hh_mirror | Closed RP- Jon and Fraser go skating

Jon and Fraser were, in many ways, very similar, and this was no exception. He'd been excited all day about getting to spend time with Jon, although he'd kept it close to his chest. Ray and Dief had probably figured it out anyway, but he wasn't going to tell them and deal with their snickering. He couldn't help but be happy; of course he'd known kids before, had gotten along well with some of them, but Jon was... different. Jon was important.

Fraser didn't have a very good concept of family, but he did at least have his inner circle, and Jon was very definitely starting to be a part of it. That was a pretty big deal -- right now, the only people in there were... well, the Rays, really. And Dief. And Maggie. And that was pretty much it.

Dief had been way too cooped up lately, and so he bounded ahead excitedly, barking an enthusiastic greeting when he scented Ghost up ahead. Fraser loped along behind him in the mandatory 'flannel day' uniform -- there were certain standards to be upheld, whether or not Ray was coming with them. He grinned brightly and waved as he spotted Jon. "Good afternoon!"

"Constable!" He lifted a hand in greeting and then made a gesture for Ghost to go ahead -- he met Dief with a cheerily wagging tail and the usual pawing and sniffing. "Good afternoon to you, sir." He offers his hand to clasp the way he does with Sam, like brothers, and shifts the skates off his shoulder. "Good day for a skate, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is," he agreed cheerfully, taking Jon's hand warmly in his own. "Although," he added, squinting up at the sun, "it is getting on in the season -- we'll have to be on the lookout for thin ice." He clapped Jon on the shoulder and started moving towards the lake. "Still, I think there should be plenty of room to move about. You remember everything we went over last time, I trust?"

First-time skating lessons were always a little difficult, but he thought Jon had picked it up quite well. Well enough that-- "I brought the hockey sticks down, just in case." There was a bag looped over one shoulder, along with the skates on their laces; he tugged pointedly at the strap.

"Good! I came down practicing once or twice, so I think I might be able to manage the stick this time." Twice or three or four times. "Can we play, just the two of us? Ray kept speaking of teams..."

"Oh, fantastic!" Fraser beamed back at him. Of course Jon was a natural. He was his-- well, he was Jon, anyway. It was almost a little unsettling how proud he was of the boy. "And yes, it's certainly possible to play one-on-one..." He glanced away, his lips quirking into a bit of a smirk. "I think Ray might have simply wanted to even things out a bit. I certainly don't mean to brag, but there's rather more ice in Canada than there is in Chicago. Rather more hockey players, too."

He perked up at the praise and paused at a stump to crouch and get his skates on. "I thought he may have exaggerated about the things that exist in Chicago. He's quite proud of his home, isn't he?" He laced up the skates with unpracticed but steady hands.

"Oh, yes," Fraser answered, with a small but obvious note of pride himself. Ray was Chicago, through and through, but it really was one of the things he loved about him, even long before they'd come to Hogwarts. "Few things exemplify Chicago more than Ray."

He let down his things and sat down on the ground, his back against the stump, quickly and easily pulling his skates on. He wasn't particularly in any hurry, naturally -- when was he ever? -- so he waited patiently for Jon to finish, then pushed himself up into a crouch. "Do you want to just skate first, or shall we give it a go?" he asked, unzipping the hockey sticks.

"He claimed there were buildings several times higher than the clouds," he notes. "Hundreds of stories." He'd been a bit skeptical at that. He knew there were tall buildings in this era, but... a hundred stories... hrmph.

"I should probably get my feet under me first," he notes, "but it won't take me long. If you don't want to just skate first, it wouldn't hurt to get the equipment ready."

"Ah, no. That much is true, actually." He still remembered his first day in Chicago, looking up at those buildings, at the Sears Tower disappearing into the sky... "He takes it rather for granted, I think, but it really is quite a sight for the likes of you and I."

Fraser was fairly confident Jon was right about that -- that it wouldn't take him long at all to get his bearings -- but he shrugged and stood. "The equipment is ready," he said, gesturing towards the open bag. This was pond hockey, the way he'd played when he was a kid. They had sticks, they had pucks, they didn't need anything else! He grinned and held a hand out to Jon to help him up.

"....oh." That much was true? He wanted to see that for himself, some day. He wouldn't impose on Fraser, however. He'd work out some way himself. Perhaps he could simply take his time and travel there on foot and boat? "It sounds almost impossible."

He took Fraser's hand and as he straightened, he put his off hand on Fraser's shoulder to steady himself. There. Really, sturdy ankles and strong legs and you had most of skating down to a science. "Thank you."

It was a pity Fraser didn't know about Jon's wish. If he did, he'd already be making the arrangements for Jon to return with them... whenever that happened. Granted, it was still a long way off (and he kind of hoped it stayed that way). "So you'd think," Fraser agreed readily. "But, no, I assure you, it's quite within the realm of possibility."

He let Jon take his time getting steady on his feet, not particularly bothered by being used as a support. Even on skates, he was a pillar of balance and poise; he hardly so much as wobbled. "Not at all," he replied happily, patting Jon's arm lightly. "Shall we?"

The idea that there were still places to go that were new, well, that was really wonderful for Jon -- once he'd gone beyond the wall, he was ready to acknowledge that he'd seen more of the world than most, and it wasn't likely he'd see much more. Now, there was every chance he'd see a city with buildings above the clouds.

Once he got stable, he was almost as steady as Fraser, nodding and following him with careful steps onto the ice. He pushed off and started to get some speed up, crossing the lake and hooking back, scanning for thin spots as he went. "It looks solid," he calls, "On this end, at least."

Fraser's eyes were sharp -- possibly not sharper than Jon's, but he knew what to look for a little better -- and so though he stayed on the edge of the ice, he nodded when Jon called to him. "Yes, but pull back a bit," he called back. "I think you're nearing a bad patch." He waved him in, then slid out easily onto the lake proper. "We'll stay down on this side -- that still gives us plenty of space without having to worry about what lies beneath." He nodded pointedly down towards the water.

Fraser had tried to go ice-fishing once on the lake. He'd gotten as far as cutting the hole out before he'd started to hear a variety of noises that had pretty much convinced him to never try that again, at least not on this lake.

Jon glanced onto shore after Ghost and Dief and found them kicking up snow together in a bonafide wrestling session. Well, no worries about them wondering off. He quirked in amusement and skated back closer to Fraser.

"Oh? What lies beneath?" He had to assume more than simply cold water; both of them were well-versed in treating and avoiding hypothermia.

Fraser generally wasn't worried about Dief running off. He was his own wolf, and he always seemed to come back eventually, anyway. Usually when he was in the mood for a Ho-Ho. He ignored the wolves playing, his own attention on Jon, pleased by how easy the boy had gotten on his skates. Either he was a natural, or he'd been practicing -- either way, Fraser was thrilled.

He skated a bit closer, sticking his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket for warmth. "Well, I haven't seen for myself, but I've done some reading on the castle, and if I recall correctly there's a tribe of merpeople down there. A giant squid, too."

Jon kept his hair out of his eyes with a hand as Fraser approached, blinking and then peering at the ice below. "Merpeople?"

"Oh, yes." Fraser grimaced and nodded, squinting as if he were peering through the ice, licking his lips distastefully. "Yes... do you not have those stories, in your world?" he asked as if it had only just occurred to him -- which was, in fact, true. He himself had grown up with the Inuit tale of Sedna, the woman of the sea; it was one of those little things he had to remind himself normal people didn't necessarily have.

"Nothing of the like, no. People under the water?" That wasn't hard to logic through. "We seem to be deeply lacking in species in Westeros."

"Well, merpeople are a thing of legend in my own world, at least so far as I know." Fraser had to admit, it was entirely possible Sedna was out there somewhere -- he just found it unlikely. "But there are millions of animal species in my world. The natural world is quite fascinating, when you get into the details of it..." He skated ahead of Jon, then turned around curiously. "You do have fish, don't you?"

"We have fish." He smiled a little, at that. "It seems mostly we're lacking in the more magical species. Horses, we have. Centaurs, we do not. Nor unicorns, though they are known in song and story."

Fraser returned the smile. "To be honest, I'm not sure if this is a part of my world any more than it is a part of yours, Jon. Certainly, there are no unicorns or centaurs where I come from, either in Chicago or in the Yukon."

He shifted a little, adjusting his angle so he didn't go flying backwards into the snowbanks. "What about insects?" he asked curiously, rubbing his ear. "Here -- or, at least, in my world, there are nearly a million distinct known insect species. Of course, I imagine the animal biology is a little less advanced in Westeros, to be sure, but..."

"It's more your world than mine. Here you have a Chicago and a Yukon, but I would be hard pressed to find King's Landing." He smiled a little at the question about insects. "We have them, certainly. Likely some are different, though I've seen pictures of some that are almost certainly the same."

He ponders Fraser's statement. "You have men who go out and identify the differences in insects?"

"Oh?" Fraser raised his eyebrows, a grin passing across his face. "I'm not entirely sure of that, as a matter of fact. There does happen to be a King's Landing (http://www.kingslanding.nb.ca/) here -- or, rather, in Canada. I haven't been there, myself, as I've never been to New Brunswick, the province in which it's located, but I've heard that it's quite a lovely settlement."

He shifted and spun back around, dropping back to skate at Jon's side. "And we do, yes. Some men make their life's work out of it, as a matter of fact. The pursuit of science is a noble one, I think."

Jon made a noise of interest, forehead wrinkling. He had to wonder... it could be like home. "Perhaps I should go there someday. Just to see."

He shakes his head and keeps pace with Fraser, circling the pond thoughtfully. "Noble perhaps, but it hardly seems worthy of a life's work. A hobby, I can see, but how does one support a family identifying insects?"

"I think that would be a fine idea, Jon," he said carefully. "Although it won't be exactly the same, of course. The technology, for example... But from what I know, King's Landing is a historical recreation," he explained, rubbing at his ear, "which means that there is a chance it would be more similar to what you're familiar with." Except that it was in his world. It was without a doubt completely selfish of him to want that, but the thought of Jon coming back to Canada with him -- even if it was to the clearly inferior New Brunswick and not to the Yukon -- made a little spark of excitement flare up in him. He quickly tamped it down. It was just an idea, that was all.

At the latter question, he arched a brow. "You don't have scientists in your world?" He chuckled. "I don't believe most would simply identify a species and then leave it at that. But that kind of research is more about having knowledge than it is about having money." Fraser, the perpetually broke, could commiserate.

Closed RP- Jon and Fraser go skating

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