hit on the arm. Clare was very surprised when Deneve dropped an armload of snow on her head when she turned around.
“Deneve?”
“Don’t think that you’re getting away scott free,” Deneve’s face held a rare smirk, which dissipated immediately when twin snowballs found their mark on her back. Helen was now attacking Clare while Cynthia introduced Yuma to some more snow. Deneve eyed the two stalwart figures not too far away and bent down and gathered some more snow…
Miria could hear the sounds of the girls behind her and she bit back the urge to sigh. “Matte ku, what is wrong with –“ She barely angled her head out of the way of the incoming snowball but once again, Tabatha was not spared. Concentration broken, Tabatha wheeled to face the others. “What are you doing!?”
“Playing!” Helen yelled back, tossing two more snowballs at her. Tabatha caught them and returned fire, running right at Helen but was tackled by a giddy Cynthia into a snowbank. “Alright! Way to go Cynthia!” Helen laughed but was quickly double-teamed by both Clare and Yuma.
“…” Miria was once again dumbfounded by the sheer amount of silliness going on around her. Weren’t they suppose to have some dignity left!? Miria continued on her silent berating until she decided that it had gotten too quiet. She looked up to see all six girls looking right at her, snow in hands. She wasn't former rank #6 for nothing.
“You wouldn’t…”
“Ah, is fearless leader afraid of some snow,” Helen challenged.
Miria looked at their faces. The stress and worry on their faces had significantly dropped, if not disappeared all together. They were relaxed and smiling – something they had not done in a long time. ‘All work and no play, eh’, she thought. Maybe…just maybe playing around once in a while wasn’t so bad. Besides, she was getting slightly bored herself. Slightly.
Miria gave her hair a taunting flip at Helen. “What makes you think that you could touch me even if you wanted to, rank #22?”
Helen grinned at the accepted challenge. “'Cuz this says so!” She threw the snowball as fast as she could. A split second later, the other girls released their barrage at the Claymore known as Phantom. Miria gave a rare chuckle as she held up her right hand, caught the first snowball and vanished, the other snowballs flowing right through her mirage. She appeared right behind Helen, and pegged her right in the back of her head.
“Bingo.”